Better Prison Than Airplane

According to many, the key figure of two-day negotiations that took place in the Dedinje villa was the DOS caucus leader in the Serbian Parliament, Cedomir Jovanovic. After two days of keeping quiet, Jovanovic summoned a press conference, as he considered that his version of the events deserved to be conveyed to all newspapers and radio and TV stations at once, so as to avoid some ‘additional stories’.

‘In the night between Friday and Saturday, when the lower gate of the residence was taken over by the police forces, it was estimated that the advancement of the action would lead towards casualties on both sides, taking into consideration that the building of the villa is like a real fortress’, said Jovanovic. ‘Only on the side of MUP, there would be at least ten victims’.

‘I considered myself responsible for what was going on and I asked Prime Minister Djindjic to try to mediate in the talks’, says Jovanovic. He contacted Branislav Ivkovic, the SPS caucus leader in the Serbian Parliament, and on Saturday, at about five o’clock in the morning, he was already at the residence in 11 Uzicka St. I was aware of the difficulty of the task I undertook, since the success of the mission was strongly linked to the destiny of Milosevic and his family, as well as the lives of MUP specialists.’

Cedomir Jovanovic says that ‘three rounds of negotiations followed one another in the overall duration of ten hours’. Milosevic’s wife was present from time to time, and sometimes even some of his closest associates were invited to have their say. ‘The former FRY President is very rigid in defence of his standpoints’, says Jovanovic, adding that ‘it would not be appropriate to give details about the atmosphere that dominated the negotiations’. ‘Milosevic was sure that the verdict had already been passed on him in advance and he wanted to defend himself until the end’, adds Jovanovic.

‘He had the support of his family members in what he was saying and attempting to do, but he was well aware that it was impossible to emerge as a victor out of the conflict with MUP specialists’, says Cedomir Jovanovic.

Asked to describe the behaviour of Mirjana Markovic during the talks, Jovanovic says that ‘her attitude and her role and not important at all’, but he adds that ‘she did nothing to ease the situation, on the contrary!’.

The armed men he was coming across inside the residence were ‘fair’ in communication with him; there were no ‘mysterious visitors’, nor were there contacts between the top state leadership and the former president.

‘Milosevic did not have any particular demands, and I let him know about the conditions that DOS leaders imposed upon him’, says Jovanovic and numbers the guarantees that were offered to Milosevic- that he would be escorted to the Central Prison, not the airport, that his family would be allowed to visit him every day, that they would also be allowed to stay in the residence until the restorations of their family house in Tolstojeva Street are over. Above all, his family would be guaranteed safety regarding their lives and the assets they possess. According to Jovanovic, it is far too early to give some interpretations of what was a crucial moment in Slobodan Milosevic’s opting to make a right decision that night.

‘The state leadership was determined, arguments I revealed were clear, those thousands of supporters he may have hoped to see in front of his villa did not come to defend him, so he decided to surrender’, claims Jovanovic. He refused to comment the question whether Marija Milosevic opened fire at him or not, commenting that MUP will come up with ‘adequate answers’. The behaviour of some members of the Army (VJ) is a separate story, at least according to what Cedomir Jovanovic told the press. He thinks they are the most responsible subjects in the incident that did not have to be provoked, above all ‘because they allowed so many weapons to be brought into the residence’. Jovanovic claims that the ‘official statements of VJ are not valid since I was a witness to the dialogue between the VJ Chief-of-staff Nebojsa Pavkovic and the Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs Dusan Mihajlovic about not letting the police inside the residence’, and that ‘some members of the VJ were directly responsible for obstructing the whole operation’. He also added that the Army was not liable for the reckless behaviour of certain Army leaders’, referring to those generals who reached their current positions at the time of Milosevic’s regime.