Milosevic supporters prepare tributes ahead of funeral

By Ellie Tzortzi

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Slobodan Milosevic’s coffin was due to
go on display on Thursday ahead of a private weekend burial in
the grounds of his provincial home, a far cry from the state
funeral sought by his dwindling band of loyalists.

The casket arrived from Amsterdam without fanfare aboard a
scheduled Yugoslav flight on Wednesday, almost five years after
Milosevic was extradited by the reformists who toppled him.

The vicious Balkan wars he presided over in the 1990s led
him finally to The Hague, where he died of a heart attack a few
months before a verdict was due in his war crimes trial.
Questions persist over exactly what caused his heart to fail.

It was also unclear whether Milosevic’s widow Mira Markovic
would attend the funeral. She faces charges of corruption in
Serbia during the decade in which her influence and political
power made her virtually an equal partner of her husband.

Neither she, nor her son Marko have arrived from Moscow.

No one from Serbia’s Western-leaning government was at the
airport as the coffin was draped in the Serbian flag by
officials from his Socialist Party, then covered with red
roses.

A few hundred mourners outside the airport placed wreaths
on the hearse as it drove past. Crowds lined highway overpasses
for a glimpse of the convoy.

The respected Belgrade daily Politika quoted pollsters as
saying people’s emotional reaction might bolster Milosevic’s
fading party and the ultranationalists, but only briefly.

“The squabble to claim Milosevic’s political heritage has
begun … those on the left as well as those on the extreme
right realized his death is a unique opportunity,” it said.

The once-dominant Socialists have invited supporters to
view the casket on Saturday outside the old federal parliament
in the heart of the city — an area which overflowed with
anti-Milosevic protesters in 2000 shouting: “He’s finished.”

On Thursday, they prepared to display it in a little-known
Socialist-era museum in the leafy suburb of Dedinje, where his
official residence was bombed by NATO during its 1999 campaign
to force Serbian troops out of the breakaway province of
Kosovo.

In Vienna on Friday there will be another round of
U.N-backed talks on the province’s future, a process widely
expected to give Kosovo the independence Milosevic tried to
prevent by force.

Milosevic will be buried on Saturday in the grounds of the
family property in Pozarevac, his sleepy hometown 80 km (50
miles) east of Belgrade where the Milosevic clan once ran
businesses, including a bakery, disco and a theme park.

PARTY WANTED MARTYR

The Socialists, who in their heyday dominated political
life in Serbia, now have only 22 seats out of 250 in
parliament.

They and the ultranationalist Radical Party initially
sought a state funeral for Milosevic, then something akin to
one, hoping to create a martyr to their nationalist cause. A
threat to shame the government by burying him in Russia failed.

Milosevic’s popularity plummeted after he was sent to The
Hague in 2001. But a core of support persisted for a regime
that profited cronies for a decade while ordinary Serbs were
bankrupted by war and sanctions.

On March 12, 2003, an assassin killed Zoran Djindjic, the
young reformist prime minister who had Milosevic extradited.

A Russian doctor sent from Moscow to check on a Dutch
autopsy on Milosevic said on Wednesday he was satisfied his
death on Saturday was from a heart attack, but he could have
been saved if he had gone to Russia for treatment as he asked.

A Dutch specialist cited blood test evidence suggesting
Milosevic may have secretly taken medication to worsen his
blood pressure, to boost his case for treatment in Russia.