(28 Jan 1997) English/Nat
The U-S Embassy in Serbia lodged a protest with the Belgrade Government Monday.
At issue - the use of force against demonstrators and a court decision ratifying the government's annulment of Belgrade city elections on November 17.
A Belgrade district court overturned for the second time Monday, an electoral commission ruling that the opposition had won an overwhelming majority in the capital's city council.
State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns called Monday's decision by the Belgrade City Court "a step in the wrong direction."
The court again overturned an electoral commission's ruling, that the opposition had won an overwhelming majority in the capital's city council at the November 17 elections.
The court is believed to be controlled by Milosevic.
Opposition leaders believe the ruling signals the continuation of President Milosevic's tough stance, despite more than two months of domestic and international pressure.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"The decision today by the Belgrade City Court is a step in the wrong direction because it does not address the fact that the international community and the great majority of the Serbian people believe that the opposition, Zajedno, won the Belgrade City election freely and fairly on November 17th and had that stolen from them."
SUPER-CAPTION: Nicholas Burns, State Department Spokesman.
Burns told the press briefing that the use of force against peaceful demonstrators violates a pledge made by the Serbian government.
SOUNDBITE:
"It has now reneged on that pledge. It has violated it. It is using force. And it cannot hope to attract international support, certainly not from governments like the United States government, if it continues to use physical force, police force against innocent civilians in the streets of Belgrade or other Serbian cities."
SUPER-CAPTION: Nicholas Burns, State Department Spokesman.
At the White House, spokesman Mike McCurry said the Clinton administration is considering a special police force to capture war criminals in the former Yugoslavia, in order to bolster the U-N war crimes tribunal.
But McCurry says current U-S forces in Bosnia, assigned to the Nato-led stabilisation force, would not be part of any such force.
SOUNDBITE:
"We've said for some time we're looking at ways of making that tribunal more effective. One possible option is to set up some type of special police force. But we've indicated that should be outside the parameters of the mission established for the Stabilisation force, the S-F-O-R, currently deployed as the international community's military presence in Bosnia. And we haven't made a decision on whether that's the best way to help the tribunal, but it does suggest itself as an option, as Secretary Albright indicated over the weekend."
SUPER-CAPTION: Mike McCurry, White House Spokesman.
Late last year, the Defence Secretary William Perry discussed such a police force with French, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish defence ministers.
They generally agreed that a force is needed but are at odds over who should lead or participate in it.
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