Serbia PM blames West for lead of Radical Party

[Ivo Skoric]

Zivkovic is whining. His government should ban Milosevic's and 
Seselj's return to the country pending the result of their trial, and 
have Radicals and Socialists consequently remove Milosevic's and 
Seselj's names from their lists, and their faces from billboards. 
That would put those parties in place where they belong politically 
without their charismatic leaders. Because, truely, their ordeal at 
The Hague made them 'martyrs' in the culture hungry for heroes. But 
instead of sitting on his rear end and complaining about the obvious, 
Zivkovic's government should do something about it.
ivo

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Serbian PM Blames West for Nationalists

APO  05/12/2003 06:35


Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The
information contained in this news report may not be published,
broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written 
authority
of the Associated Press.

   BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- Serbia's reformist prime
   minister
said the West is partly to blame for expected gains of nationalists
linked to Slobodan Milosevic and wartime atrocities in upcoming
general elections.
   Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic told The Associated Press that U.N.
prosecutions of Milosevic and other key war crimes suspects have
backfired by making them "more popular than they had been before."
   Zivkovic made his comments on Thursday ahead of Dec. 28 general
elections that all recent polls have indicated will be won by the
extreme nationalist Radical Party. The party formed the last
government coalition with Milosevic before he was swept from power
three years ago.
   Emasculated by deep personal feuds and under attack for alleged
corruption, the governing pro-democracy coalition, once an alliance 
of
18 political parties, dissolved late last month and the early 
December
vote was called a year ahead of schedule.
   Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj has been indicted by the same
   U.N.
war crimes tribunal now trying Milosevic for the former Yugoslav
president's alleged links to atrocities committed in the Balkan wars
he fomented in the 1990s.
   Seselj's flamboyant antics included brandishing a handgun in front
   of
the parliament building and spitting at the legislature's speaker.
   He could face life imprisonment if convicted on U.N. tribunal
   charges of
crimes against humanity and violating the customs of war for his
alleged part in inciting violence.
   Zivkovic blamed the United States and Western Europe for some of
   the
popularity of Seselj's Radicals, suggesting that Washington and
European leaders had pushed his pro-democracy coalition into making
mistakes that fed disenchantment with reforms.
   "They treated us as if we had been in power for 15 years already,"
   he
said.
   Adding to anti-Western resentment left by nearly three months of
   NATO
bombing in 1999 to force Milosevic to relinquish Kosovo province has
been the sense that the U.N. tribunal is biased against Serbs, he
said.
   Milosevic is heading the list of Socialist party candidates and
   Seselj
the Radicals for this month's elections, despite the fact that both
are in U.N. cells in The Hague, Netherlands, as prime targets of
tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.
   Serbia's parliamentary elections come just weeks after Radical
   candidate
Tomislav Nikolic won the most votes in Nov. 16 presidential elections
that nonetheless failed due to low turnout.
   It was Serbia's third fruitless attempt in just over a year to
   elect a
president.
   A possible success by the nationalists in December would strike a
   new
blow to the pro-democracy leadership that in 2000 ousted Milosevic. 
It
also would endanger Western efforts to anchor Serbia -- the dominant
republic in the Serbia-Montenegro federation that succeeded 
Yugoslavia
-- to democracy.
   In a survey published Thursday by the Beta news agency, the Marten
   Board
International polling agency said 23 percent of the nearly 1,500
respondents asked said they supported the radicals. Zivkovic's
Democracy Party was next with 19 percent, said Beta, which did not
give a margin of error.
   While the Radicals are not expected to be able to build a
   government
coalition, they could end up holding the most seats in the 250-seat
Serbian parliament. As such, they could pose serious obstacles to
reforms planned by any new government, including attempts to move
closer to NATO and the European Union.
   Radical support of "Greater Serbia" -- a union of all Serb
   communities
regardless of present borders -- helped fuel last decade's wars in
Croatia and Bosnia that killed hundreds of thousands.
   Party demands for full Serbian control of Kosovo -- including the
   return
of Serb army and police units -- put them on a collision course with
the province's ethnic Albanian majority, now under U.N. 
administration
but seeking ultimate independence.
   Nikolic of the Radicals told the AP his party still believes in
   "Greater
Serbia," but would no longer go to war to fulfill that goal.
   Asked whether the Radicals had reformed, Zivkovic said they
   continue to
hold their former extremist goals.
   "Nikolic is a puppet," controlled by Seselj from his U.N. tribunal
   jail
cell, he said.



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Ivo Skoric
19 Baxter Street
Rutland VT 05701
802.775.7257
ivo at balkansnet.org
balkansnet.org