Serbia's Romance with War Criminals

[Ivo Skoric]

I think this is important - particularly now with the US war in Iraq. 
As the Project New American Century eerily resembles the Memorandum 
of Serbia's Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986, both in its 
language and its purpose, maybe the way how Serbia handles its war 
criminals years after the war is a sneak-peek in the hide and seek 
tactics the US may employ to protect its finest a decade from now.

Recently we learned that Vojislav Kostunica not only probably 
sheltered Ratko Mladic in Serbia-Montenegro, but also arranged for 
the old general to receive his military pension. While, at the same 
time, telling the ICTY that he had no knowledge of Mladic's 
whereabouts.

More disturbingly, about a month ago, two guards that stood at the 
entrance to the secret underground military complex in Belgrade (that 
Tito had built for himself in 1960-s and that Saddam liked so much 
that he hired Yugoslav construction companies to build similar for 
himself in Tikrit and where Milosevic stood his ground during NATO 
bombing in 1999), were found death. 

The official story is improbable - the two young men simply shot each 
other with no apparent reason. The rumors in Belgrade is that they 
were shot because they saw something that they should not have seen. 
Conspiracy theories abound - but the loudest one is that they've seen 
a man who is reportedly not in Serbia, living in a bunker dug in the 
hill under the Serbia's most affluent neighborhood.

Obviously, the US has no moral standing any more to call anybody's 
bluff. But EU and ICTY should demand a full inspection of the 
facility. Serbia's defense minister claims that no war criminals live 
in the bunker. But then Kostunica and his cabinet lied about Mladic 
once, they could do it again.

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