Protests in Serbia Archive
Odraz B92 Daily News Service

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    ODRAZ B92, Belgrade                             Daily News Service

    Odraz B92 vesti (by 3 PM), February 11, 1997

    E-mail: odrazb92@b92.opennet.org, beograd@siicom.com
    WWW:    http://www.siicom.com/odrazb/, http://www.opennet.org/b92/
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    All texts are Copyright 1997 Radio B92. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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    NEWS BY 3 PM
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    NEW MEMBERS OF SERBIAN GOVERNMENT

    The Serbian Prime Minister put forward 13 new candidates for
    election to Government positions: a replacement Deputy Prime
    Minister, six replacement ministers and six new ministers. The
    Government has established three new Ministries; for Economic and
    Ownership Transformation, Local Self Management and Family Care.
    The Ministry for Private Enterprise was abolished.


    COVIC'S UNDELIVERED SPEECH

    Former mayor of Belgrade and ex high ranking official of the
    governing Socialist Pary of Serbia Nebojsa Covic, who was on
    Tuesday deprived of his mandate in the Republican Parliament,
    stated that ``no one is protected from the selfish one [i.e.
    Milosevic] who breaches the law.'' Mr. Covic was not allowed to
    deliver his speech in Parliament, so he handed out copies of it to
    the assembled journalists. His speech in part read: ``You have
    just proved that no one can be protected from the selfish one who
    breaches the law. I wonder how an ordinary citizen feels. When
    this parliament plays games with the mandates given to us by the
    citizens, then it is no wonder that the electoral will of the
    voters has been denied for two and a half months. Parliament was
    silent, until it was ordered to adopt some special law about it.
    This parliament dismisses the one [i.e. himself] who was from the
    start saying that the electoral will of the citizens was not to be
    denied, just to remove anyone who can disturb its conscience. The
    future would understand a parliament which had insufficient
    knowledge of things and therefore adopted bad laws, but history
    will be ruthless with a parliament which breached its own laws, no
    matter how bad they were,'' Beta reports.


    DRASKOVIC: IMPLEMENTATION OF LAW IS WHAT COUNTS

    One of the opposition leaders, Vuk Draskovic, on Tuesday stated
    that the Zajedno coalition remained ``doubtful and cautious''
    about the special law on the recognition of the results of the
    local elections and they did not believe that the governing
    Socialists will respect the report of the Organization for
    Security and Cooperation in Europe. ``They make some kind of a D-
    day out of it. There is no D-day. Today is Tuesday, tomorrow is
    Wednesday. We will see how the concrete implemetation of the law
    will go, compared to the original electoral minutes. Until then,
    we will continue with the protests. The constituencies of
    Mladenovac and Novi Beograd are notmentioned in Gonzalez's report,
    a fact which was of course, immediately used by Milosevic and
    those constituencies were kicked out of the special law although
    we have won there, too. The Zajedno coalition will later decide if
    it will continue with the protests against the omission of those
    two constituencies.'' Mr. Draskovic said that he supports Zoran
    Djindjic's candidacy for the office of mayor of Belgrade and that
    ``everything was ready about that.'' Asked about Radmila
    Milentijevic, the new Serbian Minister of Information, Mr.
    Draskovic responded that he was ``amazed by Milosevic's ability to
    replace bad with even worse.'' He repeated that the Zajedno
    coalition supports the Dayton agreement in full, and that all
    refugees must be given a chance to return to their homes. He added
    that the leaders of Zajedno will go to Madrid on February 25 and
    London on February 26, because they were officially invited by the
    Foreign Ministries of Spain and the United Kingdom, FoNet reports.


    MADELAINE ALBRIGHT WRITES TO MILOSEVIC

    The newly appointed American Secretary of State, Madeline
    Albright, has written to Slobodan Milosevic demanding the
    immediate adoption and implementation of the ``Lex Specialis,''
    recognising local election results from November 17th, so that the
    Zajedno coalition can form councils. She also mentioned the
    increasing problems in Kosovo and Serbia's failure to carry out
    its commitments under the Dayton agreement regarding Bosnia. State
    Department Spokesman Nicholas Burns said that it was necessary for
    the Secretary of State to address President Milosevic personally
    as the American Government remained sceptical about his promises
    and that the ``outer wall'' of sanctions will not be lifted until
    all Serbia's obligations under the Dayton Agreement are carried
    out. Madeline Albright is setting out on a tour of Europe and the
    far East.


    LAWYERS WHISTLE AND BOO AT SERBIAN PARLIAMENT

    More than 100 Belgrade lawyers on Tuesday whistled and booed
    outside the Serbian Parliament building, during a session
    concerning the adoption of the special law on recognition of the
    results of the local elections. Tuesday was the 12th day of a
    strike by Belgrade lawyers, as an act of protest against the
    annulment of the election results.


    MEDICAL EMERGENCY SERVICE WANTS RESIGNATION OF ITS MANAGER

    The General Manager of the Medical Emergency Service, Doctor
    Durlevic, should resign because he did not provide enough
    ambulances during the demonstrations, says the service's
    independent trade union. However the Union do not plan strike
    action, because they think it could have serious consequences for
    the City.

    Prepared by: Goran Dimitrijevic
    Edited by: Mary Anne Wood

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    ODRAZ B92, Belgrade                             Daily News Service
    E-mail: odrazb92@b92.opennet.org, beograd@siicom.com
    WWW:    http://www.siicom.com/odrazb/, http://www.opennet.org/b92/
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