← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sisyfos
Thread ID: 5504 | Posts: 10 | Started: 2003-03-12
2003-03-12 21:51 | User Profile
[SIZE=3]Serbian prime minister assassinated[/SIZE]
The Associated Press Originally published March 12, 2003, 1:36 PM EST
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro -- Serbia's prime minister -- who spearheaded the revolt that toppled former President Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000 -- was assassinated today by gunmen who ambushed him outside government headquarters.
Zoran Djindjic, 50, died of his wounds in a Belgrade hospital after being shot in the abdomen and back, said Nebojsa Covic, a deputy prime minister. Police sources told the Associated Press that snipers firing from a building across from the government headquarters shot Djindjic as he left his car. A high-power bullet left a dent on Djindjic's armored car.
Two suspects were arrested, witnesses said. But police, unsure whether they had the gunmen, cast a wide net for the assassins, setting up roadblocks in Belgrade and halting bus, rail and plane traffic from the capital.
Acting Serbian President Natasa Micic, citing "a danger for constitutional order," imposed a nationwide state of emergency, giving the military the same powers as police to detain suspects and investigate.
**Djindjic had many enemies because of his pro-reformist and Western stands.
He was blasted by Serbian nationalists for leading the popular revolt that toppled Milosevic, then handing him over for trial before the U.N. war crimes tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands. Djindjic recently promised to try to arrest Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb military commander and the No. 2 fugitive sought by the tribunal, thought to be hiding in Serbia.**
The tribunal is handling alleged war crimes committed during the wars that erupted during the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
[color=blue]*Whatever the actual motives for the assassination, I recommend David Irvingââ¬â¢s ââ¬ÅNuremberg, the Last Battleââ¬Â to those who still think that the spawning of War Crimes statutes was anything other than a bastard procurement exercise -- compatible with man only as concerning his hypocrisy. If Serbs had a problem with Milosevicââ¬â¢s methods and thought his acts disgraceful to their nation they could have tried him in Belgrade and punished him in any manner deemed appropriate once he was deposed. Selling him off as a piece of meat (albeit an expensive one since he went for 1.2 billion) was a national disgrace. The trial in Hague is another -- this time an international disgrace given NATOââ¬â¢s flagrant violations of similar statutes. * [/color]
Djindjic was also engaged in a bitter political feud with his former ally Vojislav Kostunica, who stepped down as Yugoslav president earlier this month after the formation of a new state, Serbia and Montenegro.
Djindjic also was squaring off with the nation's powerful organized crime figures, declaring open war on rampant smuggling of contraband goods and women.
[color=blue]This, too, be intriguing, non?[/color]
The assassination heralds turbulent days for Serbia. A bitter power struggle for Djindjic's successor could affect cooperation with West, particularly over the arrest and surrender of indicted war crimes suspects.
Djindjic appeared to have been targeted last month, when a truck suddenly cut into the lane in which his motorcade was heading to Belgrade's airport. The motorcade narrowly avoided a collision, and Djindjic later dismissed the Feb. 21 alleged assassination attempt as a "futile effort" that could not stop democratic reforms.
After today's shooting, the Cabinet held an emergency session, declaring three days of mourning.
"This criminal act is a clear attempt by those who in the past have tried to stop Serbia's progress and democratization by assassinations to change the course of history and once again isolate Serbia and turn it into a criminals' haven," Covic said.
Otpor, or Resistance, an independent pro-democracy group, said the shooting means "criminals have won the battle" in Serbia.
President Bush expressed his condolences. Djindjic "will be remembered for his role in bringing democracy to Serbia and for his role in bringing Slobodan Milosevic to justice," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
[color=blue]Me thinks Ari means that he will be remebered for his role as a willing vendor.[/color]
Police carrying machine guns and clad in bulletproof vests stopped traffic in downtown Belgrade, searching cars and checking passengers. Police also took up positions in front of key government buildings and the central post office. The hospital where Djindjic was taken had been blocked by police, and Djindjic's sobbing wife, Ruzica, was seen being led away from the hospital building.
Djindjic saw Serbia's fate as linked to the West and favored greater cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal, where Milosevic now is standing trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Djindjic's feud with Kostunica since the two jointly toppled Milosevic had virtually paralyzed the country's much-needed economic and social reforms.
Kostunica said today that while he disagreed with Djindjic on many issues, the assassination was "awful ... this shows how little we have done to democratize society." He told B-92 radio that the killing was "a warning to look ourselves in the eye and ask how much crime has permeated all the pores of society."
Djindjic was often criticized by his opponents for seeking too much power and for "mercilessly" combating his political rivals.
A German-educated technocrat known to supporters as "The Manager" for his organizational skills and as "Little Slobo" to his detractors for his authoritarian tendencies, Djindjic nonetheless managed to gain some political capital from his willingness to surrender Milosevic despite a constitutional ban on extraditing Serbian citizens.
Though derided for his fondness for big cars and flashy suits, Djindjic's trade of Milosevic for $1.2 billion in international economic aid appeared to have won respect from people desperate to improve a living standard that ranks among the lowest in Europe.
[color=blue]Traders, sycophants and ignoramuses, but apparently not nationalists. [/color]
Born in 1952 into the family of a Yugoslav army officer in the town of Bosanski Samac near the Bosnian border, Djindjic was raised and educated in Belgrade.
In the early 1970s he enrolled in the School of Philosophy at Belgrade University, a hotbed of liberal opposition to the Communist regime. In 1977, he left to earn a doctorate in philosophy at Heidelberg, Germany.
Djindjic took active part in all protests against Milosevic's rule since 1991. He became Democratic Party president in 1994 and was active in the anti-government protests of 1996-97.
[url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-assassination0312,0,614285.story?coll=bal%2Dhome%2Dheadlines]Baltimore sun.[/url]
2003-03-12 22:02 | User Profile
I read about the hit on Djindjic earlier today. Too bad I guess, although he was obviously a stooge for the Western forces, specifically the United States....which bombed the Christian Serbs to defend the Albanian Muslim Beasts. Yea, good shot there Uncle Sam.
Milosevic is a hero and should be set free immediately from that despicable institution called The Hague. His only crime was his implementing Nationalist goals for his people, which of course is a no-no-no. It's only a matter of time now before Milosevic is accused of the hit on Djindjic.
Let's see how this plays out in that unstable war tattered land.
2003-03-13 15:56 | User Profile
When I heard about the details of this assassination I was majorly distraught... that this SOB Djindic didn't suffer more before heading off to Hell.
Milosevic is a hero, and everyone who took part in the attack on Serbia-- from advocacy to military-- is guilty of crimes against humanity and God.
2003-03-15 11:21 | User Profile
[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,913918,00.html]LINK[/url]Comment
The quisling of Belgrade
The murdered Serbian prime minister was a reviled western stooge whose economic reforms brought misery
Neil Clark Friday March 14, 2003 The Guardian
Tributes to Zoran Djindjic, the assassinated prime minister of Serbia, have been pouring in. President Bush led the way, praising his "strong leadership", while the Canadian government's spokesman extolled a "heralder of democracy" and Tony Blair spoke of the energy Djindjic had devoted to "reforming Serbia". In western newspaper obituaries Djindjic has been almost universally acclaimed as an ex-student agititator who bravely led a popular uprising against a tyrannical dictator and endeavoured to steer his country into a new democratic era.
But beyond the CNN version of world history, the career of Zoran Djindjic looks rather different. Those who rail against the doctrine of regime change should remember that Iraq is far from being the first country where the US and other western governments have tried to engineer the removal of a government that did not suit their strategic interests. Three years ago it was the turn of Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia.
In his recent biography of Milosevic, Adam LeBor reveals how the US poured $70m into the coffers of the Serb opposition in its efforts to oust the Yugoslav leader in 2000. On the orders of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a covert US Office of Yugoslav Affairs was set up to help organise the uprising that would sweep the autocratic Milosevic from power.
At the same time, there is evidence that underworld groups, controlled by Zoran Djindjic and linked to US intelligence, carried out a series of assassinations of key supporters of the Milosevic regime, including Defence Minister Pavle Bulatovic and Zika Petrovic, head of Yugoslav Airlines.
With Slobo and his socialist party finally toppled, the US got the "reforming" government in Belgrade it desired. The new President Vojislav Kostunica received the bouquets, but it was the State Department's man, Zoran Djindjic, who held the levers of power - and he certainly did not let his Washington sponsors down.
The first priority was to embark on a programme of "economic reform" - new-world-order-speak for the selling of state assets at knockdown prices to western multinationals. Over 700,000 Yugoslav enterprises remained in social ownership and most were still controlled by employee-management committees, with only 5% of capital privately owned. Companies could only be sold if 60% of the shares were allocated to workers.
Djindjic moved swiftly to change the law and the great sell-off could now begin. After two years in which thousands of socially owned enterprises have been sold (many to companies from countries which took part in the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia), last month's World Bank report was lavish in its praise of the Djindjic government and its "engagement of international banks in the privatisation process".
But it wasn't just state assets that Djindjic was under orders to sell. Milosevic had to go too, for a promised $100m, even if it effectively meant kidnapping him in contravention of Yugoslav law, and sending him by RAF jet to a US-financed show trial at the Hague. When a man has sold his country's assets, its ex-president and his main political rivals, what else is there to sell? Only the country itself. And in January this year Djindjic did just that. Despite the opposition of most of its citizens, the "heralder of democracy" followed the requirements of the "international community" and after 74 years the name of Yugoslavia disappeared off the political map. The strategic goal of its replacement with a series of weak and divided protectorates had finally been achieved.
Sometimes, though, even the best executed plans go awry. Despite the western eulogies, Djindjic will be mourned by few in Serbia. For the great majority of Serbs, he will be remembered as a quisling who enriched himself by selling his country to those who had waged war against it so mercilessly only a few years earlier. Djindjic's much lauded reforms have led to soaring utility prices, unemployment has risen sharply to over 30%, real wages have fallen by up to 20% and over two-thirds of Serbs now live below the poverty line.
It is still unclear who fired the shots that killed Zoran Djindjic. The likelihood is that it was an underworld operation, his links to organised crime finally catching up with him. But, harsh though it sounds, there are many in Serbia who would willingly have pulled the trigger. On a recent visit to Belgrade, I was struck not only by the level of economic hardship, but by the hatred almost everyone I met felt towards their prime minister, whose poll ratings had fallen below 10%.
The lesson from Serbia for today's serial regime changers is a simple one. You can try to subjugate a people by sanctions, subversion and bombs. You can, if you wish, overthrow governments you dislike and seek to impose your will by installing a Hamid Karzai, General Tommy Franks or a Zoran Djindjic to act as imperial consul. But do not imagine that you can then force a humiliated people to pay homage to them.
÷ Neil Clark is writing a book about the recent history of Yugoslavia
2003-03-15 11:29 | User Profile
The principal traitor/accomplice in the Rape of Serbia gets his just deserts - a bullet in the head. There is a God, dreams do come true, and my faith in the world is restored etc. etc. Then I look at the smirking face of Gen. Clark grotestuely protruding from his obscene book that gloats about his monsterous war crimes.
To the Serbs: Make us proud and go rescue Kosovo from the clutches of the NWO and her filthy, lice ridden occupiers.
2003-03-17 09:16 | User Profile
Originally posted by Juan Raymondo Cortez@Mar 13 2003, 15:56 ** When I heard about the details of this assassination I was majorly distraught... that this SOB Djindic didn't suffer more before heading off to Hell.
Milosevic is a hero, and everyone who took part in the attack on Serbia-- from advocacy to military-- is guilty of crimes against humanity and God. **
Ditto.
What in the world do our imperial overlords expect?
They bomb a country into turning over their lawful leader Milosevich for failure to comply with their outrageously unlawful imperial demands to turn part of their country over to Al Queda, and then after they unleash their antisceptic war of destruction they find some lackey who will give him up to an imperial tribunal in clear contravention to Serbia's constitution.
It's good to know that there still exist patriots.
There will be other such events.
Walter
2003-03-17 12:05 | User Profile
Here`s another puppet of these creatures who deserves the same fate. Like Djindjic, this person also has a criminal background.
Ahmad Chalabi, poster child of "democracy."
2003-03-17 12:05 | User Profile
Note that bullets, not "dignity" or "debate", struck this blow for the West.
Itz coming?
2003-03-18 14:51 | User Profile
Serb police hold folk singer over Djindjic killing
Serbia was stunned yesterday when police arrested a popular folk star, Svetalana "Ceca" Raznatovic, in connection with the assassination of prime minister Zoran Djindjic. Ceca is also the widow of Zeljko Raznatovic "Arkan", Serbia's most notorious warlord, who died in a shoot-out three years ago. [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/18/wserb18.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/03/18/ixportal.html]more[/url]
2003-03-25 16:19 | User Profile
Originally posted by xmetalhead@Mar 12 2003, 17:02 ** It's only a matter of time now before Milosevic is accused of the hit on Djindjic.
Let's see how this plays out in that unstable war tattered land. **
Here's the latest.....like I thought, Milosevic is going to take the heat for this assissination.
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro ââ¬â The suspected sniper who killed Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic two weeks ago has been arrested, the slain premier's successor said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic identified the suspect in custody as Zvezdan Jovanovic, a former deputy commander of an elite unit of police troops under former President Slobodan Milosevic.
Zivkovic said police found a German-made sniper rifle suspected of being the murder weapon.
Another man, identified as Sasa Pejakovic, was arrested for allegedly aiding the sniper during the killing, he said.
Djindjic, Serbia's leading pro-Western politician, was killed by a sniper March 12 as he stepped out of an armored car in front of government headquarters in downtown Belgrade.
Authorities accused an organized crime ring known as the Zemun Clan of plotting the slaying and carrying it out. They imposed a state of emergency, launching a major hunt for leading crime figures and their associates in the judiciary, police and other state services.
Dusan Maricic, the current commander of the elite police unit known as the Unit for Special Operations, was fired, Zivkovic said.
A police official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the unit -- still operational and based in the north of the republic -- would be disbanded.
"Some of them will be arrested, others dismissed or transferred to other police units," the official said of the unit members.
Djindjic made enemies by declaring war on organized crime, which flourished in Serbia under Milosevic's rule. He also angered some Serbs by pledging to arrest war-crimes suspects wanted by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, where Milosevic now is being tried.
Milosevic's regime sent the crime figures to fight in notorious paramilitary units in the 1990s Balkan wars. After the conflicts, he gave them a free hand to run lucrative drug trafficking operations, authorities say.
Nearly 400 criminal charges have been filed against underworld figures detained after Djindjic's assassination, police said Monday.
More than 1,000 suspects remain in custody and likely will face criminal proceedings in the weeks to come, Dragan Sutanovac, head of the Serbian parliament's Security and Defense Board, told independent B-92 radio.
[url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82109,00.html]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82109,00.html[/url]