MILOSEVIC'S REACTION TO THE LAWLESSNESS AND
TERROR IN SERBIA
Sloboda/Freedom Association - March 31,
2003
After couple of days of the unprecedented media campaign in Serbia, spreading the fabricated allegations against President Milosevic and in the first place against his wife Professor Mira Markovic, about the possible involvement in the disappearance and murder of Ivan Stambolic, this morning President Milosevic expressed his position at the beginning of the morning session of the Hague tribunal.
Let us recall some facts: After he defeated politically his bureaucratic rival and earlier close party colleague Stambolic in late 1980s, Slobodan Milosevic provided him with a fine post of the director of YUBMES (Yugoslav Bank for International Economic Cooperation) bank, where he stayed around 10 years, until retired. As a pensioner in late 1990s, until his disappearance, he continued with private business, including oil. He never again played any role in active politics, nor was, as ex-communist, ever truly accepted by that time opposition. In 2000, he was advocating that Goran Svilanovic (today Foreign Minister) should be chosen as common presidential candidate of DOS. On August 10, DOS formally elected Kostunica as a candidate. Stambolic disappeared on August 25, too late to appear even as individual candidate at the presidential elections scheduled for September 24. Since DOS immediately started blaming "Milosevic regime" his disappearance produced only political harm for Milosevic.
Victims of the present campaign are until now, three innocent comrades, who are arrested on purely political ground, to serve as hostages, in order to increase pressure on Milosevic and to weaken his position at The Hague, Bogoljub Bjelica, chairman of SLOBODA/Freedom Association-Yugoslav Committee for the Defense of Slobodan Milosevic, as well as Uros Suvakovic and Goran Matic, who are depicted by DOS propaganda as "closest political associates" of Mira Markovic.
Here is what President Slobodan Milosevic said this morning at The Hague:
Richard May: The interpreters haven’t heard what you have said.
President Slobodan Milosevic: I said that I want to express some requests before the witness starts. First of all, I request from you to allow that I’ll be questioned in connection with an unprecedented media campaign, which is being held in Belgrade. This campaign started just before the last weekend, in the conditions of total lawlessness and terror created by the regime…
Richard May: The only things we deal here with, are those linked to this trial. In this moment I don’t see that what you are saying has anything to do with this trial. I f you are concerned that… that thing can affect this trial, or that the Chamber in this trial could be biased because of that, you shouldn’t worry. This Chamber does not take into account, and even does not follow very much what’s printed in the press. So we are here to try on the basis of the facts. If this, what are you telling us, has anything to do with this trial, than you can speak. If not, you know that we can’t listen to that.
President Slobodan Milosevic: It has to do with this trial, Mr. May and therefore I think that you are obliged to listen to me. I find and I will insist on that, that there is a link between this so-called prosecution and the media campaign and the accusations present in that media campaign these days. They are being conducted against my wife and myself in a way that we are through media accused, tried and sentenced. There is no judicial but a media process. The best proof for that is the fact that they haven’t even came to question me, although they loudly announced that and your spokesman confirmed, I saw that on TV, that they can come here and question me. They know very well that it was I who had power and not my wife, but they haven’t approached me, but they attack my wife, which is the best proof that they are not interested in any truth, but that they conduct…
Richard May: Wait, the things we can deal with here are only the things related to this trial. The things regarding your wife are not the matter of this trial.
I will consult my colleagues to see if we have to listen to you further about that subject. What is the relation, according to you, between the Prosecution and those others? If on that you can say anything coherent, we will listen to you, but you are expressing now only some wild allegations.
President Slobodan Milosevic: Mr. May, I consider and I will prove it that the retaliation against my wife and my children is being performed only because of myself and because of the struggle I conduct here. So I claim that this retaliation is orchestrated with this illegal prosecution.
Richard May: Just a moment, just a moment. Mr. Milosevic, we are not going to listen to you any more. What you are talking now is a speech about the Belgrade. It has nothing to do with this trial. We are going now to a closed session in order to examine the following witness.
President Milosevic has not been allowed to finish. He then used the first following opportunity to condemn the illegal arrest of Bogoljub Bjelica and his other associates, as a part of the same pressure, aimed to undermine his struggle for the truth about his nation.
Later today, at the press conference of YUL in Belgrade, the following written message of his wife Professor Mira Markovic, sent from Russia, has been presented:
I follow the untruth, disgusting and with a retaliation against the political opponents motivated accusations against me.
Of course that I am in no relation to any of the crimes in Yugoslavia. Nor I have any relation with any criminal activity at all. I have never been in conflict with the laws of my country. All those who accuse me know that perfectly well. The accusations against me are motivated only by a wish to destabilize my husband at The Hague, to put shadow on his brilliant defense. The accusations against me are a retaliation, a punishment for the beautiful, dignified, clever and remarkable personality of Slobodan Milosevic before the court in The Hague. Him – since he is like that, they want to kill.
They attempt to exhaust him physically and psychically that much, so that he could not appear before the court or die from exhaustion. They commit a crime against him in front of the whole World. About that I write and write and write and speak wherever I can.
The other form of fight against him is myself. The pressures on me are aimed to destabilize him, so that the pain because of the injustice towards me binds his hands. The one who came to such idea and who accomplishes that is someone without any honor, any moral, he is a bastard in the Serbian people and in the human race.
The attacks on me and the intention to liquidate me are motivated with an additional low and inferior motive – some in the rightist government see me as a pretty smart and for that reason dangerous political opponent. Since they can not over speak me politically, it seems to them easier to pronounce me as a criminal personality and to remove me that way from the public scene.
One who is not in possession of the words, one whose mind is moderate and whose heart is small, turns towards the violence. The violence is a weapon of weak and immoral persons.
I left Belgrade near the end of February for personal and family reasons.
- Professor Mira Markovic
STOP THE POLITICAL REPRESSION IN SERBIA!
STOP THE EVIL CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC, HIS FAMILY AND ASSOCIATES!
RELEASE BOGOLJUB BJELICA AND OTHER POLITICAL PRISONERS!
SEND PROTESTS AND APPEALS TO YUGOSLAV EMBASSIES! -find their addresses at http://www.mfa.gov.yu/Worldframe.htm
SLOBODA/Freedom Association