B.C. NDP candidate quits after remarks about Milosevic
Vancouver — The NDP candidate for Chilliwack-Kent quit the B.C. election campaign Friday after he made favourable comments about former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, hours after party leader Carole James supported him remaining in the race.
Rollie Keith was quoted in a newspaper column as saying he was "quite impressed" with Mr. Milosevic when he met him in his jail cell at The Hague, where he is on trial before a United Nations war crimes tribunal.
Mr. Keith tried to clarify his remarks on Friday, saying that he has not passed any judgment on Mr. Milosevic.
"Categorically Milosevic has been accused of dastardly crimes and I am not the one to say whether he is innocent or guilty," Mr. Keith said in an interview.
"I don't know what orders he did or did not give, but I discussed it with him and he convinced me to some extent that whatever he did was for the good of his country and I came away with the sense that this man was not a diabolical war criminal."
Mr. Keith said he resigned with "deep regret" but did not retract anything he had said publicly.
"I don't like resigning. I'm a fighter and I was willing to fight through but I saw that this was becoming an issue that was distracting the campaign and therefore for the good of Carole James and the New Democratic Party we had to get this off of the election front page."
Mr. Keith, who is a former officer in the Canadian military, volunteered in 1999 to serve as an international observer monitoring a peace agreement in Kosovo, which was part of Serbia.
In the Vancouver Province column published Friday, Mr. Keith said he didn't see any incidents of genocide or mass murder while he was in Kosovo. Mr. Keith also testified last year in Milosevic's defence at his trial.
Earlier on Friday, NDP Leader Carole James said while she didn't agree with Mr. Keith's comments, she was pleased with the work he had done on the campaign.
"He has a long history of peacekeeping and work in the military," Ms. James said during a campaign stop at a community college.
The newspaper article caused Liberals to suggest Mr. Keith's candidacy should be reviewed by the NDP leader.
"I disagree with his (Keith's) comments but he made comments based on his experience over there," said Ms. James. "I certainly fundamentally disagree with Rollie's comments."
Later, she said she supported Mr. Keith's decision to step down as an NDP candidate.
Party spokesman Clay Suddaby denied there was pressure on Mr. Keith to leave.
"Rollie took some time to think about it and decided that the best way to avoid having the focus of this election campaign be on his views on international affairs, instead of the last four years, would be for him to step down as a candidate," said Mr. Suddaby.
"It's not an ideal circumstance, having a candidate step down during an election campaign, but that's where we are."
Asked whether he thought resigning was a hasty decision, Mr. Keith said: "Put it this way, I would not have resigned if I thought this would have blown over."
On the campaign trail, Ms. James attacked Premier Gordon Campbell by listing five broken Liberal promises from the 2001 campaign, including those on long-term health care beds and halting the expansion of gambling.
Asked if there were any Liberal promises she might act on if elected, Ms. James said she would have to see the Liberal platform before deciding.
"We haven't yet seen a list of commitments and we don't know where the money is going to come from," she said.
"When I see that and see where the resources are coming from and see what he's not funding then I'll be happy to make statements about what we'll fund and what we won't."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050422.wbcndp22/BNStory
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