Global Voices » Croatia

Serbia: Controversy Over Draža Mihailović's Rehabilitation

Sinisa Boljanovic — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:47:19 +0000

Dragoljub Draža Mihailović was a commander of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland, also known as the Chetnik movement, during World War II. In 1946, he was captured by the communist Yugoslav authorities, convicted of high treason and war crimes, sentenced to death and executed.

The tribunal for his rehabilitation, which began in June 2010 on the request by Draža's grandson Vojislav Mihailović, is nearing the end now. Although the request has been supported by some academicians, professors and politicians, the public in Serbia is divided. For some, Draža Mihailović is an innocent victim, for others, he is a justly convicted collaborator of the occupiers, who committed crimes not only in Serbia, but in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia as well.

Some politicians, NGOs and citizens from these countries have also reacted to the news. They have a more or less unified view of Draža Mihailović, considering him a criminal and a nationalist who had the idea to establish the so-called Greater Serbia.

Draža Mihailović. Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Muzej Revolucije Narodnosti Jugoslavije, in the public domain.

Ivo Josipović, the President of Croatia, said to the Croatian daily Jutarnji List:

Draža Mihailović was a war criminal… I could remember a lot of cases where [Chetniks] collaborated, not being anti-fascists, but collaborated with the Germans, Italians and [Ustaše] fighting against the [partisans]… If the trial is finished as the media are announcing – but wait for the end of it -
it will be a bad step in regard to the Second World War and anti-fascism.

The Movement of War Victims from Bosnia issued a statement, in which they said this, among other things:

Bosnia and Herzegovina paid dearly for the Greater Serbia ideology, one of whose trademarks Draža Mihailović is. On the occasion of his rehabilitation we are seriously worried about sovereignty and peace in our country and we are afraid because we don’t know whether the atrocities and deaths which we experienced 20 years ago are behind us forever. Equaling the fascist and anti-fascist movements is the same as equaling victims and criminals from the period of aggression on our country.

However, Vuk Jeremić, Serbia's minister of foreign affairs, thinks the rehabilitation of Draža Mihailović is an internal issue of Serbia.

Serbian blogger Filip Mladenović wrote in his post:

[…] However, I am particularly irritated with the revision of history. It’s not clear to me who is in favor of relativizing our ancestors’ anti-fascist fight during the Second World War now by attempting to rehabilitate the Ravnogorski movement and its leader Draža Mihailović. Why does Serbia throw itself out of the winning anti-fascist coalition by these auto-goals? Why does it disown so many victims who perished honorably and courageously during the fight against Hitler’s Nazi regime? […]

There are more than 350 comments on Mladenović's post. Below are some of them.

Johnnyt wrote:

You are spitting at the man who was a genuine fighter against fascists and communists, while criminal [Tito], the president of the genocidal country of SFR Yugoslavia, is loafing in the House of Flowers […]

Dextera said:

Filip, you don’t know a lot of things. You have exclusively read and cited official history created by Tito’s regime. You don’t know that the trial of Draža Mihailović was a fixed [political] trial, you don’t know what kind of documents there are, you don’t know the role of the [Comintern], you don’t know who Dragić Joksimović was, you don’t know that Draža’s sister was killed by the Soviet soldiers when they entered Belgrade in 1944, etc. You would like to make things to be black and white, just the way Tito was doing.

Cult said:

It has to banned by law to falsify history and rehabilitate national traitors and collaborators with the occupiers.

niccolo said:

It’s futile to discuss again who killed more civilians – the Chetniks or the Partisans. However, does any of the participants in the discussion realize that the procedure of rehabilitation is not related to the question of whether someone committed a crime or not, but to the question of whether the accused one had a fair trial or had no trial at all?

A Belgrade-based historian Ljubinka Trgovčević said this to the Slobodna Evropa (Free Europe) web site:

If it was only about the reconstruction of the court trial, then the problem would be much less anyway. In this way, it goes without saying that he was acquitted, as well as his movement, of everything that he did or did not do.

Mirko Kovač, a well-known novelist from Croatia, said this to the same source:

Super. People could hardly wait for it to be done, so they could rehabilitate their own ones. This region is the same as Serbia. People here dream of rehabilitating [Ante Pavelić].

Dušan Stefanović from Chicago left this comment to the Slobodna Evropa article:

I don't see who was betrayed by Draža in the war. He was fighting against Tito's communists, Pavelić's soldiers [the Ustaše], Hitler's fascists… all enemies of the Serbian people during the war. He saved thousands of American pilots, more than 500 of them were evacuated only from the village of Pranjani in 1943. De Gaulle and Truman decorated him with the highest medals for his role in the war. Above all, General Mihailović did not betray Serbia.

Europe: Will ACTA Treaty Pass After Protests?

Danielle Martineau — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:09:08 +0000

[All links forward to French articles unless stated otherwise.]

As of the end of the month of February 2012, the mobilization efforts of Internet users against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) [en] were still going strong. In fact, they may have begun to bear fruit.

By including infringements against the author's rights in its scope, this international treaty, which addresses intellectual property rights, also affects Internet content.

The ratification debates which were placed on the European Parliament's agenda on February 29, were put on hold in expectation of the opinion of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The issue of the treaty's conformity with European Community law was brought before the court on 22 February by the European Commission.

No ACTA - Strasbourg. Photo by Christophe Kaiser on Flickr, CC-license-BY

Taurillon, the “magazine of young Europeans -France” describes “Europe's about-face on ACTA“:

Si l’avis est négatif, l’ACTA n’a plus aucune chance en Europe. Mais en cas d’avis positif, le recours à la CJUE représente le double avantage de redonner au traité une certaine crédibilité, et de repousser son adoption à une époque suffisamment lointaine pour que la polémique se soit tassée et que l’opinion publique regarde ailleurs.

If the opinion is negative, ACTA no longer stands a chance in Europe. However, if there is a positive opinion, appealing to the ECJ would mean a double advantage by giving the treaty a certain credibility, and also pushing back implementation to a time that is far enough away when public debate has settled down and the public's attention is focused elsewhere.

Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder and spokesperson for la Quadrature du Net urges on the European deputies:

Les eurodéputés doivent résister à la stratégie de la Commission européenne, qui cherche à gagner du temps et à transformer le débat en une simple discussion juridique, et pour cela continuer à travailler au rejet d’ACTA. ACTA vise à imposer une tendance pour une politique globale du droit d’auteur qui est toxique pour l’Internet libre et pour les libertés. Le Parlement européen est le dernier rempart : il doit agir et adopter une position claire et forte, faute de quoi il laissera le champ libre à la Commission pour imposer une répression inacceptable.

The Eurodeputies must resist the European Commission's strategy of attempting to gain time and turning the debate into a simple legal discussion, thereby continuing to work towards ACTA's rejection. ACTA aims to impose a tendency for a global policy of author's rights that is toxic for the free Internet and for freedom. The European Parliament is the last line of defense: it must act and adopt a firm and clear position, otherwise it will leave the field wide open for the commission to impose an unacceptable repression.

For trucbuntu, there is no question of remaining passive while waiting for the Court to adjudicate:

Les citoyens de toute l’Europe peuvent contacter leurs représentants dans les commissions Commerce International (INTA) et Industrie (ITRE), qui se réunissent cette semaine pour discuter d’ACTA, et leur demander de continuer à travailler au sein de leur commission pour le rejet d’ACTA.

Citizens of all of Europe were able to contact their representatives in the International Trade (INTA) and Industry (ITRE) Committees, who met on February 29 to discuss ACTA. Many citizens requested their representatives to reject the proposal.

The website of the European Parliament explains the procedure and the issues of the treaty [en] that are under scrutiny, and has published ‘What you should know about ACTA‘ [en], a page of questions and answers. The ACTA workshop of the European Parliament has been the object of a storify [en] made by the Parliamentary services (link via Global Voices contributor Asteris Masouras [en]).

The organization AVAAZ submitted a petition to the European Parliament on 29 February with 2.4 million signatures against ACTA. The petition is still open:

Nous sommes vraiment proches de la victoire — notre pétition forte de 2,4 millions de signatures a ébranlé les responsables politiques partout en Europe et stoppé les censeurs. La Commission européenne est à présent en position de faiblesse et espère que la Cour de justice donnera son feu vert au traité ACTA en lui soumettant une question juridique très limitée qui recevra certainement une réponse positive.Mais si nous faisons résonner nos voix aujourd'hui, nous pouvons faire en sorte que la Cour examine tous les impacts légaux du traité ACTA et publie un avis qui fera toute la lumière sur cette attaque contre nos droits qu'est ACTA.

We are really close to victory — our petition, with 2.4 million signatures has shaken up those politicians in charge throughout Europe and stopped their censors. The European Commission is currently in a position of weakness and is hoping the Court of justice will green light the ACTA treaty by bringing before the court a very limited legal question, that will without doubt receive a positive response. But if we make our voices heard today, we will be able to get the court to examine all the legal implications of ACTA and publish an opinion that will bring to light the real attack against our rights that is ACTA.

No ACTA - Strasbourg. Photo Christophe Kaiser on Flickr, CC-license-BY

Anti-ACTA parties continue to strengthen their resources. New protests were set for 10 March, and torrentnews gives a list, with this appeal:

La liste n’est pas exhaustive, n’hésitez pas à nous contacter pour la compléter ;)

si certains se sentent l’âme d’un reporter- photographe en herbe, nous recherchons également des personnes pour faire un petit article photo du déroulement de la manif, rien de bien compliqué, comme fait ici pour Nice, Marseille,Bordeaux et Strasbourg.

The list is not exhaustive, do not hesitate to contact us to complete it ;)

If any individuals see themselves as budding photojournalists we are also looking for people to do a small photo story on how the protest unfolds, nothing too complicated, as it happens in Nice, Marseille, Bordeaux, and Strasbourg.

For details on the elements of the debate, see also these linked articles from the Tribune on February 29, and Myeurop, on March 3. On Global Voices, see the laws SOPA/PIPA that set a precedent in the USA, here [en] and here [en]. Since the beginning of the protests, ACTA seems to have lost a lot of political momentum.

The title of this post is inspired by the end of the article “La liberté sur Internet : le filtrage de la discorde” which was published by the Institute of Research and Legal and Information studies and Communication (I.R.E.D.I.C.). It puts into perspective Internet blocking and debates the adoption of ACTA.

The original article in French was published on March 4. For background on the ACTA proposal, more articles can be found here [en].

The Balkans: Debating Angelina Jolie's Film and the Legacy of War

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:50:15 +0000

Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and Honey, a film set in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, has received much publicity, both positive and negative, in the Balkans, adding fuel to the ongoing debate on the legacy of the bloodshed that took place in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

It appears that many of those participating in the discussion of the film haven't had a chance to actually watch it.

Belgrade-based blogger Viktor Markovic wrote this on his Belgraded blog:

For starters, I have to say that even though it was labeled as “a propaganda movie” I must say that the propaganda failed on the very first step as it was extremely difficult to even find the movie to see it in the first place. It’s like it’s being shown in just a couple of cinemas in the world – one could say that because of this poor marketing, the movie is a disgrace to proper propaganda movies. […]

Angelina Jolie received a Person of the Year award from the Bosnian newspaper Dnevni Avaz, prior to attending the premiere of 'In the Land of Blood and Honey' at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Photo by EUROPA NEWSWIRE, copyright © Demotix (10/01/12).

UK-based Marko Attila Hoare wrote this on his Greater Surbiton blog:

Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, is difficult to watch. Difficult to watch in the sense that, here in the UK, it hasn’t been released, and there doesn’t appear to be any information about when or where it will be – certainly not on the movie’s official website, nor in any of the reviews that have appeared in UK newspapers. I spent the first three days of this week in Washington DC, where I found that the film was no longer playing in that city either, and that Amazon.com would not sell me the download since my debit card had a UK address. I have now managed to see the film – unfortunately, only the English-language version – via a link posted by a friend on Facebook.

In the Land of Blood and Honey‘s unavailability for viewing is odd, considering the widespread publicity it has received, the controversy that has surrounded it and the fame and popularity of the director. […]

For UK-based Alan Jaksic of Balkan Anarchist, who has blogged at length about In the Land of Blood and Honey, not watching the film in its entirety was a conscious choice:

[…] I haven't seen the film myself; I've only seen clips of it on YouTube. And I'm not really sure I want to watch it — not because I'm afraid that I'll be deeply offended by it, but because I'm not that keen to see such an emotionally-charged war movie wherever it's set on the planet! […]

Markovic wrote this about Jolie's depiction of the war:

[…] There are some really disturbing scenes in the movie. This was one of the things that upset the public opinion in Serbia most, because the public opinion doesn’t accept that anyone on Serbian side was that cruel. Unfortunately, I believe real war was even more cruel and disturbing than any movie can describe. […]

And here is Hoare's take on the same aspect of the film:

[…] Nor, however, are the horrors and violence portrayed here of the comic-book, caricatured variety. Inevitably, this film has come under fire from the Great Serb, genocide-denying lobby for supposedly being ‘anti-Serb’, and portraying ‘the Serbs’ as monsters. Well, it is ‘anti-Serb’ in the same way that films like Schindler’s List or The Pianist are ‘anti-German’. […]

Australia-based Ina Vukic wrote this in her post about Jolie's film:

[…] In all its history, movie making has been about bringing to the world portrayals of factual as well as fictional events. Jolie has brought a factual story of horror told by fictional characters. There’s no propaganda in that. But even if it were propaganda then it’s high time for more of it because justice has not yet been served to all the innocent victims, and especially not to rape victims in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. […]

Jaksic explains why Jolie's film is considered “offensive” by many in Serbia:

[…] Many of us Serbs feel that the film revamps that deeply negative, media image about our people, which Western viewers had become accustomed to during the '90s, that we are a nation of cruel, sadistic, war criminals, hell-bent on ethnic cleansing, and as such, we were as bad as the Nazis of World War Two! Now, I don't deny the seriousness and the gravity of all those allegations of war crimes etc. against a whole host of Serb leaders, both political and military, all of which has coloured people's negative views on us as a people. However, it must be borne in mind that all this negative press from that time left us Serbs, both back home and in the diaspora, feeling dehumanised and demonised, but most of all, misunderstood by the world. […]

However, what really offends and frustrates a lot of us Serbs about Jolie's film, whether we've seen it in full or just clips of it, is how it mainly depicts the suffering of one side of the war, i.e. the Bosniak side. This doesn't mean that we object to the production of any film that may portray the Bosniaks as the main victims; after all, they did suffer greatly during that war from 1992 to 1995, and we shouldn't deny that at all. However, what bothers a lot of us Serbs is how very little is known about the suffering of our own people during that conflict and others in the '90s. […] Of course, we Serbs are aware of war crimes committed by our own against others, and many of us do feel ashamed of all that. But we are also concerned about the fate of our own victims from those conflicts too, and it displeases us how even now very little is known about them. […]

Markovic, in his turn, explains why it is wrong to treat In the Land of Blood and Honey as “an anti-Serbian movie”:

[…] Yes, the movie has only the Serbian military as bad guys. But, and this seems to be hard to grasp for great majority of Serbs: this fact doesn’t make the movie anti-Serbian. This is because – are you ready for this – one Serbian military squadron does not represent even the entire Serbian army, let alone the entire Serb population. But it’s the trap majority of Serb population tends to fall into: we defend ourselves even if no one is really attacking us, and by doing so we end up defending the real bad guys – the war criminals. […]

Jaksic also writes on the “tendency among all Balkan nations to feel offended by another nation's sense of victimhood”:

[…] On many occasions while surfing the net, reading messages on various Ex-Yu forums, comments under YouTube videos and discussion pages of Wikipedia articles, I've seen how easily offended, for instance, my fellow Serbs can feel when they hear Croats accusing them of war crimes against them, and unsurprisingly, the same is the case the other way round! And it's not just the recent conflicts that cause heated disputes; even different interpretations of distant periods of history can rouse offense, such as the Serbian and Bosniak view of Ottoman rule in the Balkans! And as we can see with the reception of Jolie's In the land of blood and honey, even films by outsiders can offend local nations, and not just some YouTube comments!

Vukic hopes that “Jolie’s movie will trigger more investigations and prosecution of all rapists from the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina”:

[…] So, I say: “good on you, Angelina! Now make a movie on the thousands upon thousands of rape victims in Croatia because Croatian women who were raped by the Serbs during the 1990’s war still await their justice. […]

Markovic points out that the film isn't likely to serve as the closing argument in the painful post-war debate:

[…] the thing that puzzles me the most, and I know I am not the only one is – how is this movie supposed to contribute to reconciliation? Which is, according to Jolie’s statements, her goal with this. […]

For an overview of some of the online Serbian reactions to Jolie's film, please see this GV text by Sasa Milosevic, who has also written about the film on his Huffington Post blog, here.

Balkans: Online Platform Tracks Reports From Areas Hit by Record Snowfall

Danica Radisic — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:12:22 +0000

Since last week, the Balkans have been hit by massive snow storms, the likes of which have not been seen in over a decade, if not longer. After an unusually long period of nearly no real signs of a typical Balkan winter, last week brought what seems to be non-stop snowfall throughout the region, including the seaside areas around the Adriatic that seldom get any snow.

Men shoveling snow from a street in Sarajevo. Record snowfall has paralyzed transportation in the Bosnian capital, where a state of emergency has now been declared. Photo by Sulejman Omerbasic, copyright © Demotix (5/02/12).

Serbia's national television network, RTS, and other media reported on Friday 3 February, 2012, that a state of emergency has been declared by the government, while citizens have been reporting critical situations throughout the country and that municipal services have been doing a poor job of tackling the snowfall in many urban areas.

In an article titled “Serbia Blocked by Snow, State of Emergency in 27 Municipalities, Recommendation to Call Off School Attendance” [sr], the Head of the State of Emergency Sector of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Predrag Maric, is reported to have stated on Friday:

27 municipalities in Serbia have declared a state of emergency due to heavy snowfall. Maric has told Beta news agency that the most difficult situations are in Sjenica, Ivanjica, Prijepolje, Crna Trava and Surdulica, where the height of snow has reached approximately 2 meters. According to him, power supply is “relatively good,” outages are being fixed quickly and there have been no long power outages.

Maric also announced the possibility of declaring a full state of emergency nationwide, which the Government did on Sunday evening, cancelling school throughout Serbia at least until Friday, February 10, among other things.

Several actions have been organized by the online community in Serbia and the region to fend off the snow and to attempt to regain a functional state in urban areas at least, such as a #lopataup (”#shovelup”), organized by one online community leader, Zoran Torbica, and other local Twitter users.

In the meantime, Al Jazeera Balkans, the recently established regional office of Al Jazeera news network in the region, has joined forces with the team from Ushahidi to set up a platform for tracking verified information on everything from road blocks, power outages to other critical points and information in the entire region.

Ushahidi is an open-source platform for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping, which was also used in Serbia just after the earthquake in Kraljevo in November 2010 to map and track damage in the area.

Haris Alisic, who heads the New Media team for Al Jazeera Balkans, launched the platform on Sunday evening, and many members of the online community, including some of the region's GV authors, have joined the Al Jazeera-Ushahidi team in curating, tracking and verifying reports from the region.

The adapted Ushahidi platform can be located on Al Jazeera's official site, while reports can be sent in by anyone using the following channels:

- via SMS to +387644218661
- via Twitter by using the hashtags #kolaps #sneg #snijeg #lopataup #iskljucenje
- via email to oluja2012@aljazeera.net
- or by entering information directly into the form on the”pošaljite izvještaj” tab on the Al Jazeera page

If you would like to volunteer your time to help map critical areas and are familiar with using online tools, please contact the author of this article, or Haris Alisic via Twitter, or leave a comment here on Global Voices, and we will contact you for more information on what you can do to help. We also ask that you all begin reporting from your area on Twitter and using the above-mentioned hashtags on Twitter, which are automatically collected by the platform and then reviewed and verified by Al Jazeera and volunteers.

CEE: “Spotted by Locals”

Veronica Khokhlova — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:08:32 +0000

Spotted by Locals: Experience cities like a local features a few dozen locations, including CEE cities of Belgrade, Bucharest, Budapest, Krakow, Ljubljana, Prague, Riga, Sofia, Tallinn, Vilnius, Warsaw, and Zagreb. A random sample post from Zagreb, Croatia: Hrelić Flea Market – The Aleph of Zagreb; from Bucharest, Romania: The Haunted House – Armenian Neighbourhood; from Sofia, Bulgaria: Nissim – A True Old-School Bookstore.

Macedonia: Ajvar, Glorified

Filip Stojanovski — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:03:54 +0000

Jovana Tozija wrote lovingly about making ajvar, a traditional favorite winter provision in Macedonia and some other post-Ottoman countries.

Macedonia: Veles Says “No” to Lead Poisoning, Government Remains Ambiguous

Filip Stojanovski — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 01:12:54 +0000

After the massive protest against restarting of the lead smelting factory in the city of Veles, the citizens feel cheated by the declarative support shown by the politicians from the ruling parties, and demand clear answers from PM Nikola Gruevski on whether the poisoning will continue.

The protests announced in the previous Global Voices article took place on November 9, 2011. Estimates of the number of the protest participants range from 10,000 to over 15,000 [hr], a huge turnout for this community of less than 44,000 inhabitants.

Samoglaska and Vancho Dzambaski published Creative Commons-licensed photo galleries from the event:

Protest march through Veles streets. Photo by Samoglaska (CC-BY).

People gathering on Veles square. Photo by Vancho Dzambaski (CC-BY-NC-SA).

Twitter tags #Veles or #Велес are still in use, and the seasoned local blogger Jovan Petrov provided comprehensive coverage of the protest:

…the families, school children and elders joined forces. Being there I saw people from all backgrounds - the non-governmental sector, doctors, blue collar workers, politicians including former and current mayors and members of the parliement and local council, mothers and daughters, from all ranges of age, social and ethnic background. They protested in unison, NO RESTART! for the smelting factory.

I was never good at guessing numbers, but the group of NGO's called “Green coalition” have managed to gather more participants than any party on a political rally even when they want to boast with numbers carrying people from other cities to enrich the scenery. Some guesses were in the range of 10.000 participants.

The organization was quite good, the people were loud but very polite, the whole process finished without any recorded incident. The protest was lead by an excavator, symbolic image of the vision of the citizens - to dig up the old shadow factory and plant the perimeter with trees in order to decontaminate the land from cancerogens and active chemicals that modify the DNA of the unborn children.

The message was clear and far-reaching - NO MORE POISONING! Now, the state should show its support for the locals not only by speeches and through columnists, but by clear actions. And the solution is simple - rejecting the application of the investor to restart the factory - which everyone is sure that must be done based on strict following of the environmental legislation. Even the investor has admitted that they will pollute in their environmental impact study submitted to the Ministry of environment of Republic of Macedonia (image of the table follows, and remember the fact - the author of this document is the investor itself):

Table on environmental impact from the study with added explanations in English.

After this night - it should be clear to all, whoever tries to do more harm to the citizens of Veles will be punished severely.

A short documentary about the protest [mk] is available on YouTube:

And while the area's politicians and religious leaders turned out in force for the photo-op, they expressed declarative and noncommittal support for the Veles' cause. However, not all protest supporters received media attention, and were not credited at the event.

Vladimir Milchin, the executive director of the Foundation Open Society Institute, wrote [mk] on his Facebook profile:

Yes, members of GEM (Citizens for European Macedonia) were at the protest. And the Soros' foundation supported the NGOs that organized it by supplying funds for 2,000 vests. Just like it supported them in the long bygone year of 2003 with a USD 6,100 grant for the first analysis that proved presence of the toxic materials in the hair of 80 local children.

Dimce Velev, one of the organizers, added a comment:

A reason for this is that road to the truth around the environmental exodus started with FOSM support at the point when the smelter was a taboo topic!

Milchin concluded:

And now some people want to use the protest to build their careers.

GEM activists in the crowd during the Veles protest. Photo by Vancho Dzambaski (CC-BY-NC-SA).

Several Twitter users shared a screen capture of a statement [mk] by former Mayor, Ace Kocevski, published on his Facebook profile [mk]:

Citizens of Veles expressed their position against restarting of the smelting factory with dignity. But statements of the representatives of the Ministry of the Environment indicate that the appeal has not been taken seriously.
Self-censorship of the speakers at the protest and pointing fingers at Metrudhem only did not produce the expected results.
The goal is clear: Veles without a smelter.
The battle for healthy living environment in Veles must continue in more organized, more realistic manner, without improvisations, through the institutions of the system and if needed outside of them.
The municipality must urgently change the General Urban Plan and enact an Detailed Urban Plan to change the zoning of the area into light nonpolluting industry only.
The court process of Veles and the Green Coalition against Republic of Macedonia must continue. EUR 50,000 must be found for judicial analysis of the impact of pollution over the health of the citizens, and the level of intoxication of the soil and waters.
Ask the [Macedonian Bar Association] for pro bono representation.
The pressure must be directed towards the Ministry of the Environment and the Government - they must stand on the side of the people of Veles, to correct the errors of decade-long pollution and selling of the smelter, and to prevent its restart. They must provide funds from the state budget and from international donors to solve the problem of the slag landfill, and to clean the poisoned soil.

In the days after the protest, organizers and participants started expressing concern via the official Facebook group. Nenad Kocic shared the above video and asked the following questions:

1. Is Veles in Macedonia?
2. Does this state have a Government?
3. Does the Government work for the people or not?

After the Minister of the Environment failed to come to the protest and stated [mk] that it was too early to say that the request for license by the factory owners would be denied, the Green Coalition of NGOs asked to hear the truth in person from the “big boss” - requesting a meeting with PM Gruevski, who keeps maintaining detached, eery silence on the matter.

The news [mk], that the PR agency Republika will commence an advertising campaign on behalf of investor, has been taken as a clear sign of support for the investor by the government. During the past few years, this company has been the dominant implementer of numerous advertising campaigns that funneled millions of Euros from the state budget to pro-government media and other beneficiaries (in a setup compared [mk] to the collusion of the Croatian ruling party and Fimi Media).

Veles protester holding a cartoon. Photo by Samoglaska (CC-BY).

In other news: another Macedonian city has been subjected to a similar environmental disaster [mk], apparently due to criminal negligence. On Friday, Nov. 11, Kriva Palanka received an influx of poisonous slag full of lead, arsenic, zinc, cadmium and other toxic materials from the upriver mine Toranica.

Croatia: Relations With the EU

Veronica Khokhlova — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:00:13 +0000

Croatia Online examines some of the past and present hopes and concerns related to Croatia's plans to join the EU in July 2013.

Croatia: Alcatraz of Yugoslavia

Vilhelm Konnander — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:12:42 +0000

Bill Kralovec of Bill's Blog recounts the story of the Adriatic prison island of Goli otok - the Alcatraz of Yugoslavia - where Yugoslavia held its political prisoners during the reign of Tito.

Croatia: Court Forbids Homophobic Priest From Blogging

Marietta Le — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:49:51 +0000

Serbia Insajd, a Hungarian blog about South-Eastern Europe, reports [hu] that the Rijeka Court has banned Franjo Jurčević, a Kastav-based Catholic priest, from writing homophobic blog posts [Jurčević's blog, hr: http://zupnik.blog.hr/]. The court has also ordered Jurčević to publish the court decision in two national dailies at his own expense.

The Balkans: Homophobia

Veronica Khokhlova — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 12:36:01 +0000

Alan Jakšić of Balkan Anarchist writes about LGBT and homophobia in Serbia, Croatia and elsewhere in the Balkans.

Croatia: The Largest “Welcome” in the World

Veronica Khokhlova — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:44:36 +0000

Benita Hussain of Matador Network interviews Daniel Lacko, “a sponsored outdoor adventurer writing the largest ‘WELCOME' in the world while exploring the Croatian coastline”; Lacko's travel blog is here.

Macedonia: Euphoria After Basketball Victory Over Greece

Filip Stojanovski — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:44:39 +0000

Celebrations erupted among Macedonians worldwide after the national team beat Greece at the European Basketball Championship of 2011 - EuroBasket 2011 in Lithuania - the first such victory ever in the history of international sport.

The victory for the Macedonian national team with 72:58 at EuroBasket 2011 was a big surprise, since the Greek national team “is considered among the world's top basketball powers; they were runners-up in the 2006 FIBA World Championship and they have won the European Championship twice, in 1987 and 2005,” according to Wikipedia.

Soon after the game ended early Satuday evening, the jubilant flag-waving fans filled the public spaces of Macedonian cities and towns. Sport!Denes (Sport!Today) published a photo gallery [mk] from the main square in Skopje.

A Croatian media outlet 24 sata (24 hours) reported [hr] immediately after the match:

The story of the day is the Macedonian win over their southern neighbors, whose [political pressure] forces them to use the designation “Former Yugoslav Republic of” in front of their name. Even though the players do not want to talk politics, they claim this is the dearest victory of their careers.

- “It's crazy now in Skopje and the whole Macedonia, everybody goes to the main square to celebrate this” - Todor Gečevski said, while Pero Antić added:

- “We shall celebrate Independence Day on September 8, and they might build another monument for us on account of this.”

The best player of the game for Macedonia was African-American Bo McCalleb. Specialized basketball blog NBA Macedonia declared [mk] that he's “The Greatest Macedonian.” *

A screenshot from MakNBA blog featuring Bo McCalleb.

Twitter (the main hashtag: #makbasket) and Facebook buzzed with comments. Many Macedonian social media users expressed joy with dignity, while others used triumphant nationalist “in your face, Greece” rhetoric.

Right after the game, Azder wrote [mk]:

#makbasket should be celebrated with going to a town square. Please suggest a square with space for people, instead of statues.

Davorvori9, who changed his profile photo to one with Bo McCalleb, wrote [mk] a few hours later:

I can't remember when I was so euphoric and happy, possibly never. Thank you for this, guys! #makbasket

Roberto Belicanec wrote on Facebook (reprinted with permission):

YEAAH ! We won! Hm - let me explain something to you. Five athletes won over five other athletes while you where turning beer into the piss. - Bill Maher!
But still, this is quite nice :)

And Ivica Anteski retorted (also reprinted with permission):

Our diplomacy will be as strong when we take a Black person for Minister of Foreign Affairs :)

Cchevymk proposed [mk] a new basketball-inspired country car sticker, using [mk] clipart by Rosie Piter, and DzikiKikiriki refered [mk] to the first Greek reactions, linking to an article in E Kathimerini:

Well now it is not our fault that the Greek Government did not have money to send Greek fans to Lithuania…

Border blockade

The next morning, a group of several dozens angry Greek citizens, who allegedly came on several buses, blocked the main border pass towards Macedonia. Reports [mk] by PlusInfo.mk portal claimed the mob consisted of nationalists (according to the signs they displayed), including neo-Nazis or skinheads.

The Greek police redirected Macedonian travelers to other border crossings for a few hours to prevent confrontations, and the crossing was unblocked [mk] without additional incidents.

Victory over Finland, too

During the afternoon, Macedonia also won the game with Finland, and darko_avr refered to an old internet joke based on famous advertisement (”Nokia - Connecting People”) and a favorite Balkan spirit when he tweeted:

Rakia 72 - Nokia 70

Karakash_MakNBA commented [mk] on this much harder won game:

Either due to fatigue, or due to physical or emotional effect of yesterday's victory, or maybe due to getting wasted last night (who knows), the Macedonian team had a hard time with Finland. Even though they are not as weak and naive a team, as everybody thought so before the match. Especially if they start a good shooting series, they are no joke.

Teams that are hard to define and and play fast basketball, without much boloney, are the hardest opponents.

As both Greece and Finland are EU members, Parmakovski joked [mk]:

After today's blockade of [Evzoni], I'm afraid if we win the championship, EU could forever block us from the [Schengen Area]…

This victory, alongside the previous unexpected win over Croatia and continued good showings could result in participation at least in the quarter-finals, according to the analysеs (1, 2) [mk] by angelov480048.

Kuzevski also provided [mk] some applied analysis:

Let's all jointly support Greece and Croatia, since if they win their next games Macedonia would get 4 points in the next group…

Sead93 concured [mk]:

We survived the Hangover Game well enough, we should all most patriotically root for Greece (because it suits our score in the tournament)…

In conclusion MarjanIvanovski informed [mk] about a unquestionably positive consequence, regardless of nationality:

The neighborhood kids immediately gathered to play some basketball :)). There's no better advertisement and greater motivation than an achieved result…

* Note:

Success of multi-ethnic Macedonian national team runs contrary to the ideology of ethnic nationalism, and the irony seems lost on the Macedonian nationalists, who wholeheartedly partake in the celebrations. Like their other Balkans brothers-in-hate, they often use slogans such as “clean Macedonia,” and value “purity” of assumed genetic lineages. Even though the mainstream Macedonian nationalism is not explicitly racist in the color-of-skin sort of way, some of its propagators lean toward white supremacy, like in the film about God's message to Macedonians [mk] by Niche Dimovski, repeatedly aired on the state TV after the current regime took power. It includes claims that prehistoric Macedonians are progenitors of the “White Race”:

[Voice of God:] “I inhabited your Mother Earth with three races: the White - Makedonoids, the Yellow - Mongoloids, and the Black - Negrids. The rest are all mulattoes. I started the White race from you, the Macedonians, descendants of Macedon, and from you all began, till the Japanese Sea.”

Other nationalist products often refer to a genetics study about “Sub-Saharan” (i.e. recent African) origins of modern Greeks to “prove” that Macedonians are older and more indigenous people.

Still, examples of racial violence have been rare in the recent Macedonian history, possibly because not too many dark-skinned people immigrate to Macedonia on account of its depressed economy. There have been football incidents of racial abuse, though, and a chant mentions “Goce's race.” Most regular citizens would say [mk] that “there's no racism in Macedonia.”

Croatia: Top 5 Holiday Islands (+5 More)

Veronica Khokhlova — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:35:49 +0000

Croatia Travel Blog links to an article about “Croatia's top five holiday islands,” which appeared in The Guardian earlier this week, and adds five more islands to this list.

Croatia, Serbia: A Flag of Friendship

Sinisa Boljanovic — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:22:05 +0000

Just a few weeks after Croatia officially marked the 16th aniversory of the military operation “Oluja” (the Storm), when more than 200,000 ethnic Serbs were expelled from their century-old homes, two young adults from Croatia and Serbia created a mixed Serbo-Croatian flag, as a gesture of reconciliation between the two countries.

Anja Blazevic and Stefan Guzvica, who are taking part in a regional art camp in Gvozd, Croatia, where the flag has recently been created, explained [hr] to Vecernji.hr, a popular newspaper in Croatia, their motivation to do it:

We’ve had enough conflicts based on nationalism […] permanently evoking the past bothers us, while no one is thinking about the future. We feel frustration because of that, and so we decided to make an effort in order to build, at least symbolically, more friendly relationships between the two countries.

We have created the flag in order to call our peoples to love and tolerance. We are aware that the flag will provoke a lot of reactions and polemics, but it is so desirable in democratic societies. We have made a few copies of the flag. One of them is fluttering in our camp in Gvozd, one copy will be taken to Serbia and others have been given to our friends.

More than 850 readers have commented on the article. Below is a selection of some of these comments.

pLoto* wrote:

Behind that are NGOs financed from abroad aiming at some new community to Croats’ disadvantage. But, after two former Yugoslavias that were a failure in blood, they who are working on it did not learn anything. I have nothing to do with Serbs, I’ve never been to Serbia… and I don’t want someone uniting me with them.

Jolly-Roger wrote:

The first step is that Serbs recognize Croatia, especially those who have lived in Croatia for a long time.

The second step is that they ask for forgiveness for all the crimes that they commited in Croatia, not only during the last war.

The third step is that all of them are moved out of Croatia.

Then we can have good relations, and the flag of Croatia will not be changed. We were fighting and dying for it.

cro1com wrote:

[…] We don’t need to be friendly people at all. We have to be very cautious of each other, especially Croats toward Serbs, because Croats have never waged a war against Serbs in Serbia but all of us have witnessed the aggression from the East […]

bilikamen wrote:

They should be killed immediately so that our children and grandchildren are not killed later.

21 KK Kobra wrote:

You are stupid… do you think that we like the flag and that it is OK? I have no words.

Andreeejjj wrote:

[…] Why so, my dear Croats? It will not be excused by anyone from the world! […] The future is the most important, not the past, whatever it was. If the politicians from all former Republics [of Yugoslavia] had wanted to prevent the war, it would have been done. Unfortunately, there was no interest in it because no one of them could become so rich. That’s all and brutally true, my people, be wiser just once. It’s the time.

Serbian daily Blic re-published [sr] the news, which has generated more than 600 comments. Below are some of them.

Persa wrote:

I support each initiative which contains a desire for well-being of the people, for mutual understanding, for love, for kindness, for offering aid… I’d like that everything that was bad does not happen anymore […]

Nikola Radovanovic wrote:

Hey, people, what’s the matter with you? Let’s forget once what happened! Look into the future and allow our children to live in peace and without hatred.

per-aspera-ad-astra wrote:

It should allow everyone, regardless of nationality, who hates and chokes in their own hatred, but I don’t understand how they want to go to Europe?

Serbian blogger Strongman also re-published [sr] the news and more than 80 people commented on it.

Mariopan wrote:

Bravo to the young people. A little bit normalcy in the crazy Balkans.

Looping wrote:

I believe the motive is good, but the creators should be taking care of their lives.

ivanivica wrote:

I am only reading and thinking of how many times the young Israelis and Palestinians meet up. And?

newyorkcity.boy wrote:

All honors for maturity and courage. I support it. Finally, someone has tried to make an effort of reconciliation. I hope the move will be just the beginning. All honors to you. How much further will we hate each other?

This issue has drawn attention of several thousand people from Croatia and Serbia, as well as the rest of the region, who have left their comments on many other internet platforms and forums in the past few days.