INTERVIEW-Seselj ready to starve to death, wife says
07 Dec 2006 17:40:38 GMT Source: Reuters
(Adds background) By Ellie Tzortzi BELGRADE, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Serb nationalist Vojislav Seselj, who is on his 27th day of hunger strike at the United Nations war crimes court in The Hague, is ready to starve himself to death for his rights, his wife said on Thursday. Jadranka Seselj speaks to her husband daily on the phone in his prison in the Netherlands. She says conversations are short and he tries to spare her the details of his predicament. "I dont need to ask how he feels, it's enough to hear his voice. He's getting worse by the day," Jadranka told Reuters. "If the tribunal continues being unjust, I dare not say how it will end. Vojislav is determined to fight for these rights, to go on to the end, even if it costs him his life." Seselj, 52, stopped eating on Nov. 10 demanding a raft of changes to his trial. He has taken only water since and none of his medicines, leading to problems with high blood pressure and asthma. The Hague says it will drip-feed him if necessary. Seselj, who faces charges of persecution, extermination, murder and torture of Croats, Bosnian Muslims and other non-Serbs during the wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, wants to be allowed unrestricted visits from his wife and to have court-imposed lawyers removed. Among other demands, he wants the present judges in his case to be replaced. WANTS JUDGES REMOVED Speaking in her husband's solemn, book-filled office at the headquarters of his Radical Party, Serbia's strongest political party, Jadranka said she could not ask him to change his mind because she was sure "all his decisions have been thought out". "Regardless of how we feel, and anyone who has children can imagine how we feel, it hasn't occurred to me at any point to say 'stop'," said Jadranka, 46. "Our duty is to support him rather than make it difficult by being sad." At the weekend, Seselj issued an edict to his party in the form of a "last will and testament", ordering it to uphold the dream of a "Greater Serbia" on Bosnian and Croatian land. He also gave detailed instructions for his funeral. Jadranka said that unlike his fiery political persona, Seselj is "very tame" at home. She described her husband as "the most gentle man, the most tolerant father". "Politics is his life. He devoted his life to his ideas and his family came second. I don't speak with bitterness but to say we respect him even more because of that and are proud of him." Seselj, jailed as a dissident in socialist Yugoslavia, once went on hunger strike for 48 days. A volatile figure in politics for 20 years, he surprised Serbia by surrendering to The Hague in 2003 to face war crimes charges during the 1990s Balkan wars. "He was certain then, and is certain now, that he could tell the truth, prove that the charges against him are untrue, that the charges against the Serb people are untrue," Jadranka said. (Additional reporting by Monika Lajhner and Reuters TV)
