Optimistic Milosevic Plots Comeback From Prison Cell

by Vesna Peric Zimonjic

Former president Slobodan Milosevic and his longtime political ally Vojislav Seselj are both accused of crimes through the wars of the 1990s that took thousands of lives in former Yugoslavia. Most of the dead were non-Serbs.

Now both Milosevic and Seselj top the election lists of their parties, the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) in elections due Dec. 28. This means both could be elected members of parliament.

Milosevic and Seselj received delegations from their parties several times over the past few weeks. They gave instructions to party members, and recorded campaign messages. Serbian media aired these messages.

Reform-oriented parties that toppled Milosevic three years ago and extradited him to the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) were outraged. The ICTY was set up by the United Nations at The Hague in the Netherlands in June 2001.

The reform parties were shocked also over the candidature of Seselj who surrendered to the tribunal earlier this year.

But there was little they could do.

Some people blamed the ICTY for doing little to prevent the remote running of Serbian affairs.

The tribunal issued an order last week banning phone and personal communications from Milosevic and Seselj for 30 days. Family members and lawyers are excluded from the ban, but they will not be able to use phone links to spread political messages.

"It's too late," analyst Ljiljana Smajlovic told IPS. "This will only add the aura of martyrdom to the pair, and that is the least the reform-oriented parties want now."

That the accused can contest stems from presumption of innocence, head of the Republic Electoral Commission Radoslav Bacovic told media last week. "If they are elected, they will lose that position automatically once they are sentenced."

Head of the Constitutional Court Slobodan Vucetic admits there is a "legal void" here. "There are no legal grounds to prevent this," Vucetic told reporters. "No law could anticipate such a development."

Milosevic stands accused of war crimes in Croatia and Kosovo, and genocide in Bosnia. Seselj is accused of a series of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Thousands of "Seselj's Volunteers," paramilitaries, Serbian police and secret police units are believed to have committed the greatest war crimes against non-Serbs.

Serbians remain deeply divided over the role of their leaders.

Fed up with isolation, international sanctions and poverty, Serbs voted Milosevic out in favour of reformists in 2000.

But as the promised economic recovery failed to materialize, the pendulum is swinging again towards the right represented by the SRS and the SPS.

The SRS candidate won the highest number of votes in presidential elections a month ago. The elections were declared invalid due to an insufficient turnout.

"The legal absurdity in Serbia means that you can call Milosevic and Seselj innocent," Biljana Kovacevic Vuco who heads the Yugoslav Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights (JUKOM) told IPS. "But after what happened in the wars and what is happening now at the ICTY, one cannot presume they are completely innocent."

A spokesperson for Seselj's SRS party said its leader was expected to become an "active MP." But Ivica Dacic from Milosevic's SPS told IPS that "this thing can only be symbolic." He called the move "our gesture of support for Milosevic."

On a visit to Belgrade Monday, European Union (EU) high representative for the common foreign and security policy Javier Solana described Milosevic and Seselj's candidature "an unnecessary provocation."

Solana appealed to Serbs to "vote for the democratic parties." He reminded them that three years ago they chose "to enter the family of EU nations" when they toppled Milosevic. "This time again you're choosing between Europe and the road to the past."