Serbs Scent Western Bias In War Crimes Rulings

The five officials were found guilty of mass killings of Kosovo Albanian civilians during the 1998-99 conflict.

The convictions of five senior Serb officials for war crimes in Kosovo have galvanised Serbs' suspicions of Western bias against them, complicating the government's efforts to move closer to the European Union.

The United Nations war crimes court in The Hague on Thursday sentenced the five, including Serbia's former army chief and deputy prime minister, to prison terms of between 15 and 22 years, while acquitting ex-Serbian president Milan Milutinovic.

The five officials were found guilty of mass killings of Kosovo Albanian civilians during the 1998-99 conflict between Serb forces and separatist guerrillas.

"It's a tragic day for Serbia," said Dragan Todorovic of the nationalist Radical Party, the strongest opposition party in parliament.

Serbia's point man for cooperation with The Hague, Rasim Ljajic, said the severity of the sentences stood in contrast to the acquittal of Kosovo Albanian guerrilla leader Ramush Haradinaj last year.

"It will strengthen the impression of the tribunal's double standards," he said.

Serbia's eight-month-old coalition government, led by the pro-Western Democratic Party, has identified EU entry as one of its top priorities. But it needs popular support to extradite two remaining war crimes suspects, including Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic, to unblock the path.

POPULAR FEELING

Polls show some 60 percent of Serbs consider the Hague Tribunal biased and are against having to hand over the pair.

"The politicians' rhetoric reflects what ordinary people think," said Milan Nikolic, an analyst with the independent Centre of Policy Studies. "They see the tribunal as a necessary evil."

The Hague ruling comes at a time when many Serbs are growing impatient with the West's carrot-and-stick policy.

Serbia has already antagonised the West by filing a suit at the International Court of Justice against the secession of Kosovo, which declared independence a year ago and has been recognised by the United States and most EU members.

This week it also outraged its neighbour Bosnia by issuing arrest warrants against 19 former Bosnian Croat and Muslim officials for war crimes against Yugoslav Army soldiers during the early weeks of the 1992-95 Bosnia war, a conflict in which Serbia is widely seen as the aggressor.

"There is a tendency to show that other ethnic groups committed crimes too," Nikolic said.

A statement by Interior Minister Ivica Dacic showed that while Serbia might grin and bear its duty to The Hague, denial of its role in the Yugoslav wars still runs deep -- despite a slew of indictments and convictions pointing the finger at Serbs as the main culprits.

"Serbia as a state did not systematically commit genocide against any people in former Yugoslavia," said Dacic, a member of the Socialist party which is the junior partner in the government coalition.