Šešelj to be questionned about PM murder

It's kind of interesting that virtually every prominent Serbian politican from the 1990s/early 2000s seems to be linked in some way to the Balkan mafia. Seselj is a prime example and this obviously hurts his credibility. Certainly not helping him was the timing of his surrender to the Hague, especially since we have here the strange irony (and I am pleased that the article points this out) that the ICTY may actually have offered him asylum during Operation Sabre.

In a sense, the accusations against Seselj in the Djindjic murder case seem impossible to believe for the lack of discretion in Seselj's alleged move. However, we have the murder of Petar Stambolic and attempted murder of Vuk Draskovic to consider, so maybe the allegations aren't so far-fetched.

Perhaps physical liquidation of a politcal nemesis (or any kind of adversary, for that matter) was simply a commonly accepted option for someone like Seselj back in those days, and thugs like Legija were all too eager to perform the task.

Figures like Seselj, Karadzic, Stanisic and so on can deny, deny, deny - but with so many of their peers implicated in such plots, one is forced to wonder if many of the allegations might just be true.

You can try to agrue that the real perpetrators were the guys who pulled the trigger, not the politicians rumored to have ordered the murders. But then why would the JSO or Zemun Gang be so keen to eliminate Stanisic in 2000, or Draskovic in 1999? What would they lose from regime change? Why were they so keen to see Milosevic remain in power? And why would someone like Seselj have been so much better for them than Djindjic in 2003?

These are criminals we're talking about -- not women fighting for suffrage or blacks for freedom. Why was Sloba so popular with thugs?

And to take things a step further, why, as bganon once asked, was Mladic writing about the murder of Dada Vujasinovic in his wartime diary? Just idle interest in the news story? Perhaps. Or maybe he knew who was behind it. If so, why would a VRS general know the identity of the murderer(s) of a Belgrade journalist?

w
Who said that he is returning home any time soon???
He will rot in prison.Wish it was Gulag prison, and not some Holiday Inn in western country.

Pardon me - I see a few corrections in my post are in order.

1. "Petar Stambolic" should obviously read "Ivan Stambolic"

2. Stanisic was not murdered, but Stambolic.

3. To clarify, Karadzic and Stanisic were mentioned as examples of other Serbian political figures on trial at the Hague -- not as figures accused of murdering political opponents.

It's been a long week.

w
Who said that he is returning home any time soon???
He will rot in prison.Wish it was Gulag prison, and not some Holiday Inn in western country.
(Agim Kelmendi, 18 March 2011 18:37)

You need evidence to prosecute someone

What a surprise. I suspect quite a number of commenters on B92 of not having anything between their ears but that won't get them arrested for an indeterminate period. Yet again, the pretense of 'rule of law' is now used as a PR tool to remove anyone who could pose a threat to the status quo at home. The ICTY uses 'joint criminal enterpries' as a catch all because it allows it to add, remove any possible accusation it cares to, but the end result is always the same, to keep the target locked up and not release.

This news story about the hypothetical release of Seselj show that Belgrade is also copying the ICTY's methods. In both cases, which are identical (identify the goal, then look at the means by which these are achieved), neither takes any care of the balance that is supposed to be taken in such cases.

What do I mean?

Clearly, discrimination to pervert the legal process for political ends. That in itself is deeply illegal and rarely 'accidental'. If the ICTY or Belgrade has proof then there the defendant has a right to a relatively speedy trial (depending on complexity) and not forever kept in limbo because it suits the powers that be.

When it comes to the ICTY, they have a documented practise of reinterpreting international law to fit their wishes.

In so called 'civilized' nations, they have very well developed legal systems and personnel who are very adept at manipulating the spirit and letter of the law. They are highly capable of giving the impression that the process is following due process but when the goal is to remove a person from circulation, even if this person is ultimately released, they are still detained through conviction, appeal, re-conviction on other charges, and ultimately when all national legal process have been exhausted (which can take a number of years), going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which of course can also be appealed.

Simply put, the ICTY is keeping Seselj out of circulation and Belgrade will use any means to keep him out of circulation, however tenuous (i.e. illegal). It is called a 'stitch-up'.

Re the balkans and criminals. Criminals are experts at avoiding official controls. Sanctions, imposed by the west on Serbia but not its neighbors empower the criminals so that if a country under sanctions wants to continue functioning, it is effectively forced to deal with criminal networks.

I repeat, sanctions empower criminals. Regardless of whether you are in direct contact or not, you are linked. In Serbia, it is almost impossible not to be linked in some way that means how ever pathetic the evidence of connections with criminals may be leveled, it can be enough to take someone out of circulation.

As to sanctions busting and the important role that criminal groups within a county play, it also attracts criminal groups ex-terratoria. Albania smuggled gas/oil via pipeline to Montenegro for much of the 1990s. Both bulgarian, romanian and criminals from elsewhere provided the products to be sold on the black market within Serbia. People can complain about criminality but who didn't buy something on the black market or not pay tax? Few people will admit to it. It is always the 'other'. Dishonesty starts at home and spreads far and wide.

Not only did the wars in the ex-SFRY affect the whole region through damage to legitimate trade, they seriously undermined those ex-communist countries that were going through their toughest and most sensitive years of so-called 'reforms'. Bulgaria and Romania are still paying the price, but as they joined NATO, they effectively got the joker card to join the EU without cleaning themselves up first.

Western policy, downright stupidity, blindness, and bias is also responsible for many of the war and post war effects. It is just that no one bothers to highlight this. But that is journalism for you. 95% follow the crowd, like sheep. Thank god for the internet (at least for those who are not interested in swallow the s**t that is produced in mass).


The universal evil of sanctions* which in effect punishes whole populations as a means to put pressure on the political elite and for political ends has finally been officially recognized as unacceptable and discredited by the west which is why they have switched to the PR speak of 'smart sanctions', that means financial, movement and other sanctions aimed at specific members of a government or a group.


* I'll give you an easy example of how universally applied sanctions are evil. 'Dual use' - this means any item that could have any potential military application. Between 1991 and 2003, the United States and their poodles regularly blocked critical supplies to Iraq such a chlorine that like florine is added to the water in many states to improve the general health care of all its citizens. This is just one example and I don't need to explain how elastic the definition of 'dual use' has been applied.

P.S. No doubt some people of limited mental means will think that my comments above are somehow excusing criminality or those with links, but that would be because they are effectively illiterate (poor souls).

You need evidence to prosecute someone
(John, 18 March 2011 23:20)

I keep asking the same question about the yellow house in Albania.

Aleks,

You make valid points, of course, but as is often the case with pro-Serb commentators, you seem to assign very little, if any, responsibility to the Serbian war machine of the 90s. You can argue with all the cleverness and eloquence you like, but to insinuate that sanctions were the primary driver of widespread criminality across the Balkans in the 1990s is ridiculous.

You can manipulate the story all you want but sometimes facts are plain enough for even stupid sheep like me to see. I can agree with you that the course of Western justice often plays out with serious defect, and that Western military policy in places like Iraq is seriously flawed. But you seem to imply that these realities somehow exonerate Belgrade for its part in the 90s wars. Things like sanctions and international tribunals are consequences of war -- however imperfectly executed.

The pro-Serb position basically argues that the Balkans wars themselves were a consequence of some kind of Western conspiracy to destabilize the region in order to undermine the USSR, but I can assure you that this is an argument Serbs would have a lot of trouble winning in debate (no matter how pretty their logic) with people around the rest of the world -- and for good reason. Look where the USSR stood in 1989 after Afghanistan and the fall of the Wall. Furthermore, Yugoslavia was a NAM nation holding billions in debt to the West.

Please, lets look at fact, and not fiction.

If he returns home , The Tribunal in Hague would lose its remaining credibility!!!

Well, I am confused:
Šešelj voluntarily surrenedered to the Hague Tribunal two weeks before the assassination...
and then you said:
...and he left to The Hague immediately after the attempted assasination ....

Anyhow, I do believe there are enough people dreaming of the day he gets out... just to be able to judge him themselves!!! To use his words "to dig his (Seselj's) eyes out with a spoon!"....

Nenad,

As per usual you exclude your self from your own biases and read in your own twists in to what other people write. In case you missed it, this is what I wrote at the end:

"P.S. No doubt some people of limited mental means will think that my comments above are somehow excusing criminality or those with links, but that would be because they are effectively illiterate (poor souls).
(Aleks, 19 March 2011 01:16)"

If you are going to throw stones, get out of your own glasshouse first and equating your opinions as facts does not make them facts. Move on.

w
Who said that he is returning home any time soon???
He will rot in prison.Wish it was Gulag prison, and not some Holiday Inn in western country.

You need evidence to prosecute someone
(John, 18 March 2011 23:20)

I keep asking the same question about the yellow house in Albania.

Aleks,

You make valid points, of course, but as is often the case with pro-Serb commentators, you seem to assign very little, if any, responsibility to the Serbian war machine of the 90s. You can argue with all the cleverness and eloquence you like, but to insinuate that sanctions were the primary driver of widespread criminality across the Balkans in the 1990s is ridiculous.

You can manipulate the story all you want but sometimes facts are plain enough for even stupid sheep like me to see. I can agree with you that the course of Western justice often plays out with serious defect, and that Western military policy in places like Iraq is seriously flawed. But you seem to imply that these realities somehow exonerate Belgrade for its part in the 90s wars. Things like sanctions and international tribunals are consequences of war -- however imperfectly executed.

The pro-Serb position basically argues that the Balkans wars themselves were a consequence of some kind of Western conspiracy to destabilize the region in order to undermine the USSR, but I can assure you that this is an argument Serbs would have a lot of trouble winning in debate (no matter how pretty their logic) with people around the rest of the world -- and for good reason. Look where the USSR stood in 1989 after Afghanistan and the fall of the Wall. Furthermore, Yugoslavia was a NAM nation holding billions in debt to the West.

Please, lets look at fact, and not fiction.

It's kind of interesting that virtually every prominent Serbian politican from the 1990s/early 2000s seems to be linked in some way to the Balkan mafia. Seselj is a prime example and this obviously hurts his credibility. Certainly not helping him was the timing of his surrender to the Hague, especially since we have here the strange irony (and I am pleased that the article points this out) that the ICTY may actually have offered him asylum during Operation Sabre.

In a sense, the accusations against Seselj in the Djindjic murder case seem impossible to believe for the lack of discretion in Seselj's alleged move. However, we have the murder of Petar Stambolic and attempted murder of Vuk Draskovic to consider, so maybe the allegations aren't so far-fetched.

Perhaps physical liquidation of a politcal nemesis (or any kind of adversary, for that matter) was simply a commonly accepted option for someone like Seselj back in those days, and thugs like Legija were all too eager to perform the task.

Figures like Seselj, Karadzic, Stanisic and so on can deny, deny, deny - but with so many of their peers implicated in such plots, one is forced to wonder if many of the allegations might just be true.

You can try to agrue that the real perpetrators were the guys who pulled the trigger, not the politicians rumored to have ordered the murders. But then why would the JSO or Zemun Gang be so keen to eliminate Stanisic in 2000, or Draskovic in 1999? What would they lose from regime change? Why were they so keen to see Milosevic remain in power? And why would someone like Seselj have been so much better for them than Djindjic in 2003?

These are criminals we're talking about -- not women fighting for suffrage or blacks for freedom. Why was Sloba so popular with thugs?

And to take things a step further, why, as bganon once asked, was Mladic writing about the murder of Dada Vujasinovic in his wartime diary? Just idle interest in the news story? Perhaps. Or maybe he knew who was behind it. If so, why would a VRS general know the identity of the murderer(s) of a Belgrade journalist?

Pardon me - I see a few corrections in my post are in order.

1. "Petar Stambolic" should obviously read "Ivan Stambolic"

2. Stanisic was not murdered, but Stambolic.

3. To clarify, Karadzic and Stanisic were mentioned as examples of other Serbian political figures on trial at the Hague -- not as figures accused of murdering political opponents.

It's been a long week.

w
Who said that he is returning home any time soon???
He will rot in prison.Wish it was Gulag prison, and not some Holiday Inn in western country.
(Agim Kelmendi, 18 March 2011 18:37)

You need evidence to prosecute someone

What a surprise. I suspect quite a number of commenters on B92 of not having anything between their ears but that won't get them arrested for an indeterminate period. Yet again, the pretense of 'rule of law' is now used as a PR tool to remove anyone who could pose a threat to the status quo at home. The ICTY uses 'joint criminal enterpries' as a catch all because it allows it to add, remove any possible accusation it cares to, but the end result is always the same, to keep the target locked up and not release.

This news story about the hypothetical release of Seselj show that Belgrade is also copying the ICTY's methods. In both cases, which are identical (identify the goal, then look at the means by which these are achieved), neither takes any care of the balance that is supposed to be taken in such cases.

What do I mean?

Clearly, discrimination to pervert the legal process for political ends. That in itself is deeply illegal and rarely 'accidental'. If the ICTY or Belgrade has proof then there the defendant has a right to a relatively speedy trial (depending on complexity) and not forever kept in limbo because it suits the powers that be.

When it comes to the ICTY, they have a documented practise of reinterpreting international law to fit their wishes.

In so called 'civilized' nations, they have very well developed legal systems and personnel who are very adept at manipulating the spirit and letter of the law. They are highly capable of giving the impression that the process is following due process but when the goal is to remove a person from circulation, even if this person is ultimately released, they are still detained through conviction, appeal, re-conviction on other charges, and ultimately when all national legal process have been exhausted (which can take a number of years), going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which of course can also be appealed.

Simply put, the ICTY is keeping Seselj out of circulation and Belgrade will use any means to keep him out of circulation, however tenuous (i.e. illegal). It is called a 'stitch-up'.

Re the balkans and criminals. Criminals are experts at avoiding official controls. Sanctions, imposed by the west on Serbia but not its neighbors empower the criminals so that if a country under sanctions wants to continue functioning, it is effectively forced to deal with criminal networks.

I repeat, sanctions empower criminals. Regardless of whether you are in direct contact or not, you are linked. In Serbia, it is almost impossible not to be linked in some way that means how ever pathetic the evidence of connections with criminals may be leveled, it can be enough to take someone out of circulation.

As to sanctions busting and the important role that criminal groups within a county play, it also attracts criminal groups ex-terratoria. Albania smuggled gas/oil via pipeline to Montenegro for much of the 1990s. Both bulgarian, romanian and criminals from elsewhere provided the products to be sold on the black market within Serbia. People can complain about criminality but who didn't buy something on the black market or not pay tax? Few people will admit to it. It is always the 'other'. Dishonesty starts at home and spreads far and wide.

Not only did the wars in the ex-SFRY affect the whole region through damage to legitimate trade, they seriously undermined those ex-communist countries that were going through their toughest and most sensitive years of so-called 'reforms'. Bulgaria and Romania are still paying the price, but as they joined NATO, they effectively got the joker card to join the EU without cleaning themselves up first.

Western policy, downright stupidity, blindness, and bias is also responsible for many of the war and post war effects. It is just that no one bothers to highlight this. But that is journalism for you. 95% follow the crowd, like sheep. Thank god for the internet (at least for those who are not interested in swallow the s**t that is produced in mass).


The universal evil of sanctions* which in effect punishes whole populations as a means to put pressure on the political elite and for political ends has finally been officially recognized as unacceptable and discredited by the west which is why they have switched to the PR speak of 'smart sanctions', that means financial, movement and other sanctions aimed at specific members of a government or a group.


* I'll give you an easy example of how universally applied sanctions are evil. 'Dual use' - this means any item that could have any potential military application. Between 1991 and 2003, the United States and their poodles regularly blocked critical supplies to Iraq such a chlorine that like florine is added to the water in many states to improve the general health care of all its citizens. This is just one example and I don't need to explain how elastic the definition of 'dual use' has been applied.

P.S. No doubt some people of limited mental means will think that my comments above are somehow excusing criminality or those with links, but that would be because they are effectively illiterate (poor souls).

If he returns home , The Tribunal in Hague would lose its remaining credibility!!!

Well, I am confused:
Šešelj voluntarily surrenedered to the Hague Tribunal two weeks before the assassination...
and then you said:
...and he left to The Hague immediately after the attempted assasination ....

Anyhow, I do believe there are enough people dreaming of the day he gets out... just to be able to judge him themselves!!! To use his words "to dig his (Seselj's) eyes out with a spoon!"....

Nenad,

As per usual you exclude your self from your own biases and read in your own twists in to what other people write. In case you missed it, this is what I wrote at the end:

"P.S. No doubt some people of limited mental means will think that my comments above are somehow excusing criminality or those with links, but that would be because they are effectively illiterate (poor souls).
(Aleks, 19 March 2011 01:16)"

If you are going to throw stones, get out of your own glasshouse first and equating your opinions as facts does not make them facts. Move on.