RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 8, No. 43, Part II, 5 March 2004

SERBIAN MINISTER SAYS 'NO' TO EXTRADITION OF INDICTED WAR
CRIMINALS... Serbian Economy Minister Dragan Marsicanin, who is
deputy leader of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party
of Serbia (DSS), said in Belgrade on 4 March that no further indicted
war criminals will be sent to the Hague-based tribunal, dpa reported.
He stressed that "the answer [to any extradition request] is no,"
even if it costs Serbia economic assistance. Both the United States
and the EU have told the new government that they expect it to
cooperate with the tribunal if Belgrade wants economic support and
Euro-Atlantic integration. Kostunica has made it clear that he has
little use for the tribunal and wants any indicted war criminals to
be tried by Serbian courts (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 February, and 2
and 4 March 2004 and "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 12 December 2003 and 9
January and 20 February 2004). PM

...AS U.S. AGAIN WARNS SERBIA. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell
spoke to Serbian Prime Minister Kostunica by telephone on 4 March,
"encouraging" him to cooperate with the Hague-based war crimes
tribunal, the BBC's Serbian Service reported. In Washington, State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a press conference that "we
have been interested in working with Serbia and Montenegro on issues
like reform, [the] rule of law, [and] the movement of Serbia and
Montenegro towards European values and European institutions. We
would hope to be able to continue to do that in various ways," the
State Department's website reported
(http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2004/30161.htm). "The extent to
which we can do that depends on the commitment the government shows
to reform...[and to] the rule of law, particularly in the area of
cooperation with the international tribunal in The Hague. It's a
matter not only of important policy for us, but it's a matter of law
as well, that the secretary [of state] has to look at the situation
and decide whether he can certify certain conditions by...March 31 of
every year" before assistance to Belgrade can be approved, Boucher
added (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 23 February, and 2 and 4 March 2004).
PM

SERBIAN GOVERNMENT MAKES CHANGES... The Serbian parliament elected
Predrag Markovic of the G-17 Plus party as its new speaker on 4
March, replacing Dragoljub Marsicanin, who recently became economy
minister, RFE/RL's South Slavic and Albanian Languages Service
reported. The new Serbian government dismissed several officials
appointed by its predecessor, including Deputy Interior Minister
Sreten Lukic, whom the Hague-based war crimes tribunal has indicted.
Lukic remains on active duty as a police general. Elsewhere,
Dragoljub Micunovic resigned as speaker of the parliament of Serbia
and Montenegro. His successor is expected to be chosen at the next
session of the legislature, which will be the first parliamentary
session following the reassignment of Serbian seats in keeping with
the results of the 28 December Serbian parliamentary elections (see
"RFE/RL Balkan Report," 10 February 2004). PM

...AND ALREADY FACES CREDIBILITY PROBLEMS. Serbian Interior Minister
Dragan Jocic was sentenced by a Belgrade court in 1981 for breaking
into and robbing a kiosk, the Belgrade daily "Glas Javnosti" reported
on 4 March. He received a six-month sentence that was suspended for
good behavior. On 5 March, Jocic said he indeed broke into the kiosk
and was sentenced, calling it a "youthful mistake," RFE/RL's South
Slavic and Albanian Languages Service reported. This is already the
third example of a credibility question regarding Serbia's new
government, which was announced only on 2 March and confirmed the
following day (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 2 and 3 March 2004). Recent
media reports noted that Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic sentenced
six people in 1984 for trying to set up postwar Yugoslavia's first
noncommunist party. The Serbian Radical Party (SRS) meanwhile charged
that Energy Minister Radomir Naumov has been involved in embezzlement
in the energy business. PM

KOSOVARS PROTEST TALKS WITH SERBIA. European Commission envoy Joly
Dixon said in Prishtina on 4 March that working groups appointed by
the Kosovar government and the Serbian authorities, respectively,
reached an agreement on several unspecified practical points of
cooperation regarding the energy sector during a meeting at UN
headquarters in the Kosovar capital, RFE/RL's South Slavic and
Albanian Languages Service reported (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 17
October 2003 and 13 February 2004). Several thousand ethnic Albanians
demonstrated nearby, saying that it is too early to hold any sort of
talks with the Serbian authorities. Many Kosovars suspect that the EU
aims to pressure them into some sort of joint state with Serbia,
which all Kosovar political parties reject. PM

U.S. REPORT SAYS BULGARIA BECOMING MAJOR PRODUCER OF ILLEGAL DRUGS.
The 2003 "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report" released
by the U.S. State Department on 1 March states that Bulgaria not only
remains a major thoroughfare for "illegal flows of drugs, people,
contraband, and money" but has also changed from an "important
drug-transit country into being as well an important producer of
narcotics" (see
http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2003/index.htm). "Heroin moves
through Bulgaria from Southwest Asia, while chemicals used for making
heroin move from the former Yugoslavia to Turkey and beyond," the
report says. "Bulgaria is beginning to replace Turkey as a center of
synthetic-drug production, and laboratories are increasingly being
moved to Bulgaria." Although the report states that the Bulgarian
government has made considerable accomplishment in combating drug
trafficking and production, it adds that corruption remains a serious
problem. In its conclusion, the report suggests that legal reforms be
made and the crime-fighting bodies be strengthened. UB