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Beta News Agency, Belgrade
July 21, 2004

Daily News Survey

Jocic: Escalation of Violence in South of Serbia Possible

BELGRADE, July 20, 2004 (BETA) - Serbian interior minister Dragan Jocic declared on July 20 that an escalation of the conflict in the South of Serbia and in Kosovo and Metohija was possible.

"When it comes to Kosovo and the administrative security line, we are never sure what tomorrow will bring. The events which occurred one week ago point to a possibility of conflict escalation. Whether and to how large an extent it will occur, that I cannot determine right now," Jocic told reporters in the Serbian Legislature.

On July 20, Jocic stated that, in the first six months of 2004, 44 assaults and 13 brawls had occurred in Serbia, in which members of various national communities had taken part. He further said that an increase in grave desecration and nationalist graffiti had also been noted.

Jocic said the largest number of attacks were against the Roma -- 17 in Belgrade alone. According to him, three attacks on Hungarians were also registered, as well as two fights between persons of Serbian and Hungarian ethnicity. Attacks against Serbs, their graveyards and religious sites were also noted.

The minister said that, of the 92 incidents on record, 65 had been resolved, that 52 persons had been arrested and 118 misdemeanor reports filed. He stated that the Serbian government and police were willing to do everything in their power to put a stop to such incidents.

However, the minister of the interior warned of the tendency to portray certain incidents as nationally motivated, although the police had established that this was not the cause of the disturbance.

The minister said the police were intensifying their efforts to prevent nationally motivated incidents, but commented that the police should only react as a last resort.

Jocic also declared that it was necessary for a larger number of minority members to participate in the operation of state bodies, but further said that interest among minorities for working in the police was lacking.

Unclear if Hadzic Informed of Existence of Indictment

BELGRADE, July 20, 2004 (BETA) - The representatives of Serbian state institutions issued on July 20 conflicting statements on when the Serbian Interior Ministry had received the warrant to bring in Goran Hadzic, indicted before the Hague Tribunal, and it is unclear whether anyone informed Hadzic that the indictment had been dispatched.

Sonja Prostran, spokeswoman for the War Crimes Council of the Belgrade District Court, stated that the court had been unable to take any action on Tuesday, July 13, when the indictment against Hadzic arrived from the Foreign Ministry, because the document had got there five minutes before the end of working hours.

According to her, the indictment was submitted to the investigating magistrate on the morning of July 14, and no one besides that magistrate knew it referred to Hadzic. Prostran added that the investigating magistrate, as soon as he had received the indictment, had issued an order to the police to bring in the indictee by force.

On July 20, Serbian interior minister Dragan Jocic was unable to specify when the warrant to bring in Hadzic had arrived at the Interior Ministry. He added that the police had applied measures falling under its jurisdiction as soon as it had received the investigating magistrate's warrant, and that it was presently applying them.

Jocic said he did not know whether Hadzic was in Serbia, nor did he know his whereabouts, but that the answer to that might be forthcoming in three to four days.

The interior minister added that he did not know the basis for the conclusion made by the Hague chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte that Hadzic had been at his family house in Novi Sad and subsequently escaped.

BETA was told by the Foreign Ministry that no one from the Ministry had had knowledge of the content of the indictment which on Tuesday, July 13, arrived from the Hague Tribunal prosecution.

"No one from the Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Ministry has been notified of the content of the indictment, but the indictment, according to law, was immediately forwarded to the District Court," was the reply BETA received from the Foreign Ministry's International Legal Affairs Service to the question whether anyone at the Ministry had known whom the indictment charged.

The Service also states that, "along with the sealed indictment against Goran Hadzic, a cover letter from Carla del Ponte to the Foreign Ministry arrived, with a request that the minister inform her of the outcome when 72 hours had elapsed, and that this was accordingly done."

The existence of the Hague indictment against Hadzic was first made public by Serbia-Montenegro foreign minister Vuk Draskovic on July 16, when the Hague Tribunal itself unsealed the indictment against Goran Hadzic, the former president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Srpska Krajina, wherein he is charged for crimes against Croats and other non-Serbs in eastern Slavonia in 1991-1992.

On July 19, the chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, Carla del Ponte, urged the authorities in Belgrade to arrest and extradite indictee Goran Hadzic immediately, implying that Serbian authorities had allowed him to escape right after they received the indictment.

Tadic Says Military Cooperation with U.S. National Interest

BELGRADE, July 20, 2004 (BETA) - On July 20, Serbian President Boris Tadic met with U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell with whom he discussed cooperation between Serbia and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Kosovo.

U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell and Serbian president Boris Tadic said late on July 20 that cooperation between Belgrade and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was important to Serbia's future and stability.

After meeting Powell, Tadic said that economic cooperation between Belgrade and Washington was vital to political stability in Serbia and stressed the need for Serbia-Montenegro to become a full member of Euro-Atlantic structures as a requisite for resolving security issues in the Balkans.

Powell congratulated Tadic on his election, saying that the Serbian people had thus confirmed its determination to continue reforms. "I told President Tadic that I would inform President Bush of our talks and pledged that we will do everything we can while he is working on achieving his objectives," Powell said.

Commenting on Kosovo, Secretary Powell said that the U.S.'s stance remained "standards before status," while President Tadic remarked that Belgrade's decentralization plan for Kosovo could be very useful because it offered a good framework for reaching a final solution to the province's status.

Earlier on July 20, after meeting U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfield, Serbian president Boris Tadic said that cooperation with the U.S. in the area of defense was a national interest.

"In any case, it is impossible to develop the defense sector without cooperating with the biggest military power in the world and the nation that determines NATO's general policy," Tadic told BK TV.

He said that he had discussed numerous topics with Rumsfield, including cooperation between the Ohio state national guard and the Serbia-Montenegro army, a project inspired by George Vojnovic, a senator of Serb descent.

Tadic said that another topic had been Kosovo and Metohija and the need to establish peace and stability in the Balkans.

The Serbian president also stressed the importance of direct U.S. investment in Serbia to create new jobs. He said he had discussed trade preferences and Serbian export opportunities in the U.S.

On July 20, Tadic met with representatives of the U.S. Congress, including some of the most influential congressmen, BETA was told by Tadic's office.