Military

DATE=03/14/03

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=MORE ASSASSINATION REACT

NUMBER=6-12864

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: The assassination of Serbia's Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic continues to draw wide reaction in the American press. We get a further sampling now from V-O-A's ___________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: As one major daily put it, the Balkans, had been "off the radar screen" for most Americans since Slobodan Milosevic was carted off to The Hague for a war crimes trial. After 9/11 this nation's attention was on its own battle with terrorism.

However the sniper killing of Serbian reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic has quickly refocused attention on this often-volatile region. We begin this sampling of U-S editorial reaction with The Christian Science Monitor:

VOICE: Replacing the modernizing [Mr.] Djindjic won't be easy for the Serbs. He was able to unify many political factions by calm persuasion and worked with the West to send war-criminal suspects to The Hague for trial. He also ended the use of Yugoslavia as a country name through Serbia's new arrangement with Montenegro. And he tried to bring economic reforms and the rule of law to a country torn apart by four wars that [former President Slobodan] Milosevic started.

Both the European Union and the United States must now rethink the political pressure they've used through their aid to push along the reforms that [Mr.] Djindjic began..

TEXT: New York's Long Island Newsday editorial has this to say on the issue:

VOICE: While Serbian tyrant Slobodan Milosevic is on trial . for crimes against humanity, his successor in Belgrade, the democratic reformer Zoran Djindjic, lies dead . The irony must not be lost on [Mr.] Milosevic: In Serbia, the good die young.

///OPT ///

. it was not clear whether [Prime Minister] Djindjic was slain by [Mr.] Milosevic's political allies or organized crime. He was a threat to both. . a dissident intellectual who helped engineer [Mr.] Milosevic's demise, [he] was a courageous man who took great political and personal risks. He had targeted for arrest Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian general who is sought for trial on war crimes charges, and the heads of organized crime gangs linked to the old Milosevic regime.

/// END OPT ///

. It can only be hoped that [Mr.] Djindjic's courage and principles have inspired other Serbian leaders to resist their nation's descent into another autocratic abyss.

TEXT: In the Midwest, Ohio's Cincinnati Post warns the gravity of the assassination is big:

VOICE: The West is preoccupied with Iraq, but the Balkans cannot be ignored. U-S and European forces are still necessary to keep Bosnian Serbs and Muslims from each other's throats. The status of Kosovo remains unresolved. And in Serbia itself, after more than half a century of communism and authoritarianism, democracy and a market economy are still new and fragile.

TEXT: Maryland's largest daily, The [Baltimore] Sun is also strickened by this political killing.

VOICE: Serbia is in very serious trouble after the assassination . and that's not good news - - not for Serbia, not for its neighbors, not for the world.

It was a gangland slaying, in a country where the word "gangland" is sometimes difficult to separate from the word "Serbia." The authorities .have accused the so-called Zemun gang of carrying out the murder. The leaders of that gang had allied themselves with Mr. Djindjic in the period leading up to the ouster of Slobodan Milosevic two years ago, but this is not now a falling out [Editors: slang for "major disagreement"] among thieves.

. Many Serbs now fear that [recent progress] . could all start to unravel, thanks to a criminal-political hit [Editors: slang for "professional murder"] in a city where the chieftains go by names like Bugsy, Idiot and Rat.

TEXT: Views of The Sun in Baltimore. In Tennessee, The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal explains:

VOICE: [Mr.] Djindjic had enemies, and that list did him honor. It included loyalists whose allegiance was to ousted dictator Slobodan Milosevic, alleged war criminals who feared extradition, unrepentant Communists, nationalist zealots and gangsters. He toiled in a political atmosphere poisoned by the residue of [Mr.] Milosevic's venomous nationalism.

TEXT: And in Colorado, Denver's Rocky Mountain News suggests:

VOICE: The assassination [is] a setback for Serbia and stability in the Balkans. The United States and the European Union must work with Serbia's democratic reformers to insure that the setback is only temporary.

TEXT: Turning to the opinion pages, there are some personal reflections from columnists in major dailies. Writing in Friday's [3-14] New York Times, Laura Silber of the Open Society Institute, and co-author of "Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation" says:

VOICE: Two weeks ago in Belgrade, I walked into Zoran Djindjic's living room and sat down on the couch. There he was, Serbia's first democratically elected Prime Minister talking away, telephone in one hand and remote control in the other. It is hard, now, to believe he is gone. Upbeat and full of plans, this was not a man who expected to die soon. His murder is a tragedy for Serbia, and a lesson for the United States. . Something similar is likely to play out wherever America tries to uproot a nasty dangerous despot - - as it helped to oust Mr. Milosevic and is trying to oust Saddam Hussein.

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. A regime, in particular one that has developed in isolation like Iraq, Serbia and North Korea, does not die with one man. And the security apparatus becomes like a Hydra fighting for survival. . There is no doubt that the men who killed Zoran . hoped that with those bullets, Serbia would fall into disarray and stop cooperating wi6th The Hague, and that the next elected leader would pale next to Zoran Djindjic in courage and intelligence. I fear they were right.

/// END OPT ///

TEXT: With those comments from Laura Silber in The New York Times, we conclude this sampling of comment on the Wednesday assassination of Serbia's reformist prime minister.

NEB/ANG/MEM