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Serbs Mourn Slain Premier; Police Arrest 56 Suspects March 14, 2003 By DANIEL SIMPSON BELGRADE, Serbia, March 13 - Serbs struggled today to absorb the impact of the assassination of their reformist prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, urging Western governments to help them rebuild even as Western officials urged Serbia not to yield to the crime and nationalism that dominated the country for a decade. A stunned Serbian government declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and halted road, rail and air traffic from Belgrade. The police said today they had arrested 56 people, including 8 members of the underworld gang blamed for the killing of Mr. Djindjic, who was instrumental in overthrowing Slobodan Milosevic and later sent him to face the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague. But the gang's leaders, including Milorad Lukovic, a former commander of Milosevic-era special forces who helped Mr. Djindjic take power, remained at large. Mr. Djindjic, who sought to transform his country from an international pariah into a candidate for European Union membership, was shot twice in the chest outside his office on Wednesday. "We will arrest all those who planned this and those who resist we will liquidate," said the Serbian interior minister, Dusan Mihajlovic. The police said the assassination was carried out by three men, one of whom fired at the prime minister with a rifle from the second story of a nearby building. Officials did not say whether any of these individuals had been detained. Among those questioned today were the former head of Mr. Milosevic's internal security network, Jovica Stanisic, and Franko Simatovic, who commanded paramilitary forces that swept through Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990's. Mr. Stanisic, Mr. Milosevic's security chief for much of his 13 years in power, is widely seen as among those who know most about Mr. Milosevic's role in organizing and supporting Serbian forces and militias active in Croatia and Bosnia in the 1990's. Neither man was formally arrested, merely "summoned for informative talks," said Nebojsa Covic, one of five deputy prime ministers now in charge until Mr. Djindjic's Democratic Party elects a new leader. Hundreds of people lined up this afternoon to sign a book of condolences outside the building where Mr. Djindjic worked, in the shadow of two bombed-out army tower blocks destroyed by NATO warplanes in 1999. The prime minister will be buried on Saturday. "He was our John F. Kennedy! Tough when needed, but truly honest and righteous," said Vesna Gojkovic, 37, as she lit candles next to police officers clutching rifles. "I don't just want his murderers to be caught. They should also be sentenced to death for killing a man who finally brought us hope and optimism." After six centuries of occupation by the Ottoman Empire, the loss of one-third of the adult male population in World War I and the slaughter of probably hundreds of thousands in concentration camps during World War II, many Serbs feel cursed as victims of history. But the outside world lost sympathy when Mr. Milosevic tapped into this sense of suffering to justify his bloody attempt to put Yugoslavia under a Serbian yoke when its republics declared independence as the cold war ended. Serbia's leaders are now under strong international pressure to arrest individuals who committed the worst atrocities during the Balkan wars of the 1990's. But to do so they have to confront the Milosevic-era holdovers in the security forces who have close connections with criminal networks. Under strict orders from Western governments to extradite the most prominent suspects, including the Bosnian Serb commander during the war, Gen. Ratko Mladic, who is accused of genocide, Mr. Djindjic was trying to buy time by going after the underworld figures who did much of Mr. Milosevic's dirty work. Misha Glenny, a journalist and historian of the Balkans who once described the Serbian people as "marinating in their own self-pity," said it was essential that international officials now recognize the dangers of forcing the politicians they trust most into a corner. "The people already sent to The Hague, including Milosevic, are there because of Djindjic," he said. "Now he is dead. And he may be dead because he was trying to comply with an American deadline to hand over Mladic before June." Senior European politicians visited Belgrade today to pay tribute to Mr. Djindjic, who was favored by Western leaders even while he was still in opposition. Members of the European Parliament stood for a minute's silence, while other international officials urged Serbia to continue reform. But Serbian leaders stressed that this would be difficult if they were put under greater pressure to confront members of the Milosevic-era security services without rewards for compliance. "It's rather ironic to hear foreign officials eulogizing Zoran Djindjic after doing so little to help him take all the bold steps they demanded," said one government official. The two senior architects of the European Union's foreign policy, Chris Patten and Javier Solana, held talks with Serbia's acting president, Natasa Micic. She said afterward that new thinking was crucial for the sake of stability. "European policy towards Serbia needs to be revised and requires a higher degree of understanding," she said. In essence, such requests boil down to an appeal to the European Union to work more closely with Balkan governments to carry out reforms, rather than demand that they be completed before countries receive greater assistance. Western governments spent billions of dollars on military intervention in the Balkans and reconstruction, but the money is now drying up at a time when some feel it is most needed. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/14/international/europe/14SERB.html?ex=1048660924&ei=1&en=690ec89754b76a84 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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