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[The unelected prime minister of the Republic of Serbia demands the resignation of a Yugoslav general for not informing him that he had been surveilling the prime minister's second in command, who was and had been selling state security secrets to John David Neighbor, identified by both the German press wire service Deutsche Press-Agentur and the Yugoslav news outlet Blic as the CIA station chief for the Balkans. According to this inverted logic Federal Republic of Yugoslavia government officials fitrst have to clear national decisions with the head of a republic, but the head of a republic does not have to clear with the president of the federal government (if the official story is to be believed) an act as monumental and criminal as dragging a former elected head of state out of a prison cell he'd placed him in and turning him over to U.S. military bounty hunters for a Nacht und Nebel deportation to the Hague, a crime that violated decisions of both the Serbian Republic and the Yugoslav federal Constitutional Courts. "In a breach of international conventions..." Surely it doesn't say this? What would the American response be to a key government official meeting surreptitiously, for months, with the local intelligence chief of a country that had mercilessly and illegally attacked it for 79 days, killing thousands of its citizens? One who is captured on film receiving money to turn over classified documents that included, according to a report in The Scotsman of two days ago, information concerning government troop movements in the KLA-infested south of Serbia? How would the Associated Press report on and characterize the predictable U.S. reaction?] Rift Within Serbian Ruling Coalition By Dusan Stojanovic Associated Press Writer Friday, March 22, 2002; 9:05 AM BELGRADE, Yugoslavia –– A rift within the country's ruling coalition deepened Friday as the Yugoslav president rejected a demand by his archrival, the Serbian prime minister, to fire the military secret service chief at the center of a U.S. spy affair. The prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, has demanded that President Vojislav Kostunica remove Gen. Aca Tomic for failing to inform the Serbian government of an operation that resulted in a dramatic arrest last week of Djindjic's deputy, Momcilo Perisic, and a senior U.S. diplomat. Djindjic has expressed outrage that the military intelligence service had followed and wiretapped his deputy for more than five months, without informing the government. He has said that if Kostunica, who is in charge of the army, does not sack Tomic, the Serbian government won't cooperate with the Yugoslav president on state security issues. "I would remove Gen. Tomic only if I was sure that he breached existing regulations," Kostunica told the Blic daily. "However, everything points to the fact that this was not the case and that Gen. Tomic, (military) security and the Yugoslav army have acted according to the existing regulations." Djindjic's party deputy, Goran Vesic, commented Friday: "It is interesting how Kostunica is protecting and clinging to (former President Slobodan) Milosevic's pillars of power." The military said Perisic, who was released Saturday, was giving documents to the diplomat, John David Neighbor, that were "relevant for the defense of the country." Other Yugoslav officials have said the documents could have been used against Milosevic at his U.N. war crimes trial in The Hague, Netherlands. In a breach of international conventions, Neighbor was held incommunicado for 15 hours, and reportedly beaten up with a hood over his head. Both Perisic – a former top Yugoslav army commander who served under Milosevic until he was fired in 1998 for opposing a crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo – and the U.S. Embassy have denied that any espionage took place. Djindjic said the true goal of the arrest was to undermine his government. His aides said this was timed to prevent possible arrests of more Serb war crimes suspects and their extradition to The Hague. The U.S. Congress has set a March 31 deadline for Yugoslav authorities to cooperate with the U.N. tribunal or forfeit much-needed financial aid. Kostunica, a nationalist, protested when Djindjic, a pro-Western pragmatist, engineered Milosevic's extradition to the tribunal last June. Kostunica has continued to defy international demands to hand over about a dozen other suspects, including top officials of Milosevic's fallen regime. In the interview with Blic, Kostunica reiterated that the extradition of Serbs to The Hague without the adoption of legislation that would allow it "is not a good solution." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - coverage of the 74th Academy Awards® http://movies.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
