New Kosova Report

Serbia's pro-Western liberals threatened

Wednesday, 27 February 2008

Serbia's pro-Western liberals threatened

BELGRADE, Serbia—It's dangerous to be a liberal in Serbia, once again.

Just as they thought the hostilities of Slobodan Milosevic's era had been relegated to history, Serbia's pro-Western forces are facing a backlash of nationalist anger over Kosovo's independence declaration.

Prominent human rights activists and liberal politicians have received death threats and their offices have been ransacked. The independent B92 television station is receiving hate mail.

"It is all part of a totally changed political climate in Serbia," said Natasa Kandic, Serbia's leading human rights activist, who has herself been publicly branded a "traitor" by the nationalist media and politicians.

"These events are very worrisome and alarming," Kandic said. "It is hard to predict where Serbia is heading."

Riding on the tide of frustration fueled by the cherished province's secession from Serbia, the Balkan nation has turned its back on the pro-Western policies launched after Milosevic's 2000 ouster.

The situation has deteriorated rapidly since Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership issued its declaration Feb. 17—a move followed by swift recognition by the United States and its Western allies.

Serbia and Kosovo's Serb minority have refused to accept the independence of Kosovo, which Serbs consider the cradle of Serbia's history and culture.

The events unleashed a wave of officially sponsored anti-Western fury that culminated with last week's mob attacks on the U.S. and other foreign embassies and the looting of Western-owned banks and shops.

The nationalists also vented their anger at those they consider local traitors: the pro-Western Liberal Democratic Party, Kandic and her Humanitarian Law Center, and the B92 station.

Cedomir Jovanovic, the Liberal Party leader and the main critic of government policies on Kosovo, received death threats as rioters tried to attack his home in downtown Belgrade. Several party offices throughout Serbia were ransacked.

Kandic said mobs attempted to set fire to her office in central Belgrade, and she received death threats.

On Monday, B92 TV said its journalists had received large quantities of hate mail threatening a "bullet to the head" for some journalists. The station demanded the government take action against those making the threats.

"Obviously ... someone wants to impose censorship on the station," said its lawyer, Slobodan Kremenjak.

In 2003, reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was gunned down by Milosevic's paramilitaries and mobsters in front of government headquarters. His killing has come to symbolize the dangers that liberals face in a country crippled economically and scarred emotionally by the 1990s wars that accompanied the splintering of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.

Djindjic's followers fear the new attacks on government critics are designed to silence any dissent and completely sideline pro-Western groups and politicians.

Those include President Boris Tadic, who earlier this month won re-election by promising to take Serbia toward European Union membership, but whose triumph has been overshadowed by the Kosovo events.

Meanwhile, nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has seized the initiative by stoking anger over Kosovo.

"This is a dangerous and complex time for Serbian moderates still wanting a European future," William Montgomery, a former U.S. ambassador, wrote in the newspaper Danas.

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diana said:

...
Cedomir Jovanovic very brave and pro european orientated lad should be helped by any means

Special units equiped by helicopters and other combating sophisticated amrs should be imediately put on action from Bosnja or Kosovo to provide exortion of him and hic family if he would come under direct life therat.

Some KPS commandos can be used within these special units

Some special commados can be hired from Albania as a support

In forthecoming Serbian elections western contries should help him financialy and logisticly to gain as mush as votes as possible