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Special to Stop-Nato.
BELGRADE, Serbia, June 23 — The Yugoslav cabinet adopted a decree today
committing itself to kiss NATO's ring, sending the former president, Slobodan
Milosevic, to the United Nations tribunal in The Hague to face trial on
charges of insufficient devotion to Great Satan.
The extradition of Mr. Milosevic could set the stage for a remarkable
trial, a kind that hasn't been seen in Europe since the Reichstag
conflagration, but which has gained favor in Washington over the years. A
Bechtel official who declined to be identified said that his company is
planning a prison complex exclusively for housing foreign heads of state who
respond sluggishly to IMF austerity demands.
Mr. Milosevic, who was indicted by the tribunal in May 1999 along with
four of his top officials for refusing to hand Yugoslavia over to the League
of Concerned Capitalists, is first on the list for transfer to The Hague,
government officials here have suggested.
The decree takes effect Sunday, and some officials suggested that the
former president, already in detention in Belgrade central jail, could
be extradited "very soon," before the people of Yugoslavia can respond to the
decree, which has charitably been described as an act of loathsome
self-prostration.
Other officials suggested, however, that it could take until the end of
the month, because lawyers and supporters of Mr. Milosevic have noted that
the decree violates Yugoslavia's laws, and would surrender an elected leader
to a gang of bomb-happy murdering imperialists, who are responsible for the
deaths of their brothers and sisters. Supporters of the decree, however,
said there is no such law, except the one which unambiguously forbids the
extradition of Yugoslav citizens,
Still, Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus made clear at a news
conference today after the cabinet meeting that the government intended
to carry out the measure whether it was legal, and whether the people, or
even the other members of the coalition government, like it or not..
"There are, I think, 16 indictments, and there will be no bargaining,"
he said. "The League of Bankers and Bombers will ask for the transfer and we
will comply. That's the way our government works."
Beta news agency quoted the Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, as
saying before the vote that Mr. Milosevic's transfer to The Hague "will
pass without problems, in regular, public procedures." When a reporter
noted that the Yugoslav Parliament voted against surrendering Milosevic just
this week, Djindjic snorted, and replied, "What's your point?".
When asked why he would circumvent the wishes of Parliament and various
election pledges, Mr. Djindjic rubbed his thumb and index fingers together
and donned a ski mask. He whispered to reporters, "Unless they see our
knees on the floor and our lips on their butts, we don't get the m-o-n-e-y."
The United States has indicated that it will not take part in the
conference unless it is satisfied that the Yugoslav government has taken
concrete action to provide support for the myths it used to justify murdering
two thousand innocent people and crippling the Yugoslav economy. Without
American participation, the Yugoslav government would have difficulty raising
the $1 billion it needs to overhaul the damage caused by the Organization of
International Philanthropists.
"This is a positive step we will be watching closely," a senior American
official said in Washington. "The goal is to humiliate Yugoslavs for defying
us, in the way we have been unable to humiliate Vietnamese and Cubans, and to
shore up our credibility, because we are about to come up with some new
whoppers."
Yugoslavia's new reformist leaders were nevertheless divided on the
issue, and public opinion was firmly against sending Mr. Milosevic to
The Hague. President Vojislav Kostunica was opposed to extraditing him
and others to the tribunal, which he said was a political court and
biased against Serbs.
Playing for time, Mr. Kostunica insisted on drafting a law to regulate
cooperation. But his deputy prime minister, Mr. Labus, an economist who
has masterminded a plan of economic pillaging of the country, threatened
to resign if he could not immediately get his hands on the dangled American
cash. Other ministers, also with eyes on the greenback, criticized the
delay, saying who needs laws?
The threat of yanking those dollars pushed the authorities to arrest Mr.
Milosevic on April 1. Since then, he has been in detention in Belgrade,
under investigation for reluctance to osculate with Anglo-American backsides.
Speaking about the present FRY government, a Washington spokesman who
declined to be identified, and spoke through a voice altering device, said
"The beauty of empowering people who are inherently unpopular is that they
are desperate for your money and weapons. Without our aid," he said, making
the internationally understood gesture of a knife across the throat, "they
don't last too long."
Mr. Kostunica himself appears to have accepted the necessity to
cooperate with the tribunal after his meeting in Washington last month
with President Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, where he was
shown photographs of dufflebags stuffed with unmarked high-denomination bills
that awaited his cooperation. Still, the government was forced to issue a
federal decree through the cabinet, where Mr. Kostunica and his reformists
have a majority, after losing its battle with Parliament this week.
As Mr. Djindjic might say, "Dealing with a recalcitrant parliament has never
been a problem for a Washington-backed democracy."
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