Monday, March 13, 2006

Serbia to Permit Milosevic Funeral to Be Held in Belgrade

By NICHOLAS WOOD


BELGRADE, Serbia, March 13 — The Serbian government offered to allow the funeral and burial of Slobodan Milosevic to take place in Belgrade, paving the way for a gathering of nationalists and supporters of the former president that has not been seen in more than five years.

Government officials said a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic, would be removed, enabling her and her family to attend what the one senior government official insisted would be a private ceremony.

Ms. Markovic had been wanted by a court in Belgrade after she failed to appear at a hearing to face fraud charges last year. The underlying charge, of fraud related to an apartment sale, still hangs over her, in theory. She is believed to have been living in Moscow for the last three years, during much of the time when her husband stood trial in The Hague on charges of committing war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in the 1990's.

Mr. Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, was found dead in his cell on Saturday, months before the case would have ended. He was 64.

An autopsy showed that a heart attack killed him, the United Nations war crimes tribunal said in The Hague on Sunday. The result was disclosed as new evidence emerged that Mr. Milosevic had been taking medicine not prescribed by his physicians, including an antibiotic known to diminish or blunt the effect of the medicines he had been taking for heart and blood-pressure problems.

The timing of the funeral was not announced. Despite the government's wishes for a quiet private ceremony, nationalists and supporters of the former president are certain to seize on it as a chance to rally.

Members of Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party appeared to be seizing the opportunity to revive its flagging poll ratings and plan a mass gathering of supporters. The party was once the largest in Serbia, and now one that commands just over 5 percent of the vote.

Serbia's ultra-nationalist Radical Party, currently the most popular political party in Serbia, was also expected to ask its supporters to attend, party officials said. "I believe that first he has to be placed somewhere so people have a couple of days to express their respects, and then a large funeral," said Vladimir Krsljanin, a former foreign relations adviser to Mr. Milosevic.

"There will be foreign delegations and speeches and so on," Mr. Krsljanin said. He added the government needed to provide for the kind of ceremony the former president deserved.

"Such a large gathering of people and emotions can turn into something else, if the government doesn't show maturity," he said. "You cannot act against the masses."

Preparing the way, Deputy Prime Minister Mirosljub Labus told regional news stations that the government had informed the Milosevic family that it would allow the family to attend "a private funeral."

According to the independent news agency Beta, an assistant prosecutor in Belgrade, Mira Ilic, said the state prosecution service had asked that a detention order for Ms. Markovic be annulled by the county court. The court was expected to take its decision on Tuesday morning.

She is believed to have been living in Moscow for the past three years, with her son. At the same time, pressure grew among Mr. Milosevic's supporters abroad for a further investigation into his death and more specifically the discovery of a drug normally prescribed for tuberculosis in his blood. Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said he had prepared a team of doctors to take part in the investigation under way by The Hague tribunal.

Russia had offered guarantees that if Mr. Milosevic could travel to Russia for treatment, he would later return to The Hague, Mr. Lavrov said.

"In essence, they did not trust Russia," he said. "This cannot help but disturb us. And it cannot help but alarm us that Slobodan Milosevic died shortly after that.

"Since they did not believe us, we also have the right not to believe and not to trust those performing the post-mortem examinations," he said. "We have requested that the tribunal allow our doctors to take part in the examination, or at the very least to peruse the results."

The Russians and Serbs have long had close relations, and much of the Milosevic family has worked or taken refuge in Moscow. The Russian general, Leonid G. Ivashov, who visited Milosevic in prison in The Hague and testified on his behalf, said in Moscow: "I suspect that one of the reasons the tribunal did not allow his trip to Russia was because in Moscow, they would discover what drugs he had been given by the prison doctors, and they were afraid of being exposed."

In Belgrade, Mr. Milosevic's supporters appeared already to have come to a similar conclusion that their former leader had been murdered. Outside the headquarters of the Socialist Party in Belgrade, party members queuing in the rain to sign a book of condolence messages had no doubts he had been deliberately poisoned.

"They slipped it into his food," said Gjorgje Stejic, a 51-year-old machine engineer. "I am sure he was killed. That's what all of us think."

A 74-year-old retired high school teacher, Kolja Tanakovic, said, "They didn't have the evidence to convict him and so they murdered him."

Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor at the tribunal, said at a news conference on Sunday before the autopsy result was released that she did not rule out suicide. She also said Mr. Milosevic had been thoroughly monitored by medical aides, and that it was "very strange, even if it is of course possible, that he should have died so suddenly without these medics having noticed a worsening of his condition."

The death of Mr. Milosevic sent shock waves through the tribunal, putting it on the defensive just as a defining moment in the history of the Yugoslav war crimes prosecutions appeared at hand. His death also raised a whole set of new issues for the United States and European Union, which had hoped that the conclusion of his four-year trial, with conviction widely expected, would help expedite resolution of other problems that are vestiges of Mr. Milosevic's catastrophic rule in the 1990's. A January report by the prison doctor that was disclosed Sunday by Zdenko Tomanovic, one of Mr. Milosevic's lawyers, said an antibiotic known as rifampicin, used to treat serious bacterial infections, like tuberculosis and leprosy, had been found in Mr. Milosevic's blood.

Marlise Simons contributed reporting from The Hague

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ivance, I almost thought that some sense came to you thinking that you said "mass shooting" and then I realized that that is just a hope for an uncorretable person like you to admit the fault for anything.

Anyway, I think your existence makes all of us Shqiptars (which happens to be the right spelling) happy since guys like Milosevic and you are going to destroy what's left of Serbia and save the world.

"Here is to the peace in Balkans without the tyrants. (Ooops sorry Ceku needs to join them as well)"

You should send some UDBA's to kill him perhaps, right?

Anonymous said...

Regarding the article, I am starting to think that Milosevic and some who are claiming that he was killed are right. It's likely that the custodians in the prison are Serbs, and wanted to save money for their government. THAT IS WHAT I CALL PATRIOTIC - killing a guy so the rest of the nation can eat.

However, I fear that your ass will still have to live like a dog for the next 40yrs. You gotta go kill more chetniks.

Anonymous said...

hey ivan

remember about seven-eight years ago when you saw us on the streets of Prishtina and called us "siptari."

can't way to repay the favor in Belgrade, shkavell.

Anonymous said...

Hey Ivance it is funny how you mentioned all these countries that cant stand us- yet it was they that bombed the shit out of you bitches- so stop the crap of who is loved less

Anonymous said...

Ivan, you are right. Shkijet are the sainteest people ever, they are so pure they make the pope look like a war criminal. You shkije, scum, are so holy that you throw bombs at Hungarians or should i use your bull fucking crap non-serbs term. Why don't you join either go to Hague or to hell...scum. This is the reason I want nothing to do with you or your terrorist country, full of scum. Let SERBIA burn, I don't give a shit. Let's see those flags move an inch, I want that homage to be paid.

I'm glad you like to analyze Albanians in slavic countries. I wonder how a shka (serb) is considered in Bosnia, Turkey, America, Arabia...etc.

"I know that civilization closed its eye when it had to do its work on you siptars, but you have to try to at least behave like humans."
Where the hell was Hitler to massacre your fucking scum race...that's the only thing I agree with him. All of you are scum, and until you learn to stop worshiping the devil you should be punished. God bless the innocent, and the free world.

Anonymous said...

Ivane,

I agree with you that stealing is immoral. No matter how long it takes, thieves are eventually found out, bombed shitless, and taken to Hague where they drug themselves to death on leprosy medicine. The property stolen, even if the theft happenned in the distant 1913, will be given back to its rightful owners.

P.S. You sent me into depression earlier when you said that Romanians, Bulgarians, and Greeks can't stand us. I'm still kinda gloomy.

Anonymous said...

you know how the çetniks seem to me right now, just like when you cut the head of the chicken and you let it go and it dances headless without any direction, that's serbia right now. for any non-albanian, non-serbian people in this blog that arehearing both sides of the argument, watch the movie "No man's land" (winner of numerous international awards) and you will get a clear picture of the serb mentality and just the kind of saints they are, and çetniks... and yes i know it's a movie but that really is the way çetniks are

Anonymous said...

If Albanians are so hated than why is almost every Western fictional representation of danger from the Balkans about Serbs? I was even playing Firestom Blackhawk with my friend's kid's Playstation and you know what one of the scenarios was: killing Serbs who were preventing food deliveries from getting to a Bosnian town. Prime Suspect's last series was about Serb war criminals and rapists. The Saint (made in 1997!) was about a Serb terrorist.

And as an American who lives in Kosovo I have never heard of Serbs called anything but war criminals. Now I have Serbian acquaintances who I never discuss politics with otherwise I wouldn't be friendly with them. Even the progressive ones will say how they actually lost more people in the wars than everyone else. To which I say next time don't start four wars my dears. Everyone else only had the one you see. It's that self-serving attitude of victimhood that turns the world against Serbia as much as anything else. Think about it. And go to Paris or London or New York and say you're a Serb. See what kind of reception you get. Or just walk to your old Foreign Ministry and take a good look at it or the old TV station take a hard look at that as well. That is what the international community thought of you. Of course I'm sure a few other racists and revisionists of the David Irving type will love you and I'm absolutely sure they will give you a warm welcome and quite frankly you should take them back with you to Serbia, make them Serbs and we will make sure they never get a visa out of the country again. And then all of us in the West will love you.

Also if you put them all in one spot in case we have to bomb you again that would be helpful

Anonymous said...

I should have said as an American who lives in Kosovo when I leave it I never hear of Serbs described as much more than war criminals.

Of course in Kosovo nobody even bothers talking about them anymore.

Anonymous said...

"Finally you agree that you did not get rid of NAzi mentality. Anyways it took Germany 50 years to be denazified, you should start working on it."

You are truely idiot. I never was a nazi, I just agree that Hitlers idea to get rid of the Slavics was pure genius. Even he knew of you scumish race...what do you expect of anything that comes out of russia? HAHAHA
Scum

pS
Im coming over for Milosevic's funeral.

Anonymous said...

Of course you like gypsy music, it doesnt have much difference with your music. We love gypsies like you in Kosova, we wont have custodians without you being in Kosova, thus this shows than we want Serbs/Gypsies back. PLEASE HELP

Anonymous said...

"You personally do hold the nazi genes. Dont forget that albania was an axis ally. A faithful Hitlers right hand, especially when it came to execute slavs."
You are truely an idiot!!! A dumb idiot, with lots of experience of being one.

Anonymous said...

Ivan,

You need to stop lying to yourself. First, I'm from NY and know quite well hardly anybody cares about Serbia and those who do recognize war criminals you are hence why the media sees Serb=war criminal.

And let me tell you something about Westerners. We are generally polite and unlike Serbs who let their racism show quite openly (I have never seen a more racist society myself) we keep our opinions to ourselves. Even the flaming racists. You may want to think about that.

Second, the lie that you treat Roma well won't hold. I've worked with Roma in Serbia (I lived in Belgrade as well) and Kosovo and Serbs treat them horribly go look by the train tracks to see who lives in those conditions. Who is picking the trash? Who endures taunts from your klinci? The Belgrade municipality had a policy to actually turn Roma out from their homes and of course there was the case of the Roma children who were beat up by human traffickers 2 summers ago and the police let the traffickers go because they thought it was just 'a gypsy fight' Serbia has one of the worst human rights on record when it comes to Roma and other minorities.

Also I could care less about the little bit of tourism you get. It is very little compared to anywhere else and only gets significant when you add in Montenegro. Even Sarajevo got it's fair share of crisis tourists back in the day. And who the hell wants to be in Belgrade in the summer and get swarmed the whole time by mosquitoes anyway. You should call it the malarial Danube.

But as Tim Judah says you Serbs live in a dreamland.

Anonymous said...

This is what I mean when I say you are truely an idiot. This what you said right here, "Now tell me who would want to come back when you still have a lot of retards claiming statement 2."

I would like you to find me only 50 "retards" that are Albanian..who are Nazi's. Don't count me in, I only agree with killing all slavics. In fact where the fuck do you think a lot of Jewish people escaped to? A lot of them found a good safe heaven in Kosova and Albania (during WW2)...maybe I should stop, you don't know what a safe heaven is...do you? You know, that place, that Srebenica place.

We are not Nazis, in fact my Jewish friends would way anyday support independence to us Muslims then you winning, and last time I checked the faith Juddaism has more in common with Orthodox-Christian then Muslims.

Anonymous said...

Right, Albanians are the bad ones. Even though I do agree that only 99% are bad people, I can tell you a good 80% hate Serbis. Our hate is not silly. It's not based on the color of skin Mir. Our is based on a century of racism, racial superiority, and mistreatment like a 2nd or 3rd rate citizens in our own country. You can't possibly ask Kosovars to love Serbs with open arms when your people support the people that burned our homes, killed and massacred by the hundreds, and burned our mosques. The people that want you dead, and kiss war-heros such as Mladic, Babic, and Slobodan Milosevic. You don't know what hate is becuase no one ever picked on you because of your faith, the Muslims in Middle-East were nice, not warmongers and criminals.

Anonymous said...

Dear Siptars,

I love you guys. You make me laugh and that's what the world needs, more clowns. There are not enough clowns in this world, and certainly not enough nationalist bullshit to go around, right? I read that you have claimed Alexander the great as an Albanian hero. i nearly died laughing - is this another attempt at killing the innocent through death by laughter? I mean after all you can't even afford a bowl of pasta - how can you afford a gun? Is your new weapon really bad humor? Please answer, I am curious. The only thing your country has offered the world is cheap prostitutes, and for this we thank you.

Now as for the issue in Kosovo, you my beloved Siptars are a sell out race, and here you are on your knees to the powers that be. "The Ottomans brought Islamisation with them, particularly in towns, and later also created the Viyalet of Kosovo as one of the Ottoman territorial entities. This brought a great shift, as the Orthodox population (Serbian, Bulgarian, and Greek) began to lose its majority when masses of Turks and Albanians (Muslims or Catholics) moved to Kosovo." You see know I know why you are muslim, it is from all the Turkish semon you ingested.

Best Regards,

Dino

Anonymous said...

Ivan, why the hell do you talk about a place you know squat about? I hate how shkijet love to ramble about something they have no clue. I name you racism and racial superiority, and you comeback with University of Science...do you even know what racism and racial superiority means?

Dino, I'm glad you want to kill all Albanians, and also had no education. This is the reason why I want my government to give education to every citizen, so they don't become like you.

Ivan you are so smart, I just love how you always forgett the fact of Kosovars being beaten, and killed, and kids being thrown out of school so serbian kids could have "better learning"...or better yet the Chetniks who were trigger friendly.
Keep playing victim...just so you know, your full of shit.

Anonymous said...

oh my god you're too funny, calling me uneducated in your poor spelling and horrible grammar. Did Alexander himself educate you? read my post over again, nowhere did I say I want to kill anyone. You guys are hilarious!! lololol

Anonymous said...

Ivan,

Very touching

Anonymous said...

Ivan you scum,
I am from Albania and i am following the developments very closely. I know that throwing mud is a traditional serbian game but in order to make things clear, Do you have ant official reports about all those killing and burnings that you are mentioning (beside serb media)?
At least you know that hurts to be on the spot.

Anonymous said...

Ivana you scum. You mention propaganda so well...yet you miss beating and things like Srebenica, and starting World Wars. Can you do me a favor? Next time you open your mouth, could you shut up?

Oh Dino, your education is showing.

Invana I am glad little kids 3-10 years old are throwing tiny little rocks at busses, OMG it must be so dramatic. Your crying over tiny little rocks..these are the people that kiss the pictures of Slobodan's...they should all go back to the Ural Mountains, with you included.

PS
Serbs throw bombs at Hungarians in Vojvodina, don't try that crap around me.

Anonymous said...

"We started ONE world war and lost a QUARTER of our entire population. You dont think Serbia payed the price for starting WW1?"

Hell no, Germany paid in Billions for it. Why do you think Germanies economy collapsed so bad? History shows us that Serbs are always the ones to provoke anyone. You start a war then you whine like a fucking bitch we lost these many people. It's called the price of war, why did you start it? He in fact I believe was a Croatian-Serb who wanted his territory to be included in Serbia (hint: Greater Serbia) and did something every serb had in mind, but he got lucky to kill the Archeduke of Austria-Hungary. He is the example of Slobodan Milosevic, he did something all Serbs dreamt off, it wasn't like he was doing something completely radical, but he knew nationalism would get him more support...so next time you hear Ivana or anyone else bitch about anything ask yourself, "who started the war, who was the aggressor?"

Japan hit America (Pearl Harbor), America nuked their ass. The reason America's actions aren't seen radical or bad is because they didn't start it.

Anonymous said...

"We're not talking about Germany's losses but Serbias. Germany/Austria were the ones that DECLARED war so If you want to be technical about it they formally started WW1."

I don't think you understand the seriousness here. Your compadre assassinated the Archduke. I've heard people say that Germany probably paid him just so they could enter a war..I don't believe it. The Versaill agreement put all the blame on Germany, and made Germany pay huge money, put all blame, and Germans lost lands. All because that guy killed the archduke. Now if your fellow compadre didn't kill him history would be so much better.

You do know that America is allowed to use the nuclear bomb right? If it wasn't it wouldn't be allowed to make more...But since America is so strong and they own the UN no one can do squat about it. Do you think RUSSIA is going to step up to America? Last time I checked they were getting foodstamps from America.

Anonymous said...

Mir, it was Austria-Hungary that gave Serbia 24/48 Hour ultamatum, to give the criminal in their hands. It was serbias fault not to hand over such a criminal..WHY DO U THINK SERBIA DIDNT GIVE THEM THAT PUNK???? Because Serbia supported his actions 110%. If Serbia gave him up you would have a war in SERBIA of the 99% NATIONALIST that are dying for GREATER SERBIA. Germany backed up A+H to invade Serbia. You are trying to blame Germany that it was their fault, it wasn't. Yes they were itchying to fight but it wasn't like all of a sudden they decided to just invade countries without a reason. If serbia didnt want to lose 25% of its population then why didnt it hand over the criminal who did his work in the name of serbia?? All those people die and serbia gets away without one fine, without nothing. Serbia should have been punished badly.

If I go to belgrade kill 25 serbs in the name of Greater Kosova..and hide in albania..then serbia request my return from albania and ALBANIA refuses this or even the idea of punishing me. Then serbia decides to invade Albania but kosova starts to invade serbia and wins..its still albanias fault MAINLY for STARTING THE WAR. I can't say germans aren't guilty for killing so many people..they are, but serbs started the war.

Anonymous said...

God. You guys all sound like a bunch of little children squabbling on a playground. Is it any wonder your corner of the world is such a mess?

Anonymous said...

Dam straight Mir, tell the Yank

Darko