POLITICS-YUGOSLAVIA: Foreign Nationals Face Charges Of Terrorism

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Aug 15 2000 (IPS) - In the last two weeks, the Serbian public has learnt about two groups of eight foreigners, allegedly involved in a plot to kidnap or kill president Slobodan Milosevic and destablise the country.

Information Minister, Goran Matic, said recently that the first group consisted of four Dutch nationals and the second group included two Britons and two Canadians.

All were arrested and await formal charges to be brought against them.

Matic said recently that the four Dutch nationals were arrested at the border with Montenegro while trying to enter Serbia. He said the men were equipped with arms and ammunition. Serbia and Montenegro make up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).

He said the arrests took place ahead of the G8 summit in Okinawa, which began on July 21. The Dutch wanted to “deliver a Serbian head to the summit”, the head of president Slobodan Milosevic, he added.

A film clip of the four men was shown on government-controlled Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) on July 31. The men were interviewed and said they wanted to “claim a reward” from The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

“Our plan was to kidnap him (Milosevic) when we meet him or to kill him and transport the body abroad, in the ski trunk of a car”, one of the Dutch men said.

Milosevic and four top Yugoslav officials have been indicted by the ICTY for war crimes in Kosovo. Last year, the US offered a reward of five million US dollars to anyone who helped bring them before the ICTY.

The Dutch nationals are presently serving a 30 day sentence for illegal entry into FRY. They face investigation in front of the Belgrade district court later this week. Further charges will be decided then.

Ivan Markovic, Yugoslav telecommunications minister and one of the highest officials of the regime, said on Aug 1 that the aim of four was to “kill the symbol of our state, Slobodan Milosevic, and cause chaos at this important moment”.

Similar statements were repeatedly carried for days by RTS, in interviews with other top government figures. “The people know what is for them – to rally behind their president, their state,” said Buba Morina, another minister in Yugoslav government.

Yugoslavia goes to the presidential, federal and local elections on Sept 24. These are viewed as a referendum on a decade of rule by Milosevic, who seeks re-election, having amended the constitution hastily to allow him to take part.

On Aug 1, military police arrested two Britons and two Canadians in the border zone of Montenegro and Serbia. Knives, wires and some mining equipment was found in their car. The army said they were planning “terrorist activities and organising armed groups”, a move that could “destabilise the country”.

The four will appear before the military court in Belgrade by the end of the month. They were working in the UN-run province of Kosovo and claim to have been returning from a holiday in Montenegro when arrested.

Both cases have been widely exploited by the state controlled- media as “another effort by Western countries to undermine the authorities here”, as Minister Matic and other members of Yugoslav government repeatedly put it.

Independent analysts here point out that the bizarre and unclear cases coincide with the rising tensions in the country, where all the public opinion surveys say that Milosevic could lose the forthcoming elections for the first time in 10 years.

Five opinion polls in July have shown that people place economic recovery as the most important criteria in choosing who to vote for.

Due to wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, two rounds of international economic sanctions and last year’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, air raids, the country is at the poorest economic level in its history.

At the same time, the Milosevic family and his associates have became rich by the breaching of sanctions and creating of monopolies over several still alive economic segments.

“The regime is trying to create the ‘state of siege mentality’ in one of its last efforts to rally people behind it,” Belgrade analyst, Bratislav Grubacic, told IPS.

“The elections are seen as the most important test in the past 10 years and Milosevic can not afford to lose. That is why the eight murky foreigners can be used for different purposes,” Grubacic adds.

“It’s not ICTY Milosevic is afraid of. It’s the question of responsibility over the whole situation his own people are going to pose in front of him,” he explained.

Voja Zanetic, communications expert, warned that this is the third time the authorities have accused someone of attempting to destabilise the regime in less than a year.

“First there was “Wasp”, then there was “Spider”, now it’s someone else, but without the name of insect” he said.

“Wasp” was a group of eight Serbs accused earlier this year of trying to undermine the government through armed uprising. They were sentenced to long prison terms in May.

“Spider” is a terrorist-spy group made out of Serbs working for France, accused at first for trying to kill Milosevic.

The charges were later turned into terrorism only. The “Spider” group is still on trial.

Gradimir Nalic from the Yugoslav Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights says that “the foreigners can be a good trump card (for the regime to use) whenever the(y) want to”.

“Whatever their reasons or motives were (of the foreigners) or were not, they simply fell into the hands of the regime at the right moment”.

“The authorities will wait to see the reactions among people here and within governments abroad, before they bring charges against the eight,” says Nalic. “The trials could be set for next month, ahead of the elections, with the message to the public – see, the country is full of enemies.

Or, if seen as worthless in the regime’s campaign, the charges could not be brought at all”.

Although the arrests caused comments in public for a while, many ordinary people simply dismissed them as nothing serious.

“It is simply ridiculous to believe that anyone can meet Milosevic in the street, let alone kidnap him or put his body into a ski trunk,” Zoran Miljanic (34), a Belgrade engineer said.

International personnel working in Kosovo have residence there and need Yugoslav visas to enter FRY. Since April this year, all the international organisations have warned their staff to be aware of the situation and not leave the province, because they risk arrest by Yugoslav authorities.

“Well, those four (Britons and Canadians) from Kosovo got what they asked for,” Ljiljana Stojanovic, a 40 year old Belgrade housewife said.

“Although – fuses and equipment for stone quarries do not look like terrorism to me. And for the Dutch – I wonder how in their sane minds they imagined to do what they said they planned. No one here knows where Milosevic resides, let alone sees him in public,” she added.