Serbia to pay Milosevic, fellow suspects at Hague

Haaretz ^ | 3/30/2004 | Reuters

[yonif]

BELGRADE - Slobodan Milosevic and other war crimes indictees will be paid by the Serbian taxpayer for as long as they are on trial at the Hague tribunal, under controversial legislation adopted by parliament on Tuesday.

The bill, proposed by ultranationalists and backed by Milosevic's Socialist Party, was adopted with ease on the eve of an annual U.S. ruling on whether Serbia is cooperating with the court and can continue receiving aid.

Opponents said it was a poorly-disguised gesture of defiance to the West and a payoff to Socialists for their backing of the minority government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, a longtime critic of the United Nations tribunal.

Diplomats expect U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell will not be able to certify Belgrade's compliance, triggering suspension of aid worth some e50 million this year.

"If he decides that certification is not possible tomorrow it does not close the possibility that certification might be possible some time in the future," visiting U.S. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman said after talks with Kostunica.

In 2002, the aid was frozen for almost two months.

New attitude to The Hague The new law provides all Serbian war crimes indictees at the UN tribunal with compensation for lost salaries, plus help to spouses, siblings, parents and children for flight and hotel costs, telephone and mail bills, visa fees and legal charges.

Embraced by Kostunica's conservatives, the bill marks a first step in "two-way" cooperation with The Hague, his policy for redressing what he views as abject obedience in the past. "This is a sign that Serbia is changing its attitude to the Hague Tribunal," said acting Radical leader Tomislav Nikolic.

The past government of pro-Western reformists had treated all those who were not part of the anti-Milosevic movement as "war criminals...and...their families as enemies," he said.

A fellow Radical told parliament that compensation was meant to help "people who are guilty only of being Serbs".

Opposition Democrats had urged parliament to see the bill for what it was - a pro-Milosevic snub to the West.

"This is payback for (Socialist) support for the minority government," said outgoing foreign minister Goran Svilanovic. "What Radicals want is for the state to pay Slobodan Milosevic."

He reminded deputies that most Serbs in the Hague process, though not Milosevic, already got financial help from the state.

Ex-president Milosevic is mid-way through his genocide trial and ex-president Milan Milutinovic is waiting his turn along with Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, whose deputy Nikolic is front-runner in presidential elections expected this summer.

The West would regard his victory as disastrous for Serbia.

So while the United States continues to press Belgrade to hand over 16 indictees to The Hague - fugitive former Bosnian Serb Army commander General Ratko Mladic tops the list - it is also anxious to give Kostunica's month-old government a chance.

Whether Washington views the new law as a provocation or a necessary move to placate nationalist voters remains to be seen.

[vooch]

or the guys on the top of the hills surrounding Sarajevo who shelled and sniped civilians

1) the unelected Iztbegovic regime refused safe passage for civilians to leave Sarajevo thereby committing War Crimes.

and

2) on numerous occasions Iztbegovic forces were caught firing upon their own civilians. French Paratroopers, British Army, and UN observers all concluded that Iztbegovic shot its own civilains for PR effect.

==============

Stop parroting Jihadist Lies and you'll be better off.

[vooch]

It's a RICO operation from the get go set up

It is unelected the Iztbegovic Regime which embelezzed almost $ 5 BILLION of aid........

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Given a choice between backing scumbags who murder 7000 people in an act of internationally recognized genocide, on the one hand and backing scumbags who steal money, on the other, I'll take the thieves.

[vooch]

Tell us please about how an eight year old girl of my acquaintance who watched her aunt have her throat slit by Serb paramilitaries

Ronly Only Jones....................you speak the local language ?

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Fluent Russian; enough to read Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian. The gal spoke excellent English.

[vooch]

I thought you only saw 4000 "with my own eyes"

RB you are so full of it...........it is pathetic the whining, the repeated parroting of the most transparent Jihadist lies..............

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

It's the truth. And you know it. Which is why you have to fall back on that lame-ass "You're a JIHADIST!" chant. It's like the sheep in "Animal Farm" bleating, "Four legs good, two legs bad," except in the case of Freeper Serbocrazies, the sheep are the wolves.

[FormerLib]

But when you guys say that that was what Arkan the accursed was up to, or Mladic, or the guys on the top of the hills surrounding Sarajevo who shelled and sniped civilians...

Clearly you haven't been paying attention or you'd know that I have never done any of that.

However, that some Serbs may have acted this way is no reason to drive them from their homes, as was done in the Krajina and has been done for decades in Kosovo, to rape them, kill them, behead them, burn Christian churches and urinate on the desecrated wreckage, and despoil Serb cemeteries.

But you, Bonly-boy, have never once condemned any specific past or present act against any Serb whatsoever. You can fool yourself by making sweeping statements about how you don't support genocide against anyone....but you can't bring yourself to condemn any specific acts against any Serb.

I, and many others on this board, believe it is because you can't bring yourself to even fake being opposed to such acts so long as Serbs are the victims.

You're as big a waste of time as you are of good oxygen.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

But you, Bonly-boy, have never once condemned any specific past or present act against any Serb whatsoever. You can fool yourself by making sweeping statements about how you don't support genocide against anyone....but you can't bring yourself to condemn any specific acts against any Serb.>>>

How's this.

Nobody should have their home burned. Nobody should have their daughters raped, their fridges stolen, their towns ethnically cleansed, their people starved to death. I condemn it as thoroughly as if it were against Serbs as against Muslims.

Yes, I condemn ethnic cleansing against Serbs.

I also blame Serbian nationalists for starting the whole thing. These two positions are NOT mutually incompatable. If the Arkan Tigers and other paramilitaries (made up of barbarians and thieves) had stayed home in 1992, the Serbs of Prstina and elsewhere would probably not be having the difficulties they are today.

It's like Bill Mauldin said in his classic book Up Front, about the Italians in WW2. (I'm paraphrasing, but the general idea is there): "I want to feel sorry for these poor folk, who are about the same as a dog that's been hit by a car--but the dog was known for biting the tires of moving cars, and it's hard to feel too sorry for a critter that put itself in that position."

But when Serbocrazies like you (collective, and look again at my last post, I used the plural) claim that Serbians are so put upon by the whole world (while calling the Albanians animals and worse and calling Srebrenica's massacre both a lie and a triumph at the same time) then you get damned little sympathy.

[FormerLib]

The pathetic fool still doesn't realized he's chosen to back folks who've murdered thousands and stolen millions, and sold children into sex slavery, and trafficed in tons of narcotics...

Or maybe he does realize and he's getting a cut. Sounds most likely, all in all.

Wonder how big a cut CAIR gets?

[FormerLib]

I also blame Serbian nationalists for starting the whole thing.

What an IDIOT!

That just happens to be WHEN you learned of it, fool! Attempting to blame one side more than the other means you are approving of what the other side does in response.

And as I noted, you attempt to fool yourself by making sweeping statements about how they should all just get along and then prove them to be a lie with specifics about Kosovo being Serbian "no mo'!", or ethnic cleansing is "moving to a nicer neighborhood", or drek about squashing the Serb Republic "like a bug" and pretending that this wouldn't result in your loving Muhammedans murdering thousands more.

[joan]

She easily could have been lying about the whole situation. Bosniaks have been caught in big lies. There was the story of the Bosnian woman who's son was killed after the war and she blamed the Serbs. Later it was found out he had been murdered by his wife, her daughter-in-law. She was so embarrassed she returned to Bosnia. (crazykatz, a Freeper, told that story on here):

I know what you mean...I have experienced the "BIG BAD SERB" story on occasion myself.

One story which was told to me by a woman in her fifties..OH, the Serbs killed her son....took him out and murdered him in cold blood.Stab him in the back!! Cut his throat....did horrible things to his body!! This was done AFTER the war though...in Republic of Serbia, she said.

Her son went back to their village to see their old house and got killed by its NEW residents ...the Serbs.

Here's the REAL STORY according to the papers she filed with group that re-settles refugees in the west.

It seems that her daughter-in-law is now sitting in prison in Sarajevo for murderering this woman's son. In fact, she paid some guys to help her kill him. The mother and father got to come to the USA because they no longer could bear to live without their son and were ashamed of how his wife killed him. They needed help and the USA was the place to go....plus their ONLY surviving child was there...a married daughter.

Well, this story of husband-a-cide checks out according to the agency.

NOT ONE SERB involved in this murder....NOT one. Just a wicked Bosnian woman who wanted her hubby dead... so she could marry his old "war time" buddy!!

I tell you, I have heard some sob stories before, but this one takes the cake...your's is pretty rank too!

40 posted on 01/11/2002 7:33:17 PM PST by crazykatz

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/606479/posts#40

Gamaliel's comments have been removed from that thread, but he knew a woman with a severely injured/burned hand, which she blamed on the Serbs. That story turned out to be false too. She was involved in a firecracker incident before the war.

[FormerLib]

If the Arkan Tigers and other paramilitaries (made up of barbarians and thieves) had stayed home in 1992, the Serbs of Prstina and elsewhere would probably not be having the difficulties they are today.

It's like Bill Mauldin said in his classic book Up Front, about the Italians in WW2. (I'm paraphrasing, but the general idea is there): "I want to feel sorry for these poor folk, who are about the same as a dog that's been hit by a car--but the dog was known for biting the tires of moving cars, and it's hard to feel too sorry for a critter that put itself in that position."--Ronly Bonly bin Laden

And there we have clearly stated what Ronly Bonly bin Laden has been implying via his postings all of this time: There once was a bad man named Arkan who did bad things to Muslims (as well as to Serbs or anyone else who got in his way, but that's not important right now).

He was an evil Serb.

Because of this, Ronly Bonly bin Laden cannot bring himself to feel sorry for any crimes visited upon any Serb any place until the end of time because they are the same ethnic group as the criminal named Arkan.

Of course, this will not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention.

[FormerLib]

Gee, guess those must have been some fascinating responses, eh?

[wonders]

You Freeper Serbonazi

Please explain your reason for calling me this name, if you can. Freeper is fine. Serbonazi???

[FormerLib]

Please explain your reason for calling me this name, if you can. Freeper is fine. Serbonazi???

Did Ol'BJ ever give you an answer on this one or did he tuck tail and run as per usual?

Anyway, "Serbonazi" is the name he uses for anyone who would dare acknowledge that the Serbs have any right to a sovereign nation or any right to defend themselves. Heck, he'd probably be OK with the Muslims selling them off as chattel slaves again.

[wonders]

Did Ol'BJ ever give you an answer

Of course he didn't :^)