War Crimes Suspects Used as Vote-Getters in Serbia
Thu Dec 18, 9:06 PM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Fredrik Dahl
URL:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=703&e=11&u=/nm/20031219/wl_nm/serbiamontenegro_warcrimes_dc
BELGRADE (Reuters) - Ultra-nationalists led by a war crimes suspect from behind bars may become the biggest group in Serbia's parliament. Three small parties are fielding candidates who have been indicted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague (news - web sites).
This is democracy at work in Serbia ahead of a December 28 general election, expected to show strong support for the nationalist right three years after pro-Western reformers toppled Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) as Yugoslav president.
"It is obviously very disturbing," U.N. human rights official Laurie Wiseberg said about the four Hague indictees running in the parliamentary election, including Milosevic for his once-mighty Socialist Party.
European Union (news - web sites) foreign policy chief Javier Solana, urging Serbs not to choose the past, told reporters in Belgrade that having accused war criminals as election candidates could be seen as a "provocation" by people outside the country.
Wiseberg, who heads the mission of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed concern that local people and media appeared to accept it as something normal.
"Nobody seems to be terribly upset about it," she said.
Rights activists argue that Serbs must face the truth about killings and other atrocities committed in their name during Milosevic's rule in order to move forward and foster reconciliation with neighbors in Bosnia, Kosovo and Croatia.
Many people here see the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as biased against them, rejecting the view widely held in the West that Serb forces were often the main culprits in the wars that tore apart socialist Yugoslavia.
"I think there has never really been an acceptance of the fact that those who engaged in war crimes should be punished," Wiseberg said.
WESTERN PRESSURE
Under heavy Western pressure to cooperate with the U.N. tribunal, the outgoing pro-reform coalition handed over Milosevic and many other suspects after it took power in 2000.
But it acted mainly because the impoverished country would otherwise risk a freeze in crucial U.S. aid.
"The government has portrayed cooperation with The Hague as a means of receiving economic assistance from abroad rather than a duty to victims and justice," said Bogdan Ivanisevic of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
"Serbia missed a chance to face up to its past," he said. "It prefers to sweep the issue of war crimes under the carpet."
Reflecting a mood of increased defiance, reformist leaders have recently blamed the tribunal's pressure on Belgrade for growing popular support for the Radical Party, led by firebrand hard-liner Vojislav Seselj from his cell in The Hague.
Opinion polls suggest the Radicals may emerge as the single biggest party in the 250-seat assembly, capitalising on widespread discontent over post-Milosevic transition hardship.
Seselj, who once said opponents should have their eyes gouged out with rusty spoons, is an old Milosevic ally accused of forming a Serb paramilitary group responsible for a spate of atrocities during the 1991-95 Bosnian and Croatian wars.
Pro-democracy parties vowing to prevent hard-liners from grabbing power are still forecast to win a majority between them, but a large Radical Party in opposition could increase pressure on the next government to stand up to the U.N. court.
"This is a kind of an anti-Hague referendum," said Sonja Biserko of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. "It is very depressing."
HAGUE CAMPAIGN BAN
Legal experts in Serbia say indictees can be election candidates as long as they haven't been convicted, even though those in detention won't be able to take up seats they may win.
The tribunal last week banned Seselj and Milosevic, both heading the candidate lists of their respective parties, from campaigning from their Dutch jail.
The move came after Milosevic, whose Socialist Party has lost much of its support after he was ousted and may even fail to enter parliament, flouted detention rules by taping an election broadcast in his cell.
Two other Hague suspects in the election, police chief Sreten Lukic and ex-army chief Nebojsa Pavkovic, remain free two months after the U.N. court said it had indicted them for atrocities committed by forces under their command in Kosovo in 1999.
Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said Lukic had proved his worth in fighting crime and announced last week he would be a candidate for his small Liberal Party. Pavkovic stands on a list supported by a minor breakaway Socialist Party faction.
"The military is popular here. They are seen as defenders of the country," one Western diplomat said. "People genuinely dislike the indictments from The Hague."
Both parties face an uphill task to make it into parliament and the move to field the generals seemed to be an attempt to increase the chances to pass a five percent vote threshold.
"They think they can attract some additional votes," said Marko Blagojevic of the non-government Center for Free Elections and Democracy. "They have nothing to lose." |
