(En IWPR-artikkel om saken er vedlagt nederst)
Nok engang protesterer serbere mot å bli innkalt til
militærtjeneste. I dagene som kommer vil det nok bli
mye desertering. Under bombinga oppfordra NATO unge
jugoslaviske menn til å desertere, men etter krigen var
ingen NATO-land villige til å anerkjenne disse
desertørene som flyktninger, selv om de får
lange fengselsstraffer i Serbia. I Ungarn ligger
massevis av serbiske militærnektere fortsatt i dekning.
Det samme vil sikkert gjenta seg nå - vestlig
dobbeltmoral av verste sort.
Øistein Holen
PS. Se
http://www2.amnesty.se/isext99.nsf/b3ad7ab2f7211442412566ee00476b4e/7c932c1a83369908c125681200359e64?OpenDocument
for en Amnesty-rapport om serbiske militærnektere.
----------
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl5?archive/bcr/bcr_20000314_1_eng.txt
Serbs Defy Draft
Hundreds of army reservists have taken to the streets of Kraljevo to
protest against the Yugoslav government's latest draft.
By Miroslav Filipovic in Kraljevo
(BCR No. 124, 14-Mar-00)
Government officials sent to round-up army reservists in the
Kraljevo area of central Serbia got more than they bargained for
when they arrived in the village of Stubal.
About 200 protestors, upset by the death of three local men in the
recent Kosovo conflict, met the officials with a barrage of insults
and invective. "Red Gang! Go and Get Marko!" they shouted,
referring to the son of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
"Fuck You Milosevic!" they chanted before driving the officials from
the village with wooden staves.
The confrontation between the protesters, armed with sticks and
agricultural tools, and the draft officials, accompanied by Yugolsav
Army, VJ, officers, could easily have ended in tragedy.
One of the officials, Ljubinko Milojevic, said, "They wanted to hurt
us. At one point I thought about pulling out a gun and shooting in
the air. But we reached the car and left the village."
This latest call-up of reserve soldiers began seven days ago in
central and southern Serbia, in the towns of Nis, Leskovac, Vranje,
Kraljevo, Raska, Krusevac and Kursumlija.
Some observers have noted that the draft is affecting areas
controlled by opposition political parties, particulalry those areas,
which received heating fuel from the European Union under last
winter's "Energy for Democracy" programme.
General Nebojsa Pavkovic, chief of the VJ general staff, has denied
reservists are being drafted, insisting they are being called-up for
"regular training." The draftees, the majority of whom have already
fought in Milosevic's wars, dismiss his claim, convinced they being
mobilized for a new war.
Some believe they will be sent to southern Serbia to fight Albanian
militants. Some think they'll be dispatched to Kosovo again to take
on NATO forces and Kosovo Albanians. And some suspect they
will be used to confront the Montenegrins.
But the willingness of reservists to take part in new military
adventures has gone. In Kraljevo, a town where the opposition
Serbian Renewal Movement and Democratic Party hold power,
only 15 per cent of reservists have responded to the call-up.
"If they mobilize me now, it will be my fifth war," said Igor from Novi
Selo. "I was in Croatia, Bosnia, and twice in in Kosovo. I was
wounded twice, and I lost three friends. I don't know I can survive
all this."
A Kraljevo mother, Dragica Pesic, watched her three sons go off to
the war in Kosovo. After two days of intense worry, her husband
Stojan joined up as a volunteer to be with his sons.
"I went insane with worry then," Dragica said. "Now they are
drafting them again. The police came to our door and said my sons
are deserters. I will not let them go. Where are they going? To fight
their brothers in Montenegro? I've told them, if they decide to go
again, they should bury me first."
Opposition to military service is much more open than last year.
During the NATO bombing campaign parents hid their sons. Now
protesters are prepared to confront the authorities.
On March 13, around 200 furious reservists descended on Kraljevo
town centre to demand an explanation from the military. Kraljevo
mayor, Mladomir Novakovic, said he tried to get someone from the
VJ to talk to the protestors, to calm the situation. "No one in the
army would admit they were in charge," he said.
The protestors sent a list of demands to the VJ general staff, calling
for an immediate halt to the call-up of veterans from all the former
Yugoslav wars and the demobilisation of those already drafted. All
200 reservists signed the attached petition.
The town's mayor has called an emergency session of the local
assembly. "We will tell the regime not to drag our young men into
their private wars ever again," Novakovic said. "If Milosevic really
wants to go to war, he should do it alone with his police."
Pupils from the local high school, excused classes because of a
strike by teachers, also lent their support to the protest.
Zoran, a final year pupil, said, "Tomorrow it will be our turn, these
officials will draft us and fill coffins with our bodies. For that reason
we want, while there is still time for us, to try and put a stop to this
and any other draft."
Dusan Vukovic, whose only son died in Kosovo, called on the
people of Kraljevo to continue defying the draft. He held Milosevic
responsible for the death of his son and 75 other young Kraljevo
recruits killed in Kosovo. "I wish him [Milosevic] the same fate as
me - mourning clothes and no heirs."
Such is the scale of resistance to the call-up, the military authorities
have called in the civilian police to help roundup draft-dodgers. And
accusations of police brutality are adding to the sense of bitterness.
Dragan Nikolic, from a village west of Kraljevo, said four police
officers arrived at his farm to collect his brother. "They fell on my
brother, pushing him to the ground, " he said. " Two other officers
appeared from the backyard, tied him up and threw him into the
back of the van like an animal."
Another reservist said he had responded to the call-up because he
knew the police were arresting those who refused to come forward.
He said that police had brought two men to his army barracks the
day before, "Both were tied up and looked like they had been
beaten."
Miroslav Filipovic is a correspondent for Danas in Kraljevo.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 15 2000 - 18:53:06 MET