One of the most trusted allies of former President Slobodan Milosevic, the ex-Yugoslav army chief Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, was to surrender to the U.N. war crimes tribunal Monday. Pavkovic, who has been charged in connection with atrocities committed in Kosovo, left for the Netherlands in a government plane accompanied by a Serbian government minister, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Before surrendering to the U.N. court in The Hague, Pavkovic will make a stopover in Rotterdam for a medical checkup, the official said. Pavkovic is reportedly seriously ill and needs medical attention while in custody. The general's surrender to the Netherlands-based court comes as Serbia awaits European Union approval for its bid to eventually start membership talks with the bloc. The EU has said that a positive response will depend on Pavkovic's extradition. Pavkovic, who commanded the military in Kosovo during the 1998-99 war there, was charged in 2003 for war crimes committed during the conflict between the Serb security forces and ethnic Albanian separatists. Thousands of ethnic Albanians were killed during the war. The brutality of the Serb onslaught prompted NATO to intervene in 1999 to force Milosevic to pull his troops out of Kosovo. Pavkovic's indictment alleges that troops under his command "murdered hundreds of Kosovo Albanian civilians ... that resulted in the forced deportation of approximately 800,000 Kosovo Albanian civilians from October 1998 until June 1999." Three more Serb army and police generals have been indicted along with Pavkovic. Two are awaiting trial while one remains at large. Kosovo has been an international protectorate since 1999, run by the United Nations and NATO-led peacekeepers although it officially remains a province of Serbia.
