A series of suicides in Yugoslavia

The Minister for Healthcare and Social Politics Miodrag Kovac committed suicide after Serbian Minister for Internal Affairs Vlajko Stojiljkovic. Kovac’s body was found this night at 3:30 a.m. Moscow time, in Madrid’s Eurobuilding hotel. The Spanish police reported, the suicidal version of his death had been confirmed.

Kovac’s suicide note was found nearby. It was written to his family, to the people of Montenegro, and to the Social People’s Party of Montenegro, in which he was a member. The full contents of the letter was not exposed to the public, it is only known that Kovac wrote in it that he had to commit suicide because of the fact that the people, whom he trusted “too much,” betrayed him. ITAR-TASS news agency reported that 58-year-old Miodrag Kovac (53), who is married and has two children, was the leader of the Yugoslav delegation to the U.N Second World Assembly on Aging since April 8. Today was the day, when he was supposed to return to Yugoslavia.

There will certainly be a lot of things said about the real reason, which made him hang himself. For the time being, it only occurs that the Yugoslavian parliament passed the law about the cooperation with the Hague Tribunal yesterday. It became possible because the Montenegrin Socialist People’s Party, in which Kovac was a member, changed its fundamental position , when it was totally against delivering the Yugoslav citizens to the International Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, this connection is not likely here, simply because of the fact that Miodrag Kovac was not on the list of war crimes suspects. So what did Kovac mean, when he wrote that the people, whom he trusted, betrayed him?

RIA Novosti has recently reported with reference to the Yugoslavian Beta news agency, that Kovac, was “maybe concerned about the doubts of the administration regarding his activities.” The confirmation of this version is the material, which was published in the Montenegrin Publica newspaper on March 30 this year. As it was written in the article, the minister could be arrested due to the illegal imports and sales of a huge amount of medicines. The newspaper informed with reference to the sources in Belgrade that “there was conclusive evidence to prove that Kovac caused financial damage to the state and posed a threat to people, offering them the medicines that did not have any certificates to them. As it was said, the minister would have to face big trouble, and he could be arrested soon.

As far as Vlajko Stojiljkovic is concerned, who shot himself in the head in front of the building of the Yugoslavian parliament, doctors say that he is still alive, but his life may be over any moment. They said that he was living owing to reviving apparatus, his blood pressure and heart activity was maintained with special intravenous injections.

Stojiljkovic repeatedly said that he would never yield to the Tribunal , as well as he would never allow anyone to deliver him. Stojiljkovic reportedly could not bear the fact that “all Albanian terrorists were released from Serbian jails, whereas the proceedings against Serbs were going on in the Hague.”

Sergey Stefanov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov