| [Alb-Net home] | [AMCC] | [KCC] | [other mailing lists] |
List: A-PAL[A-PAL] A-PAL Newsletter, No. 025kosova at jps.net kosova at jps.netWed Jun 7 11:32:33 EDT 2000
Welcome to Albanian Prisoner Advocacy List -- Prisoner Pals Newsletter,
No. 025, June 05, 2000
This report highlights the developments on the prisoner issue for the week
of May 28, 2000.
==========================================
A-PAL STATEMENT:
==========================================
June, 2000 begins with further ethnic tensions and violence in Kosova.
Despite the many grave injustices Kosovars have experienced at the hands of
the Serb military police, paramilitaries, and army during this century,
everyday citizens must now pull together and vocally condemn the random acts
of revenge and murder being committed against the Serb minority. Albanians
must demonstrate to the world that they are ready to be part of a just
society, not a society that condones or ignores ethnically motivated murder.
No matter how justified the Albanians feel these acts of retribution to
be, the basis of lawfulness is that each person is innocent until proven
guilty and that all people are equal before the law. Albanians must
understand that outsiders are disturbed with these murders and that support
for Albanian claims for independence are directly influenced by this lawless
violence. Despite the inherent unfairness in this, Albanians must
understand that these random murders that happened since June, 1999, are
being equated in the minds of Western politicians with the century-long Serb
policies of ethnic cleansing and colonization of Kosova. As a result,
support for Kosova has decreased in Washington DC and in Brussels.
Each Albanian parent, grandparent, schoolteacher, must take a stand
against violence. Efforts to free the remaining 950 identified prisoners are
gravely undermined by the Albanian tolerance of the murders occurring in
Kosova.
As supporters of human rights and lawful democracy, A-PAL members
condemn all acts of violence and urge Kosovar leaders to take concrete steps
to bring a stop to these actions. Our efforts and hopes at obtaining
equality for Kosova are being hurt every day. Sadly, it may take years for
the Albanians to regain the trust and respect of the international community
after demonstrating tolerance for these number of murders.
That said, Albanians are not solely responsible for the lawless
confusion that persists at the present time. The Kumanovo military-technical
agreement prepared by the United States and NATO last June was not a peace
plan. It has left the people of Kosova without a constitution, without
representation, with no police force or judicial system. Worst of all, it
has left Kosovars without a future. Not even fellow Serbs in Montenegro want
to be tied to Serbia, so why should Kosova be deprived of liberty and
self-determination?
The reason is not really an argument about sovereignty; the reason is
the failure of the West and regional leaders to create a stable, long-term
peace plan for Kosova, one that reflects the needs and dreams of her people
as well as the OSCE guarantees of protection of human rights. It is the
West that continues to force Milosevic down the Kosovars' throats, that
refuses to arrest war criminals, that refuses to hold a "Dayton" conference
on Kosova and Montenegro, to help people who dream of democracy move into
the next millennium with the rest of Europe instead of backwards again into
brutality and repression. Otherwise, why was the NATO war fought? To prolong
the regional dominance of a criminal regime? It is the West who keeps war
criminals free and allows the imprisonment and torture of thousands of
innocent Albanians. Not until all sides - Serbian people themselves, NATO
and the West, Kosovar Albanians - put the principles of justice foremost and
act to enforce laws on all sides will the situation begin to move forward
towards peace and away from war.
==========================================
WEEK’S TOPICS:
==========================================
* THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY: Unresolved Issue - Serbia's
prisoners imperil Kosovo peace
* ICRC: Yugoslavia/Kosovo: The missing - a lasting wound
* KOSOVAPRESS: 23 prisoners released from Serbia jails
* KOSOVAPRESS: Kosova Albanian sentenced to 10 years in prison
* KOSOVAPRESS: Serb community of Rahovec asks Albanians forgiveness for
crimes
* AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE: Solana pinpoints Milosevic as key problem in Balkans
* AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE: Editor jailed for urging war crimes trial of
Yugoslav minister
* WASHINGTON POST: Albright Meets With Montenegro Head
* WASHINGTON POST: Serb Police Detain 40 Activists
* SINGAPORE PRESS HOLDINGS: Milosevic's grip in Serbia
==========================================
QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
==========================================
June 01: "It's really a disgrace that [the Serbs] were allowed to
leave with thousands of prisoners who are really hostages," says Louis Sell,
a former American diplomat who heads the Kosovo office of the International
Crisis Group, an independent research organization. "While these people were
languishing in jail, they just weren't on the screen. But it's poisoning the
atmosphere here."
June 01: "This is like a new bombardment of Kosovo, by Serbian
forces," says Halil Matoshi, a magazine editor who spent eight months in a
Serbian prison. "With this case, the problems between Serbs and Albanians
will grow worse and worse."
==========================================
FULL REPORTS AND ARTICLES BEGIN HERE:
==========================================
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY
Unresolved Issue - Serbia's prisoners imperil Kosovo peace
June 01, 2000
Long sentences given to 143 Kosovar Albanians last week spark fresh outrage,
claims of Western indifference.
Richard Mertens
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
PRISTINA, YUGOSLAVIA
While hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees were preparing to
return to Kosovo last year at the end of NATO's three-month bombing
campaign, Islam Gashi was headed in the other direction, deeper into Serbia
and farther from home.
Serbian police arrested Mr. Gashi, a retired miner, at his home in
Kosovo's capital, Pristina, last May. They beat him with truncheons, he
says, and took him to a prison outside the city.
Two-and-a-half weeks later, just two days before NATO-led troops
entered the province, they transferred him from Kosovo to a prison in Serbia
proper, as they did with thousands of other detainees. There he sat for
10-1/2 months, never charged with a crime, while his family tried to win his
release.
In April, they finally succeeded. Gashi's son Enver says they paid a
Serbian lawyer 30,000 German marks ($14,300) to buy his freedom. The
International Committee of the Red Cross, which had brought Gashi soap,
towels, and other articles in prison, provided a jeep ride back to Kosovo.
He was pale and had lost weight, and sorry that his freedom had cost so
much. But he was glad to be out all the same. "Now I'm feeling a little bit
alive again," he says.
Gashi knows he is one of the fortunate ones. More than 1,200 Kosovar
Albanians detained before and during the NATO bombing campaign remain in
Serbian prisons. While many have never been charged with any offense, others
were sentenced to long prison terms on the basis of what human rights
advocates consider flimsy evidence.
(http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/06/01/csmimg/p7s1g1.jpg)
FREEDOM'S PRICE: Islam Gashi (left) is back with his wife, Vahide, in
Kosovo, after 10 months in a Serbian jail. His family paid for his release.
RICHARD MERTENS
Their imprisonment not only has brought pain to their families, it has
worsened relations between Kosovo's minority Serbs and majority ethnic
Albanians, and left Albanians increasingly frustrated with the West. Kosovo
technically remains part of Serbia, which is the dominant partner in
Yugoslavia.
"Without a solution to this problem, it's impossible to have peace and
stability in Kosovo," says Kosovare Kelmendi, a lawyer for the Humanitarian
Law Center in Pristina. "Right now it's the main issue in Kosovo. They are
our people. We want them here."
Mass trial yields convictions
The problem flared up again last week, when a Serbian court sentenced 143
ethnic Albanians, including a teenage boy, to prison terms ranging from
seven to 13 years. The prisoners were convicted of terrorism in Yugoslavia's
largest-ever mass trial. Western officials condemned the verdicts, and
Amnesty International, the New York-based human rights group, called them
"blatantly unfair."
From Kosovars, the move provoked fresh outrage. "This is like a new
bombardment of Kosovo, by Serbian forces," says Halil Matoshi, a magazine
editor who spent eight months in a Serbian prison. "With this case, the
problems between Serbs and Albanians will grow worse and worse."
By the end of the NATO bombing campaign last June, Serbian police held
more than 2,000 ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Some had been in custody for
years, but most were detained during the 18-month armed struggle between
Serbian security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian
rebel group.
The Serbs accused the prisoners of supporting the KLA, but Albanians
say most were innocent civilians.
Not on NATO's radar
To the United States and its allies, ending the war was more important than
resolving the fate of the prisoners. The issue was left out of both the
peace agreement between NATO and Yugoslav commanders and the United Nations
resolution that authorized the international takeover of Kosovo. Many
observers see this as a fundamental mistake.
"It's really a disgrace that [the Serbs] were allowed to leave with
thousands of prisoners who are really hostages," says Louis Sell, a former
American diplomat who heads the Kosovo office of the International Crisis
Group, an independent research organization. "While these people were
languishing in jail, they just weren't on the screen. But it's poisoning the
atmosphere here."
Many Western officials have publicly criticized Yugoslavia for its
treatment of ethnic Albanian prisoners. Bernard Kouchner, the UN's top
official in Kosovo, says he has written "hundreds of letters" to Belgrade,
with few results.
Ethnic Albanians, meanwhile, have become increasingly critical of what
they see as Western indifference. In April, the biggest in a series of
protests virtually shut down the center of Pristina for three days.
After the latest sentences, Western officials tried to sound
reassuring. A special UN envoy is being appointed to deal with Belgrade, not
only on the detainee issue but also on the 3,500 people still missing from
the war and presumed dead.
But many remain skeptical. "What can an envoy do, especially one from
the UN?" Mr. Sell asks. "That's not to say they shouldn't try. But he or she
will have a very tough row to hoe."
One of those sentenced last week was Mirxhin Zhubi. The verdict caught
his fiancée, Mirlinda Batalli, by surprise. "I thought he would be released
on Monday and we would be married in the summer," she says. "Now I don't
know how long he will be in prison."
The anguish of loved ones is only a part of the intense emotion that
the issue evokes in Kosovar Albanians.
Holding up Serb returns
"We are still not free until they are here," Ms. Batalli declares angrily.
The implications of this anger became clear this spring as Serb leaders and
American officials began to discuss how to bring back Serbs who fled Kosovo
last summer. Many ethnic Albanian leaders have said they cannot support Serb
returns without progress on bringing back the detainees.
Meanwhile, the families of prisoners are doing what they can to secure
the release of their loved ones.
Albanian officials say most of the 870 prisoners freed in the past year
were ransomed for sums ranging from a few thousand dollars to more than 10
times that amount. The transactions are made through Serbian lawyers on the
Kosovo border.
Gashi's family sold a piece of land to raise the money for his freedom.
Since his return, he has regained some weight, although the scars on his
face, which he says are from beatings, have not yet healed.
Gashi says he thinks often of the men he left behind. "I hope God will
help them," he says.
(c) Copyright 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society.
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/06/01/f-p7s1.shtml
==========================================
ICRC
Yugoslavia/Kosovo: The missing - a lasting wound
May 31, 2000
The ICRC in Pristina and Belgrade is holding a series of events to explain
how it goes about finding out what happened to the thousands of people who
went missing during the Kosovo conflict. Open-house days at ICRC offices and
special meetings with representatives of the families from the various
communities affected are being organized to explain a process in which the
ICRC is recognized by all the authorities concerned as having a leading
role.
The events will culminate in the publication of a book, in June,
containing the names of 3,376 persons reported to the ICRC as having
disappeared between January 1998 and mid-May 2000, most of them said by
their families to have been detained or abducted.
On 21 and 22 February last, the ICRC officially informed the relevant
authorities in Belgrade and Pristina of the names of missing people that it
had so far gathered, urgently requesting that they provide any information
they may have.
"The 'Book of the Missing' is another step - and an important one - in
our work to find out what has happened to people who have disappeared," said
Andreas Wigger, who heads ICRC operations in the Balkans at the
organization's headquarters. There were families in all communities who had
no way of knowing what happened to their loved ones, he went on. This was an
open wound, and while much international attention was being focused on
reconstruction, security and political issues, it was vital to reassure
those families that their anguish had not been forgotten."
Further information: Suzanne Berger, ICRC Geneva, tel. ++ 41 79 2173237
Nic Sommer, ICRC Pristina, tel. ++ 381 38 501 517
For any information you may need on Thursday 1 June (holiday) or on the
weekend of 3 - 4 June, please call the press officer on duty Suzanne Berger,
on (mobile) 41 79 217 32 37
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/703a160d
b04c921dc12568f0004f4da2?OpenDocument
==========================================
KOSOVAPRESS
23 prisoners released from Serbia jails
May 31, 2000
Prishtinë, May 31 (Kosovapress) - Serb officials on Tuesday freed 23 ethnic
Albanians just outside of Kosova in the largest single release of such
prisoners in weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. The
prisoners, including two women, walked from Serbia to Kosova across the
Merdare border. They were accompanied by Red Cross officials, who took them
to meet family members in the Kosova capital, Prishtina.
It was unclear whether the prisoners had been tried and sentenced, or
had been awaiting trial. Serb troops arrested hundreds of ethnic Albanians
while in Kosova, and transferred them to the dominant Yugoslav province of
Serbia when NATO bombs drove them to withdraw nearly a year ago. Ethnic
Albanians have repeatedly demonstrated for the prisoners' release, and
promised no peace in Kosova until they were all freed. So far, 911 prisoners
have been released, but 1,188 remain imprisoned by Serbia President Slobodan
Millosheviq's government.
http://www.kosovapress.com/english/maj/31_5_2000_.htm
==========================================
KOSOVAPRESS
Kosova Albanian sentenced to 10 years in prison
May 31, 2000
Nish, May 31 (Kosovapress) - An ethnic Albanian from Kosova was accused for
terrorism Tuesday and sentenced to 10 years in prison for attacks on Serbian
police and soldiers. Six others were sentenced to one year each on charges
of aiding rebels of the KLA, but were released to account for time served in
pretrial custody.
The court in Nish, found Abaz Mujota, 28, guilty of "terrorism and
conspiracy to act against the state''. Mujota, a native of Fusha e Vogël
village near the provincial capital Prishtina, allegedly joined the former
KLA rebels in May 1999 to fight for Kosova's independence from Serbia. The
court maintained Mujota had taken part in attacks on Serbian police and
Serbia army units deployed at the time in Kosova.
After Serb forces withdrew last June from Kosova, now run by NATO and a
UN peace mission, Belgrade authorities transferred ethnic Albanian prisoners
from the southern province to jails elsewhere in Serbia. Many have since
been released, but scores have also been handed prison sentences of up to 15
years. Six other Kosova Albanians, apprehended May 22, 1999, were found
guilty of giving the KLA food, holding guard duty outside rebel strongholds
and in the case of two women doing the rebels' laundry.
==========================================
KOSOVAPRESS
Serb community of Rahovec asks Albanians forgiveness for crimes
May 20, 2000
Prishtinë, May 20 (Kosovapress) - According to the ATA news we got announced
that the Serb community of Rahovec asks the Albanian population of this city
forgiveness for all the crimes the Serb people have committed to them. The
report entitled "General pardon", bearing the date April 2000, signed by
Sllavisha Kolashinac as head of this community, says: The Serb community of
Rahovec feels ashamed of what the Serb people have done to the Albanian
population of this commune. We assume responsibility for the criminal acts
of our people if we as individuals have committed these acts. It is the
desire and hope for the future that we again create normal friendly
relations with the Albanian population of Rahovec and ask from them to
accept our sincere forgiveness for the acts of our fellow citizens". The
Council hails the expression of the feeling of forgiveness of a part of the
Serb minority in Kosova for the crimes their fellow citizens, either
soldiers, policemen or paramilitaries, have committed against Albanians.
http://www.kosovapress.com/english/maj/20_5_2000_1.htm
==========================================
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Solana pinpoints Milosevic as key problem in Balkans
May 20, 2000
ANCONA, Italy, May 20 (AFP) - Javier Solana, the EU's security and foreign
policy chief, on Saturday accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of
being an impediment to stability and prosperity.
Speaking at a two-day conference of countries bordering on the Adriatic
sea, Solana said there would be "no lasting peace in the region, nor
generalized stability for so long as that regime rules in Serbia."
"Most of the threats to our common security, stability and prosperity in
this region are now compounded in the situation of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, and more particularly of Serbia," Solana said.
"Most of the root causes of the region's problems still have the same
name and address: that of Slobodan Milosevic," he added.
Solana was NATO secretary general during the Kosovo conflict.
Belgrade, whose strongman is widely seen as responsible for years of
bloodshed and unrest in the Balkans, was not invited to the meeting, which
was set to conclude later Saturday.
But Montenegro, which along with Serbia makes up the rump Yugoslavia and
is headed by pro-reform President Milo Djukanovic, had observer status.
Djukanovic has infuriated Milosevic by pursuing a policy of
rapprochement with the West at a time when Serbia is isolated over its
hardline policies in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini told the conference that the
Balkans crisis made cooperation between countries in the Adriatic region all
the more important.
The meeting was also attended by Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato
and the foreign ministers of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece and Slovenia,
European commission president Romano Prodi and representatives of other
countries.
Croatian Foreign Minister Tonino Picula said his country would be
"delighted if democratic changes occur in Serbia, which continues to
represent a potential threat to general stability in the region."
Picula welcomed Montenegro's attendance at the conference.
While regretting that the Adriatic Sea, which separates Italy from the
Balkans, had become an area of tension and lawlessness, Prodi said that
Europe was prepared to bring the two sides closer together.
Participants at the meeting, which opened Friday, also discussed ways of
fighting organized crime.
Italy's junior foreign minister Umberto Ranieri said "trafficking in
people for sexual purposes and smuggling" was the most serious form of
organized crime affecting the region.
Economic cooperation was another item on the conference agenda in this
Adriatic port city.
During the conference, Croatia and Italy signed an agreement on military
cooperation covering the training of troops.
Conference participants adopted the so-called Ancona Declaration,
designed to create an "area of peace, stability and growing prosperity"
through economic and cultural cooperation and tourism.
A new Adriatic and Ionian Sea council is to convene regularly at the
ministerial and European Commission levels to discuss a variety of issues,
notably illegal activities such as smuggling of people and drugs.
Story from AFP / Ljubomir Milosan
Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.clari.net/hot/wed/az/Qitaly-crime.RmJ-_AyI.html
==========================================
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Editor jailed for urging war crimes trial of Yugoslav minister
June 03, 2000
BELGRADE, June 3 (AFP) - A woman newspaper editor has been jailed for three
months for writing that Yugoslavia's deputy prime minister should be handed
over to the UN war crimes tribunal, which has issued a warrant for his
arrest, a report said Saturday.
Dusica Radulovic, editor of the daily Borske Novine in the Serbian town
of Bor, had written in an article that deputy premier Nicola Sainovic
"should go to The Hague."
News of the sentence was broadcast by the independent radio station
B2-92, broadcasting by satellite.
The station went temporarily off the air last month when police took
over control of leading independent television station Studio B, whose
airwaves B2-92 had been using.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
has indicted Sainovic on war crimes charges in Kosovo. The indictment was
published in May of last year, together with those against President
Slobodan Milosevic and three other top-rank Yugoslav officials.
Miroslav Radulvoc, husband of the imprisoned newspaper editor, told the
radio he himself had recently been sentenced to a six-month suspended
sentence for publishing a photomontage of President Milosevic.
Serbia's independent and opposition-controlled media have been the
target of a harsh official crackdown.
A private radio station in Hungary, Tilos Radio, has agreed to
broadcast news in Serbian from station B2-92 five times a day on FM.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi hailed Tilos Radio's
"exemplary support" for B2-92, which has been able to broadcast only by
Internet or satellite since the Yugoslav government raided Studio B's
premises which also housed the radio facilities.
Story from AFP Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.clari.net/hot/wed/ac/Qyugo-media.RoYK_Au3.html
==========================================
WASHINGTON POST
Albright Meets With Montenegro Head
The Associated Press
June 03, 2000
BERLIN -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Saturday with President
Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro, signaling U.S. support for the smaller of the
two republics that make up Yugoslavia.
Albright offered her sympathy for the slaying of Goran Zugic, the
national security adviser in the independence-minded republic, a senior U.S.
official said.
It was the first slaying of a prominent Montenegrin official after a
series of high-profile killings in Serbia, and Rifat Rastoder, a deputy
speaker of Montenegro's parliament, has accused the Yugoslav government of
complicity.
Djukanovic is at odds with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and is
seeking autonomy or outright independence from Belgrade.
Albright and Djukanovic also discussed Yugoslav actions against the
media and the general situation in the area, the State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said.
© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000603/aponline080831_000.ht
m
==========================================
WASHINGTON POST
Serb Police Detain 40 Activists
The Associated Press
June 03, 2000
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Serbian police detained 40 opposition activists,
including an 11-year-old, in intensified raids on opponents of President
Slobodan Milosevic, the independent Beta news agency reported today.
The arrests took place in several towns across Serbia, mostly targeting
activists of the increasingly popular anti-Milosevic organization Otpor, or
Resistance, who are now being routinely arrested whenever seen carrying the
organization's symbol - a clenched fist – or merely for putting up posters
calling for resistance to the regime.
The largest single group arrested Friday was in the town of Smederevska
Palanka, 35 miles southeast of Belgrade, where police pushed 20 Otpor
activists into police vans and interrogated them for two hours at a police
station.
The 11-year-old was arrested in Ivanjica, in south-central Serbia, for
waving a flag with the Otpor sign. The Beta report said police also
questioned the boy's father who defended his son's support for the
opposition.
Milosevic's government has declared Otpor a "terrorist" group and
prosecutes its members, saying Otpor has not been registered as an
organization. The authorities, however, have rejected all applications by
Otpor leaders to be officially registered as a group.
At least three members of two leading opposition parties, the Democrats
and Serbian Renewal Movement, were also arrested in two other towns in
Serbia.
Leaflets and posters of Otpor and the opposition parties found with the
activists were confiscated in nearly all cases. Homes of several activists
were also thoroughly searched by the police in what has become a daily
routine in cracking down on dissent.
© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000603/aponline082156_000.ht
m
==========================================
SINGAPORE PRESS HOLDINGS
Milosevic's grip in Serbia
May 31, 2000
By LOUISE BRANSON
IN WASHINGTON
SOME frightening and brutal things have been happening in Serbia in the year
since Nato -- led by the US -- condemned Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic as a Hitler figure for his brutality against Albanians in Kosovo
and bombed his forces into submission.
For one, there have been dozens of mysterious killings of prominent
people on the streets, Chicago gangster-style: The head of Yugoslav
airlines, a defence minister, senior police officials, the notorious warlord
Arkan, to name but a few.
Former Soviet leader Josef Stalin used to eliminate those who rose to
positions where they could threaten him. Is this then Mr Milosevic's way --
imitating Stalin -- of preventing a threat from within the ruling elite? And
at the same time, promoting an atmosphere of fear and insecurity?
Most Serbs believe, though it is impossible to prove, that Mr Milosevic
is behind the killing.
Particularly of people like Arkan, who could have provided useful
information pertinent to Mr Milosevic's indictment at the Hague War Crimes
Tribunal.
Then there has been the increasingly brutal crackdown on dissent.
After months of harassing the few small independent media outlets --
imposing massive fines, withholding newsprint, imprisoning journalists --
Milosevic's police seized outright the main opposition TV station and radio
transmitter.
ORWELLIAN MEDIA
MOST Serbs -- with few resources and struggling on average incomes of less
than US$50 (S$86) a month -- have TV sets and radios that can only receive
the Orwellian official media.
Mr Milosevic, using classic Stalinist tactics, has long succeeded in
smearing and discrediting main opposition figures like Mr Vuk Draskovic and
Mr Zoran Djindjic.
The official media portrays them regularly as ""agents'' and ""spies''
for, Nato, an alliance disliked by most Serbs because it dropped bombs on
them last summer.
But most ordinary Serbs have, anyway, lost their faith in the main
opposition parties which suffer the ""Balkan malady'' of being unable to put
aside personal bickering for a larger cause.
The hopeless state of the opposition was evident last weekend at
demonstrations in Belgrade. Less than 15,000 showed up.
If the ""grown up'' opposition is all but impotent, however, a new
credible threat has now emerged: An energetic grassroots student
organisation known as Otpor (Resistance), which has little but derision for
its opposition elders.
Using the symbol of fists raised in defiance, it is calling for
widespread civil disobedience. Mr Milosevic's fear of Otpor is evident.
Some 700 of its members have been jailed. And Mr Milosevic closed down
the universities a week early to prevent outbreaks of unrest.
His officials are busy drafting new ""anti-terrorist'' laws allowing
60-day detentions without charges.
Independent foreign organisations which had been helping build a civil
society are also to be banned.
Mr Milosevic -- known as the ""Invisible Man'' because he is never seen
on the streets of Belgrade -- has good reason to be afraid of the wrath of
his repressed people. He has many enemies in Serbia who would kill him given
half a chance.
Setting foot outside Serbia could mean a trip to the Hague court.
He has a single aim: To preserve his power. He is gambling that he can
hang on like a European Saddam Hussein.
He has told visitors that he can see out the Clinton administration and
that a new Gore or Bush administration will be too distracted to pay him
much attention.
Some international developments are already playing his way.
HARD-LINE STAND
THE US wants to continue a hard line towards Mr Milosevic. But many
Europeans believe constructive engagement would better serve regional
stability. Some sanctions, including a ban on flights, are already
crumbling.
In addition, the Russians under their new leader Vladmir Putin have
just extended US$102 million in credits and provided oil.
The Russians, thumbing their nose at Nato, also, officially, received
one of the men indicted with Mr Milosevic by the Hague tribunal.
So, what is to be done?
Do the forces which pounded Mr Milosevic's Serbia last year, in the
name of moral rectitude, have a duty to see the punishment through, and
remove this nasty dictator?
But with Serbia off the front pages and America distracted by
presidential politics, there seems little chance that will happen.
Which means that Mr Milosevic seems destined to continue to wreak
havoc.
Without international intervention, he could push his country into
civil war, particularly since his forces are goading the junior republic of
Montenegro.
One thing is for certain: He will never go quietly or through the
ballot box. Nor, if he has his way, very soon.
[The Washington-based writer has covered Yugoslavian issues and
developments for a number of years in Belgrade. She has also co-authored a
book on Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. She contributed this article to
The Straits Times.]
The Straits Times
Copyright © 2000 Singapore Press Holdings.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/opinion/opin2_0531.html
==========================================
Additional updates of the Kosovar political prisoners, including those
sentenced, missing and released, may be found at:
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-database.htm
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-report0037.htm
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-report0038.htm
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-report0041.htm
Very useful statistics and update from ICRC on missing persons from Kosova
can be found at:
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/60c532db
df49f6878525688f006f80d4?OpenDocument
Archives of the A-PAL Newsletters may be found at:
http://www.khao.org/appkosova.htm
Albanian Prisoner Advocacy List -- Prisoner Pals Newsletter, No. 025
More information about the A-PAL mailing list |
