Belgrade, June 23 (Beta) - One of the highest officials of the former Yugoslavia, Milos Minic, called today on the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, to respond, "as the best informed individual in Yugoslavia regarding everything that took place in Kosovo," to accusations about ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians.
"Who issued orders to ethnically cleanse Kosovo from Kosovo Albanians, to execute mass purges and mass killings in the pursuit of that goal? Which Army officers executed, or issued orders for the execution, or failed to prevent the execution of such illegal and unconstitutional orders, while they had the power and the right to prevent those war crimes," Minic writes in the open letter to Milosevic delivered to Beta.
Minic, a former state attorney and minister of foreign affairs in the former Yugoslavia, reminds that in April 1998 he also addressed the president of FRY in connection with the Kosovo crisis. However, Belgrade continued after that with "catastrophic policy towards Kosovo, Kosovo Albanian ethnic community and Kosovo crisis," states Minic in the open letter.
He demanded from Milosevic to reveal "which paramilitary groups operated in the villages and towns of Kosovo? Were they Arkan's 'tigers' or Seselj's Chetniks or gangs made up from groups of Kosovo Serbs or people with different ethnic backgrounds?"
"We are talking about war crimes and war criminals and no authorities have the right to refuse to reply to those questions, let alone hide those war crimes, and those who ordered and executed them. The International Tribunal in the Hague is in charge of these crimes but the competent Yugoslav courts must try those crimes first."
Minic accused Milosevic of "bringing Serbia, FRY, Kosovo, Albanian, Serb peoples and other ethnic groups in Kosovo to an enormous catastrophe. The result of your greater Serbian hegemonism is unprecedented suffering of the people of our unfortunate country," Minic stressed in his letter.
"In the eyes of Kosovo Albanians and the world and European public, the whole Serb people will be guilty until those who ordered and executed war crimes are discovered and tried," writes Milos Minic and adds that the same applies to the war crimes against Serbs and members of other ethnic groups in Kosovo committed by individuals of groups from the separatist KLA or outside it.
"None of this is possible without immediate resignations by the government and the president of FRY, as well as the president and the government of Serbia, who bear the highest responsibility in front of their people and history for the state to which by their policy in the process of the break up of the former Yugoslavia, and especially in the Kosovo crisis, they brought their country and their people," stated among other Minic in his open letter.