Persecution of Slobodan Milosevic's Family Underway

They apparently threaten Milosevic with arresting his family members

Democratic press has recently caused a commotion regarding the supposed implication of the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and his family in the kidnapping of retired banker Ivan Stambolic in August of 2000. It is worth mentioning that this subject was raised by television channels and newspapers of a certain orientation, which gives a reason to assume that it goes about a coordinated, deliberate action.

A lot of people remember that newspapers published sensation after sensation in October of 2000, about some wild crimes that Slobodan Milosevic allegedly committed. It was particularly said that there were six billion dollars on his accounts in foreign banks, that three Il-76 planes carried tons of gold away from Belgrade, and so on and so forth. This nonsense was distributed in a rather persistent way, which resulted in the fact that they started looking for that gold and billions of dollars.

The head of the Yugoslavian Central Bank has been to all major European banks, until they asked him to leave them alone. Nothing was found - no gold, no billions. Now there are more fake news about the crimes of the Milosevic's family. It was particularly said that banker Ivan Stambolic was kidnapped and then killed by order either from Slobodan Milosevic, or his wife Mira Markovic. Yet, even the democratic press of Belgrade acknowledged that the banker's disappearance was very bad for Milosevic on the threshold of the election. This fact does not confuse denouncers, though.

If they accuse Slobodan Milosevic of assassination, it would be a lot easier to bring him back to Belgrade and investigate the case with his direct participation. Moreover, Slobodan Milosevic insists on being questioned. Yet, Judge May does not allow him to talk, as soon as Milosevic starts talking about the events in Belgrade. The judge is obviously implicated in the affair too.

There is another important detail about the whole story. As it is known, the Belgrade police and special services took a passive position during the coup of the year 2000, although they were capable of subduing the mutiny. However, they did not do a thing, even when rebels stormed the building of the parliament. Later it was reported that the West allocated 100 million dollars to fund the establishment of the opposition. That money was used to set up newspapers, television and radio channels. The money was also used to pay opposition leader's trips abroad. Probably, police and special services chiefs were paid something as well, taking into consideration the fact that they maintained a contact with Milosevic's adversaries. This cooperation existed before the coup of 2000. Formally, special services were subordinated to Serbian President Milutinovic. If we assume that special services were implicated in banker Stambolic's kidnapping, this brings up a question, if they executed an order of the supreme administration or an informal request of their new "friends from the opposition."

It is hard to believe that the incumbent government of Serbia is law-abiding. Slobodan Milosevic's delivery to the Hague Tribunal was a violation of the Yugoslavian Constitution. New Yugoslav President Voislav Kostunica, Serbian President Milutinovic promised Milosevic that he would not be delivered to the Hague. He was. This is the price of guarantees. Later, they covered it with the law of cooperation with the Tribunal, pursuant to which only a limited number of people could be delivered to the Hague. Yet, they amend this law at present, extending the list of possibilities.

There is a state of emergency in Serbia now. This means that the police are entitled to detain people on any tiniest suspicion for 30 days without providing a lawyer to them. A person would be totally isolated, and they would be free to do whatever they want with him. This makes it possible to imagine that Mira Markovic (who is not in Serbia currently) will be arrested and then shot during her "attempted escape," for example. Of course, there would be criminal proceedings instituted, they would probably find someone to blame, but they would also achieve their goal.

Montenegro press reported that pop singer Svetlana Roznatovic Ceca was brutally beaten at a police station; police officers broke her jaw. Is there a guarantee that this will not happen to Mira Markovic? It was also reported that there have been up to three thousand people arrested on the allegation of Zoran Djinjic's assassination. It also seems strange that banker Stambolic's body was found in the nick of time for the government. Yugoslavia has recently vanished from the map of the world, so a lot of left opposition leaders, including Mira Markovic, were deprived of their deputy immunity. They just waited for a moment to come to detain her – now there is no evidence needed to do that. A state of emergency means that usual norms are canceled. By the way, all these things happen after the Zoran Djinjic's assassination: he probably had something to tell. There are too many coincidences to believe they are all incidental.

Voislav Seselj said in 2002 that the West wanted to get rid of Djinjic, for he was very much involved in mafia affairs. Several months have passed, and the problem was gone: Djinjic was killed. Then there was a pretext to introduce a state of emergency in order to wipe off any kind of opposition. Milosevic and Seselj are in jail, the Socialist Party of Serbia is split, Mira Markovic was put on wanted list.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell came to pacify Yugoslav "democrats" that lost their leader. This is a very interesting fact, taking into consideration the relations between Germany and the USA. It is not ruled out that pro-German Djinjic did not correspond to USA's interests.

More importantly, the persecution of Mira Markovic helps the Hague Tribunal to intensify the psychological pressure on Slobodan Milosevic. Markovic plays the key role in the organization of Milosevic's defense. This is it: they threat Slobodan Milosevic with arresting his family members. It is not hard to imagine, what influence it will exert on Slobodan Milosevic's health.

We would also like to inform that the newspaper of Montenegro Den published a sensational article, which said that incumbent Serbian Home Minister Dusan Mihalovic was implicated in a series of political assassinations. The Russian press has reported nothing about it, though. Probably, this article does not fit the scenario of sensational exposure of the Milosevics family.

Vyacheslav Tetekin
Sovross.ru

PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov