BELGRADE, Feb 13 (Hina) - Reactions of parties of the ruling coalition in Serbia (DOS - the Democratic Opposition of Serbia) imply that the trail against Slobodan Milosevic was needed. Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic said the trial was
the beginning of "a mammoth process", and that it was "hard to discuss something in a legal procedure that is a part of history", which will be "very difficult for the tribunal". Head of the DOS bench in Serbian parliament, Cedomir Jovanovic of the Democratic Party, believes the trial will remove collective responsibility from the people, while the party's deputy president, Boris Tadic, said it would have been better if Milosevic was tried before domestic courts, even though he was aware that this was not possible. "Everyone accused of war crimes should go before the tribunal so that a potential anathema can be removed from the Serb people. This goes for all peoples in the former Yugoslavia",
BELGRADE, Feb 13 (Hina) - Reactions of parties of the ruling
coalition in Serbia (DOS - the Democratic Opposition of Serbia)
imply that the trail against Slobodan Milosevic was needed.
Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic said the trial was the beginning of
"a mammoth process", and that it was "hard to discuss something in a
legal procedure that is a part of history", which will be "very
difficult for the tribunal".
Head of the DOS bench in Serbian parliament, Cedomir Jovanovic of
the Democratic Party, believes the trial will remove collective
responsibility from the people, while the party's deputy
president, Boris Tadic, said it would have been better if Milosevic
was tried before domestic courts, even though he was aware that this
was not possible. "Everyone accused of war crimes should go before
the tribunal so that a potential anathema can be removed from the
Serb people. This goes for all peoples in the former Yugoslavia",
Tadic said.
The Social Democratic Union of Serbian deputy prime minister Zarko
Korac believes the trial against Milosevic is "a process of public
sobering", and advocates the extradition of all accused in Serbia
and Montenegro. The party's executive committee chairman, Vlatko
Sekulovic, told a press conference the trial was "the final
establishment of responsibility of one key actor of the tragedy of
South-Slav peoples". "I am deeply confident that Milosevic was
responsible for hundreds of killed, injured, demolished towns and
destroyed families", he added. Serbs are also Milosevic's victims,
and condemning Serbia and Yugoslavia for war operations means
"condemning people to decades in poverty and misery which could
result only in movements such as the one of Milosevic, which was the
national and socialist movement", Sekulovic said.
The Social Democratic League of Nenad Canak believes the trial
against Milosevic is "the beginning of revealing individual
responsibility for immeasurable crimes committed during three wars
in the former Yugoslavia", and that the trial needs to precisely
answer "whom by and with which aim were these crimes planned and
committed, and who did and with which aim justify and celebrate
these crimes, and who did not and why they did not prevent these
crimes", he added.
Mentioned in the tribunal's Trial Chamber yesterday, Borislav
Jovic told the Glas javnosti daily he did not watch the broadcast of
the trial and did not know he was mentioned. "I know I was among
those who, I believe, are under investigation, but I really don't
know whether the investigation is over on not", Jovic said. Also
mentioned Vojislav Seselj has not yet commented on the issue.
Milosevic's socialists are adamant that Milosevic is a victim, and
that the trial against their chief is "a trail against the entire
Serb people".
(Hina) np sb