http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=112062
Agence France-Presse
March 13, 2006
Pressure grows on Belgrade to host Milosevic funeral
-[T]he threat by the Socialist party was "a real
danger for the government, presenting (Prime Minister)
Kostunica a huge challenge".
"On one hand, if only four Socialists do not come to
the next parliamentary sitting, Kostunica's government
will be finished."
BELGRADE - Serbian authorities faced growing pressure
to host the funeral of former Yugoslav
[president]Slobodan Milosevic, but the government
faces a dilemma over how to bury a divisive leader who
was on trial for war crimes.
Two days after Milosevic died in his prison cell in
the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, it is still
unclear where he will be buried as his widow Mira
Markovic, who is wanted on fraud charges, is believed
to be in Russia.
But Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) told
AFP it would try to bring down Serbia's minority
coalition government if it fails to comply with a
demand for his funeral to be held in his homeland.
The warning came as a lawyer acting for Milosevic's
wife on Monday demanded that Belgrade's district court
withdraw an arrest warrant against her so she can
attend his funeral.
"I told the ruling majority that they cannot expect
the SPS to enter parliament if Slobodan Milosevic is
not buried in a dignified way in Belgrade," said Zoran
Andjelkovic, a senior Socialist party official.
"By dignified, we mean that members of his family can
come to the funeral and get the right to stay in
Serbia and to find an adequate place at the cemetery,
a place worthy of a historic person," Andjelkovic, a
parliamentary deputy and SPS secretary-general, told
AFP.
The minority coalition government of Prime Minister
Vojislav Kostunica depends on support of at least four
out 22 Socialist party deputies in the 250-seat
Serbian parliament.
But pro-western Serbian President Boris Tadic has
already dismissed any possibility of giving Milosevic
a funeral with state honours, saying it would be
"completely inappropriate" given his role in the
bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Tadic also refused to grant Markovic a pardon after
Serbian authorities issued an international warrant
for her arrest on fraud charges in September last
year. She is believed to have been living in Russia
since 2003.
Analyst Milivoje Mihajlovic said the threat by the
Socialist party was "a real danger for the government,
presenting (Prime Minister) Kostunica a huge
challenge".
"On one hand, if only four Socialists do not come to
the next parliamentary sitting, Kostunica's government
will be finished," Milivoje Mihajlovic told AFP.
"But on the other hand, if he meets the SPS's demand
and does something in order to enable the family to
come to the country, he will provoke an outrage of
democratic [sic] public in Serbia," Mihajlovic added.
The Serbian government has so far remained silent and
is yet to give the slightest indication of how it will
handle the situation.
Meanwhile, the laywer acting for Milosevic's wife
demanded Belgrade's district court withdraws an arrest
warrant against her so she can attend his funeral.
"The lawyer of the defendant Mira Markovic submitted a
proposal to suspend the detention order and withdraw
the arrest warrant against (her), based on new
circumstances after the death of her husband," court
spokeswoman Ivana Ramic told AFP.
A panel of three judges is yet to decide on the
demand, she added.
However at least one Serbian newspaper said the
problem over the funeral has already been resolved.
Under the headline, "Funeral will be in Belgrade, Mira
is coming," the Blic daily said the government had
reached an agreement with the Socialist party to bury
Milosevic with state honours.
"Under this agreement between the government and the
Socialists, the passport of Mira Markovic will be
confiscated at the airport," while she would have to
give guarantees that she would appear in court to face
the fraud charges, Blic reported, quoting an unnamed
government source.
The warrant had already been withdrawn once last May
on the demand of her lawyer and after a guarantee she
would appear at the trial, but was renewed in
September after she failed to appear before the court.
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