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"Our comrade Vlajko Stojiljkovic is the first and tragic victim of the law on cooperation," said top party official Mirko Marjanovic, a former Serbian Prime Minister. "His act is not an attempt to escape responsibility, but the act of a hero not allowing himself to be tried by enemies he fought when NATO committed aggression against Yugoslavia." "I want to join the ranks of heroes -- my policemen, members of the army and people who, showing patriotism, unprecedented heroism, readiness and decisiveness, gave their lives defending their country and their people from criminals," he wrote. Milosevic Party Accuses Reformers Over Suicide Bid April 12, 2002 08:34 AM ET By Julijana Mojsilovic BELGRADE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic's party accused Yugoslavia's reformist leaders on Friday of forcing an ex-minister into a dramatic suicide attempt by passing a law to hand him and other suspects to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Former Serbian Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic shot himself in the head on the steps of the federal parliament on Thursday evening, just hours after the assembly had passed the controversial legislation on cooperation with the tribunal. Stojiljkovic, accused of responsibility for mass killings and expulsions of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999 during Milosevic's rule, was reported to be "in the deepest possible coma" and his death was said to be only a matter of time. The burly white-haired former minister had been widely considered a prime candidate for an early handover to the tribunal in The Hague after parliament passed the law on relations with the court under U.S. financial pressure. Serbs see the tribunal as biased against them and Milosevic's Socialist party said the new law, drawn up by the reformers who ousted Milosevic as Yugoslav president in a mass uprising in October 2000, had tipped Stojiljkovic over the edge. "Our comrade Vlajko Stojiljkovic is the first and tragic victim of the law on cooperation," said top party official Mirko Marjanovic, a former Serbian Prime Minister. "His act is not an attempt to escape responsibility, but the act of a hero not allowing himself to be tried by enemies he fought when NATO committed aggression against Yugoslavia." Around 150 nationalists demonstrated outside the parliament on Friday. The relatively small turnout reflected the fact that Stojiljkovic, 65, was seen more as an aparatchik in Milosevic's authoritarian system rather than in his own right. But commentators said more Serbs would feel uneasy about the suicide attempt, which underscored the risks of trying to ship suspects to The Hague against their will. PRESIDENT LAMENTS "TRAGEDY" Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica described Stojiljkovic's dramatic act as a tragedy. But it elicited little sympathy in ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo, the province under U.N. rule since NATO's 1999 air war. "For the killer of Albanians, a bullet to his own head," ran the headline in Kosovo's Epoka E Re daily. As interior minister, Stojiljkovic had responsibility for Milosevic's feared police force which has been widely accused of war crimes in Kosovo. More than 4,000 bodies have been recovered from mass graves in the province since the end of the war. "He was one of those who led the gravest massacres committed in Kosovo," Ibrahim Makolli, an ethnic Albanian rights activist, said of Stojiljkovic. Many Serbs, however, see the campaign by their forces in Kosovo as an anti-terrorist operation to quell a guerrilla uprising. Stojiljkovic said in a 15-page handwritten suicide note that he was proud of his work at the interior ministry. "I want to join the ranks of heroes -- my policemen, members of the army and people who, showing patriotism, unprecedented heroism, readiness and decisiveness, gave their lives defending their country and their people from criminals," he wrote. The law passed by parliament on Thursday, after more than a year of arguments among reformers and their allies, authorizes the handover of suspects already indicted by the tribunal. Yugoslavia's dominant republic Serbia has already handed over several suspects, including Milosevic. But it had balked at acting again without a law, fearing the political fallout. The authorities' failure to surrender more suspects before a March 31 deadline set by the U.S. Congress triggered a freeze in U.S. financial aid and support in international lending bodies. The U.N.-run International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia is seeking a total of 33 fugitives, the vast majority of them believed to be in Yugoslavia or Bosnia's Serb Republic. The most wanted are Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both charged with genocide. But Stojiljkovic, former Yugoslav deputy premier Nikola Sainovic and ex-army chief of staff Dragoljub Ojdanic were widely seen as the most likely candidates for early handovers. Indicted with Milosevic and current Serbian President Milan Milutinovic during the NATO bombing, they face charges of crimes against humanity and violations of the law and customs of war. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.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 ==^================================================================
