STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ["What we need is sincere help, not empty declarations of sympathy. When I was in the opposition, the European Union promised us THREE BILLION MARKS IN CASH for the fall of Milosevic. Where is it?" ] Serb PM attacks West over aid delay-report BERLIN, July 14 (Reuters) - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic has slammed the West for delaying the aid it promised in return for the handover of ousted leader Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague war crimes court. "We didn't make any conditions for the handover. We wanted to show our goodwill to integrate into the international community," Djindjic told Germany's Der Spiegel weekly magazine in an interview due for publication on Sunday. "But I must admit that I am shocked about the farce of the western aid which should amount to $1.3 billion," he said. "If we do not receive a financial injection immediately, we will have demonstrations and unrest by September at the latest." Djindjic, a leading member of the Serbian reform bloc that ousted Milosevic as Yugoslav president last year, has come under heavy criticism from senior colleagues and protesters in Belgrade for his covert handover of Milosevic last month. After Milosevic arrived in The Hague, Western officials pledged $1.28 billion to help end Yugoslavia's economic misery and rebuild a country shattered by NATO's 1999 bombing campaign. Djindjic said Belgrade had been expecting to receive a first instalment of 300 million euros ($255 million) by August, but had discovered that 225 million euros of that would go towards paying off old debts, while the remaining 75 million euros would only be transferred in November at the earliest. "That is like giving a seriously ill person medicine when he is dead. Our crisis months are July, August, September," Djindjic told the magazine. Djindjic said support for Socialists and radicals would increase without immediate financial transfers, especially if Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica kept raising doubts about whether the West would come up with the cash. "I am seriously warning the West. If my government falls that would cost the international community $10 billion." Djindjic warned of a possible takeover of the government by radicals, a Socialist comeback and a new Balkans crisis, which would end cooperation with The Hague tribunal and create hundreds of thousands of refugees. "I am losing my credibility and cannot stabilise the country anymore," he said. "What we need is sincere help, not empty declarations of sympathy. When I was in the opposition, the European Union promised us three billion marks in cash for the fall of Milosevic. Where is it?" 11:14 07-14-01 ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
