The Romas are agitating in Kosovo
The Isrealis are bombing Beirut
Tony Blair is threatenting to invade Ireland
Where will Bill Clinton send our troops next?
Maybe we should have a poll!
Where will the next UN/NWO hot spot be?
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Tuesday, February 8, 2000
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Milosevic Ally Is Assassinated in Belgrade
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/A22756-2000Feb7.html
Pavle Bulatovic supported continued union of Montenegro and Serbia. (AP)
By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, February 8, 2000; Page A1
BELGRADE, Feb. 7 - Yugoslav Defense Minister Pavle Bulatovic, a close associate of President Slobodan Milosevic, was gunned down in a popular Belgrade restaurant tonight in what the government called a "classic act of terrorism."
The killing marked the second brazen assassination of a major Serbian figure here in the past three weeks. Zeljko Raznatovic, a Serbian nationalist and militia leader known as Arkan, was shot at point-blank range in the lobby of a luxury hotel in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, on Jan. 15.
Although there was no known connection between the two murders, the assassination tonight added to a sense of uncertainty about the future as Milosevic holds out against an array of adversaries including a U.S. administration openly calling for his ouster and a European Union participating in economic sanctions designed to weaken his rule and strengthen his political opponents.
Milosevic's government held an emergency meeting here shortly after the assassination. In a statement afterward, it praised the slain defense minister "with gratitude and respect" for his role during the war over Kosovo last spring and said Milosevic extended his condolences to the family.
A lone gunman wielding an AK-47 assault rifle shot and killed Bulatovic shortly before 7 p.m. as he dined at a table with a prominent banker and the restaurant's manager, police reported. Policemen on the scene said the gunman fired a short burst at each of the three men, fatally wounding Bulatovic and lightly wounding the other two before escaping.
There was no immediate indication of who the killer was or what motivated him. The government statement referred to the killer as an "unknown person" and offered no views on why the assassination may have occurred.
Three weeks after Raznatovic's killing in similar circumstances, Yugoslav police have arrested three men - including a former policeman and another policeman on sick leave - but have yet to explain who and what lay behind the murder. In the absence of facts, people in Belgrade have speculated on motives ranging from underground rivalries to government involvement.
Seeking explanations in a similar absence of facts, some observers noted tonight that Bulatovic was part of an extended family that strongly supports Milosevic and Serbia's continued union with the restive Yugoslav republic of Montenegro.
Predrag Bulatovic, for instance, heads the Socialist People's Party in Montenegro, which is allied with Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia in the struggle against President Milo Djukanovic's campaign to lead Montenegro away from its status as Serbia's last remaining partner in the nearly disintegrated Yugoslav federation. Officials in Djukanovic's government have complained repeatedly in recent days that Predrag Bulatovic worked with the Yugoslav 2nd Army in Montenegro to create a military police loyal to Milosevic and an armed counterweight to the Interior Ministry police, which backs Djukanovic.
In contrast to Raznatovic, who was wanted on war crimes charges for the activities of his Tigers militia during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, Pavle Bulatovic was not a controversial figure. He operated mostly behind the scenes during the crackdown against ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo and the 78-day NATO bombing campaign that forced the withdrawal of Serb-led Yugoslav forces from the breakaway Serbian province last June.
"The federal government is thankful for and looks upon his acts with gratitude and respect, acts which contributed toward defending, upholding and developing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and which contributed to the battle against terrorism without compromise," the government declared in an apparent reference to the fight against Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas.
Police said Bulatovic, 51, was dining with Vuk Obradovic, a manager of the Yu-Garant Bank that is said to have dealings with the military. They were at the unpretentious Rad Restaurant, in a soccer stadium on the edge of Belgrade's upper middle class Banjic neighborhood. The killer approached the restaurant from the soccer field, pointed his assault rifle through the window and fired three short bursts, they said.
Bulatovic, Obradovic and the restaurant manager, Mirko Knezevic, were taken to a military hospital on the other side of an open lot, where Bulatovic was pronounced dead and the other two were treated.
C 2000 The Washington Post Company
Yugoslav Defense Minister Slain; Was a Close Ally of Milosevic http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/020800yugo-bulatovic.html
By STEVEN ERLANGER ZAGREB, Croatia, Feb. 7 -- Yugoslavia's defense minister was shot and killed tonight when unidentified gunmen fired automatic weapons through the windows of a Belgrade soccer club where he was eating, the Belgrade police said.
The minister, Pavle Bulatovic, 51, was from Montenegro and was a close ally of Yugoslavia's president, Slobodan Milosevic. Mr. Bulatovic had been defense minister since 1998 and previously from 1993-96 and had served earlier as interior minister.
Mr. Bulatovic was an important member of Mr. Milosevic's allied party in Montenegro, the Socialist People's Party.
The party is now in opposition in Montenegro, Serbia's sister republic, which is led by a Western-leaning president, Milo Djukanovic. Mr. Djukanovic has become an outspoken opponent of Mr. Milosevic and has supported an eventual referendum on Montenegro's independence from Yugoslavia.
It is unclear why Mr. Bulatovic, a relatively colorless figure with a low profile in Belgrade, might have been assassinated.
His killing bore the hallmarks of an organized-crime murder, like many of the political killings in Belgrade that have never been solved. It came just one month after the Serbian paramilitary and criminal leader, Zeljko Raznatovic, also known as Arkan, was shot dead after eating dinner in a Belgrade hotel.
While the police say they have captured most of the people responsible for that killing, they say the organizers of the deed remain at large. More than a dozen prominent people, some close to Mr. Milosevic, have been killed in Belgrade in the last decade.
Officials in Montenegro noted that Mr. Bulatovic was considered an important player in the tense relationship between Serbia and Montenegro. During the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia last year, he pushed for a more robust Yugoslav military intervention in Montenegro.
The officials also pointed out tonight that Mr. Bulatovic had been active in organizing military police that could be used in any clash between Mr. Milosevic's Yugoslavia, which has up to 12,000 troops in Montenegro, and Mr. Djukanovic, who has built up an equal number of well-armed police, a quasi-military force of his own.
Mr. Bulatovic was a fierce critic of Mr. Djukanovic and was active in organizing pro-Milosevic local assemblies in northern Montenegro, an area that Belgrade has hinted could secede if Montenegro declared independence.
The Yugoslav government, which met in a special session tonight after the killing, sent condolences to Mr. Bulatovic's family and said in a statement that he "was the victim of a classic terrorist act" and urged a fight against such terrorism.
"The federal government gives full support to the relevant state organs in their uncompromising struggle against terrorism," the statement said.
Mr. Bulatovic often ate at the restaurant of the soccer club, called Rad, near the military clinic where he was pronounced dead. His two companions -- Vuk Obradovic, a banker, and Mirko Knezevic, the restaurant's owner -- were wounded. They were sitting at a corner table when the gunmen, apparently standing on the soccer field outside, fired through the windows just before 7 p.m.
Ljubisa Mitrovic, editor in chief of the independent Montenegrin newspaper Vjesti, said tonight that Mr. Bulatovic "was another victim from Milosevic's inner circle, another in a series of murders whose motives are not clear but were obviously well planned."
Mr. Bulatovic is no direct relation to Momir Bulatovic, the Yugoslav prime minister. But the two men became friendly while working together at a newspaper in the 1980's.
Mr. Bulatovic was also a close relative of an important member of the Belgrade criminal world, Darko Asanin, who was killed two years ago.
Mr. Bulatovic was born in the Montenegrin village of Gornji Rovci in the northern part of the coastal republic. He was trained as an economist, was married and had three children.
