Yugoslavs divided over Milosevic extradition

By Vaiju Naravane

PARIS, JUNE 29. ``They sold him for less than 30 pieces of silver. What is a billion dollars in today's world? In any case, most of the money will end up lining the pockets of politicians and quite a bit of it will go back to the donor countries by way of payments to their companies contracted to build our roads, infrastructure and re- start our factories,'' laments a 52-year- old Yugoslav worker, Mr. Boban Stavic.

His words express the cynicism that grips Yugoslavs who have lost their wealth and their dreams in this past decade of fighting during which they saw their country reduced from being a powerful player in the Balkans to the outcast of the Western world. A country that lost four wars and four-fifths of its territory, its pride and its prestige.

Mr. Stavic is a nationalist and not ashamed of it. He has always ``voted Slobo'' and continues to view the now imprisoned former Yugoslav President as the one person who stood up to ``the diktat of the West''. Mr. Stavic has been demonstrating outside the Milosevic residence in Belgrade's chic Dedijne district, in front of the Parliament building and in the central Republican Square, demanding the release of his leader.

``They have done it for the money,'' he says. ``Could there have been a worse betrayal of our values, our traditions?'' he asks. But Mr. Stavic is clearly in a minority. Most Yugoslavs, although they decried the haste in which the Serbian Government led by the Prime Minister, Mr. Zoran Djindjic, decided to hand over former Yugoslavian President, Mr. Slobodan Milosevic, to the War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity for the massacre of Albanians in the Serb province of Kosovo, now feel there was nothing wrong with the decision.

``Slobodan Milosevic did incalculable harm to Yugsolavia,'' says journalist and interpreter, Mr. Dragan Petrovic. ``He should be made to pay for the demons he unleashed on our unsuspecting people, for the deprivation and hardship he caused, for the arbitrariness of his regime. Under Milosevic, there was no respect for law and order there was no justice. There was only the autocratic rule of Milosevic, his wife Mirjana and their cronies. I think he is accountable for his actions. The Serbian people have radically changed their attitude towards Milosevic in the past few months. Most of us believed that the Western propaganda machine had grossly exaggerated the extent of the damage, the suffering experienced by the Kosovar Albanians. Now our own newspapers like Vreme have revealed that hundreds of bodies of slain Albanians were dumped in common mass graves, some of them within 15 km of Belgrade. That has removed the blindfold from our eyes. We agree he should be punished,'' he concludes.

The U.N. War Crimes Tribunal on Friday ordered Mr. Milosevic to make his first court appearance next Tuesday to hear charges for his part in a decade of Balkan wars that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.

The former President, behind bars at The Hague, underwent an initial medical examination after being delivered by helicopter to the walled compound of Scheveningen prison in the early hours of the morning, then spent his first night in international custody. His cell there is relatively comfortable when compared to that of the Belgrade prison. He has television, a coffee making machine, newspapers and the right to constitute his legal team.

``On Tuesday, he will make an initial appearance,'' the tribunal spokesman, Mr. Jim Landale, said. He would be brought before a judge at 10 a.m. (local time), the charges would be read to him and would be asked to enter a plea - either guilty or not guilty.''

Mr. Milosevic (59), is the first former head of state to be tried for alleged war crimes while in office. His handover, widely praised by world leaders as a courageous move and a break with the past, boosted Belgrade's hopes of a $1.3-billion foreign aid- and-investment pledge. A money transfusion is urgently needed to right the teetering economy which is on the brink of bankruptcy.

``Nobody is happy when his or her former President is sent to The Hague tribunal, but it had to happen, and the sooner the better,'' the Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Miroljub Labus, said.

But his words were belied by evidence of increasing tension between the Prime Minister, Mr. Zoran Djindjic, and the President, Mr. Vojislav Kostounica, who opposed the extradition urging a respect of the appeals process. The decision to hand over Mr. Milosevic was taken in haste after the Yugoslav Constitutional Court accorded his lawyers more time to present his case.

Mr. Milosevic was whisked away to the detention centre by helicopter at 1 a.m. (local time) after a British military flight brought him to the Netherlands from Belgrade via Bosnia. If convicted in The Hague, he faces a maximum sentence of life in jail in one of seven countries which accept convicted Tribunal cases.

The Tribunal chief prosecutor, Ms Carla Del Ponte, described the arrest as a day ``that will be remembered as an important milestone for international criminal justice.''

Those still wanted by the court include the Bosnian Serb wartime leaders, Mr. Radovan Karadzic, and General Ratko Mladic, both accused of the tribunal's most serious charge, genocide.

Mr. Milosevic and his aides, who all occupied high state positions at the time the indictment was issued, are accused of deporting 740,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and of murdering 340 Albanians identified before May 24, 1999, when the indictment was confirmed by a judge, during NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

Mr. Kostounica's party, angry at the transfer of Mr. Milosevic, decided on Friday to leave the parliamentary groups of the ruling DOS reformist alliance. The Democratic Party of Serbia said it would leave the DOS groups in both the Serbian and Federal Parliaments and also wanted a reshuffle of Governments at both levels. But party leaders said this did not mean they were leaving completely the 18-party DOS, which united to oust Mr. Milosevic in a mass uprising last October.

Mr. Kostounica criticised the move as illegal and unconstitutional. ``This is not just about the illegal extradition of the former Yugoslav President but also about many previous moves which were in complete disaccord with the basic constitutional order and the coalition's objectives,'' a party statement said.

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