SERBIA & MONTENEGRO: Zoran Stankovic, the new defence minister of Serbia-Montenegro and a reputed friend of Ratko Mladic, urged the war crimes suspect yesterday to surrender to the UN tribunal at The Hague or take his own life to spare his nation further suffering.
Gen Mladic and his political ally Radovan Karadzic led the Bosnian Serbs in a 1992-5 war against their Croat and Muslim neighbours in which 250,000 people died. They disappeared after being charged with crimes against humanity relating to the war, and specifically the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995.
The EU and US have said closer ties and financial aid and investment to Bosnia and Serbia-Montenegro are dependent on the former doing its utmost to find Mr Karadzic and the latter trying its best to find Gen Mladic. "I would tell Mladic this: 'Surrender and face the charges or, if you believe you are guilty, then pass the judgment on yourself'," Mr Stankovic told a newspaper, reiterating an earlier suggestion that he commit suicide.
He said the natural deaths of Croatia's wartime nationalist leader Franjo Tudjman and his Bosnian Muslim counterpart Alija Izetbegovic had "erased their responsibility" for any possible war crimes during the Balkan conflicts in the 1990s.
Mr Stankovic's comments also recalled the demise of former Serb police chief Vlajko Stojiljkovic, who shot himself in April 2002 outside Belgrade's parliament building, after leaving a suicide note protesting his indictment for war crimes. Analysts suggested Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica had appointed Mr Stankovic in the hope that he would persuade his old friend to surrender.
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