Serbia on Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary since the ouster of then strongman Slobodan Milosevic, with his democratic successors expressing regret over the slow pace of change since the massive popular uprising.
”There are very few in Serbia today who can be satisfied with the results recorded by Serbia since” Milosevic’s overthrow, said Serbia’s current pro-Western president, Boris Tadic.
”To say that all is as it was before would be dangerous. Serbia after October the 5th is different, but it is quite simply not different enough,” Tadic told a conference organised to commemorate the day.
On October 5, 2000, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Serbians took to the streets of central Belgrade demanding Milosevic concede defeat in a Yugoslav presidential election after more than 10 years of autocratic rule.
Milosevic was forced to step down after his previously loyal security forces refused to intervene when groups of protestors stormed the federal Parliament building and state-run television headquarters, a symbol of his demagogic regime.
Less than a year later he was extradited to The Hague-based United Nations war crimes tribunal for suspected crimes committed during the wars that broke up the Yugoslav federation, including genocide.
Tadic, of the Democratic Party that was part of the coalition which formed the first post-Milosevic government, said he was displeased with the pace of reforms since Milosevic’s ouster.
”We should have [made changes] to help kickstart [economic] development, to fight corruption, to adopt a new Constitution, to reform security structures [and] set up a new system of values,” said the Serbian president.
Serbia’s parliamentary speaker, Predrag Markovic, had earlier told the conference that the democratic government’s first promise of a new Constitution had been broken because of ”a lack of political will”.
The event was also attended by foreign dignitaries including Greek opposition leader and former foreign minister George Papandreou and Slovakian Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan.
”I stand here reaffirming my support but you must keep faith in yourselves,” said Papandreou.
”I believe that the problems can be solved if there is political will.”
Local television stations and newspapers on Wednesday devoted considerable time and space to mark the day, however much of the coverage also focused on the negative aspects since the peaceful revolution.
”We could have done more,” said a banner in the Blic daily.
”Years of false promises,” read another headline in the Glas Javnosti newspaper.
”Much progress has been made but we could obviously have done more,” said Vladeta Jankovic, the foreign policy adviser for Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, from whom Milosevic had tried to steal the September 2000 election.
”The blame for this lies with individuals, as well as our mentality and values,” Jankovic added.
”Credit for the unquestionable achievements of October 5 goes without any doubt to all participants, but we owe a special debt of gratitude to the energy, tenacity and courage of Zoran Djindjic,” she said, referring to the reformist Serbian prime minister assassinated in March 2003.
Serbia, which together with Montenegro forms the only remaining union of former Yugoslavia’s six republics, has ambitions of integrating with the European Union and the Nato military alliance.
These goals have been held back by the unresolved status of the disputed province of Kosovo and Serbia’s failure to secure the extradition of top war crimes suspects to The Hague.
The UN war crimes tribunal’s chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte believes that former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic is hiding in Serbia.
He is wanted for crimes including the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre of an estimated 8 000 Muslim males, the worst single atrocity in Europe since World War II. ‒ Sapa-AFP