Serbian Prime Minister assasinated

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-- Serbian Prime Minister assasinated

Posted by TranceGiant on Mar-12-2003 15:14:

Serbian Prime Minister assasinated

Zoran Djindjic was his name.
Donno much about him though, maybe our Croatian friend Drug_Tito can give us more info?

Posted by brunette on Mar-12-2003 15:44:

...here we go again...

This is not much of a surprise, as he's been a target for quite a while. As a matter of fact, there was an attempt on his life just 10 days ago. And they weren't just going to let it slide..
He was pro-reformist and complied to Western rules, which gained him a lot of enemies.

Posted by DrUg_Tit0 on Mar-12-2003 17:12:

Yes, as brunette said, his dedication to bring Serbia to european standards was the most probable reason. He was trying to break up the organized crime (although he was also accused of having ties with it), and he also played a key role in sending Milosevic to Haag, as well as many of his personell. He made many enemies in the process, mostly from the criminal/(para)military groups. In Serbia, organized crime is very closely related to military so it is that much more harder to be dealt with. This is a sad event, because he was a person that was really trying to normalize Serbia, and looked like he was capable of it. I hope his successor will be similar and that all the power won't fall into Vojislav Kostunica's hands, because I really don't think he's a man capable for the job.

Few days ago a guy driving a truck wanted to crash into his car, but he escaped. There were suspicions about assassination attempt, but nothing more afaik. Now he was shot two times when he was entering the government building. He died in hospital little later. The police caught some suspects, but it is still unknown if they really were the ones who did it. Rumors are that his assassination was either ordered by the mafia, or by Ratko Mladic, a serbian general that was soon to be sent to Haag.

I wish I could tell you more, but Croatian news agencies tend to ignore most news coming from Serbia and Bosnia. It's almost like we're still at war judging by the news coverage.

Posted by wayfinder on Mar-12-2003 17:20:

cnn had 10 seconds about this, and right after that a minute about kate winslet ringing the opening bell at nasdaq.

Posted by NFA on Mar-12-2003 17:33:

bad news indeed. not that i liked him, but at least he seemed capable of normalizing the country. i hope this doesn't mean more war and death.

Posted by magik_ss on Mar-12-2003 22:30:

This is really sad news. I agree with Drug_Tito and he was maybe not loved by all (who is?), but he was responsible of bringing Milosevic to justice and trying to bring Serbia closer to Europe. This just leaves me with the really disappointed feeling and my hope that Serbian people will live peacefully and with-out constant "what's going to happened tomorrow" attitude like everybody else is postponed indefinitely.
On the bright side, I still have faith and believe in Serbia.

magik

Posted by DrUg_Tit0 on Mar-13-2003 20:29:

I must say I jumped on croatian tv a bit too soon, they finally did an extensive report on the situation.

Djindjic was shot 2 times in chest with a large calibre sniper from one of the buildings surrounding the government. It is now almost sure that he was shot by organized crime groups because the assassination was on the very day he was supposed to sign a new set of laws designed primarily to battle organized crime. Also, a serbian criminal leader was to be put to jail as a result. This assassination was by far not the first one in serbia. Ever since Milosevic went to Haag, high ranking government officials were murdered or kidnapped (the minister of police, ex president of Serbia, Belgrade chief of police...).

The criminal leader who was most likely responsible for the attack was the leader of the Milosevic's elite armed force. He was situated in Greece a while ago, but last month he announced a comeback to former Yugoslavia, and since then several things happened, although I don't know if they're connected. First, the failed attempt at Djindjic's life, which was not considered terrorist at the time. Few days later a bomb has been planted under a car owned by Ninoslav Pavic, head of croatian leading news company, which had an article about that criminal leader a while ago. It was detonated at night, and while he lives pretty far away from me, I still heard the explosion. Several days later a rocket from a missile launcher was fired at a bosnian businessman's office. Finally, Djindjic was successfully assassinated. It's not unusual for events like this to be happening every several months or so in these areas (especially in Serbia), but their frequency was unusually high in the last few days. The serbian criminal organization is not active in Croatia or Bosnia, afaik, but they do have ties to local criminal groups, so it just might be those events indeed are connected. The organization I am talking about is really strong, and has commited about 20 murders of highest ranking officials in the last 2 or so years.

Serbia is now in a state of alert, meaning that the military is running around the streets of Belgrade with automatic rifles. So far 200 people have been arrested. The problem is that the military and police are so much entangled with criminal groups that there's no telling on how the situation will unfold.