Serbia

Serbia-Montenegro military purged of Milosevic-era generals
Agence France Presse - August 9, 2003 Saturday

BELGRADE, Aug 9 - The last redoubts of loyalty to Yugoslavia's Milosevic-era regime are under attack after 16 top generals were sacked last week in a major purge of conservative officers, analysts said.

The Supreme Defence Council of Serbia and Montenegro (SCG), the loose union which replaced the disbanded Yugoslav federation earlier this year, announced the dismissals in a low-key statement following a meeting on the Adriatic coast.

The sacked generals included intelligence chief Radoslav Skoric and deputy armed forces chief of staff Vladimir Lazarevic, the former head of the Pristina Corps which waged a brutal "anti-terrorist" crackdown on the ethnic-Albanian majority in Kosovo from 1998-99, sparking NATO military intervention.

Analysts said they represented the shrinking core of the conservative faction in the military, which was stubbornly refusing to renounce its loyalty to ousted former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian nationalism he fostered during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Justice Minister Boris Tadic is believed to have initiated the shake-up, having declared shortly after he took up his post in March that he would make the military a presentable candidate for eventual membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

He played down the move on Friday, insisting to reporters that the generals were not under attack. Even so, he said their removal was an essential step in the modernisation of the SCG military.

"We are not talking about the purge of the generals... but this solution was natural and needed for the pursuit of the reform of the army," he said.

"We are only at the beginning of the reform process."

Tadic has also ordered the armed forces to track down any wanted war criminals who are hiding on SCG territory -- namely former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic who has been indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal for genocide over the massacre of some 7,000 people at Srebrenica in 1995.

Mladic's arrest and extradition to the tribunal in The Hague, where Milosevic is on trial for war crimes, is a must if Serbia and Montenegro are serious about integrating with NATO and the European Union.

Last week's purge is seen by some as a blow to the powerful support network which allegedly protect Mladic, whose notorious if unconfirmed appearances at Belgrade cafes are a regular source of tension between the government and The Hague tribunal.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic recently promised to resolve "the Mladic question" by the end of the year.

"If he is in Serbia he will be arrested and sent to The Hague, and if he's not we'll prove that he's not here," he said.

Zivkovic has also stressed the need for a "young and reformed army leadership", and has recently spoken to US and UN officials about contributing to multilateral military operations.

"The political goal is to resume the tradition of our soldiers taking part in peace operations," he said, adding pointedly: "Because we have been on the right side for centuries," a reference to Serb resistance to the Ottomans and the Nazis.

"Our participation in peace missions signifies that the army, which yesterday was being accused of having committed war crimes, is completely reformed."

US Secretary of State Colin Powell confirmed Thursday that Zivkovic had offered to send Serbian troops to join the US-led coalition in Iraq.

"I think it shows a responsible attitude on the part of the Serbian leadership that they want to be involved in stabilization and peacekeeping operations in the world," he said. "It shows a new maturity that was welcomed."

But not everyone is happy to see Belgrade cooperating with its former enemies.

The Party of Serbian Unity, founded by the late paramilitary commander Arkan, said the changes in the military represented another step in "the destruction of our army and our state."

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Serbia-Montenegro-military

LOAD-DATE: August 10, 2003

SECTION: International News

LENGTH: 659 words