TO JAIL INSTEAD TO THE HAGUE

Vojislav Seselj in Jail

AIM, Belgrade, September 28, 1994.

The leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), Vojislav Seselj was arrested on Thursday, a few minutes after 9 o'oclock in the morning, on the road to Batajnica, at the outskirts of Belgrade, far from the eyes of the public. Seselj was intercepted by 20 to 30 policemen near a gas station, and he was arrested without resistance. For a month now speculations about his arrest could be heard, but rumours mainly mentioned a possible charge with war crimes. Reports of several international commissions suggest that Seselj's name could most probably appear on the list of war criminals in the Hague. His arrest, however, has a completely different connotation.

At a session of the Chamber of Citizens last Tuesday, deputies of the Radicals strove to force the Assembly of the FR of Yugoslavia to discuss the blockade on the river Drina, external policy, and the foreign-exchange Law, but the Chairman of the Chamber, Radoman Bozovic, referring to the new Assembly rules of procedure, prevented the discussion by preventing the deputies to take the floor or by interrupting them. A deputy of the SRS and the Vice-Chairman of the Chamber of Citizens who had resigned, Maja Gojkovic, having proposed opening of a discussion about expulsion of Seselj from Montenegro last summer, refused to leave the platform when she was interrupted in her speech. Bozovic announced a recess and summoned a meeting of the heads of deputy groups, where a quarrel between Seselj and Bozovic broke out.

According to his own words, Seselj swore at Radoman Bozovic, the Chairman of the Chamber of Citizens, then he spat at him, after he had said that the Radicals were primitive. Bozovic immediately demanded that Seselj be deprived of deputy's immunity, in order to take legal action against him. At a session convened in a hurry, the Committee for Mandate and Immunity Issues of the Chamber of Citizens, not quite following the regular procedure, it appears, deprived the head of the deputy group of the SRS, Vojislav Seselj of immunity, unanimously and behind closed doors, and only in the presence of the deputies of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS CG), and the Democratic Party (DS). Seselj referred to Article 87 of the Federal Constitution which reads in its Paragraph 3 as follows: "Criminal or other legal proceedings which imply imprisonment cannot be instituted against a Federal deputy who invokes immunity, without the approval of the Chamber of the federal assembly he/she is a member of." Seselj insisted that the Committee for immunity issues was not competent for depriving him of immunity, while the Chamber was in session. After the incident, the Chairman of the Chamber, Bozovic, appealed to the Government to enable normal work of the Assembly, and so did the head of the deputy group of the SPS in the Chamber of Citizens, Nedeljko Sipovac, and the head of the deputy group of the DPS CG in the Chamber of Citizens, Milan Gajovic. The Federal Minister of the Interior, Vukasin Jokanovic, curtly stated that his Ministry "has taken appropriate measures provided by Law." By order of the Federal Ministry of the Interior issued in the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Seselj was arrested and taken to the city magistrate on duty for provoking an official in official premises. He was sentenced pursuant to Article 6 of the Law on Public Order and Peace to 30 days of imprisonment and sent to serve his sentence to the jail in Padinska skela where he had once served a sentence and was released for "good conduct".

Seselj was in jail four times, he was arrested several times, and many more times taken into custody. In 1984 he spent two days in prison after he was arrested with a group of 28 dissidents at a debate of the so-called Free University held in private flats in Belgrade. He was arrested several times in Sarajevo as well; he was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment in July 1984. The supreme Court of B&H reduced the sentence to four years, and the Federal Court to a year and ten months, and that is how long he served. He went twice on a hunger strike in jail, the first time for 48, and the second for 16 days.

Before the first multi-party elections, Seselj, the head of the Serbian Chetnik Movement at the time and the Presidential candidate, was arrested during the campaign and convicted for disturbing public order and peace. Based on three verdicts, he was sentenced to a total of 45 days in prison, but he was pardoned for a half of the sentence, by a proposal of the jail warden for "good conduct". Because of a speech made in Jadovno on April 23 1991, the Ministry of the Interior of Croatia brought criminal charges against Seselj "for provoking national, racial and religious hatred, variances and intolerance", but he was released, because the members of the SRS threatened with retaliation.

On May 10, 1991, the Assembly of Macedonia demanded that the Republican Ministry of the Interior investigate whether there was foundation for pressing charges against Seselj for his statement that the Chatniks were ready to defend the Serbian people on the territory of Macedonia, if necessary, by mass retaliation. The Ministry of the Interior of B&H on may 17, 1991, issued a warrant for the arrest of Seselj for "an attempt of forcible change of the constitutional system of the B&H at the time."

In the meantime, Seselj became the favourite of the head of the Serbian state and inviolable by law. In April 1992, in front of the Serbian Assembly, he beat up the retired citizens, fought with taxi drivers, and persecuted journalists, for their nationality. Because he threatened students with his gun on July 9, 1992, the Head of Belgrade University, Vracar, demanded that Seselj be deprived of immunity, and the Main Board of the Students' Protest pressed charges against him. With no effects. In October 1992, the journal "Politika" brought charges against Seselj for slander and insult, and on December 8, Seselj was protected by immunity in the case instituted by Zarko Gavrilovic, the leader of the so-called St. Sava Party for slander. All charges were rejected for reason of immunity. Other seven private charges are instituted against Seselj in the Palace of Justice at the moment, mostly for slander and insult. Three of them are connected into a single case (those of journalists Djordje Vukoje, Gordana Susa and the counsellors of former President Cosoc, Dragoslav Rancic and Svetozar Stojanovic). Among others, general Zivota Panic, and journalists Milomir Maric and Vanja Bulic, also pressed charges against Seselj. In the beginning of this year, even Zeljko Raznjatovic Arkan announced that he would press charges against Seselj. The Democratic Party also pressed charges against Seselj on April 15, 1993 for slander that this party was receiving money from abroad.

After he had broken up with the Socialists, the leader of the Radicals was not protected from the Law anymore. With other four Federal deputies, he was sentenced on September 19 to eight months in jail, but the sentence was suspended to three years for criminal charges of having prevented an official person in carrying out his duty. This was a sign of growing tensions between the authorities and the leader of the Radicals. Last autumn, when the conflict between the Socialists and the Radicals started, criminal proceedings were instituted against several prominent Radicals, including the deputy of the SRS, Branislav Vakic, but the affair was hushed up during the election campaign. The Radicals believed that the Socialists could be blackmailed by what they knew about them (they mainly reveal criminal affairs and claim that they had gone to war with the approval and the aid of the police, Army and the heads of the authorities), but in the past few weeks, deputy Vakic was deprived of immunity and he will, most probably, be taken to court. This past summer, news leaked (or was deliberately launched) that the Socialists were considering to arrest Arkan and Seselj. While the first was silent about is, the latter kept declaring that he would go to the Hague voluntarily in order to accuse Milosevic over there.

The Radicals are now trying to exploit politically the arrest of their leader, continuing the obstruction of the Parliament. Only an hour after he was arrested, at the beginning of the session of the Parliament of Serbia, Radical deputy, Milorad Mircic, dramatically started to announce that Seselj was arrested, but the Chairman of the Parliament, Dragan Tomic, turned off the microphone after several warnings, and then, when Mircic refused to leave the platform, declared a recess, and after a several-hour recess, the same scene was repeated and the session interrupted again. The head of the deputy group of the SRS in the Republican Parliament, Tomilav Nikolic, announced that the present and all the future sessions of the Republican and the Federal Parliament, would be devoted to the arrest of Vojislav Seselj, until he was released from jail.

The Radicals persistently applied this technique ever since they broke up with the Socialists. Last autumn, in a proceedings against the Republican Government of Nikola Sainovic, they raised the tension by obstructing speeches, so that the Serbian President Milosevic, who did not wish to tolerate this, dismissed the Parliament. In the Federal Assembly, on May 18, referring to immunity, for several hours the Radicals prevented security officers to throw their deputy Drasko Markovic out, after he had poured water over Radoman Bozovic.

In the meantime, on July 22, a scandal started in the Parliament of Serbia when the head of the Radical deputy group, Tomislav Nikolic refused to leave the platform, after the Chairman of the Republican Parliament had interrupted his speech because he had mentioned Mirjana Markovic, wife of President Milosevic. The Parliament session was interrupted, and by order of Tomic, during the recess, a group of policemen in civilian clothes tried to throw Nikolic out of the session hall, while the Radical deputies, applying the recipe from the Federal Assembly, surrounded their head of the group and tried to prevent the policemen to carry out their task. The authorities were, in short, giving signs that they would not tolerate the Radicals. The arrest of Seselj suits the Socialists, because he is the spokesman of the "war lobby in Serbia", and especially because they have not prepared a great political trial for him, but just a humiliating one for a simple offence. They are thereby inhibiting his arrogance which wins over the authotitarian voters. Seselj was mistaken when he believed that the Socialists would not have the courgae to arrest him. The Radical Party is announcing a series of protests. The first reactions (of Draskovic from the Serbian Renewal Movement and Gavrilovic of the DS) remind that Seselj and Bozovic share the blame for destruction of parliamentarism, although they deny the legitimacy of the decision to deprive Seselj of his immunity. The Radicals have not manifested any significant force in actions outside the Parliment, asnd they will probably not choose to take them. The news about the arrest of Seselj which reached the front pages of many media, probably has, therefore, just a limited value in use.

Milan Milosevic