Posted on 03/12/2003 4:20:18 PM PST by DeaconBenjamin
A former commander of a special police unit led the group which assassinated Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the government alleges.
In a statement the government said the commander, Milorad Lukovic who is better known as Legija, was among 20 suspects.
The pro-reform, pro-Western leader was shot in the stomach and in the back outside government offices in Belgrade at about 1300 local time (1200 GMT), and died of his wounds in hospital.
Acting Serbian President Natasa Micic has declared a state of emergency under which some civil rights can be curtailed and the army takes over police duties.
"The assassination on Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was an attempt by this group to halt the fight against organised crime," the government statement said.
Mourning
Police carrying machine-guns sealed off the area, searching cars and checking passengers. All bus, rail and plane traffic in and out of Belgrade has also been halted.
Earlier, unconfirmed reports say two people have been arrested.
The Serbian cabinet, which observed a minute's silence when it met for crisis talks after the attack, has declared three days' mourning.
"This criminal act is an absolutely clear attempt by those who have tried to prevent Serbian development and its democratic process with assassinations in the past, to change the course of history and isolate Serbia yet again," said Nebojsa Covic, a deputy prime minister.
Correspondents say the assassination of the prime minister heralds the start of turbulent days for Serbia, leaving the country with a potentially dangerous political power vacuum.
Mrs Micic told Serbian Radio she declared the state of emergency "with the aim of safeguarding the security of people and property and engaging in a determined show-down of the state bodies with organized crime".
She urged people to remain calm but said the state of emergency would remain in place until the killers were brought to justice.
'Bad day for the Balkans'
Vojislav Kostunica, former Yugoslav president and long a rival of Mr Djindjic, said he was appalled by the attack.
"The fact that political violence is happening... is a terrible warning about how little headway we have made on the path of real democratisation of our society," he said just before Mr Djindjic's death was confirmed.
Europe has lost a friend... who fought hard for democracy European Union
The European Union expressed shock and dismay at the assassination, with Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the EU presidency, sending condolences to Mr Djindjic's family "and to entire Serb people".
"Europe has lost a friend... who fought hard for democracy," an EU statement said.
Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, a former adviser to EU High Representative to Bosnia Carl Bildt, paid tribute to Mr Djindjic.
"This is a really bad day for the Balkans, and it's a really bad day for Serbia," she said.
"Here was a man who more than any other single figure stood for the reform process, and... it now throws all the cards in the air."
The prime minister's wife Ruzica was seen in tears at the city's Military Medical Academy where her husband died.
Enemies
On 21 February Mr Djindjic survived what he said was an assassination bid when a lorry swung into the path of his motorcade as he was travelling to Belgrade airport.
He later dismissed the incident as a "futile effort" which could not stop democratic reforms.
Correspondents say that Mr Djindjic, 50, made many enemies over his career as a pro-democracy campaigner and then as Serbia's prime minister.
He was pivotal in arresting and handing Mr Milosevic over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague in June 2001.
The move opened the way to international aid to the then Yugoslavia.
Committed campaigner
Zoran Djindjic was born in Bosanski Samac, Bosnia, the son of a Yugoslav People's Army officer.
CATALOGUE OF VIOLENCE March 2003: Serbian premier Zoran Djindjic shot dead Feb 2003: Djindjic says attempt made on his life June 2000: Serb opposition leader Vuk Draskovic survives shooting May 2000: Goran Zugic, national security adviser to pro-West Montenegrin president, shot dead October 1999: Draskovic survives road accident "assassination attempt"
He graduated from Belgrade University's philosophy faculty, but was jailed by Yugoslavia's Communist leader Josip Broz Tito in 1974 for trying to organise an independent students' group.
After his release, he went to West Germany and earned a PhD in philosophy.
Spurning the Communists, he returned to Belgrade in 1989 and co-founded the Democratic Party, joining other reformists to campaign against the authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milosevic.
After fleeing to Serbia's sister republic Montenegro during the Nato air strikes on Yugoslavia in 1999, Mr Djindjic returned to Belgrade to form the DOS movement with 17 other parties.
Their new street crusade for democracy culminated in the overthrow of Mr Milosevic after he refused to accept election defeat.
Precisely.
Your post *nails* the French double standard. When it was Chirac urging on a war against the Serbs, the media was silent about a lack of UN approval.
But now today, the French insist that the U.S. gain UN approval for waging war on Iraq.
And while the media is clearly not silent about the new French demand for UN approval, it is still silent about the French double-standard for war...
You're missing the point.
There is no "double standard."
There are no standards!
Modern politics
is about people doing
what they want to do
by any means there.
It's about managed "assets."
(That is, media.)
To think "principles"
or "history" or "values"
is to live a dream.
The only people
who try to live out dogma
are the terrorists
who've made fringe Islam
their defining principles.
When the terrorists
are crushed, the whole world
will be defined by the whims
of the suits in charge.
intelligence in this case is kind of misnomer. That "intelligence" estimated number of Tutsis that will be killed 500 and 500,000. It was over 1 million.
Factor of error was 2000x!
Those guys are more experienced in drug imoprtation than analysis.
The fact that it may have been Chirac who called publically for airstrikes is about as meaningful as saying Gavrilo Princip was the cause of World War One. The reality was taht the stage was being prepared once the famous 'break out' of Sarajevo in early 1995 failed massively, despite US and German backing. Total support for Izebegovic was shown clearly when the Serbs gave up Mts. Igman and Bjelisnica, which the UN promptly let the BosMos forces cross at will and without any credible threat of punishment. X.42 was apoplectic not because he didn't want to bomb the Serbs, but because it didn't follow his own carefully scripted plan for Bosnia and that it was some smelly frenchman telling him that he was an appeaser.
This article is just shallow, ignorant and retains the strong smell of horse urine.
VRN
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