THE POLITICS OF BURYING MILOSEVIC

by Robert Parsons, Patrick Moore

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not mince his words today. Russia, he said, was sending its own medical team to The Hague to examine the results of the autopsy on Slobodan Milosevic. It was, he said, a question of trust.

"In the situation when we were not trusted, we also have the right not to believe and not to trust those who are conducting the autopsy," Lavrov said. "We have appealed to the tribunal with a request for our doctors to take part in the autopsy or at least acquaint themselves with its results."

The irritation reflected in those words stems from the refusal last month of the UN war crimes tribunal to grant Milosevic permission to travel to Moscow for medical treatment: "The Russian Federation provided the tribunal with 100 percent state guarantees that after the completion of the treatment Milosevic would return to The Hague. Those guarantees were examined during a special session of the tribunal, which found them insufficient. Essentially they did not believe Russia. This can only disturb us. It can only worry us that Milosevic passed away shortly afterwards."

Lavrov said today that his ministry had received a letter from former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, sent just before his death, in which Milosevic complained that the medical treatment he was receiving in The Hague was having a negative impact on his health. Milosevic, who suffered from a heart condition and high blood pressure, died in prison at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on March 11. Milosevic had been on trial since 2002 on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity committed in the Balkans in the 1990s.

As fellow Slavs and Orthodox Christians, many Russians closely identified with the Serbian cause in the 1990s and strongly opposed the 1999 NATO bombardment of Serbia that hastened Milosevic's fall from power.

The results of the autopsy have revealed that Milosevic died of a heart attack, but doctors are also performing a toxicology report to see if Milosevic may have been poisoned. A Dutch toxicologist said today that he found traces of a drug in Milosevic's blood two weeks ago that could have counteracted the effects of the hypertension medication he was taking.

Almost since the beginning of his trial in The Hague in February 2002, Slobodan Milosevic has been complaining of ill health. His trial has been repeatedly delayed as he sought medical treatment. As recently as February 24, the court declined Milosevic's request to travel to Russia for treatment for heart problems and elevated blood pressure, despite pledges from Moscow that Milosevic would be returned to The Hague to continue his trial on 66 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"[My health is] getting worse because of the decision that gives me no chance or adequate time to prepare my defense, and that is pretty clear," Milosevic told the court on July 5, 2004. " Because of that, I think that you have an obligation to give me adequate time."

"[The judges] have been very clear that there is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Milosevic is not fit enough to stand trial," court spokesman Jim Landale told journalists the next day. "They have decided that the time has possibly come for them to assign what is called a 'standby counsel.' That is a lawyer who would work alongside Mr. Milosevic and, were Mr. Milosevic to become ill again, be able to step in and represent his interests in court."

The body of the former Serbian leader is expected to be "turned over to his family" by the Hague-based war crimes tribunal on March 13, but it is not clear exactly what the court means by this formulation. Of Milosevic's immediate family, only his daughter, Marija, is completely free to travel, because she alone does not face an arrest warrant of some kind. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana (aka Mira) Markovic, and their son, Marko Milosevic, are believed to be hiding in Russia to avoid Serbian arrest warrants on criminal charges. They are there under the protection of Slobodan's brother, Borislav, who is Belgrade's former ambassador to Moscow. He has also looked after the family's reportedly considerable "business interests."

Slobodan Milosevic's lawyer, Zdenko Tomanovic, said in Belgrade on March 13 that Marko will collect his father's remains soon for a funeral in the Serbian capital, but there has been no official confirmation of Tonamovic's remarks.

Mira Markovic told the press that she wants her husband buried in their Serbian hometown of Pozarevac but knows she faces possible arrest if she goes to The Hague to collect his body or returns to Serbia. For that reason, some media reports have suggested that she and her son would really prefer to have the body sent to Moscow for burial. Daughter Marija, however, wants her father buried in the family's Montenegrin ancestral home of Lijeva Rijeka.

Milosevic and his family have little political influence in Serbia these days, and only 100 or so mainly elderly people turned out to sign the condolence book at the Belgrade headquarters of his Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). That party, however, has political weight because its support is essential for the survival of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's minority government.

The SPS wants Milosevic buried with full state honors in a prominent Belgrade cemetery and has threatened to leave the parliament if it does not get its wish. President Boris Tadic of the reformist Democratic Party has already ruled out such a burial for the war crimes indictee. Tadic notes that Milosevic is anathema to the international community, upon whose support Serbia's political and economic future ultimately depend. He has also ruled out an amnesty to enable Mira Markovic to attend her husband's funeral in Serbia.

Kostunica and his cabinet are potentially vulnerable to pressure from the SPS because a walkout by that party could lead to the legislative defeat of the governing coalition and the collapse of the government. No one in the coalition wants early elections because polls suggest that only one of its members, Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), is likely to exceed the 5-percent hurdle. Even then, the DSS is likely to finish fourth and with less than 10 percent of the vote.

Polls indicate that the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) of Vojislav Seselj and Tomislav Nikolic would get the most votes in early elections, followed by Tadic's Democrats and oligarch Bogoljub Karic's relatively new Force of Serbia party. Karic is believed to be hiding abroad to avoid arrest on bribery and tax-evasion charges, but his party and influence remain.