CER | Serbia: Whose name on The Hague list?

Will he won't he

The papers in Serbia took part in a guessing game this week. Would President Vojislav Koštunica meet the chief prosecutor of The Hague tribunal, Carla del Ponte, when she comes to Belgrade this coming week, or not? On Thursday, his spokesman said the President was too busy. But then later in the week, he agreed when the prosecutor offered to reveal the names of Serbian officials under secret indictment for war crimes.

But the President continues to insist that the Yugoslav constitution forbids the handing over of any citizen to the tribunal—and getting its hands on former President Slobodan Milošević is one of the things the Prosecutor's visit is aimed at achieving.

Montenegro or bust

In an interview published Saturday in the weekly magazine Nin, Mr Koštunica said that he would leave public office if the Montenegro were to secede from the Yugoslav federation. He said: "If I were to fail in safeguarding Yugoslavia, I would have great difficulty in continuing to participate in public life."

Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović has hinted that his country is still determined to secede from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, formed by Montenegro and Serbia, its much larger neighbour. Montenegro is expected to hold a referendum on the issue, and that might take place early this year. Mr Koštunica said he would have no interest in standing for the Serbian presidency, now held by Milan Milutinović, whose mandate runs out in December 2002.

"I was elected ... to defend the community made up of Serbia and Montenegro through democratic and legal means," the magazine reported the President as saying. But he also insisted that there was no means, military or political, by which Serbia could stop the Montenegrins going it alone if they wanted to. "I will respect the will as it is expressed and then decide what I will do. If Montenegro wants to gain independence ... it would perhaps be better for it to tie itself to another country rather than Serbia," Koštunica said.

The populist paper Blic also reported this week on Koštunica's talks with Montenegrin President Đukanović and Serbian Prime Minister-elect Zoran Đinđić. There was little agreement, he said, and there are "two radically opposing stands—one advocated by the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities and the other by the authorities in Podgorica—that cannot be reconciled."

Blic said that Koštunica was not interested in an alliance of sovereign states or some kind of a "quasi-state." We are "totally indifferent" to the idea of an alliance of an independent Serbia and an independent Montenegro. "Such alliances do not exist anywhere in the world, you can either have one state or two states.

Koštunica in Sarajevo

"Restoration of trust" is how Politika headlined its report on the President's visit to Sarajevo—the first official visit of a Yugoslav president to Bosnia-Hercegovina.

Politika also carried a report on Koštunica's interview for Sarajevo's Dnevni avaz and Banja Luka's Nezavisne novine, in which he said that "FRY's special relations with the Serb Republic do not call into question the future of a single Bosnia-Hercegovina."

Most of the Belgrade papers paid little attention to the visit, however. Danas simply gave it a brief mention, quoting Koštunica as saying the visit means "support for the Dayton Agreement."

Spinning in his grave?

The ultra-nationalist party of the former paramilitary leader Arkan could give its support to the democratic reformists rather than its traditional nationalist allies in the new Serbian parliament. The Serbian Unity Party (SSJ) won 14 seats in the 250-seat Serbian parliament in December's elections, coming fourth behind the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) with 176 deputies, which backs Yugoslav President Vojislav Koštunica.

SSJ leader Borislav Pelević, one of Arkan's paramilitary commanders, has said his deputies could support the reformists. There were already reports before the fall of Milošević in October that the paramilitaries had fallen out with their old sponsor. Last week Arkan's son accused state security services and the former Belgrade leadership of being behind the murder of his father in a Belgrade hotel a year ago.

Borislav Pelević served as a commander in Arkan's notorious Tigers militia and was one of the most active fighters during the notorious siege of Vukovar in Belgrade's war with Croatia in 1991. Arkan was himself indicted by The Hague tribunal for war crimes committed in Croatia and Bosnia. He was gunned down in the lobby of the Interncontinental on 5 January 2000. But the SSJ welcomed the fall of the old regime.

Uranium is good for you

Finally, Glas javnosti thinks with the way NATO is dealing with the fears about depleted uranium weapons, it won't be long before "they'll say that not only is depleted uranium not harmful but that it is good for your health and should be taken in tablets daily."

Dan Damon, 20 January 2001

Moving on:

Sources:

Nin
Glas javnosti
Danas
Politika