Thousands Remember Slain Serb PM

Belgrade _ Thousands of people marched in downtown Belgrade to mark the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Serbia's first democratically elected prime minister, Zoran Djindjic.

Djindjic’s family and top officials of his Democratic Party including Serbian President, Boris Tadic who also replaced the late leader at the party’s helm, laid flowers at his grave in Belgrade.

Serbia's caretaker prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica and later Cedomir Jovanovic, Djindjic’s staunch ally and the head of the Liberal Democratic Party laid wreaths outside government headquarters where Djindjic was slain in 2003.

Many people were gathering at Belgrade's cemetery to lay flowers and light candles in Djindjic's memory.

Djindjic was a key leader of the Serbian opposition in the 1990s and masterminded the uprising in October 2000 that ousted Slobodan Milosevic and paved the way for his extradition to the UN war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands to stand trial for genocide committed during the 1991-1999 Balkan wars. 

Five years ago, a sharpshooter from a notorious paramilitary unit that served under Milosevic, gunned down the Prime Minister and seriously wounded his bodyguard as they were entering the government’s building.

The perpetrators, officers from the Unit for Special Operations and a group of leaders of an underworld clan were brought to justice one by one and sentenced to long prison terms.

Although the trial displayed individual responsibility of the people directly involved in Djindjic’s death, it did not shed light on political motives for his death.

“It is not easy to believe that murderers and thieves, however well organised, could come to an idea to assassinate the Prime Minister. There had to be someone behind this with a clear political agenda,” said Milos Vasic, a columnist with the Belgrade’s Vreme weekly and author of a book about Djindjic’s death.

Vasic said that during the Djindjic murder trial, the court refused to question Kostunica and a number of other former and current officials who openly supported the mutiny of the Special Operations Unit in 2002 that preceded the assassination, or ridiculed reports about another attempt by the conspirators to ambush and kill Djindjic.

“The court said such issues may be raised after the end of the then open proceedings. The proceedings ended, and a new investigation didn’t start,” he said.

Milosevic who outlived Djindjic by three years died in his prison cell in a UN detention facility in Scheveningnen, The Netherlands. But unlike Djindjic whose state funeral was attended by hundreds of thousands of people, Milosevic was buried under a tree in his hometown in Serbia's east.

Although the country economically recovered since 2003, Serbia remained tense and engulfed in bitter political feuding between parties, formerly members of a pro-democratic bloc led by the slain prime minister, corruption scandals and persistent outbursts of tensions over the breakaway Kosovo province.

Kostunica's government collapsed earlier this week amid rift between pro-Western minister loyal to Tadic and his conservatives over a resolution that stipulated that Serbia would abandon its bid to join the European Union unless Brussels recognises Kosovo as lying firmly within Serbian borders.

Early parliamentary elections scheduled for May 11will pit pro-European parties against nationalists and conservatives, and will determine Serbia's position in the years to come, analysts say.

"Although his successors did everything to ruin it, Djindjic's legacy lives in democratic and pro-European potential of Serbia and I hope that will be demonstrated at the May 11 vote," said Nebojsa Spaic, a Belgrade-base analyst.