Presidents Who Show No Mercy

Before the New Year, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman pardoned 455 Serbs arrested during and after the "Storm" offensive on Krajina. These Serbs were tried for armed rebellion by military tribunals in Zagreb, Karlovac and Split. When the Dayton peace accord was signed, Montenegrin President Momir Bulatovic decided to pardon 82 people persecuted by the Republic; 50 of them were political prisoners. Several days before 1995 ended, Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov pardoned 35 persons convicted for committing crimes; Macedonia has no political prisoners since last summer, when the ethnic Albanians who participated in the "weapon scandal" were paroled. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic pardoned no-one. Nor did FRY President Zoran Lilic. The last person he abolished (and then promoted) was JNA General Bora Ivanovic, suspected of robbery and embezzlement.

It goes without saying that Tudjman set free the Serbs on whose behalf the Helsinki Watch and other human rights organizations interceded; these people would probably never be persecuted in a democratic state anyway. (Last year the Croatian Helsinki Board issued a special statement on the occasion of Human Rights Day, December 10, warning that there were 1,500 Serbs in Croatian jails. The report said that these people had given themselves up and were exposed to torture and that many of them were convicted at dubious summary proceedings). However, the fact remains that nearly 500 people will be free soon and that Tudjman will leave the impression on major international factors of trying to correct at least some of the mistakes he made during "Storm".

Bulatovic may also expect commendation for his actions. The people he pardoned include some 15 Sandzak Party of Democratic Action leaders who were convicted in Bijelo Polje for attempting to secede Sandzak from Montenegro. Over 20 Sandzak Moslems were simultaneously sentenced to jail in Serbia for the same attempt. Therefore, in the state of Yugoslavia, some of the convicts are in jail and the others are free. Bulatovic also pardoned Miliko Ceka Dacevic (Serbian Radical Party) known for perpetrating various terrorist acts during 1992 leader, the 16 people tried in Cetinje for attacking him during the 150th Anniversary of the birth of Montenegrin writer and ruler Njegos, Montenegrin poet Jevrem Brkovic who lives in Zagreb and against whom criminal charges were raised four years ago for his critical statements about the Montenegrin authorities and President Bulatovic, Belgrade actor Danilo Lazovic who is tried for libel.... Bulatovic obviously wanted to present himself as a democrat liberating political prisoners; on the other hand, he did not want to admit there were such prisoners in Montenegro at the news conference and explained that these people were not tried for their political convictions, but "for the crimes they committed and the consequences which ensued or could have ensued."

The Belgrade authorities have failed to react to the initiative launched by Vreme to abolish Vladimir Trifunovic and the other people convicted at the "Varazdin Trial". The regime last autumn remained loyal to its character and expressed its stand on the suggestions to pardon those who avoided mobilization when the war began. The Parliament passed an unheard-of regulation under which these people lose their right to inheritance as "unworthy".

It remains to be seen what will happen to the Amnesty Bill which was last year submitted to the Federal Parliament by Council of Citizens MP Blasko Kopilovic (Reform-Democratic Forces of Vojvodina, RDSV). The amnesty would comprise "all persons who did not respond to the request to take part in armed conflicts and persons who did take part in them but did not commit any crimes against humanity under international law". Kopilovic assessed that the adoption of the bill would represent "a definite indication of the peace policy our country is conducting."

In his New Year interview to Vecernje novosti daily, Momir Bulatovic said in reply to a question about the people who had avoided mobilization that it would be good if the "state, which wants to think of the future and not the past, pardoned such human weaknesses in one stroke".

In the Beta news agency poll, Serbia opposition leaders unanimously supported a law on amnesty; Vesna Pesic of the Civic Alliance of Serbia (GSS) said she doubted the Serbian domestic policy would "warm up". Dusan Mihajlovic of New Democracy pledged he would "urge the implementation of that goal", while Ivan Kovacevic of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) recalled that the senseless and bloody war had prompted 400,000 of the best-educated young people to leave the country and that the "Serbian regime is trying to keep these people out in every possible way". Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj said that his party was prepared to discuss the law only if it encompassed all criminal acts and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) stated that the Socialist regime in Serbia did not have the right to amnesty anyone until it accounted to the nation for its actions and that only after this would it be plain who needed amnesty.

The difference between abolition and pardon, on the one hand, and amnesty on the other is that, according to the Britannica Encyclopaedia, amnesty implies the "deletion of any legal memory of a criminal act".

All in all, as Civic Alliance of Serbia Vice-President Zarko Korac said, "Only the Serbian President is entering the New Year mercilessly, without the intention of sending the citizens of Serbia the message that he will this year try to cool his passions and resolve problems by dialogue, not trials." And there would be candidates for pardon. In addition to the convicted Sandzak Moslems, the Serbian prisons hold several groups of scores of ethnic Albanians who were last year convicted of political crime; there are others as well.

Hope springs eternal, though. One should recall the actions of some friendly countries. The Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council last summer pardoned all Iraqis in the country and outside it who were convicted for political reasons. The Russian Parliament recently amnestied as many as 300,000 participants in World War II.