Controversy over Milosevic's burial site continues

Slobodan Milosevic’s Socialist party threatened to topple Serbia’s minority government if the former Yugoslav president was not buried with state honors in Belgrade and if his widow was not allowed to attend the funeral.

Serbia’s pro-Western President Boris Tadic rejected the Socialists’ proposal, however, saying it was “absolutely inappropriate ... as Serbia said all it had to say about Milosevic” in October 2000, when its people toppled the former autocrat in massive street protests.

Tadic also declined to pardon Milosevic’s wife, Mirjana Markovic, who lives in self-imposed exile in Moscow and faces detention at home on charges of abuse of office during her husband’s reign.

The Socialist Party has demanded in a statement that authorities “create all condition” for Serbia to “bid a dignified farewell” to Milosevic.

Counting on a huge turnout, the Socialists have said Milosevic should be buried at Belgrade cemetery’s “Alley of Heroes” – the graveyard reserved for prominent Serbs. The alternative, they said, would be his birthplace of Pozarevac, some 30 miles east of Belgrade.

“We expect the state authorities to respect the dignity of this tragic moment,” said Branko Ruzic, a ranking Socialist official. “The funeral must be organized by the state, as Milosevic was a former president, elected three times.”

Ruzic said the party was asking not only for a “fitting funeral,” but also for the “conditions to have Milosevic’s family members freely attend”.

“Otherwise, we shall carefully consider our relationship to the current government,” Ruzic warned.

The Socialists’ 22 politicians provide critical support for Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica’s coalition government, which has 108 legislators in the 250-seat assembly. Ruzic said a Socialist “walkout” – which could bring down the Cabinet – remained an option.

Milosevic’s body was found lifeless in his bed early on Saturday at the UN detention center at The Hague, Netherlands, where he had been on trial on war crimes and genocide charges stemming from the Balkan ethnic bloodletting of the 1990s.

An autopsy yesterday showed the former Yugoslav president, long ailing from a heart condition and high blood pressure, had died of a massive heart attack, the UN war crimes tribunal said.

Milosevic’s body was to be released to his family members today in the Netherlands, but no details about who would claim the remains or where the body would be taken were available.

Markovic – considered the power behind the scenes during Milosevic’s reign - and the couple’s son Marko both live in Russia and initially wanted Milosevic buried there.

But in an interview published today in the Vecernje Novosti daily, Markovic said she and the family had not yet made a decision, but that it would depend on authorities in Belgrade and that she prefer her husband buried in their eastern Serbian hometown of Pozarevac.

“If I was the only one deciding, it would be Pozarevac,” Markovic was quoted as saying by the paper. “But I’m just a hostage here of this arrest warrant.”

Milosevic’s daughter, Marija, has said he should be buried in the family grave in Montenegro, in the remote village of Lijeva Rijeka, some 30 miles north of Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica.

Marija Milosevic moved to Montenegro, Serbia’s junior partner in the Serbia-Montenegro union, in 2001. She also faces charges in Serbia – for firing a gun at a government official during Milosevic’s 2001 arrest in Belgrade.

Kostunica, who has control over the police, would be able to waive the arrest warrant and allow Markovic to attend a funeral in Serbia. But the prime minister, a moderate nationalist, has been silent on the issue.

Serbia-Montenegro’s pro-Western Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, meanwhile, has said he was “deeply shamed” by the swell of reactions in Serbia from Milosevic supporters following his death.

“They are promoting a serial murderer – a man who sowed death, misery and hate – as a national hero,” Draskovic said.