Milosevic not informed of Serb government talks

Senior Socialist official says party now a stabilizing force

By Julijana Mojsilovic - Reuters

BELGRADE - A senior official of Slobodan Milosevic’s Socialists said they have not informed their jailed leader about plans to back a Serbian government, expected to be formed by political foes who helped oust him in 2000.

Ivica Dacic, who heads the main board of the Socialist Party of Serbia, also dismissed Western concerns about a minority government supported by his party, which ruled Serbia during the volatile 1990s and which remains formally headed by Milosevic.

“Milosevic has not been informed, not by us, of the latest political events. He’s under a ban to communicate,” he said.

Dacic referred to a communication ban the UN war crimes tribunal imposed after Milosevic, on trial at The Hague since early 2002, flouted detention rules by taping an election broadcast during the campaign for December’s general election.

Dacic insisted the party had become a stabilizing factor in Serbia, where weeks of political deadlock after the inconclusive election appear to be coming to an end with the expected formation of a conservative-led Cabinet next week.

“Serbia’s future government won’t have any problems with the Socialists. We want reforms, and we’re a stabilizing factor,” Dacic told Reuters on Tuesday. He was sitting in a Socialist Party office at Parliament with no pictures of Milosevic.

[The Hague war crimes tribunal canceled this week’s hearings in Slobodan Milosevic’s trial yesterday due to his ill health, delaying the end of the prosecution’s case until next week at the earliest.]

Diplomats, noting that Milosevic headed the Socialist Party’s list in the December 28 election, fear it will be more reluctant to hand over Serb suspects to the Hague tribunal, a key condition for Western financial assistance.

But Dacic said his party would not obstruct cooperation with The Hague on the condition there were no more indictments for so-called chain of command responsibility, which forms the basis for the indictments against Milosevic. Dacic, 38, said a party convention had authorized the main board to make political decisions while Milosevic as Socialist Party president was prevented from performing his duties. “We put him at the top of our election list because of political symbolism and the situation he is in.”