Posted on 03/16/2003 7:25:29 PM PST by Dragonfly
Sunday, March 16, 2003 - 12:44 a.m. Pacific
Serbian assassination tied to Western pressure
By Steven Erlanger--- The New York Times
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro — The sniper assassination last week of Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian prime minister so highly praised by Western leaders, is a reminder that nation building can easily be derailed, especially when outside nations make heavy political demands on fragile post-tyrannical states.
In some ways, many Serbs say, the West squeezed Djindjic to death in a too-tight embrace of specific demands for reform and extradition of war criminals, and tied the delivery of desperately needed foreign aid to those conditions.
Djindjic, no saint, made deals with various Serbian devils, both war criminals and ordinary criminals, in organizing the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000.
The Serbian popular revolt against Milosevic that year would probably not have succeeded without Djindjic and his shadowy relationship with an officer of Milosevic's paramilitary police, Milorad Lukovic, known as Legija. And it was Legija, the next spring, who carried out Djindjic's orders to arrest Milosevic.
Now Djindjic is dead, with Legija leading a list of various criminals sought by the panicked authorities for organizing the killing. Serbia's new democrats, many of them complicit in the old regime, are arresting scores of people under a state of emergency that has already put restrictions on the news media.
But what could have turned Legija so murderously against Djindjic? For many Serbs, the answer is The Hague, where there is a growing list of Serbs wanted by the international prosecutor to stand trial, along with Milosevic himself, before the international war-crimes tribunal.
Milosevic was arrested because Djindjic needed millions of dollars in U.S. aid that was made dependent on an arrest before April 2001.
The following June, just before an international donors' meeting, Djindjic sent Milosevic off to The Hague in defiance of his country's constitutional court and without informing the Yugoslav president of the time.
Another such deadline is approaching, and again U.S. and other Western aid depends on a new list of those who must be arrested and transferred. This list includes the infamous Bosnian Serb military leader Gen. Ratko Mladic and the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
But the prosecutor in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte, has a longer list, and among those on it is understood to be Legija himself, who has been accused of war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia.
A shaken Serbian government, now led by an acting prime minister, Nebojsa Covic, is blaming organized crime, which has long worked hand in hand with the police, as it did with the old regime — and, according to the Serbian press, with Djindjic, too.
Legija is said to have strong connections with an organized-crime group called the Zemun Clan, and Djindjic had spoken openly about cracking down on the group.
Djindjic himself had many complicated business interests, with reputed connections to the underworld, and many Serbs saw him as an elegant kingpin turned politician.
Covic, defending the crackdown, called the Djindjic slaying "a clear attempt by those who have been trying to stop the development of Serbia and its democratization, to change the course of history, to isolate and turn Serbia into the kingdom of organized crime again."
But there are larger questions about the price the prosecutors at The Hague — and behind them, the leaders of the United States and Europe — are asking from a shaky democratic leadership of a poor and corrupted state. Western notions of guilt and innocence, already perceived as "victor's justice" by many in the Balkans, have put enormous strain on the fledgling democratic governments of Croatia and Montenegro, too.
And the mess that Serbia remains — surely to worsen now — is also a form of indictment, many Serbs say, of the West and of the United States, which, they claim, wins its wars but refuses to engage in sustained nation-building.
The stress of the West's demands, some in Serbia feel, is part of the nexus of reactions that led to Djindjic's killing. With his death, however, the West is much less likely than before to get the alleged war criminals it wants to The Hague.
The achievement of a negotiated independence for Kosovo, which depends on agreement from Belgrade, will be more difficult. And the career of a tough but promising politician, a Westernizer who wanted to bring Serbia into Europe and not sink back into defensive nationalism, has been cut down.
Bratislav Grubacic, a Serbian political analyst, said: "Carla del Ponte comes every few months waving lists of suspects, and there has been a lot of pressure on Djindjic and the government from Washington and Brussels to send these people, like Legija, to the Hague. I think that's what this murder is all about: These guys helped Djindjic and the democrats come to power, but thought he was betraying them."
The Serbs thought Milosevic would satisfy The Hague, but there were more and more investigations and lists, Grubacic said. "And these guys said to themselves, 'OK, we sent Milosevic, but we're not sending ourselves.' "
Covic himself cited "constant pressure" to send suspects to The Hague. "If one puts too much emphasis on these kinds of things," he said, "then you get counterproductive effects."
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.
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