Milosevic death adds new "unknown" in EU equation

 

Milosevic death adds new "unknown" in EU equation
Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:21 AM ET

By Mark John

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The death of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic adds a potentially dangerous new "unknown" into the European Union's complex ties with membership hopeful Serbia, analysts said on Monday.

EU officials are quietly relieved that the death of the war crimes indictee in a United Nations tribunal cell has not so far stirred up a wave of nationalist sentiment in Serbia that could turn popular opinion against the bloc.

But they recognize it could complicate efforts to get other indictees such as Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic to the Hague tribunal, and could harm efforts to convince Serbs that the EU seriously sees a future for them within the bloc.

"We are all hoping that this shows Serbia has moved on. But it is a bit of a dangerous situation given all the other factors," said Gergana Noutcheva at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels.

Noutcheva said Milosevic's death was a complicating factor at a time of high pressure for Belgrade, embroiled in talks on the status of the Kosovo province and facing a referendum in its state union partner Montenegro on possible independence.

Apart from a weekend vigil by 100 diehard and mostly elderly supporters at the Socialist Party office, there has been little outpouring of emotion for Milosevic, who led Serbia into war, poverty and international pariah status.

"The reaction has been mixed. We suspect it could be closed quite quickly. It could even be cathartic," said one EU official, saying Brussels hoped it would enable Serbs to turn the page more quickly on the Bosnian wars of the 1990s.

"We must hope Milosevic will be quietly forgotten," echoed Croatia's pro-EU daily Jutarnji List, fearing that Milosevic's death might stir up unwelcome memories in the region.

WORST-CASE SCENARIO

EU foreign ministers meeting in the Austrian city of Salzburg on Saturday insisted Milosevic's death did not alter their demand that Belgrade arrest and hand over Mladic by the end of this month or risk derailing talks on closer EU ties.

Many said Milosevic's death before the end of his trial had cheated the families of Bosnian war victims of the satisfaction of seeing justice done, making it more urgent to bring Mladic and wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to trial.

But some EU officials acknowledged that Milosevic's prison death could make Mladic -- believed to be enjoying protection from loyalists in the security services -- more reluctant to hand himself in to the very same tribunal.

News of Milosevic's death upstaged what the EU intended as a message of reassurance from Salzburg, confirming that EU entry was the "ultimate goal" for the states of the former Yugoslavia.

Noutcheva said the worst-case scenario would be nationalist politicians using Milosevic's death to drum up sentiment against the West and the EU.

While Mladic's transfer to the Hague remains vital for any progress on Serbia's ties with the EU, analysts say it is time for the bloc to give more encouragement.

"If this really is the decisive year for the Balkans, the carrots offered by the EU are extremely thin," said Aleksandar Mitic, an analyst on south-east Europe and the EU.

Mitic, who also works for Serbian state news agency Tanjug, said the Salzburg statement would disappoint many in Serbia with its insistence on the EU's ability to absorb future members as a proviso to further enlargement.

The European Stability Initiative think-tank agreed. "This (Salzburg meeting) was an opportunity to reassure the region that its European prospects are not slipping into the distant future. This opportunity was missed," it said in a report.

Financial help and promises to make it easier for Serbs to obtain visas to travel to the EU had had little impact on public opinion so far, Mitic added.

Noutcheva also said it was time for the EU to reach out to Serbs more, suggesting it was vital that preliminary talks on a so-called "stabilization and accession agreement" -- a key rung on the ladder to entry -- were concluded this year.

"That would be a big boost (for the pro-EU camp in Serbia) and it could be done," she said.

-- by Mark John, Reuters

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Milosevic's demise a death sentence to Hague Tribunal

15:34 | 13/ 03/ 2006

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Romanov.) - The death of Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, is a death sentence to the Hague Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Milosevic was the main culprit for the prosecution team led by Carla del Ponte and it based its strategy accordingly.

They needed to pass a verdict of "guilty" on him to prove that he alone is to blame for the barbarous bombings of Serbia and to whitewash the Western "peacekeepers" in Kosovo, who had changed the pole of violence to its opposite. Before their deployment, Serbs were killing Kosovo Albanians; after it, the situation was reversed. And lastly, the West needed to put the blame on Milosevic so as to convince many Serbs that he is not a national hero but a ruthless dictator.

But the West and Carla del Ponte have lost this battle, which is not surprising. She used all of her cases for personal promotion rather than for the pursuit of truth. The whole of Western jurisdiction has lost a battle to one man. Opinions of Milosevic may differ, but he was a brilliant lawyer who spoke in court not as a defendant but as a prosecutor. Many of his arguments were more respectable than the words of Ms. del Ponte.

The Hague Tribunal has also suffered a moral defeat. Its reputation has been damaged by several suspected suicides and the death of the main defendant, who had asked for medical assistance many times. Moreover, all of the deceased were Serbs. The official cause of Milosevic's death has not been made public yet, but two of the aired possibilities sound as a death sentence.

If the version of poisoning is confirmed, it may be used as a reason for a serious investigation, especially because there was a motive. The trial had reached a blind alley, and quite a few people wanted Milosevic dead. The legal adviser of the deceased showed journalists a letter dated March 10, the day before Milosevic was found dead in his cell. In it the former Serbian leader claimed he was poisoned.

If the conclusion is a heart attack, the guilt of the Tribunal will be apparent. Milosevic regularly complained about feeling unwell and asked to be allowed to undergo medical treatment in Moscow.

Professor Dr. Leo Bokeria, chief cardiac surgeon of the Russian Health Ministry, who saw the medical case of Milosevic kept by the court medics, said it was confusing and the doctors' recommendations were not suited to the gravity of the defendant's disease. The Russian doctor said Milosevic had needed an emergency operation, and Russia was ready to perform it, though not because it loved the Serbian prisoner. Russia would have done it for humanitarian considerations and returned Milosevic to The Hague after a proper rehabilitation period.

The Tribunal rejected the offer and questioned the qualifications of Russian doctors and the intentions of the Russian government, thus publicly offending a permanent member of the UN Security Council. When Carla del Ponte was asked if she was sorry she had not allowed Milosevic to undergo medical treatment in Moscow, she replied: "Why should I be? There was a possibility that he would not return to The Hague for the trial. I have nothing to be sorry about."

Milosevic's conscience was not very clean, but the conscience of Western politics is not lilywhite either. There was a reason for putting Slobodan Milosevic on trial. But many Western officials should have been tried together with him for deliberately dismembering Yugoslavia and destroying and humiliating Serbs.

Likewise, Saddam Hussein should be tried together with those who launched the Iraqi war, used the prohibited chemical weapons to bomb Fallujah, kept prisoners at Guantanamo indefinitely, and turned the Abu Ghraib prison into inquisition cells, just as Saddam Hussein had done in his time.

A fair court carefully analyzes all circumstances of a case before formulating the verdict and charges everyone who is to blame irrespective of political considerations and rank. Otherwise it is not a fair trial but a kangaroo court.

The Hague Tribunal has died as a court one can trust.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20060313/44237921.html

Claims Of Poisoning Raise Stakes Of Milosevic Autopsy

 

Claims Of Poisoning Raise Stakes Of Milosevic Autopsy

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic (file photo)

(epa)

PRAGUE, March 11, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- An autopsy has been ordered on former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, the so-called "butcher of the Balkans" being tried for war crimes, after he was found dead today in his prison cell. He was 64.

Dutch television reports that forensic experts will examine the body at the Dutch Forensic Institute in The Hague on March 12. A Serb doctor despatched by the Serbian government will reportedly attend the autopsy.

The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague says that there are no indications that Milosevic committed suicide and believes that he died of natural causes. Milosevic suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure.

However, Milosevic's lawyer, Zdenko Tomanovic, said that his client had feared that he might be poisoned, comments that will fuel speculation in Serbia and Montenegro about the death of the country's former president. The deputy head of Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia, Milorad Vucelic, has already blamed the tribunal for Milosevic's death, saying its decision to reject his request for treatment in Russia had killed him.

The Milosevic family has said it does not trust the UN tribunal to conduct the autopsy impartially.

Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said she regretted Milosevic's death because she believed she would have won his conviction.

"I regret deeply what happened, first of all, because after more than three years of trials, we are reaching the end of the trials by the beginning of this summer, and I think that it is regrettable for all witnesses, for all survivors, for all victims, [who] are expecting justice, but we must expect now the result of the autopsy to see what is the cause of death," Del Ponte said.

Milosevic had been on trial since February 2002, defending himself against 66 counts of crimes, including genocide, in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. He was the first sitting head of state ever to be indicted for such crimes.

Supporters in Milosevic's homeland declared his death a "huge loss," while citizens of Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo said his death brought some justice to his victims.

The European Union, which has been urging Serbia and Montenegro to do more to capture the fugitive wartime leaders of the Bosnian Serbs Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, said that Milosevic's death does not relieve Serbia of its responsibility to continue to hand over war crimes suspects.

The U.S. administration called Milosevic "the principal figure responsible for the violent dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, including the outbreak of two horrific wars in Bosnia and Kosovo," and said that it continues to support the work of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague.

(compiled from news agencies)

Shortcut to: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/ca06a7c5-1d4b-4677-a125-cb1d6d32f5c2.html

Text of Milosevic Letter Sent to Russia

Text of Milosevic Letter Sent to Russia By The Associated Press ASSOCIATED PRESS

The text of a handwritten letter dated March 8, 2006, written by Slobodan Milosevic to Russia asking for its help. It was provided in an English translation by his lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic:

To the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

With my acknowledgment for the solidarity and understanding which you expressed by accepting to receive me to come for medical treatment and by giving guarantees, I would like to inform you about the following:

I think that the persistence, with which the medical treatment in Russia was denied, in the first place is motivated by the fear that through careful examination it would be discovered, that there were active, willful steps taken, to destroy my health, throughout the proceedings of the trial, which could not be hidden from Russian specialists.

In order to verify my allegations, I'm presenting you a simple example which you can find in the attachment. This document, which I received on March 7, shows that on January 12th (i.e. two months ago), an extremely strong drug was found in my blood, which is used, as they themselves say, for the treatment of tuberculosis and leprosy, although I never used any kind of antibiotic during this 5 years that I'm in their prison.

Throughout this whole period, neither have I had any kind of infectious illness (apart from flu).

Also the fact that doctors needed 2 months (to report to me), can't have any other explanation than we are facing manipulation. In any case, those who foist on me a drug against leprosy surely can't treat my illness; likewise those from which I defended my country in times of war and who have an interest to silence me.

Dear Sirs, it is known to you that Russian physicians, who rank among the most respected physicians in the world, came to the conclusion that the examination and treatment of the vascular problems in my head are inevitable and urgent. I know very well that this is true, as I feel very bad.

I'm addressing you in expectation that you help me defend my health from the criminal activities in this institution, working under the sign of the U.N., and that I be enabled as soon as possible to get adequate treatment in your hospital, in whose physicians, as well as in Russia, I have absolute confidence.

Yours sincerely,

Slobodan Milosevic

Milosevic to be buried in Belgrade

 

 

Milosevic may be buried in Belgrade

The Associated Press

MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2006

Rest Easy, Bill Clinton: Milosevic Can't Talk Anymore

 

Jeremy Scahill

 

http://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/huffingtonpost/TheBlog?m=195

Slobodan Milosevic is characterized in the obituaries as the "Butcher of the Balkans." If that is the story you want to read about, please go to almost any other media outlet and read it again and again. Some are now suggesting that death is Milosevic's final revenge, that he "ended up cheating history" by dying before judgment was passed. But the world has already passed judgment on Milosevic and what is being cheated by his death is history itself.

What the corporate media overwhelmingly ignores in Milosevic's death is what they ignored in his life as well--his intimate knowledge of US war crimes in Yugoslavia. While Milosevic was undoubtedly a war criminal who deserved to be tried for his crimes, he was also the only man in the unique position of being able to expose and detail the full extent of the US role in the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. In fact, that is precisely what he was fighting to do at his war crimes trial when he died.

Because of the rule of victors' justice in the ad hoc tribunal system (a poor and unfair substitute for a true international court), Milosevic's case would have been the only international trial to potentially expose the details of the illegal, US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia for 78 days in 1999. While the US-backed court consistently tried to limit Milosevic's right to speak, stripping him of his right to self-representation, Milosevic battled regularly to raise US war crimes. Sadly, with Milosevic will likely die the last hope the victims of these crimes in Yugoslavia had of getting their day (if it could even be called that) in court--a tragic and unjust reality to begin with--that speaks volumes about the twisted state of international justice.

Milosevic's cause, regardless of what one thinks of it, was a casualty of 9/11--an event that relegated him and his trial to the annals of history before it was even over. Most people in the world--with the exception of those in the Balkans where the proceedings were broadcast live, daily--probably didn't even know Milosevic was still on trial in the Hague. It became an obscure sideshow to the blood and gore unfolding constantly on the international stage.

Milosevic's death means that those who bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days beginning 7 years ago this month, killing thousands, will be, once and for all protected from any public scrutiny for their crimes. However opportunistic Milosevic may have been, he would have been one of the few people to appear at the Hague that could have--and would have--laid out these crimes in great detail. Now, there is almost certain to be no condemnation of the US bombing of Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers, the cluster bombing of the Nis marketplace, shredding human beings into meat, the use of depleted uranium munitions and the targeting of petrochemical plants causing toxic and chemical waste to pour into the Danube River. There will be no condemnation of the bombing of Albanian refugees by the US or the deliberate targeting of a civilian passenger train or the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Milosevic also would have discussed how the US supports a regime in Kosovo that has systematically expelled Serbs, Romas and other ethnic minorities from their homes and burnt down scores of churches. He would have discussed the role of the US in funding and arming the Kosovo Liberation Army, which operates like a death squad and how the new prime minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, is a US-trained war criminal who gained infamy in both the Bosnian war and the 1999 Kosovo conflict. And Milosevic would have talked of the US interference in the Yugoslav elections in 2000 and the ultimate neoliberal takeover that was the aim of Clinton's sanctions and 78 days of bombing. In reality, it would have fallen on deaf ears, but it would have been stated for the record.

It is ironic that Milosevic's last legal battle was an attempt to compel his old friend turned nemesis Bill Clinton to testify at his trial. If successful, Milosevic would have grilled the man who was US president through the entire Yugoslav war in what would have been a fiery direct examination. Clinton and Milosevic were once pals who talked collective strategy in the 1990s. Milosevic had many damning stories to tell and, without a doubt, uncomfortable questions to ask Clinton. The judges in Milosevic's case clearly worked to keep those moments from ever happening and the US government made clear its forceful opposition to such subpoenas of US officials, even considering invading a country that would put a US official on trial. With or without Clinton, Milosevic's defense would have brought to light some serious documentation of US war crimes and he died, muzzled, before he really got started.

Little attention, therefore, has been paid to Milosevic's long-term efforts--which predated 9/11, the 1999 NATO bombing and his own trial--to expose the presence of al Qaeda in the Balkans--from Bosnia to Kosovo. With 9/11, Milosevic's talk of al Qaeda was easily dismissed as laughable, pathetic opportunism. But those who followed Milosevic's career and more importantly the events of the 1990s in Yugoslavia know it was none of those. Those allegations were based on true events the US does not want discussed in an international court. Following the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, many Mujahadeen eventually turned their sights on Yugoslavia where they went to fight alongside the Bosnian Muslims against the Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. Once again, the US and bin Laden were on the same team. To this day there are reports of training camps in Bosnia, which remains under occupation. It is also a likely training ground for future blowback.

In his opening statement, Milosevic alluded to some of the information he would introduce during his defense. "In 1998 when [Clinton envoy Richard] Holbrooke visited us in Belgrade, we told him the information we had at our disposal, that in Northern Albania the KLA is being aided by Osama bin Laden, that he was arming, training, and preparing the members of this terrorist organisation in Albania. However, they decided to cooperate with the KLA and indirectly, therefore, with bin Laden, although before that he had bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania [and] had already declared war." Milosevic concluded that "one day all this will have to come to light, these links."

That, however, is unlikely and more so now that Milosevic is dead.

To be sure, there will never be indictments of these US war criminals at the Hague: Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, Jamie Rubin, William Cohen, Sandy Berger, Richard Holbrooke and Wesley Clark. For many of Serbia's victims of US war crimes, Milosevic's trial was a "Hail Mary" pass, as awful of an historical irony as that is, aimed at someone recognizing their forgotten suffering.

It is a sad testimony to the state of international jurisprudence that after many attempts to find justice, the only hope for US victims in the Yugoslavia wars was the trial defense of a man many of those same victims despised. If there was an independent international court that was recognized and respected by the US, those responsible for bombing Yugoslavia would have been alongside Slobodan Milosevic in the docks these past years instead of having their responsibility being buried with him.

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