Yugoslavia Stops Delivering Serbs to The Hague

Yugoslav president loses his rating

Yugoslav President Voislav Kostunica officially stated that Yugoslavia was going to stop delivering war crimes suspects to The Hague Tribunal. The president stated that those people would be judged in the courts of the country. Voislav Kostunica released that statement in his interview to Radio Jugoslavija.

Such a harsh statement was released by the Yugoslav president over the fact that The Hague violated the agreement with Belgrade. It was originally meant that the people, who volunteered to yield to The Hague Tribunal, would be released prior to the beginning of court hearings. However, the Tribunal changes those previously achieved agreements, when it wishes so. There is an impression that The Hague judges do not really think that there is a need to stick to those conditions.

Kostunica strongly believes that the cooperation between Yugoslavia and The Hague is not supposed to be single-handed. Yet, he added that he did not mind the bilateral cooperation. This is not the first harsh statement from the incumbent president of Yugoslavia. Earlier, Kostunica stated in one of his interviews to the Belgrade newspaper Glas Javnosti that the cooperation with The Hague should be mutually beneficial. He wanted the West to pay more attention to Yugoslavia. Belgrade refused to withdraw the suit that was filed against several NATO members. Kostunica claimed that NATO’s bombing was the issue of their authority. He added that it was absurd to blame the previous Yugoslav regime for that bombing.

Nevertheless, one should not forget that Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic might hang up Kostunica’s promises and prohibitions. There can be a lot of examples found to prove this suggestion. For instance, Slobodan Milosevic’s extradition that was conducted contrary to the decision of the Constitution court. In addition to that, Serbian nationals will still be delivered to The Hague as long as Voislav Kostunica remains the president of Yugoslavia. Otherwise, the West wouldn’t have assisted him to win the repeated election. Voislav Kostunica will not venture to get rid of the surveillance. This is not a trait of his character.

Therefore, one of the main conclusions that can be made from another failure of the Serbian president election is as follows. Kostunica does not enjoy even a half of support that he used to have amid the population. On the other hand, the Milosevic trial makes more and more of his proponents in his fatherland.

A lot of observers were surprised about the fact that Vojislav Seselj, the leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party won the presidential election in Yugoslavia. Slobodan Milosevic publicly supported Seselj. Milosevic called upon all patriots to vote for this candidacy. Kostunica had only one opponent during the last weekend – Seselj. The latter gained 36% of votes. This is a very good proof of his growing rating.

By the way, the European Union is seriously concerned about the failure of the presidential election in Serbia. Europe gets anxious about the stability of political institutions and the continuation of reforms.

Sergey Stefanov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov