HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------General may testify against Milosevic
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- One of
Serbia's deputy prime ministers, Gen. Momcilo Perisic, said the Yugoslav army
chief of staff has repeatedly offered to testify against former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic in his trial for alleged war crimes.
Milosevic helped Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic in his
rise to chief of staff.
Pavkovic was commander
of the Third Army Corps stationed in Pristina before and during the 78-day NATO
air campaign on Yugoslavia until June 1999, the period in which Yugoslav army
and police forces are alleged to have committed atrocities against Kosovo
Albanians.
In a caustic attack on both
Pavkovic and current Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, Perisic told
Saturday's edition of the Belgrade newspaper Blic that the two men "are
sustaining and defending each other, unaware that by doing so they are hampering
many reforms in Serbia and Yugoslavia."
Kostunica has retained Pavkovic as army chief
since the overthrow of the Milosevic regime in a bloodless popular uprising in
October 2000, claiming that this is necessary in order to preserve the
continuity and stability of the state. The claim is disputed by most other
leaders of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, a misnomer for the ruling
18-party democratic reform coalition, who say the two men have raised obstacles
to restructuring the army into a smaller professional armed force and putting it
under civilian and parliamentary control.
Pavkovic has retorted that this control is
ensured by the fact that Kostunica is supreme commander of the army. As he did
with Milosevic before, Pavkovic now proclaims Kostunica as army commander even
though under the constitution the army is commanded by a three-member Supreme
Military Council that also includes the Serbian and Montenegrin presidents.
Critics also say that Kostunica, because he is
a traditional Serbian nationalist, and Pavkovic, for reasons of his own safety,
are hampering efforts by Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and his
government and federal DOS ministers to establish full cooperation with the
Hague tribunal, including extradition of war crimes suspects and indictees.
In doing so, the argument goes, they harm the
country's prospects to acquire the necessary financial and economic aid to
recover from decades of mismanagement and carry out the required economic
reforms.
"It is inevitable that the main
players in Kosovo will be called to account in The Hague. One of them was
exactly Pavkovic as army commander in Kosovo," Perisic told Blic.
Milosevic faces charges at his trial starting
on Feb. 12 of being in full control of the security forces in Kosovo and so
carrying responsibility for their war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Milosevic has also been indicted for command responsibility for similar crimes
in Croatia and for genocide in Bosnia.
"If his
chief Milosevic is tried for what was happening in that area (Kosovo), it is
inevitable that Pavkovic too will end up in The Hague," Perisic said.
This is why Pavkovic is at pains to remain in
his present post under Kostunica's protection as long as possible, "but still he
will appear before the tribunal sooner or later," he added.
Pavkovic is now doing everything to save his
head by testifying against Milosevic, Perisic claimed.
"It has even come to my knowledge that on
several occasions he has offered to testify against his supreme commander," he
said. "It would be good for Kostunica to know that this could also happen to
him. Pavkovic is the best silk braid round Kostunica's neck."
In Ottoman Turkey, sultans were said to be in
the habit of sending silk braids to people as a sign of their displeasure and
that they wanted them to commit suicide.
Perisic was himself the chief of the general
staff for five-and-a-half years until October 1998 when Milosevic dismissed him
for disagreements over policy and tactics in Kosovo. Some people suggest Perisic
is also a war criminal for shelling the towns of Zadar in Croatia and Mostar in
Bosnia-Herzegovina as an artillery commander in the early 1990s.
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