Draskovic: purge Serb spy service

By Andrew Beatty

Date: 04/05/06

A leading Serbian politician has called for a purge of the country's intelligence services as Belgrade missed a key EU deadline to arrest suspected war criminal Radko Mladic.

Vuk Draskovic, the foreign minister of Serbia and Montenegro, said the country now needed to rid its security apparatus of personnel from the Milosevic era.

Yesterday (3 May) the European Commission suspended negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro after Belgrade failed to meet a deadline to hand over the war-time general to an international criminal tribunal in The Hague.

Speaking ahead of that decision Draskovic said Serbia was now paying for its failure to reform security services after the overthrow of Milosevic.

"Our obligation is to transform completely and immediately the intelligence and security services, first by removing all people who served Slobodan Milosevic," he said. "It is very clear that Mladic« is supported by members of the intelligence."

Draskovic served as deputy prime minister under a coalition government with Milosevic, but has twice been the subject of assassination attempts blamed on the Serbian intelligence services.

"The new democratic leaders of Serbia were naive believing that it was possible to re-educate Milosevic's intelligence, by believing it is possible to pour new wine into an old bottle. It was a massive fault, a huge mistake and finally that intelligence killed prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003."

Speaking yesterday Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said that negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) - the first step for countries of the western Balkans to join the EU - would be suspended with immediate effect.

"This is about the rule of law. Serbia must show that no one is above the rule of law," said Rehn. "The security services and in particular military intelligence have not been fully under the democratic control."

He added that although negotiations scheduled for 11 May would be abandoned, if Mladic were handed over rapidly then the SAA could still be finalised by the end of the year.

"The situation is very clear, if we arrest Mladic on 12 May then the negotiations would begin the very next day," said Draskovic.

But the Serbian foreign minister expressed concern that the delay in talks could have a negative impact on the debates over Montenegro and Kosovo's independence.

"Our position right now is very hard because, practically The Hague is the capital of our state and General Mladic« is the head of all our negotiating teams, because everything depends on Mladic," he said.

"Suppose that Mladic will go to The Hague in the next couple of days, probably the majority of people in Montenegro will say 'ok', all the doors to the European institutions are open for a common state, it would be a risk to destroy this opportunity," said Draskovic.

Similarly he said that Serbia's position on Kosovo was being undermined by the failure to arrest Mladic.

Article on comments by Vuk Draskovic, the foreign minister of Serbia and Montenegro, who called for a purge of the country's intelligence services to rid them of personnel from the Milosevic era. This came shortly before the European Commission suspended negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro on 3 May 2006 after Belgrade had failed to meet a deadline to hand over the war-time general and suspected war criminal Radko Mladic to the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

European Commission: DG Enlargement: Countries of the Western Balkans: Serbia and Montenegro http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/potential-candidates/serbia/index_en.htm

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