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(11/04/02 4:41am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's foreign minister said Sunday that Baghdad may not accept a draft U.S. resolution on United Nations weapons inspections even with Security Council approval. \n"How can you expect Iraq to accept such an evil American resolution,'' Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told reporters. "This resolution is rejected by the international community, and it will never be accepted by anybody.'' \nSpeaking at the Baghdad trade fair with visiting Austrian politician Joerg Haider, Sabri said the "whole international community rejects warmongering, the desire for killing ... by this evil administration in Washington.'' \nThe proposed U.S. resolution would strengthen U.N. weapons inspections, declare Iraq in "material breach'' of its obligations to destroy weapons of mass destruction and threaten "serious consequences,'' presumably military action, if Baghdad fails to cooperate with inspectors. \nRussia, France and China contend the United States could use the resolution to launch an attack on Iraq without getting Security Council approval. They want the possibility of force to be considered in a second resolution only if Iraq obstructs the inspectors. \nSecurity Council members expect the Americans to submit a revised text this week but it was unclear if it would be more acceptable to the Iraqis. \nDuring a speech Sunday in Springfield, Ill., President Bush defended his tough stand against Iraq, saying President Saddam Hussein could "provide an arsenal'' to al-Qaida and other terrorist networks. \n"If the United Nations cannot fulfill its duty, if it doesn't have the backbone necessary to work together to keep the peace and if Saddam Hussein will not disarm, in the name of peace, in the name of freedom, the United States will lead a coalition and disarm Saddam Hussein,'' Bush said. \nWith tensions rising, Saddam met with air force commanders and urged them to deliver a "very hard lesson'' in case of an attack, Iraqi television said. \nSaddam ordered a state of "battle readiness'' to prevent "mean and satanic intentions'' against Iraq. "We don't like war but if war is imposed on us, we will fight on all fronts,'' Saddam was quoted as saying.
(05/23/02 2:36am)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- U.N. war crimes prosecutors insisted Wednesday that Yugoslav authorities arrest and extradite more Serb suspects despite claims from the United States that Yugoslavia was cooperating with the court.\nOpening the way for a resumption of U.S. economic assistance, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday Yugoslavia has met American criteria for cooperating with the court.\nBut a spokeswoman for top U.N. prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said Yugoslavia needs to extradite 18 suspects still at large, open up state archives to war crimes investigators and allow access to witnesses.\nFlorence Hartmann, the spokeswoman, said the tribunal has been informed that Powell's decision -- which unfreezes about $40 million in aid and allows U.S. support to Yugoslavia in leading financial institutions -- was taken after the Belgrade authorities presented "a concrete program for full cooperation" with the tribunal.\n"They obviously committed themselves to ... their international obligations," Hartmann said. "We are grateful to the U.S. administration for their effort to get full cooperation" from Yugoslavia.\nIn recent weeks, six Serb war crimes suspects turned themselves in to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, after Belgrade last month urged all suspects to surrender rather than be forcibly transferred.\nEighteen other Serbs indicted by the U.N. court for alleged crimes during the Balkan wars in the 1990s ignored the government's request. Among them are the most-wanted two: former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime commander Gen. Ratko Mladic. Yugoslav authorities claim they are not in the country.\n"So far, we have seen voluntary surrender," Hartmann said. "But, we are still waiting for access to archives and witnesses (in Yugoslavia) and the arrest of the remaining fugitives."\n"We have been waiting for a long time, and we are asking for answers from the Yugoslav authorities," Hartmann said.\nHuman Rights Watch, based in New York, has criticized Yugoslav and Serbian officials for not providing the tribunal access to government archives. Richard Dicker, who follows Yugoslavia for Human Rights Watch, called Powell's decision premature.\nAll forms of U.S. support for Yugoslavia's development had been suspended since March 31 because of the country's failure to work with the court.\nThe most prominent Serb indicted by the tribunal is former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, on trial for alleged war crimes committed in Kosovo, Croatia and Bosnia.\nDuring Milosevic's trial Wednesday, the former Yugoslav president cross-examined the tribunal's chief pathologist for Kosovo, Eric Baccard. Baccard said he examined hundreds of bodies exhumed from over a dozen mass graves and crime sites in the province in 2000.\nThe focus of Milosevic's cross-examination was an alleged massacre by Serb forces of 45 ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak on Jan. 15, 1999.\nIn a report on the exhumations, Baccard said a majority of the Racak victims -- mostly men -- were shot from close range, presumably in an execution. Milosevic argued that the victims were armed rebels killed in a battle with Serb troops.\nMilosevic's indictment blamed Serb forces for the Racak assault, and said the former Yugoslav president bore ultimate responsibility for their actions. Milosevic has been charged for an ethnic cleansing campaign in the Serbian province which left thousands dead and forced 800,000 Kosovo Albanians to flee their homes.\nThe Racak killings, which were observed from across the valley by witnesses, swayed world opinion against Milosevic and led to the 78-day NATO air campaign that drove out Serb forces.
(04/12/02 5:12am)
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- A former Serbian police chief indicted for war crimes shot himself in the head outside Yugoslavia's parliament Thursday, hours after the legislature adopted a law that allows arrests and extraditions to the U.N. tribunal. \nVlajko Stojiljkovic, who headed the police during former President Slobodan Milosevic's reign and was indicted for crimes against humanity, fired his pistol in front of the federal parliament building downtown. \nMihajlo Mitrovic, head of the emergency room at the Belgrade hospital where Stojiljkovic was taken, said he was in critical condition with a severe gunshot wound to the head. \n"His life is in danger," Mitrovic said. \nA police officer at the scene in front of the parliament said Stojiljkovic walked out of parliament shortly after 7 p.m., appeared to hesitate a few minutes, and then pulled out the pistol and shot himself. He was seen lying in a pool of blood in front of the building's large wooden door. \nHours earlier, parliament passed a law that removes legal obstacles for the arrest and extradition of war crimes suspects -- including top Milosevic associates -- to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, where the former Yugoslav president is on trial for his alleged role in atrocities committed by his troops in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia. \nSerbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said passage of the law should satisfy the tribunal's demands for extradition of indicted suspects and open the way for the renewal of U.S. financial aid, which is on hold until Secretary of State Colin Powell certifies that Yugoslavia is cooperating with the court. \nThe State Department said Thursday that Powell had not yet made a decision on that issue. A spokesman for the U.N. court criticized the narrow scope of the law, which applies only to suspects who have already been indicted; he emphasized that Yugoslavia's cooperation should be "complete and unconditional." \n"We are more interested in concrete actions, and that means the apprehension and transfer of individuals who have been at large for unacceptable periods of time," spokesman Jim Landale said in The Hague. "We will wait and see." \nPassage of the extradition bill removes the major obstacle cited by opponents of extradition
(02/14/02 6:35am)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Faced with graphic images from a ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing that prosecutors say he masterminded, Slobodan Milosevic lashed back Wednesday at the U.N. court, challenging its legality, in his first comments at his war crimes trial. \nAt the end of the second day of his trial for genocide and war crimes, the former Yugoslav president had his first chance to speak, and his brief exchange with the presiding judge was a harbinger of the defiance and rejection he is likely to adopt for the duration of the exhaustive trial. \n"I challenge the very legality of this tribunal because it is not established on the basis of law," he said, after listening to the prosecution's often harrowing two-day recital of atrocities during a decade of war in the Balkans. "This tribunal does not have the competence to try me," he said. \nJudge Richard May said the court had already ruled on the legitimacy issue, "as you would know if you had taken the trouble to read our decisions. Your views about the tribunal are now completely irrelevant, as far as these proceedings are concerned." \nMilosevic, 60, faces a total of 66 counts of genocide and other war crimes during a decade of strife in the former republic of Yugoslavia. \nWith less than 30 minutes left before a scheduled adjournment, Milosevic declined to begin his formal response to allegations that he was responsible for the deportation of millions of non-Serbs and the killing of hundreds of thousands during the wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
(10/06/00 6:12am)
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The 13-year rule of the Yugoslav president appeared to have collapsed. \nEarlier in the day, hundreds of thousands of people swarmed through the capital to demand that Milosevic accept his apparent electoral defeat by Vojislav Kostunica in the Sept. 24 election. The uprising developed with stunning speed, swelling as security forces showed little willingness to battle the largest anti-Milosevic protest ever. \nThe government's Tanjug news agency, which defected to the opposition, said two people were killed and 65 injured in the rioting. All but 12 of the injured were treated and released from hospitals, Tanjug said. \nMany police put down their clubs and joined flag-waving crowds as they surged across central Belgrade through clouds of tear gas. \nProtesters tossed documents and portraits of Milosevic through the broken windows of the parliament complex. Smoke billowed from the building and from the state television headquarters nearby. \nElsewhere in the country, thousands more people joined smaller rallies in a number of towns. \n"What we are doing today is making history"' Kostunica proclaimed during an evening speech in front of Belgrade city hall, across from parliament. \nAt the White House, President Clinton said: "The people are trying to get their country back." British Prime Minister Tony Blair said of Milosevic: "Your time is up. Go now." \nOpposition leader Zoran Djindjic said Milosevic was holed up in the eastern town Bor, some 50 miles southeast of the capital, and that he had not been in touch with Kostunica's camp. But there were also rumors that Milosevic had left Serbia in a plane. \nThe United States and the European Union have imposed sanctions against the Milosevic regime for several years. But French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said France, which holds the rotating EU presidency, is "taking the necessary steps" for the EU to reconsider the sanctions as soon as Monday. \nLater, both state television channels went off the air before coming back on under opposition control, and the state-run Tanjug news agency -- one of chief pillars of Milosevic's rule -- announced it is no longer loyal to him. \n"From this moment, Tanjug informs the Yugoslav public that it is with the people of this country," a statement carried by the agency said. Another Tanjug report referred to Kostunica as "President-elect of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," \nA statement from Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia said it would "fight against violence and destruction" with "all its force and in all state institutions"' Tanjug reported. \nThe president has already countered in the courts in an apparent bid to cling to power: The Milosevic-controlled Yugoslav Constitutional Court issued a decision Wednesday that Tanjug said nullified "parts" of the election. The ruling outraged opposition supporters, who had brought the case in hopes Kostunica would be declared the winner. \nBut police offered little resistance and the clashes ebbed. Afterward, as night fell, thousands of demonstrators walked the streets in a relatively relaxed atmosphere. Some were drunk and brandishing handguns. \nThe crowd chanted "Kill him! Kill him!" as opposition leaders claimed victory over Milosevic.