Reconciliation is a Moral Duty & Protects The Dignity Of Serbs, Tadic Says
Serbia had a moral obligation to hand over fugitives to the Hague, President Boris Tadić said at a meeting in London. He also explained his recent reconciliatory moves for acts committed during the 1990s as necessary to protect the dignity of Serbs and establish a relationship of trust in the region.
“We have tried to develop a new trust with our neighbours,’ said Tadić. “Arresting Ratko Mladić and Hadzić was, in my view, a moral necessity for Serbia and an essential step in building that trust. That was a high risk operation, very difficult for us, but we did it. We didn’t do that in terms of the European Union or because of conditions of integration. We did it because of ourselves. Because of Bosniaks, Croats, Albanians. Because of our moral duty. Because of what happened in history and what we expect in the future.
“In the past few years we achieved a lot in terms of reconciliation, not only in Vukovar but also in Srebrenica,’ said the President, addressing the twentieth anniversary of Vukovar this month. “We have been doing a lot with our counterparts from Bosnia and Croatia. I think that today we have the best relations in comparison with what happened in the past twenty years. This is our common achievement, not only my own achievement. It is our common achievement. But we have to continue that process. This is very important. We have to see what is going to be in the future and see why we did it in the past.
“We were many times victims during the two world wars,’ he said. “What happened during the wars in the 1990’s we have to use as an example that we have to avoid in the future. Because of that, of having hundred thousands of victims during the two world wars, and even in the last war in the former Yugoslavia, I have been apologising to the others. By doing this, I was trying to protect the dignity of my people and to say that we have to individualise the guilty and bring to justice all people that we participating in killing other people because of belonging to other religion and national groups. That happened in the Balkans.
“I am not a Serb from Serbia, I was born in Bosnia. My mother is from Bosnia, my father is from Montenegro, my grandmother was a Serb from Croatia. Whenever you ask Serbs from those countries you will be faced with the fact that they had victims within their families during the wars, because of fighting fascism, naziism, and because of defending their legitimate interests. I am that kind of president of Serbia. I have within my family many victims.”
The President was speaking at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. During the meeting, he addressed the arrests of Hague fugitives Mladić and Hadzić and Serbia’s relationship with the ICTY.
“That was one of the key conditions in the process of [EU] integration,’ he said. “But this is not the only condition, and we are aware about that. I am not expecting to have any problems in terms of continuing cooperation with Serge Brammertz and ICTY but, if you want me to explain to you honestly what were my feelings after finishing that process of investigating and arresting the fugitives, it was very specific. I didn’t expect anything because I knew at that time there were other conditions we had to fulfill in terms of integration.
“We have finished mainly our cooperation with the Hague tribunal. We have to continue cooperation in terms of documentation and some other things but, all in all, we delivered. I am now focused on the fight against global terrorism and organised crime. We have excellent cooperation with British Intelligence and SOCA [Serious Organised Crime Agency].”
Indeed, Serbia is working closely with Britain and the US to root out gangs and drug lords who use the Balkans as a trade route, President Tadić said during his diplomatic trip to London. Significant arrests could be made in northern Kosovo also, if Serbia’s hands were not tied by international agreements, he said.
“I want to empasise, organised crime and corruption is the contemporary cancer which prevents honest citizens from making a normal living. We have taken some decisive steps lately that have resulted in important arrests, but we must now seek the same with our neighbours because criminals are like water, they settle where there is no resistance.
“There are criminals on the north and on the south of the river Iber. I see and hear many people saying criminals are ruling the northern part of Kosovo, which is not the truth. There are some criminals on the north, and we know very well who are the criminals on the north, but I have to say that they are very close in cooperation with criminals south of the river Iber, that are Albanians. They closely cooperate in trafficking oil. Unfortunately, the criminals south of the river are very effective in the trafficking of drugs.
The President made the point that criminal gangs operate in both the Serbian minority north and the Albanian south of Kosovo. Although Serbia cooperates on flushing out crime in the region and globally, Tadić expressed frustration at having his hands tied.
“There is very close cooperation between Albanians and Serbs that are criminals,’ he said. “Whenever I hear politicians mention criminals on the north, this is not the truth. Criminals are working everywhere. This is not specific for the north. I am asking why international institutions in Kosovo didn’t arrest criminals, neither Albanians nor Serbs. It is not allowed for Serbia to participate in the fighting of criminal activities in Kosovo. We cannot arrest them. That is not only violating the Military Technical Agreement [Kumanov], which was signed by the Serbian state and representatives of NATO, but also Resolution 1244. But if someone is going to allow us to go there, we are going to arrest them tomorrow. And be sure, we’ll be very effective, like we are in central Serbia by arresting criminals.”
Fire was stoked in the President when was Serbia was accused of financing criminals in northern Kosovo. “We are not financing criminals,’ he said. “This is very serious. I am taking all risks on my life by arresting criminals. We are doing that in cooperation with SOCA and the DEA from the United States. We confiscated 300 million Euros in the last two years. We are taking all risks on our shoulders. This is big fighting and we are not going to give up. We have to be crystal clear in that. It is not true that we are financing criminals. We are fighting them and we are going to continue that. We are very serious. Whoever is criminal, Serb, Albanian, Montenegrin, we are going to arrest them.
“By doing this, we are defending your [EU] budgetary policy. Criminals are traffickers of heroin and cocaine and the end users are not in our region, because ours is not such a rich region as the European Union, and everyone who is working in the security system in Great Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany is aware of what we are doing by arresting criminals, by fighting them.”
President Tadić was keen to talk about how Serbia and the UK are working together to combat organised crime. “We have extremely close cooperation with the security services and intelligence services of some countries and I am here [in the UK] because of continuing our cooperation with Great Britain’s institutions,’ he said. “[In Serbia] we are proceeding with reforms. Serbia is once again mentioned as a country that is implementing the rule of law and we are going to continue with that process.”
The President was in London at the invitation of David Cameron. “This is the first meeting between a President of Serbia and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since Serbia established a democratic government in October 2000. I did not hesitate to accept his offer.
“Relations between Serbia and the United Kingdom have been long and, even though we have gone through a recent difficult period, for reasons which we all know well, we have taken the long view of the relationship. In a couple of months our two countries will be celebrating 175 years of diplomatic relations.
“In Serbia we remember our alliance in two World Wars. We fought together and both our countries suffered very great losses. This shared fight against oppression cannot be erased from our memories. More recently we are well aware of the efforts made by the UK government to help the democratic forces and civil society in Serbia to overcome Milošević. We have much that we share as values and we must build on that.”
No comments yet.
Be first to leave your comment!