Interesting development....
Belgrade, 12 Oct. (AKI) – The Serbian government on Friday offered a million euros reward for the arrest of Bosnian Serb wartime commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, indicted for war crimes and genocide by the UN's Hague-based Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.
Rasim Ljajic, who is the president of the National Council for the cooperation with the Hague tribunal, said the decision was reached late on Thursday and the reward would be paid by the government.
Members of the Council are president Boris Tadic and prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, as well as ministers of defence and police, the chief of the general staff, and the chiefs of state security agencies.
Mladic, with war-time Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, tops the list of four individuals indicted by the tribunal who are still at large.
The Council also offered rewards of 250,000 euros for information leading to the arrest of former Bosnian Serb official Stojan Zupljanjin and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic.
Ljajic said the offer didn’t officially include Karadzic, because he is not a Serbian citizen and there was no legal basis for the reward. But he said the government would nevertheless pay a million euros for information leading to his arrest.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=1.0.1419918766We probably didn't need this information to get out....BELGRADE, Serbia, Oct. 2 (UPI) --
Serbia has been exporting various military equipment and arms to Myanmar ever since the state was known as Burma in mid-1950s, Belgrade’s B92 radio said.
Serbia’s armament exports continued through the regime of the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s and after democratic changes early in the 2000s, the radio said.
Serbian military analyst Aleksandar Radic told B92 the country’s exports to Myanmar included rifles, big guns and howitzers, light war planes and river boats.
The Serbian Defense Ministry said the armament was sold only to the Myanmar armed forces and not to police, which could misuse arms in their repressive campaigns against monks and civilian dissidents, B92 reported.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/10/02/serbia_exports_arms_to_myanmar/2909/
A bit of kitschy trivia..... The yellow bulldozer which played its role in storming key government buildings during Serbia's 2000 popular uprising against former strongman Slobodan Milosevic has gone on sale. Advertised as "the historical excavator that collapsed communism in Serbia," the bulldozer is being auctioned online with a starting price of EUR90,000 ($128,088), although it is "not in working condition." The owner, known as Joe, drove the bulldozer during the Oct. 5 uprising against Milosevic's attempt to maintain his decade-long rule by preventing Serbia's pro-Western opposition from taking power after an election victory. The bulldozer led columns of protesters in clearing the way to Belgrade's national assembly building where protesters broke in and clashed with Milosevic's special police. The bulldozer also smashed through the glass walls of the offices of state-run television, allowing opposition supporters to stream in and occupy the building. Hundreds of thousands stormed the government buildings during the uprising, forcing Milosevic to resign. "The owner wanted to sell and we are helping him," Nenad Nikolic, who runs Limundo online auctioning told the Associated Press. "He determined the price." The auction description for the bulldozer notes that "traces of these attacks are visible very clearly on the excavator itself, on the front, back and side" glass. The bulldozer owner was not immediately available for comment. He has complained in past years of being forgotten by the post-Milosevic authorities and of living in poverty. Milosevic was handed to a U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2001, to face a genocide trial. He died in detention in 2006. |
URL: http://english.pravda.ru/world/98065-bulldozer_revolution-0They are at least at the same table, not that it's doing any good....Fri Sep 28, 1:37 PM ET Leaders of Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians held their first face-to-face talks on the future of the breakaway Serbian province with international mediators on Friday but made no breakthrough.
Major powers have set a December 10 deadline for an agreement on the final status of Kosovo, which has been in legal limbo under U.N. administration since 1999, when NATO waged an air war to drive out Serbian forces and halt ethnic cleansing.
Serbia, backed by Russia with its U.N. veto power, rejects independence for Kosovo. But the territory's 2 million ethnic Albanians -- 90 percent of the population -- will settle for nothing less and have warned of violence if they are thwarted.
A joint New York Declaration issued after the meeting said: "The parties reiterated their commitment to engage seriously in these talks. The troika (of mediators) reminded the parties of the (U.N.) Secretary-General's statement of August 1 that the status quo is not sustainable."
European Union mediator Wolfgang Ischinger told reporters the two sides had agreed to hold more direct talks, with the next meeting set for Brussels on October 14.
"Both sides ... indicated to us through this meeting and through their conduct and through the conclusion that they wish this process to continue ... . This is a good sign," he said.
But there appeared to be no meeting of minds on substance.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070928/wl_nm/serbia_kosovo_dc_7And, of course, nobody in the West wants to admit how serious the situation is--hence, no "real" news coverage (from the major papers)...but the neighbors know the place is a powder keg.... By Douglas HamiltonFri Sep 28, 9:40 AM ET
Balkan states bordering Serbia saw scant hope of a breakthrough in New York talks between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians on Friday and were bracing for a rough ride whatever the next move on the breakaway province.
Those who heed diplomatic smoke signals from Washington and Brussels are braced for a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo in mid-December, with U.S. and majority European Union recognition but in the teeth of Serbian and Russian opposition.
Whether independence is recognized or blocked, the risks are so serious either way that no neighboring government wants to speculate openly on how severe, long-lasting or widespread the repercussions might be.
None wants to aggravate ties with Serbia, which is warning them not to recognize Kosovo. But those with significant ethnic Albanian minorities -- such as Macedonia -- have more reason to fear the risks of delaying the decision.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070928/wl_nm/serbia_kosovo_neighbours_dc_2And isn't this nice of them--maybe a few kids won't lose limbs or eyes, after all....
BRUSSELS, Sept 19 (Reuters) - NATO said on Wednesday it would give Serbia information on the cluster bombs that were a controversial part of the alliance's 1999 air strikes to eject Serb forces from the breakaway province of Kosovo. The move is part of efforts to determine whether the bombs, some of which may not have exploded, remain a danger to the public. The data will be used in a survey on munitions to be carried out by a Norwegian non-governmental organisation. "We expect that next week NATO will be in a position to hand over a consolidated list of the cluster munitions dropped at that time. This list will include the number of units and their coordinates," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told reporters. He said the step followed a request for information made by Belgrade in February. NATO used cluster bombs, which typically eject clusters of smaller "bomblets" to spread their effect, for attacking such targets as army convoys or troop concentrations in Kosovo. However, the alliance admitted during the campaign that some bombs went off course. NATO cluster bombs killed 15 people in the southern city of Nis, which put paid to the idea that modern high-tech bombing is faultless.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L19921092.htmAnd last, but not least, the "persecuted" speak.... Top war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic's son Sasa has been ordered to leave Serbia and banned from returning for a year, an official reportedly said Saturday.
Sasa Karadzic, who was detained in Belgrade on Friday "for an identity check," should leave Serbia within three days, said Rasim Ljajic, Serbia's minister in charge of cooperation with the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal.
"It was established that his identity card was not in accordance with Serbia's law and it was taken away from him," Ljajic told the Beta news agency.
Sasa Karadzic was visiting his five-year-old son who had undergone hip surgery at a Belgrade hospital when he was detained by "special police," his sister Sonja Jovicevic Karadzic told AFP on Friday.
"This is only about the continuation of pressure on our family. The arrest over alleged checking of identity is only an excuse for further harassment," she said, adding that her brother had been under police surveillance since he arrived in Belgrade at the end of August.
Karadzic's two children live in Pale, the Bosnian Serb wartime stronghold near Sarajevo.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070915/wl_afp/warcrimesserbiabosniakaradzic_070915141526
