10 Years on, Serbians mourn murdered premier

Reformers in Serbia will be mourning slain prime minister Zoran Djindjic this week, painfully aware that his assassination a decade ago severely damaged efforts to bring the country into the European Union. Djindjic, the first democratically elected prime minister in post-communist Serbia, was shot and killed by a single sniper in broad daylight on March 12, 2003, at the doorstep of a Serbian government building. His pivotal goal was to transform the country from a pariah state, tainted by war crimes and shattered by NATO bombs, into a democratic and prosperous EU member. "Djindjic devoted lots of time to realise his idea of transforming Serbia into a decent country," said Cedomir Jovanovic, who was a close associate of the slain leader. But in the years following Djindjic's death, he said, nobody has been able to carry the cause with equal fervour. "Serbia nowadays is the same as the one 10 years ago," Jovanovic lamented. Djindjic was the mastermind of the October 2000 uprising that ousted the authoritarian regime of Slobodan Milosevic, the alleged architect of the genocide that followed the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. He saw Serbia's future as laying to the west, and set about removing the key obstacles to Serbia's EU entry -- notably by arresting war crimes suspects and taking the diplomatic track with breakaway state Kosovo. His assassination, plotted by elite police in league with the criminal underworld, put the reform movement into paralysis. The economy, slowly reviving after years of sanctions, was brought to a halt for years as Djindjic's successors failed to push on with reforms the slain leader had started. Zoran Zivkovic, Djindjic's right-hand man and successor, said the killing "halted Serbia." "If Djindjic had not been killed, I am convinced that Serbia would have joined the EU along with Croatia," another former Yugoslav republic set to become a member of the bloc in July, Zivkovic told AFP. While the last war crimes suspect, Bosnian Serb wartime military leader Ratko Mladic, was finally arrested in 2011, Kosovo has remained an obstacle to Serbia's EU integration. It took years for Serbian leaders to even agree to talk with Kosovo's leadership on how to overcome the raft of problems that arose after the 1998-1999 conflict war between Belgrade security forces and ethnic Albanian separatists, followed by Pristina's secession from Serbia in 2008. Current Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic -- once Milosevic's spokesman and Djindjic's fierce opponent -- now negotiates with his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci in EU-sponsored talks. Progress in the dialogue with Kosovo, whose independence Belgrade still refuses to recognise, is a key condition set by Brussels to open accession talks with Serbia later this year. In an article for the influential NIN weekly, Dacic appeared to admit that Djindjic was ahead of his time. "Ten years later, Serbia has yet to solve the problems that burdened Djindjic's government," Dacic wrote. "I am convinced that he would not mind that we, his political opponents, do what we do." Djindjic's boldness in reform and his highly sensitive decision to arrest and extradite Milosevic to the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal in 2001 cost him much popularity and ultimately his life. But tens of thousands took to the streets for his funeral, and, if anything, appreciation for him appears to be intact or even growing. On Tuesday, the anniversary of his death, thousands of supporters are expected to pay tribute with a silent march to the site of his assassination, where they will lay a wreath and flowers before heading to his grave at the main Belgrade cemetary. "He brought us hope for a better future after a decade of Milosevic's iron grip, wars and isolation in 1990s," said Dubravka Kovacevic, a 47-year old mother of two. "The shot that killed him took away that hope."