Global Voices » Sinisa Boljanovic

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.

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.

Serbia: First Reactions to Acquittal of Sandor Kepiro

Sinisa Boljanovic — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:49:15 +0000

On Monday July 18, 2011, a court in Budapest acquitted 97-year-old Sandor Kepiro, a Second World War Hungarian police captain who served in occupied Serbia and, until recently, was “the most wanted Nazi.” He was charged with war crimes against Serbs, Jews and Roma during the Novi Sad Raid - a massacre perpetrated by Hungarians in January 1942.

Serbian B92 news portal published an article about it. It reports:

According to the indictment, he participated in the crime that took place in Novi Sad and surrounding locations. At least 1,200 Serbs, Jews and Roma were thrown in the river between January 21 and 23, 1942.
At the end of the war, Kepiro was sentenced to 10 and 14 years in prison for those crimes, but he avoided prison by fleeing to Austria and then Argentina in the summer of 1948.
He returned to Hungary in 1996 to spend his remaining days in his home country.

Monument to the victims of the 1942 Novi Sad massacre. Image by Zoran Jevtovic.

Not only members of victims’ families but also Serbian society on the whole have been shocked by the news. The court decision caused many reactions in both mainstream and social media.

Bruno Vekaric, Serbia’s deputy war crimes prosecutor, reportedy said to TANJUG news agency:

This is a first-degree verdict and we can not comment on it. Of course, we are not happy with it and expect the Hungarian prosecutor to appeal it.

He added that it was important to deliver justice to the victims.

Efraim Zurof, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said [sr] to Radio Free Europe:

I expected that he would be sentenced by the court… the only question was: whether and how he would be punished. That is what I expected, and I think they who support him expected the same. The acquittal was a total shock! That is a travesty of justice and a terrible result that will leave a stain on the Hungarian court. There is no doubt the verdict is an insult to the victims of the Raid

Ivan Ivanji, a Jewish novelist who lost many family members during World War II and who personally survived Holocaust, said [sr]:

…He will die in prison, in hospital or as a free man… maybe I surprise you, but I don't care about him at all. The road taken by our neighbor, Hungary, a member country of the European Union, is a much more serious problem.

Ana Frenkel a member of the Jewish Community of Novi Sad described how Kepiro committed the crime. She said, to the same media source:

He organized, and was going from house to house with his units, where he was personally killing and destroying the population… but, unfortunately, there is not a living eyewitness who would be able to recognize Šandor Kepiro from that time. We have him, but they unfortunately died.

Blogger Velimir Mladenovic in his B92 blog quoted [sr] some pieces from the books of Aleksandar Veljic, a man who was researching the terrible massacre in Novi Sad and published a lot of irrefutable evidence, such as official documents from archives, photos and lists of victims' names, their home addresses etc, that point to the fact that Sandor Kepiro participated in and committed the crime.

Below are some comments on Mladenovic's post.

Sesili says:

[…] I just heard it on the news that people in the courtroom were applauding when the acquittal was pronounced. But I was freezing this hot summer day reading the list of people who were killed…

kraljmajmuna asked a question:

Is it known why he is formally acquitted? […]

yugaya responded to kraljmajmuna:

[…] During the trial, most objections were raised on objectivity and “quality” of expert witnesses provided by the prosecutor’s office, as well as on the lack of evidence that would point to individual blame of the perpetrators, inadequate translations and lost documentation in regard to preliminary verdicts pronounced to Kepiro in Hungary, and according to them, he was sentenced [to 10 and 14 years] for the crimes.

apacherosepeacock says:

[…] It means, he had been convicted, ran away, [and then] returned [to Hungary] even 15 years ago, and?
If someone's sentence was in effect, and then he avoided prison running away [from the country], why was he not arrested when he came back?
Since the country of Serbia belongs to the “invertebrates” species, I trust Israel to make some protest.

Thumbnail image shows the 1942 Novi Sad Raid memorial, where 1,300 Jews, Roma and other minorities were drowned in the River Danube by the Hungarian police. Image by Flickr user iLikeSpoons (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Kosovo, Serbia: Kosovo's PM Accused of Human Organ Trade

Sinisa Boljanovic — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 02:51:05 +0000

THE YELLOW HOUSE

Do you know what the “Yellow House” is? Have you ever heard about it?

The same year Kosovo declared independence, 2008, Carla Del Ponte, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, published (in Serbia) her controversial book “The hunt: me and war criminals,” in which she described in detail how and where some soldiers and leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) committed terrible war crimes against ethnic Serbs, non-Albanians and “non-loyal” citizens of Kosovo in 1999.

According to Del Ponte, the “Yellow House” was a little apartment house in Ripe, a village near the town of Burelj in north Albania, where body parts of prisoners of war were being removed in order to be sold on black markets all over the world.

Many from the region, who then heard about the human organ trade for the first time, were shocked. The book and the information from it caused a lot of different reactions in Serbia.

Below is a selection of comments to an article on this issue that appeared on pressonline.rs on March 22, 2008.

Laza:

It’s terrible what happened and what is happening now, I believe there is much truth in the book. […] Is it possible that nothing was known about it, about the crimes, sufferings, mass graves? […]

Miki:

Surely. Ethnic Albanians did not do it, but their mentors from the West did.

Blek:

Only you, Serbs, have parents, brothers, sisters. Other people who were killed by you didn’t have anyone. How many organs did you sell when you committed the biggest crime after WWII in Bosnia and Herzegovina? […] Srebrenica.

zoran (Bec):

Reading different forums about this monstrous massacre against the kidnapped Serbs, as a man and as a Christian, I find everyone who committed the crime repulsive, those who knew about it but were silent, and who have recently heard about it but tolerate it. […]

Kosovo’s officials denied there had been human organs trafficking in Kosovo. Writing about the issue, the Guardian emphasized that some members of the international community had the same opinion, quoting a statement of Bernar Kouchner, the French foreign minister and former head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, who said this during his visit to the Serb enclave of Gracanica earlier this year:

there was no yellow house, there was no organ trade. People who talk about things like that are bums and murderers.

DICK MARTY’S REPORT

Just two days after the general elections were held in Kosovo on Dec. 12, Hashim Thaci, the outgoing Prime Minister whose Democratic Party of Kosovo won the most votes on Sunday’s elections, was accused by Dick Marty, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly investigator, of organizing and committing the mentioned war crimes.

According to Marty’s report, which the Guardian published exclusively before its official presentation, Thaci, who is also the former head of KLA's “Drenica group,” is allegedly responsible for the kidnapping of more than 300 ethnic Serbs and others from Kosovo during the war, their transportation and murder in Albania, where their organs were extracted and later sold to rich patients in the West.

Below are some of the reader comments to a B92 article about Marty's report:

Polako, ali sigurno, pravda stize do cilja! writes:

[…] If it is proved that you are the culprits, and it will be so, you don’t need to be afraid of Serbs but of your own people who brought you to power.

Skorpion:

As an ethnic Albanian, I am happy that, God willing, all who committed the crimes are convicted. I hate them all and I don’t want to hear about them.

Ode sve u:

bbc, foxnews, reuters, the mirror, the independent, huffington post, the new york times… the whole Western world published the news… the dregs of society have the power in one country/territory in the heart of Europe.

Majna:

[…] CNN is silent, and it’s clear that a question will now be raised of who and why recognized the country that was built on the most monstrous crime in the history of the world.

Writing about the issue in her post titled “Trading organs and principles” (on the blog page of the daily newspaper “Blic”), Jelena Milic pointed out the double standards in Serbia’s official policy in regard to human rights, an obsolete policy that considers human rights a problem of individual states and not of international relations:

[…] Dick Marty’s report, which has linked Thaci to organs trade, has just been adopted in the committee for legal questions of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. It’s very important news in Serbia. For a reason. But. Serbia's [foreign minister] Vuk Jeremic has a shameful record of not voting for and supporting resolutions and declarations which the EU and the Council of Europe adopted and submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations in regard to the human rights situation in Iran and other countries that do not recognize Kosovo's independence […]

The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton's Spokeswoman Maja Kocijančić has urged Marty to come forward with the evidence on Thaci’s involvement in these serious crimes. She said at a press conference:

“These claims are taken very seriously. If concrete evidence exists, we urge Dick Marty to submit it to the relevant authorities.

However, she avoided answering a number of direct questions on the EU's next steps regarding the issue.

Hashim Thaci rejected all accusations and demanded from the EU to investigate this case thoroughly.

Serbia: The Controversy of the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony

Sinisa Boljanovic — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 04:00:31 +0000

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year's peace prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who could not attend the Dec. 10 ceremony in Oslo because he is serving his 11-year prison sentence.

A few days ago, the Chinese authorities sent an official diplomatic note to many countries around the world and called them not to attend the award ceremony in Oslo. Nineteen countries - including Russia, Serbia and Ukraine - chose to skip the Nobel peace prize event.

In one of his first statements after the media broadcast the government’s official decision, Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's minister of foreign affairs, gave a brief explanation of some of the reasons for making it:

All our decisions, like the decisions of all others governments, concern national interests and the priorities of the state.

Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said:

This is Serbia's tactical move aimed at maintenance of strategic relations with China.

NGOs, political parties, mainstream and citizen media discussed the government’s attitude, demanding that minister Jeremic submit resignation.

Pescanik website published a statement of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM). Among other things, YUCOM wrote:

Boycotting this year’s ceremony of the Nobel peace prize award, the Republic of Serbia confirmed once again that it is very far from the truthful fight for human rights and all the values that characterize a modern, European, democratic society.

After the horrible things of the 1990s, we are supposed to show that we are the first ones who will support those people whose rights are endangered and who risk their lives for world peace. […] Serbia needs the politics of respect for human rights, not the politics that makes that one bridge* more important than one human life. […]

* Author’s note: The Chinese government gave a cheap loan to Serbia in order to build a bridge in Belgrade, the so-called “Chinese bridge.”

In an editorial, E-novine wrote:

[…] From the list of countries that are boycotting the Nobel peace prize ceremony, it’s clear that we are talking here about the non-democratic regimes which, like China, have problems with their own dissidents, or about countries that are under strong influence of Beijing. […]

On Dec. 8, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia published a petition, which was signed by many Serbian human rights activists, intellectuals, journalists and politicians:

With this petition, we, the undersigned human rights defenders and democracy activists, speak in the name of thousands and thousands of citizens of Serbia, eager to see their country firmly committed to European course and the highest values of the contemporary world.
Hence, we, the undersigned, strongly disapprove our government’s decision to place Serbia in the circle of democratically disputable countries the representatives of which will boycott the ceremony of The Nobel Peace Prize bestowal on Liu Xiaobo, the man whose years-long, consistent and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China earned him the respect of the civilized world.
With this petition we wish the Nobel Committee and the world public to know that really many citizens of Serbia would not back this latest, shameful decision by their government, that they strongly oppose its “political barters” so characteristic for the nationalistic Serbia before and after the wars of 1990s, and that because of these wars’ and other bloody traces of autocratic rules and “greater-nation” policies – subjugating individual rights to “national interests” – they raise their voice against any form of servility to the country that, in the 21st century, commits a human rights activist to prison and holds his family and colleagues under house arrest to prevent them from traveling to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace award on his behalf.

Blic, a Belgrade daily, published an article titled “Government for the boycott, Tadic against it,” emphasizing a discord among the high-ranking state officials on the issue and citing a statement by the spokeswoman of European Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuehle:

It is expected from a country aspiring to join the EU to share the EU values.

The disputed decision divided not only President Tadic and minister Jeremic, but also readers who left more than 250 comments on the article, mainly discussing its foreign policy consequences.

Below are some of the comments:

NenadRu:

[…] Therefore, none of the European countries decided to boycott the ceremony, only Serbia and its “pro-European” ministers. […] Awful, can we know what the national politics is?

Zele:

Just one question: what kind of benefit do we have from that? When we become a member of the EU, then we will vote like others, but what kind of obligation do we now have toward them? They make pressure on us to renounce Kosovo, don’t allow us to integrate in the EU, they bombed us and haven’t paid any war reparation. […]

TZTTZ:

Honestly, I don’t know what is better for us: to go or not to go [to Oslo]. […] But, China didn’t recognize Kosovo, while the EU did.

In his guest post on Srecko Sekeljic’s B92 blog, Milos Bogicevic wrote:

[…] The question is whether some future generations will proudly emphasize the fact that Serbia, on the Human Rights Day 2010, boycotted the Nobel peace prize award, or whether they will be ashamed of it. Maybe we should be ashamed already today.

On Thursday evening, December 9, one day before the award ceremony, Serbia's Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic seized the initiative and decided to travel to Oslo as an independent representative of the Republic of Serbia, having realized that the Serbian government was not going to change its official decision. Then, due to public pressure, PM Cvetkovic asked Jankovic on behalf of the government to give his personal congratulations to the Nobel Committee and Liu Xiaobo.

Serbia: Novelists Participate in “Blog Day” Project

Sinisa Boljanovic — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 12:32:45 +0000

On Dec. 8, Laguna, one of the largest publishing houses in Serbia, launched an interesting project: called Blog Day, it represents a unique example of web activism in Serbia that will be taking place four times a year. Using its reputation, confidence and 12 years of experience in the community, Laguna wishes to contribute to the collective effort of solving relevant social problems.

Each Blog Day will have a different, but always socially-important, topic. All Blog Day content will then be published in an electronic book that will be free for download from Laguna's website.

The topic of the first Blog Day was Ecology, and over 20 Serbian novelists have posted their very interesting - and, often, quite witty - contributions.

Below are excerpts from some of the posts.

Aleksandar Ilic published a post titled “Phenomenology of ecological consciousness,” in which he drew a parallel between Serbia's ecology and economy:

The phenomenology of ecological consciousness of Serbs does not exist […]. In regards to ecology, the average course of consciousness […] goes like this: the first association to the word “ecology” is nature, and the first association to nature is barbecue. Barbecue further evolves into mixed grills, hamburgers, drumsticks, chicken fillets and sausages. In the end, everything boils down to the proportion of the number of kilograms of boneless meat per capita. Therefore, the phenomenology of Serbian ecological consciousness would have the task of describing the proportion of the number of kilograms of boneless meat per resident. The number of residents per number of kilograms of boneless meat results in the economy. To the Serb, therefore, economy is the flip side of ecology and ecology is the flip side of economy. So, the phenomenology of the Serbian ecological consciousness can be easily moved to the field of economy. The word “economy” has only two instances: the first is “salary” and the latter “a small salary.” Who's going to f*** around with ecology when we're all croaking of starvation. […]

Vesna Dedic, a Belgrade-based novelist who was born in Montenegro, a country that was declared an “ecological state,” admitted her ecological consciousness is not ideal and compared it to her daughter’s. She wrote:

The difference between me and my child is that her awareness of environmental protection is a part of her upbringing and education. She was told that she couldn't throw garbage on the streets because this disrupts the ecological balance. When I was her age, I was told not to do this because it was not culturally and socially acceptable. When someone, as a remnant of [Tito’s] time, tells me that something is socially unacceptable, I have an incredible urge to show that I don’t care. The difference is also that my daughter has accepted ecology as the fight for biological survival of the endangered planet, while I first heard the word “ecological” in the 1990s, in the name of some political party.

Dedic considers the debate on ecology hypocritical and refers to the Law on Protection of Citizens from Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, which was put into effect last month:

They banned smoking last month and now we are sitting in our fragrant, airy offices, in which smoking, drinking coffee and using Facebook are forbidden. Mistake. Without good wages, these were the only joyous motives for which Serbs went to their jobs. Now I stroll around Belgrade, smoke and carry cigarette butts in my hands to the first trash can because the authorities forgot to set ashtrays before they adopted the law. When I said that to a [communal police] chief in some broadcast, and when I added that the smoke ban was not the same thing for the French and for the Serbs, that mental and all other frustrations are different in these countries, the chief replied: “Go to France.” Twenty years ago, I would have said: “I'm going!” Ten years ago, I would have gone, but I couldn't obtain a visa. Today, I say: “I will not!” There, my daughter would have to eat unhealthy cheeses and sauces, I would have to drink expensive wines, while I wish to feed my child organic apples, and I wish, at my age of 42, not to be a lady, but, with my hands in pockets, to smoke in the streets and, starting tomorrow, to hit everyone who annoys me in taverns with butts of cigarettes. Why? Because I don’t care about wise discussions on ecology as long as they set ashtrays for me, repair toilets in primary schools, incarcerate everyone who uses their hands [not tissues or handkerchiefs] to blow their noses, as long as we realize how hypocritical it is to prohibit smoking in a city that sends as much sulfur from Pancevo directly into our bronchi as the whole nation can’t smoke in a century.

Vule Zuric is a native of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, who moved to Serbia during the war and now lives in Pancevo, a town located about 20 km east of Belgrade. It is the center of Serbia’s petrochemical industry and one of the most polluted places in the region. Zuric wrote:

[…] In Pancevo, as far as the stench is concerned, thanks for asking, everything is well. Excellent! […] It means that the industry, brother, is working. There will be export-import, salaries, holidays, travel, there will be diseases. Hospitals will be working. Doctors, nurses and pathologists will be doing their jobs. And the gravediggers? […]

Zuric further reminds readers of the time of the 1999 NATO bombing and the ecological consequences that the attack caused, as well as of the promise given by the Russian company Gazprom, which bought Serbia’s oil company NIS a few years ago:

[…] First the Americans bombed us, and then the Russians bought us. It’s obvious that both of them have respect for us. The former tried to close us with several direct hits. The black Danube of poisonous smoke was flowing over the sky. And the latter is promising [ecological] filters and similar things. Yet, the former haven't closed down our “store” - and the latter haven't reconstructed it. […] So many years after the war, the air is clean in Sarajevo. But, brother, the factories are not working. […] And what if this happens in Pancevo? That clean air, a crowd of unemployed people in the clean air? What I'm saying is: there is no solution. Either you live in a forest, eat berries, milk sheep, or you remain urban, nibble at pumpkin seeds and yell: “Uaaa…” […].

Novelists Dusan Miklja, Ivana Mihic, Igor Marojevic, Ljubica Arsic, Goran Skrobonja, Miomir Petrovic, Masa Rebic and others took part in the first Blog Day as well.

This project is also supported by the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning.

Serbia: Children Get Military Training in Russian Camps

Sinisa Boljanovic — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:20:21 +0000

Serbia is a deeply divided country regarding the main orientation of its foreign relations: while some political parties and approximately half of its population would like to see Serbia in the European Union as soon as possible, other politicians and citizens look toward Russia and would like their homeland to become a Russian province, as Tomislav Nikolic said in the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia in 2007.

The latter ones belong to the extreme political right and include various associations of nationalists, Serbian Orthodox Church and some social groups whose members call themselves “patriots” (such as hooligans who have recently demolished the center of Belgrade, expressing their “attitude” towards the Belgrade Gay Pride Parade, and made riots in Genoa, confirming their “love” for the national football team and a high level of patriotism.

In the prime of the newest public discussion on patriotism and the origin of violence in the Serbian society, daily Belgrade newspaper Danas wrote on Oct. 19 that two years ago, several groups of Serbian children, aged 11 to 15 years old, had spent 16 days in scout camps in Russia, where they were being trained to assemble and dismantle weapons, to throw bombs, and to fire rifles.

These children were sent to Russia by the Patriotic Front, an association of 1990-1999 Serbian war veterans (the civil war in ex-Yugoslavia, including the war against NATO).

Zoran Vranesevic, general secretary of the association, said to Danas that the two groups, which consisted of 20 children of war veterans, had attended the scout camps in Russia in order to learn about Russia’s traditions, culture and religion, to develop their patriotic spirit and to learn to fight against their vices.

The main goal of the Patriotic Front was not to train children in marksmanship but to make sure that the children didn’t inherit the complexes of their fathers, the veterans, who are marginalized by the society, Vranesevic added.

During the unusual and unique sojourn in Siberia, the children got a chance to take part in a writing competition on a simple topic - “My stay in Russia” - which had been announced by the hosts (primarily, the Russian patriotic association Kosovo’s Front).

U. L. (13) wrote that Russians had given them knowledge about weapons, they had been training them in fencing and throwing knives, teaching them how to become skilled and persistent. He added:

We experienced a baptism of fire in the first camp where it was the most difficult. We lived there close to nature, eating the new, very simple and unusual dishes with much fruit, bitter cheeses, washing our dishes in the river, taking baths in it, taking part in battles, had exercises on the firing range, assembling and dismantling rifles, like in the real army, riding horses…”

M. K. (15) described his experience in one of the three camps in which they were staying:

In this camp, we had various trainings over the day, such as surmounting of the firing range, riding horses and coming down from trees on ropes. When we finished those exercises we had lunch but no one liked it. However, we ate because we were hungry. In the evening, we were dancing traditional Cossack dances. The next day, we went to the rifle range where we were firing rifles and throwing bombs. That day I was firing so much that my ears were ringing for the next three days.

Psychologist Zarko Trebjesanin says that children should not be trained to use weapons, but to communicate tolerantly. Military training could have very negative effects on children who are unstable emotionally and insufficiently socialized.

Sociologist Ratko Bozovic said this, among other things:

Throwing bombs and firing rifles are an attraction for the children and they find self-confirmation in such acts of violence.

Tamara Lukšić-Orlandić, Serbia's Deputy Ombudsman for children's rights, said to Danas that children should not be trained to use weapons because it is not adequate for their ages to behave “like guerrillas.” She reminded that Serbia had international obligations to protect children, because it is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to her, any contact of children with weapons is not desirable, because it could have negative effects on the development of a person.

The web site of Abrasevic Media, which is mainly focused on the analysis of society in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country where the biggest war crimes were committed by some ethnic Serbs, who were later sentenced in the Hague Tribunal, published a commentary article, an excerpt of which is below:

Serbia, an eternally peaceful, tolerant and friendly country, always gives us nice surprises: after the clerically-fascistic celebration on Belgrade’s streets in regard to the Pride Parade and the art installation in Genoa, we have found out that something calling itself the Association of War Veterans of all Serbian Countries 1990-1999, the Patriotic Front, freely exists in this country. […]

[…] For the orthodox children, the Serbian Patriotic Front organizes stays in Russian camps, where kids can learn everything connected with weapons: how to fire a rifle, how to approach the enemy from the back, how to love Putin more than their own parents, how to become proper Serbian fascists and help your country in the fight against a lot of its enemies […]

Below is a selection of comments that readers left on the forum of the website vidovdan.org, mainly devoted to Serbian traditions and the so-called “national question.”

Tragalac:

[…] If children went to the gays to learn how to use vaseline under all circumstances, that would be OK.

zorajde:

[…] People are sending children to reconnaissance camps to be trained to use weapons, and I would make it obligatory, because, in a few years, if people would like to survive in this democracy, they would have to start hunting […]

Zlatni Bogdan:

If only our army and country organized such camps.

The website B92 re-published some pieces of the article from Danas, and readers left more than 70 comments to it. Here are just three of them:

Instead of sending children to visit the Museum of Chocolate in Brussels in order to enjoy the best chocolate in the world, they are sending them to Moscow to go through training to become little terrorists.

I don’t see what the drama is about. In Britain, you have the right to join the army if you are 16 years old, and many British people do. If these things are controlled by adults, I don’t see what is bad in that case.

Someone was training children in firing and using various kinds of weapons and in that way they committed a criminal act of terrorism and sabotage according to the Criminal Statute…

According to Danas, Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Serbia will check the information about the case, and if he finds any criminal elements in it, he will act in accordance with the law.

Serbia: A Journalist Is Attacked on a Public Bus

Sinisa Boljanovic — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:19:10 +0000

Teofil Pancic, a well-known journalist of the weekly magazine Vreme (”Time”), was beaten up on a public bus (route #83) in Zemun, one of Belgrade’s municipalities, on Saturday, July 24.

According to Vreme, Pancic was attacked by two men who beat him up with metal bars. He was admitted to a hospital where doctors treated him for injuries of his head and right arm. Fortunately, the injuries are not life-threatening. Vreme claims the attack had been planned:

This is one more attack on Vreme’s journalists, from kidnapping of Dusan Reljic to the planting of bombs in Dejan Anastasijevic’s flat, and the perpetrators have never been arrested and convicted.

Editorial staff of Vreme asks officials, the police and the prosecutor’s office to identify, arrest and bring criminal charges against the perpetrators of the attack on journalist Teofil Pancic.

On Pescanik, a web portal with a focus on Serbian and Balkan politics, human rights and other important issues, whose authors are often highly critical of the authorities, Pancic described how the assault happened and concluded:

Since I am not engaged in any illegal activities in my life, nor do I owe anyone anything, nor do I have any contacts with the underworld, I can only guess what the reason and the motive could be. It could be found in my public work and engagement. I can’t find any other possible reasons.

Blogger Loader believes that the reason for the assault is the same one as Pancic said. He wrote:

Attacks on journalists… that is not the only recent case. Can we say anything new about the topic? A punch at Pancic is a punch at all of us. Through Pancic’s case, the message was sent to us, telling us to be silent and to calmly accept the reality […]. Of course, we will not be silent.

Below are some of more than 200 commentaries on Loader’s post:

Man ray loves me:

This [incident] exceeded all bounds. I admire Teofil. I feel bad.

Libkonz:

It’s ghastly. We cannot allow that fascists win in this country.

Jelica Greganovic:

I don’t have any words. And the passengers, eyewitnesses… they are only watching? Did someone try to help him?

AlexDunja:

I understand the fear. But everyone has mobile phones… someone should have called the police and an ambulance…

Drago Kovacevic alluded to the violence in Belgrade’s streets in 2008, when Kosovo declared its independence:

This time they [the nationalists] don’t have a permission to attack embassies or mosques, but no one has forbidden them to attack Teofil. This is terrible. I think the police could find perpetrators if they wanted to.

masovna_keva replied to those commentators who think that Pancic would not be silent in the future:

Of course, he won’t be silent but it’s obvious that Serbia is returning to the 1990s, with just one difference that [Ivica Dacic, minister of the interior and president of the Socialist Party, once headed by Slobodan Milosevic] has to substantiate his own metamorphosis and maybe something will happen in regard to arresting [the attackers].

Human rights lawyer of the Civil Rights Defenders (former Swedish Helsinki Committee), NGO activist and blogger Goran Miletic published an article on Pescanik in which he analyzed possible scenarios after the newest case of violence in Belgrade:

Journalist and citizen Teofil Pancic has been beaten in a typically Serbian way. Two men boarded a bus in the center of free Zemun, walked up to the victim, who they had been following, and then moved to action in front of other passengers. […]

[…] I might bet that one of these three scenarios will happen:

1. the police will not find the attackers […]

2. the police will find the attackers very quickly, but the prosecutor’s office and (or) the court will be working unnecessarily slowly. […] In this case, we will be waiting too long for either the indictment or the start of the trial, and maybe for both. The cases of a female journalist [Brankica Stankovic], TV B92’s cameraman [Bosko Brankovic] and many others are a good illustration of how everything can appear and how long it can last, and without any reason.

3. the Police will arrest the attackers, the prosecutor’s office will indict them relatively quickly and then the “beating up” of Teofil will begin for the second time. For those who don’t know how this scenario works, let them to check the trial case of [Bris Taton’s death]. The formula is absolutely simple – decreasing the importance of each segment of the assault, which then leads to the conclusion that the version of the events described at indictment is contradictory. […]

Further, Miletic analyzes possible behavior of the attackers' lawyers, their relatives as well as the public on the whole. He also guesses that the reaction of the majority of the media will not be adequate and professional. He concludes:

[…] A small number of the media outlets that will be reporting on everything in a professional manner will not be enough in order to send a clear message to the public, as there is no such message now, when the trial in the case of Bris Taton’s death is in progress. In the best intention, some media will start one more campaign for journalists to finally be treated as “official persons,” but this action will neither help to punish the perpetrators adequately, nor to avoid similar assaults be in the future.

Journalists’ associations, some state officials, political parties and citizens have also condemned the violent act and asked the authorities to react in a proper manner.

Serbia: ICJ Rules Kosovo’s Independence Legal

Sinisa Boljanovic — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 08:30:27 +0000

On Serbia’s official request from September 2008, the UN General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice for Advisory Opinion on Kosovo’s declaration of independence, which was adopted by members of Kosovo’s Parliament on February 17, 2008.

The question that was posed by Serbia, and sent to the ICJ by the General Assembly, was clear:

”Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?”

For almost two years, president of the Republic of Serbia, minister of foreign affairs and other officials have been spreading diplomatic propaganda around the world, claiming that the act of Kosovo’s Parliament was illegal according to the international law.

Although Serbia’s officials were optimistic, expecting that the Court’s Advisory Opinion would be positive for Serbia, the majority of the public, including some bloggers, believed that the Court would give an ambiguous response that would live up to the expectations of both sides, Serbia and Kosovo.

On July 20, two days before the official announcement of the decision, Jelica Greganovic, a Slovenia-based Serbian blogger, wrote:

The decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague about the issue of legality of the declaration of Kosovo’s independence is, allegedly, unofficially already known. The independence of Kosovo is in opposition with the international law, but is legitimate because of the genocide against Albanians from Kosovo.

[…] The Slovenian media are already broadcasting the aforementioned unofficial decision by the Court, and the Montenegrin portal “Analytics” asserts that it has already been delivered to Belgrade. Colleague Misa Brkic, in his article on the portal, writes that he found out from one of the insiders that the decision would have two key items: the ICJ will give its advisory opinion, first, that Kosovo’s independence is not in accordance with the International law, and, second, that Serbia, under the former regime of Slobodan Milosevic, committed genocide against Kosovo’s Albanians in 1999, and so, because of that, their reaction is that the declaration of independence is legitimate. […]

At the end of her post, Greganovic notes:

[…] Kosovo declared its independence in February 2008. Since then, 69 countries, 22 of them members of the European Union, have recognized it as an independent country. According to the Slovenian media, only five countries have recognized Kosovo this year.

And she concludes:

It remains to wait for the official statement of ICJ’s decision. Honestly, the aforementioned, alleged and, for now, unofficial decision sounds… predictable to me.

Despite the legitimate diplomatic fight on the international arena to spread its own version of the truth, and a positive, or at least neutral, expectations by its citizen, Serbia had to face the official Advisory Opinion (a .pdf file) of the International Court of Justice, issued on July 22:

Accordingly, [the court] concludes that the declaration of independence on 17 February 2008 did not violate general international law.

The first reaction came to Serbia from Vuk Jeremic, minister of foreign affairs, who was attending the session of the ICJ in The Hague. After the president of the ICJ, a Japanese judge Hisashi Owada, had read the decision of the Court, Jeremic said to the Serbian media that, regardless of the ruling, Serbia would never recognize Kosovo’s independence. He added:

[…] Serbia will continue with a peaceful diplomatic fight for Kosovo. […]

In his appeal to the public, President Boris Tadic said this, among other things:

It is clear that the court was not ruling on the right to secession, but that it decided to debate only the technical content of the declaration of independence. The court avoided to rule on the essential issue and decided to let the top UN organ debate that, and all the political implications. […]

…

Serbia will never recognize the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo, since we believe that unilateral and ethnically motivated secession is not in line with UN principles […]

Blogger Drago Kovacevic, in his B92 blog, reacted to these statements:

[…] After the announcement of the decision, Vuk Jeremic spoke and promptly announced the extension of the struggle…

President Tadic was more reasonable, and today he was talking with Biden, and said this day was difficult for Serbia and he would consult with the general public. […]

He also criticized Serbia’s diplomacy efforts and concluded:

[…] But, no matter how it was, it’s time that the wrong policy towards Kosovo is changed. […] Tadic was zealously trying to lose Kosovo for the second time and he has succeeded in it. […]

While the parties of Serbia's ruling coalition consider that, nonetheless, the definition of the final status of Kosovo is not finished, announcing intensive diplomatic activity by September, when the session of the UN General Assembly should be held, some opposition parties, such as the Democratic party of Serbia, whose leader is Vojislav Kostunica, who was the Prime Minister at the time when Kosovo declared its independence, asked Boris Tadic to resign because of the catastrophic foreign policy in regard to the southern Serbia’s province – Kosovo:

Now, when it’s certain that ICJ’s Advisory Opinion is absolutely negative for Serbia’s national interest, it is opening the question of responsibility of authors and perpetrators of this defeated policy. Because of their political selfishness and inadequacy, they [and] the President of the Republic, have to resign as soon as possible.

Blogger Sasa Radulovic believes that the International Court of Justice didn’t say anything in its Advisory Opinion:

The question was:

“'Is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government of Kosovo in accordance with international law?”

The response by the Court: not… because the Declaration was not adopted by temporary institutions of Kosovo’s self-management, but by Djura and Pera [Serbian names which mark some people who are not credible], and the two of them were not acting out of the UN legal frame established with the Resolution 1244.

The International Court of Justice established that the international law does generally not ban unilateral declarations about independence, not discussing the issue whether such declarations then cause independence.

According to the advisory opinion of the Court, the Declaration about Kosovo’s independence was not contrary to the Resolution 1244, nor to the temporary law order which has been established by the Resolution because the authors of the Declaration were not the temporary institutions of self-management in Kosovo, but a group of people who defined themselves as democratically elected leaders of Kosovo’s people.
According to the Court, authors of the Declaration, as well as the Declaration itself, were acting out of a UN legal frame established by the Resolution 1244, which did not explicitly refer to the final status of Kosovo.

Djura and Pera = a group that defined itself as democratically elected leaders of Kosovo’s people

Why the Court defined the question in such an absurd way, I’ll leave to numerous analysts. So it has caused damage to itself the most. And to all of us. And in this way the Court said to the world that it was not ready to assume its role in the world order as a legal authority. And it withdrew into a shell.

The fact is:

The Court didn’t say that the independence had been declared in accordance with the international law, as well the actions that followed after that.

The Court said that what the mentioned group of citizens had declared did not have any legal importance from the International law’s point of view, and it couldn’t be in conflict with the law.

The Court said nothing.

That Serbia is really far away from reality in regard to Kosovo in every sense is highlighted by the fact that the priests and believers of the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose most famous monasteries are located in Kosovo, started to pray in all churches all over Serbia for a positive decision of the ICJ at 5pm, when the Court already said that the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence was legal.

Serbia: One Pair of Shoes, One Life

Sinisa Boljanovic — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:44:35 +0000

Although 15 years have passed since the Srebrenica massacre, general Ratko Mladic — Chief of Staff of the Army of Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb Army) — charged with genocide by the Hague Tribunal for the brutal deaths of more than 8000 Muslims in this Bosnian town on 11 July 1995, has not been arrested yet.

Despite the fact that Mladic retired in Serbia a few years later, and was seen in the stands of “Marakana” stadium in Belgrade during a football match of the Serbian national team in 2003, Serbian authorities claim they do not know if Mladic is hiding in Serbia. It obviously means that the power and security services are not able to perform their duties or they simply do not want to find and arrest him, in order not to arouse discontent among the many Serbs who consider Mladic a national hero. They genuinely think that his officers and soldiers, who conquered Srebrenica on July 11 — a town protected by Dutch UN-units — separated women and children, and then killed almost all the men from the city and surroundings, got a fair revenge on the Muslims for the death of dozens of thousands of their compatriots, who had been massacred by Muslims in Bratunac and other places in Bosnia during the civil war and the Second World War.

To the contrary, there are also people in Serbia who consider that the “Srebrenica” case is the biggest national disgrace ever. Some of them are intellectuals, artists, and members of numerous civic movements such as Skart (the Reject), Centar za kulturnu dekontaminaciju (Center for cultural decontamination), and the Zene u crnom (Women in Black) from Belgrade. They cooperate with mothers from Srebrenica who lost their dearest in the massacre.

This year, on july 7, they held a meeting — “One pair of shoes, one life” — in the center of the capital where they had collected 8372 pairs of shoes (according to them that is the official figure of victims) in order to erect a monument in Belgrade for the Srebrenica victims.

On the website bezimena.org, blogger Sonja re-publishes the organizers' statement, which was issued on the eve of the rally, at the end of June. Here is an excerpt:

The Action was inspired by an international initiative in that women from Srebrenica participate. Just because of their participation and our desire to stick together with them, we are organizing this action, which is adapted to our political and ethical context. The action is participative and directed towards citizens of Serbia and it expects them to independently erect a permanent monument, which will be their own expression of responsibility and solidarity with the victims […]

[…]We are calling upon citizens to donate shoes and leave their messages in them for the victims' families. It is necessary that you leave your own name or name of someone who gives shoes. Names of people who gave shoes and messages will be registered. The idea is that, when the monument is built, the donors' names will be written on a commemorative plaque […]

Citizens may leave shoes and messages on the long poster, which has been laid out on the sidewalk along Knez Mihailo Street. The poster read: “Responsibility and solidarity – the Women in Black for Human Rights – the Women in Black against the war”.

Because of threats, which were sent to the organizers by extreme nationalist groups, special units of the Police were protecting the rally. On the eve of the event, Nasi (the Ours) — a movement of Serbian nationalists — issued an official statement cynically calling people to come to Knez Mihailo Street and, because of the economic crisis, take the shoes from the black band for their own use.

Speaking to Radio Free Europe, Svetlana Slapsak, an anthropologist and theoretician of culture, said that this kind of moves by rightist groups were expected and that, because of that, every activity related to the process of confronting the past is important, while there is an appaulingly low level of public and civic responsibility in Serbia for those who have suffered the most. She thinks that authorities could also be considered morally responsible because they organize no similar public activities.

Stasa Zajovic, a lady from the Women in Black, coordinating the action, said:

Giving the shoes marks accepting the fact that genocide in Srebrenica happened as well as [expressing] sympathy and solidarity with the killed ones.

Further, she explained what the shoes as a symbol mean:

For me, the shoes are a footprint of the people who remained in Srebrenica and this footprint is very important in my life. The shoes are a symbol of the lifes extinguished and we want each shoe to get a space, because those who were killed are not only dead bones. They are people whose dreams, wishes, loves, and sorrows were killed. Also, the shoes are a symbol of movement.

Despite the presence of several dozen members of nationalist groups in the center of Belgrade at the same time as the Women in Black were making their humane gesture about genocide in Srebrenica by gathering the shoes, this symbolical performance, which was held shortly before the official ceremony in Potocari in commemoration of Srebrenica’s victims, ended without any incident.

President Boris Tadic attended the commemorative ceremony in Potocari

Every year, the ceremony in memory of more than 8000 victims of genocide in Srebrenica is held in the memorial complex of Potocari. This year, the president of the Republic of Serbia, Mr. Boris Tadic, attended the event. According to BBC Serbian, on occasion of this, he expressed his regret for the victims and added that Serbia would not stop looking for the perpetrators of war crimes, especially for Ratko Mladic.

This is a tragedy of the Bosniaks but also of all people who lived in former Yugoslavia. This page in history cannot be turned as long as those who are responsible for the crimes are free.

Earlier this year, the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Declaration about Srebrenica. On that occasion, the blog “Srebrenica-genocide” published the full text of the Declaration, and concluded:

…With this declaration, Serbia officially acknowledged that Serbs committed Genocide at Srebrenica in July 1995…

Although some intellectuals, lawyers, and ordinary people were expecting that the Declaration would define the crimes of Srebrenica as genocide, it did not happen. It is obvious that the key word (”genocide”) was intentionally omitted from the original text because there are very many people in Serbia who (as already stated) deny that a crime was committed in Srebrenica, but instead define it as a righteous revenge.

Also, a lot of people from Serbia and Republika Srpska (Republic of Srpska) are annoyed with the Serbian authorities, because they have never attended the ceremony in commemoration of the 3267 Serbian victims, who were brutally killed in Bratunac, in 1992 and 1993.

Anja Vujevic, a journalist, in an article published in Belgrade’s weekly “Pecat’’ on July 8, 2010, offered an explanation why the President of the Republic of Serbia does not want to visit Bratunac:

Tadic knows that no woman or child was buried in Potocari, in contrast to the Orthodox cemeteries in Bratunac, Srebrenica and Skelani. Then it is understandable that he does not want to visit Bratunac on July 12. What could he say to Milica Dimitrijevic whose sons, 5 years old Aleksandar and 10 years old Radisav, were killed in Bratunac on 16 January 1993, by the same people with whom, just a day before, he was standing [in Potocari] and whom he apologized to? What could he say to Cvetko Ristic who, as a 13 years old boy, lost all of his dearest: his father Novak (42), mother Ivanka (43), sister Mitra (18), and brother Misa? Or, what could he say to little Brana Vucetic who, as a nine-year-old boy, was brought to Oric's camp, and lost his father, mother and brother? How could he face the pain in the eyes of a misfortunate mother, Slavka Matic, who buried her daughters Snezana and Gordana, in the flower of their youth, or Ivanka Rankic, who is even now pressing a photo to her chest of the burnt body of her son Nenad, or Marija Jeremic who is still searching for bones of her son Marko, and lights candles for Radovan, and dreams that she will bury Marko next to him? How to look at Ana Mladenovic who cannot even remember her father Andjelko, but for her enitre life has lived with the knowledge that they cut off his head and then played football with it. What kind of justification could he offer to 76-year-old Dragomir Miladinovic from the small Kravica village Ježeštica, who since 18 years lives with a painful wound – without his sons Ratko and Djordje?

The Balkans: Violent Treatment of Animals

Sinisa Boljanovic — Mon, 31 May 2010 00:40:14 +0000

The civil war that was waged in the former communist Yugoslavia during the 1990’s resulted in several hundred thousand people killed and almost a million refugees. After the war, crime and various forms of violence became a regular occurrence in the countries of the region. Victims have mostly been different national and religious groups, the gay population and Gypsies. Recently, animals have also become a target of the bullies. Almost every day some dogs or cats are being exposed to torture by cruel people who record their cruelties and publish the video on the internet.

In mid-April, a lot of people in Serbia were shocked by a terrible video of violence against a female dog which was shown by TV channels. An anonymous monster cut off the dog’s paws and left her to lie in the puddle of blood in one of Belgrade’s street.

On that occasion Goran Paskaljevic, a well-known filmmaker and president of the association for animal protection called SOS Animals, said this to the daily newspaper Blic:

I am shocked that something like that could happen. I expect that the police will find the culprit, even though the victim is not a human, but an animal.

He added:

Those who could carry out such a monstrous act against an infirm dog that couldn’t commit anything bad are dangerous for people as well.

Blogger Dragan Jakovljevic wrote a very sad post, in which he asked the female dog called Mila to forgive the sin of the mankind:

[…] ”Each sin, even the smallest one, affects the fate of the world,” said the old man Siluan. And each virtue does, too: because a victim - in this case, a female dog Mila - is not alone anymore. Tens of thousands of people are offering their help and searching for the monster. Their voices are currently saving this planet. Thanks to them, I dare look into Mila’s eyes, at least on the only endlessly sad [photo] which has appeared on the internet these days, and say: “Forgive, if you can.”

Since one woman found Mila under her car and took her to a veterinary clinic, doctors gave the female dog the first aid. Now Mila is recovering from the wounds and waiting for an operation in Germany where she should get the prosthetics on her legs so that she could walk again.

Just a few weeks after the event, a new disturbing video of violence against a kitten appeared on Srdan Stankovic's page profile (the video has since been removed).

A couple days ago, lawyers of radio and TV station B92 brought a criminal charge against him. Also, a group “Sprecimo nasilje nad zivotinjama” (Stop Abusing Animals) has been created on the Facebook. This group already has more than 44,000 members. Their message is:

STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST ANIMALS!!!
If you love animals, please help save them from cruelty!
If you love animals, join the animal rescue team in your community!

Animals have feelings, just like you or me. Treat animals like you would want to be treated if you were them.

The question is: where are the roots of more and more brutal violence in Serbia?

Dragan Popadic, a social psychologist, said on the web site of Radio Free Europe that the civil war is not the only reason. He added:

That is part of the problem. But I think that we are supposed to look for the roots of violence in something that is present in the current situation. In my opinion, there are no reactions to violence […]. Tolerance towards violence, a tendency that some forms of violence are seen as good violence is tremendously polluting our everyday lives, leading to these excessive and brutal forms of violence.

On the same web page, a Serbian ballerina, writer and blogger Jelena Tinska said:

The Vietnam syndrome has taken over the rule of Serbia, somnambulists stroll over the streets, young boys kill girls. The man who cut the legs of this dog, tomorrow he will cut the breasts of his girlfriend if she cheats on him, because he is a psychopath. Therefore, insane [bullies] are walking over our cities, but they have not been punished yet.

Serbia's neighbor Bosnia and Herzegovina is also facing violence against animals. According to Sarajevo’s daily newspaper “Oslobodjenje”, this past March there was a series of protests in Sarajevo which were organized by an association called “Friends of animals.” Direct pretext for those protests was a terrible video shot by three young people and published on Facebook. The video shows how these boys are setting a notorious pit-bull terrier on an infirm stray dog, and how the bloodthirsty animal is tearing its victim apart.

A lot of bloggers from this country reacted to the video very harshly.

Blogger zuti__karton published a post titled “How monstrous can we be?” As a dog owner and a volunteer at an animal shelter in Tuzla city, she reacted to the video very emotionally. Because of that, her first reaction should be perceived as a public appeal to everyone to stop abusing animals, not as an invitation to take revenge on the culprits of the brutal crime. She wrote:

[…] The only fair law is “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and everyone should be treated according to this law […] then I’d like to see who would repeat such a crime. […]

[…] These are just some of the cases of violence against animals… Only God knows how many others there are… Is anyone asking himself how monstrous a creature we can be, how primitive we can be. Can we be even worse? I think we can, because we are people, not animals. […]

[…] We often kill for the sake of fun, out of jealousy, for money or for similar senseless reasons. We wage wars because misters from TV tell us to do that, because someone has this or that kind of name, because someone is black and someone else is white, because of the damned colors. […]

Medo_Lee wrote:

[…] Protection of animal rights and taking care of animals is typical of western, democratic, civilized and prosperous societies and we are so far away from that level.

Human is the worst animal and a proof of that is what's happening to us. […]

Blogger Mafa has a totally different opinion. He published a short post titled “Violence against animals is justified”:

Look at what these little monsters [dogs] have done to a young man… One of them bit off his leg. This young man will never be able to walk, not to mention play football :( He doesn’t have enough money to buy a Sony PlayStation, so his life is, to say the least, destroyed. Why did the dog make him disabled? Why? How could this dog be so cruel :( if the man had had a pit-bull, like Kemal, it's certain that he wouldn’t have experienced this misfortune. :(

Croatia has almost the same problem as Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On March 4 this year, daily newspaper Jutarnji List published an article about brutal violence against dogs and cats in the cities of Vinkovci and Vukovar:

Newspapers are often full of articles about the abuse of animals. Every time people are shocked by the brutality of violence. So citizens of Vinkovci were upset on Wednesday when a dog with severe scalding injuries of its nose, head and back was found in the center of the city. There was a thick wire hoop tied around its neck. […]

[…] A few days before, association “dr Ivan Rostas” warned about one case of animal abuse, this time, against cats in Vukovar. They received the disturbing news from Vukovar about cats that were being exposed to brutal torture by a group of children and several adults from the nearby apartment buildings. They also published photos of a cat whose eye was torn out and another cat whose tail was cut off. Poor animals had also been exposed to stones and slingshots.

Animal fans and online activists from Croatia have created Facebook groups, too, in which they invite people to join them in protection of the animals.

A devastating fact is that in all of these countries there are laws for protection of animals but, unfortunately, they are not applied in practice.

Serbia: Belgrade's Trees Fall Victim to “Chain Saw Massacre”

Sinisa Boljanovic — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 09:54:51 +0000

At the end of February, the process of cutting down some 400 plane trees began on Belgrade's longest street, the Boulevard of King Alexander. The trees were planted there in the 19th century, and the tree-lined path represented one of the oldest and most beautiful green oases in the center of Belgrade. A municipal company Gradsko Zelenilo, which is in charge of all city parks and tree-lined paths, has announced plans for complete eradication of the trees on the boulevard, explaining that they were old and sick.

This action has caused protests of citizens and a lot of reactions by Belgrade’s writers, artists and other famous people in the press and on the internet. They expressed doubts that all the marked trees were sick. They fear it is yet another excuse for expansion of parking areas or another project that will be revealed only later, after the giant plane trees have been destroyed.

The director of Gradsko Zelenilo, Radovan Draskic, said that the cut had started and that citizens should be aware of the danger of sick trees left standing. The website Balkan Insight published his statement; here is part of it:

We chose this part of the boulevard because it has the most problems. Why? It isn't difficult to prove; when you look at the outside of the [trees], they look healthy, but studies have shown that they are rotting. You can see that a metre or two is healthy and then the rot starts.

A group of citizens who opposed the cut called for a petition to be launched. They sent a letter to the Belgrade mayor Dragan Đilas. Among other things, they wrote:

Besides aesthetic, historical and cultural significance, the trees, as you know, also clean the extremely polluted air in this neighborhood. There are engineers from the Faculty of Forestry and Horticulture among the signatories of our petition. The engineers believe that, contrary to the assertions of the director of Gradsko Zelenilo, the trees are not actually sick, as was the case with certain previous cuts.

A Facebook group titled REMEMBERING BELGRADE CHAIN SAW MASSACRE!!! already has more than 800 members. Here's the group's description:

Belgrade City Hall has cut down over 400 trees in the longest boulevard in the city.
They have given us some lame excuses about “sickness of the trees” But the truth is more ugly.
It is, as you may imagine all about… money

Dusan Pavlovic from the NGO Zeleni Srbije told Balkan Insight that such a decision was tragic, but that it was too late to change anything now:

This shouldn't have happened without consultations with relevant organisations and experts. Now that the damage is done it is too late to stop and therefore we will try to press the authorities to do what they promised to do afterwards, namely plant new trees.

Bloggers also reacted to the event.

Nune Popovic wrote:

[…] If plane trees are really sick and present danger to the lives of Belgrade’s citizens, as mayor Đilas said, and that some of the experts contested […], a logical question arises: why is the study by experts from the Faculty of Forestry […] not revealed? What is the obstacle for an open public discussion about the issue in which the international experts should be included too? […]

[…] Đilas’s behavior looks like he enjoys the requests that are sent to him to check the decision about the cut of plane trees, like Milosevic enjoyed in 1991. When Đilas, as a leader of student protest, asked him to do a favor to his people and withdraw from the power.

That’s why I suspect the decision that the plane trees should be cut is more sick than the trees whose cutting Đilas supports, and instead, it is in the public interest to make sure that everything possible is done so that the trees are treated and saved.

Blogger Srđan Mitrovic writes about the building plan for the Boulevard and explains why more people didn't join the protests:

[…] Sincerely speaking, I would be surprised to learn that any of those who live on the Boulevard participated in the protests. Probably, they can hardly wait for their buildings to be torn down, so that they can get money or square meters from investors [who have intention to make new buildings in the area].

Blogger Albicilla published a few photos from the cut of plane trees and invited citizens to gather next to the Vuk Monument in order to light candles for the trees:

Let's say good-bye to plane trees in a dignified way, with many honors and respects.
Let’s light candles on each venue of their merciless and unfair massacre.

Inviting all volunteers to gather themselves, today, on Sunday, March 7, next to the Vuk Monument, and bring candles, matches and cigarette lighters. […] Let’s send a picture into the world that we regret what's happened to our plane trees and that we are not monstrous killers. […]

Vladimir, a young man (25) from Belgrade’s area Braca Jerkovic, who calls himself as a “self-styled lawyer,” is on duty every night in order to save one of the plane trees in the Boulevard. He is also collecting citizens' signatures in order to petition the municipal authorities to start treating his plane tree. Blogger Albicilla, in another post, published Vladimir's explanation:

I am aware that there is a minimal chance that a plane tree, which is entered in the proposal under the number 191, will survive […]. It’s obvious that those who made a decision about it will go to the end. It is my initiative, no one stands behind me, only my plane tree. Though I don’t live on the boulevard, I can’t be idle. I am hurt when I see how plane trees disappear.

Serbia: Threats to B92's Journalist

Sinisa Boljanovic — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:26:18 +0000

On Thursday, Dec. 3, Serbian television station B92 broadcast the first episode of “Insider,” a show which was about Belgrade’s hooligans - the fans of Partizan, Red Star and Rad football clubs.

In accordance with the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance, “Insider” got information about the names of leaders of the hooligans and many crimes which were committed by them, and reported that none of those leaders has not been sentenced in courts.

Soon after broadcasting, Brankica Stankovic, a journalist and author of “Insider”, has started to receive serious threats from fans of the mentioned football clubs on Facebook. It’s interesting that the messages have not been sent by anonymous people.

Below are some of them that web site “U poverenju” re-published:

1. Sister, you attacked the people and the game in which life is worth very little. We are not mafia, politicians and corrupted rich men! I am sorry for you, it will be painful.
2. Question for Brankica: Will you sacrifice your life for your idea? We will. That is our strength. You will never defeat us.
3. All of you from B92 are the regime’s bitches and hirelings. B92 should be shut down as soon as possible.
4. She should be slaughtered and delivered to the people from B92 to eat her. Dead bitch!
5. Bitch, will not live long!.. stay away from football fans

Serbian bloggers reacted to the threats.

In his blog, Jaksa Scekic cited some of the messages which had been sent publicly by numerous citizens in the previous days and wrote:

Brankica Stankovic is endangered, “Insider” is endangered, B92 is endangered, the profession of a journalist is endangered, the state is endangered.

Shall we succumb?

It should show them that journalists, citizens, government are not afraid of them.

It is time for the journalists' guild to do something. Statements are not enough anymore. They are the dead letter and they can calm someone’s conscience only.

We have to show that we are more powerful than they are.

Blogger Srdan Fuchs analyzed the causes of the threats and the violence by hooligans in general. He wrote this:

[…] However, the traces of violence point out another thing. They point out that, as a main motive [of the hooligans] for the violence, there is social desperation, life without any goal, the eking out at the “bottom” without any idea of how things could be changed. […]

In the post titled “Crystal night starts”, blogger Strongman pointed out a serious problem in society. He wrote:

Neither the police, nor the prosecutor’s office, nor the Judiciary can solve the problems with violence and a criminalized society. All of us are responsible for and deserving of everything that is happening to us. We are now facing an “either, or” situation. Either them, or us. […]

According to the B92’s source from Dec. 6, president of the Republic of Serbia said that the state will not tolerate violence by hooligans and criminals who threaten journalists doing their jobs.

Tadić said that the state has taken measures of protection, adding that the state institutions will react in accordance with the law and arrest and prosecute all those endangering the lives of others.

As of now, nine young people have been arrested. They are between ages 18 and 26.

Serbia: Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle Dies

Sinisa Boljanovic — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:22:34 +0000

Head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, His Holiness Patriarch Pavle, died on Sunday, November 15.

He was 95 years old, and for the past two years he was being treated at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade.

Patriarch Pavle was chosen to head the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1990 and was the 44th patriarch.

He was said to be a humble person, who lived a simple lifestyle of an Orthodox monk. He was revered by the Serbian believers, as well as followers of other religions.

On occasion of his death, Serbia’s government declared a three-day mourning, starting Monday.

Serbian bloggers did not remain indifferent, either. They reacted to the death of Patriarch Pavle, as well as to the decisions of the government related to his passing.

Blogger Constrictorial wrote (SRP):

[…] I think that he was a human who worked, above all, for the reconciliation of people from this region […] in the time of war, he was one of the rare people who called for peace. […]

[…] I think that he was a modest man who was emitting love, sincerity and honesty. […]

At the end of his post, the blogger quoted Patriarch Pavle’s words:

Finally, as always, I must repeat what's always remains the same: be humane towards those who are constantly seeing us as their enemies; don’t hurry with hugs, but extend hands to everyone who realizes that we have to live as humans if we couldn’t live as brothers. Care for good relations with our neighbors who, even under the highest pressures, didn’t forget that we had to be oriented towards each other. […]

Teofil Pancic, a journalist, published his article titled “The Politics of Condolence” on the Pescanik web site. He wrote this (SRP), among other things:

[…] This is neither the place, nor the time for detailing about Gojko Stojcevic’s [civil name of Patriarch Pavle] character and works. No doubt that he led his Church so that it was not deviating from the widespread and tragic mistakes which inconceivably held Serbia back over the last 20 years. It is also true that other bishops, if they had been in his place, would have been more extreme. It is the fact that he, with his own lifestyle, which suited the popular, that is, idealized show about monks, acquired the mass respect of ordinary people, who are tired because they live in a destroyed society in which all the vagabonds and tramps, including those in cassocks, earn suspiciously bloody millions and drive around promoting their own banditry by various expensive cars and jeeps. […]

Blogger Aleksandar Vasovic reacted severely to the government’s decision to pay expenses to businessmen for all the workers who would attend the ceremony of the Patriarch’s funeral on Thursday. In his post titled “How much is Serbia’s mourning?”, he wrote (SRP):

[…] Why didn't the government, if it is so God-fearing, appeal to the faithful businessmen and workers to spend their one-day earnings, which it approved generously for them for the day of the Patriarch’s funeral, on the help for the poor and homeless persons, for the hungry ones and on maintaining community kitchens? […]

The Republican Broadcasting Agency has ordered state-funded electronic media to stop broadcasting musical programs because of the three-day mourning, and blogger Srdjan Mitrovic criticized (SRP) one Serbian cable operator for blocking of several channels:

SBB [Serbian Broadband] has blocked all music channels because of the days of mourning. […]

[…] I hope that they won’t remember to block cable internet because, God forbid, music could be broadcast through it. […]

P.S. On Channel TV 1000, they are showing soft porno films. Just so you know.

Serbia: The Death of a French Football Fan

Sinisa Boljanovic — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:21:23 +0000

Brice Taton, a 28-year-old French citizen and a fan of the Toulouse football team, was brutally beaten by fans of the Partizan football team in downtown Belgrade on Sept. 17, before the Partizan vs Toulouse game. He died in a Belgrade hospital on Sept. 29. The terrible news prompted bloggers’ reactions.

Srdjan Mitrovic wrote:

I am ashamed of this city, these politicians and this country.

Marko Jevtic created a Facebook group - “Stop Violence” - and, on his blog, invited readers to join it. He also wrote:

I am a Partizan fan. I was born and grew up in Belgrade… but I am ashamed.

REST IN PEACE BRIS

Srecko Sekeljic wrote:

Announcements and acts of violence, why the Gay Pride Parade has been forbidden in the capital’s center, why many people have been beaten, why Brice Taton has died tragically, why citizens can’t walk the streets of cities safely - all this shows very clearly the strong need for organizing a wide front against violence. The first step is for the citizens to take over the streets from groups and individuals who are spreading hatred and sowing fear and death. The next step is for the institutions to initiate and successfully bring criminal charges against individuals, groups and organizations that propagate and carry out the violence.

Serbian officials expressed their condolences to Brice’s family and said that Serbia would never forget him. Web site RTV Studio B published this statement by Ivica Dacic, the Interior Minister:

“On behalf of the Serbian Interior Ministry, I express my deepest condolences over the death of your son. Until the last moment we hoped that Brice and his youth would win. The news of his death, that the Serbian citizens received with great sorrow, is all the more tragic.”

According to ”Studio B”, the Human Rights Ministry State Secretary Marko Karadžić called on citizens to gather at Belgrade's central square at 11:30 CET on Wednesday to pay tribute to the victim with flowers and candles. He said:

It is horrible news that a French citizen lost his life this way in Belgrade. I want to call on all people in Belgrade to come to the Trg Republike square as a human gesture, light candles and leave flowers to show that there are many people in Serbia who are against violence and that Serbia will never forget French citizen Brice Taton, nor will it allow a similar thing to happen again.

President Tadic also reacted:

“Serbia will react with the highest level of seriousness, and with very strict principles. […]”

He added that this was a warning “to all groups that have been promoting violence over the last days.”