Serbia in the Shadow of Milosevic: The Legacy of Conflict in the Balkans (International Library of Twentieth Century History)

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

Janine N. Clark is a Leverhulme Fellow in the International Politics department at Aberystwyth University, Wales. She was awarded a PhD by the University of Nottingham at the end of 2005 and an ESRC-funded Postdoctoral Fellowship which she completed in 2007. As part of her research on peace-building, international war crimes tribunals and restorative justice, she is now working on judicial and religious paths to peace-building in the former Yugoslavia.

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević: The Legacy of Conflict in the Balkans Janine N. Clark

Tauris Academic Studies LONDON • NEW YORK

Published in 2008 by by Tauris Academic Studies, an imprint of I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com In the United States of America and Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan a division of St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Janine N. Clark, 2008 The right of Janine N. Clark to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. International Library of Twentieth Century History 17 ISBN: 978 1 84511 767 2 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Printed and bound in India by Thomson Press Pvt. Ltd camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author

In Memory of William Clark

CONTENTS

Map of Serbia

viii

Acknowledgements

ix

List of Abbreviations

x

Introduction

1

1. The Background and Rationale

9

2. Everyday Life under the Milošević Regime

27

3. Milošević through the Eyes of the Serbs

44

4. The Death of Milošević

64

5. Serbian Collective Denial and Collective Guilt

82

6. The Hague Tribunal, Retributive Justice and Peace-Building

99

7. Serbia after Milošević

117

Conclusion

138

Afterword: New Developments and Kosovo’s Independence

141

Notes

146

Appendix: List of Interviewees

184

Bibliography

189

Index

230

Map of Serbia (Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin)

Acknowledgements

So many people have contributed to the writing of this book in a variety of different ways and it is not possible to name all of them. However, I would particularly like to thank the following: the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for funding the doctoral and postdoctoral research upon which this book is based; Dr Vanessa Pupavac, Professor Simon Tormey and Dr Jan Meyer-Sahling, my former doctoral supervisors at the University of Nottingham; Dr Patrick Finney, my mentor at Aberystwyth University; and Dr Alastair Finlan and Professor Michael Foley, colleagues who have given up their time to read draft chapters. In Serbia, the following people deserve special mention for all the help that they have given me since I began my research: Jovo Bakić, Sonja Biserko, Professor Silvano Bolčić, Dr Srbobran Branković, Ljerka Ćulić, Katarina Dunjić-Mandić, Jasmina Glišić, Marko Ivković, Rade Jerenić, Vladimir Kršljanin, Nataša Lambić, Svetlana Logar, Srećko Mihailović, Jasna Milošević, Dr Dušan Pavlović, Dr Aaron Presnall, Olivija Rusovac, Dave Shipley, Dr Ivana Spasić, Nikola Teodorević, Tanja Vujisić, Ivan Zlatić and, of course, all of the interviewees. Finally, I would like to thank my mother for all her support and encouragement and for all the sacrifices that she has made for me.

List of Abbreviations

CESID – Centre for Free Elections and Democracy DS – Democratic Party DSS – Democratic Party of Serbia FRY – Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) HLC – Humanitarian Law Centre ICG – International Crisis Group ICJ – International Court of Justice ICTR – International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ICTY – International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia IDP – Internally displaced person JNA – Yugoslav Army JUL – Yugoslav United Left KIPRED – Kosovo Institute for Policy Research and Development KLA – Kosovo Liberation Army RTS – Radio Television Serbia SMMRI – Strategic Marketing and Media Research Institute SPC – Serbian Orthodox Church SPS – Socialist Party of Serbia SRS – Serbian Radical Party TRC – Truth and Reconciliation Commission UCPMB – Liberation Army of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa UNDP – United Nations Development Programme

Introduction

During a visit in June 2004 to the headquarters of Sloboda – a Serbian NGO assisting Milošević with his defence in The Hague – the telephone rang. The receptionist answered it. Her face immediately broke into a beaming smile, her eyes filled with tears and she gushed, ‘ah, Predsednike!’ It was Milošević himself on the line, calling from the Netherlands. In September 2004, a young Kosovo Serb man whose brother had recently been murdered in Kosovo spoke emotionally about Milošević’s betrayal of the Kosovo Serbs and his failure to protect them. In May 2006, a middleaged man in Belgrade, who proudly showed off a colour picture of Milošević on his mobile phone, was overcome with feeling as he tried to talk about Milošević’s death. In June 2006, the widow of the assassinated Serbian journalist Slavko Ćuruvija angrily described her own response to Milošević’s demise: ‘I felt nothing when he died, because hatred is feeling and he was not worth any of my feelings. He was not a human being. He was evil and if you hate evil, you start to become evil’. These four vignettes powerfully attest to the strong reactions – positive and negative – that Milošević evoked, and continues to evoke, among the Serbian people. This is one of the reasons why he was, and remains, such a fascinating character. Described by Maas as ‘a Haley’s comet of dictators’ (Maas 1996: 199), Milošević has commanded a wealth of attention to rival any celestial body, as evidenced by the array of books that have been written about him. These address, inter alia, his life and political career (Doder and Branson 1999; Hartman 1999; Thomas 1999; Djukić 2001; Cohen 2001a; LeBor 2002; Nikolić 2002; Stevanović 2004; Barratt Brown 2005); specific features of his regime (Thompson 1994; Gordy 1999; Marshall 2002; Popov 2000; Antonić 2002; Ramet 2002); his role in the destruction of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed (Magaš 1993; Bennett 1995; Woodward 1995; Zimmermann 1996; Sell 2002; Gow 2003); his fall from power (Lalić 2001; Bujošević and Radovanović 2003); and his trial in The Hague (Cigar and Williams

2

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

2002; Scharf and Schabas 2002; Laughland, 2007). Most of these books are highly critical of Milošević. There are, however, some significant exceptions (see, for example, Parenti 2000; Johnstone 2002; Hudson 2003; Barratt Brown 2005; Laughland 2007), and it is within this smaller, revisionist body of literature that the present work situates itself. Given that so much has already been written about Milošević, it is imperative to explain how this research makes a distinctive and important contribution to the existing Western (Anglo-American) literature. Essentially it does so in four main ways. First, it assigns a central role to the Serbian people, to date heavily overlooked in the literature. When the latter are mentioned, it is often in a very abstract way, as demonstrated by various essentialist references to ‘the Serbian national psyche’ (Clark 2000: 70) and ‘the Serb mind’ (Cohen 1998: 222). The explanation for this neglect can be found in the predominance within the literature of a strongly top-down approach that concentrates almost exclusively on Milošević, his wife and the political and cultural elite, and devotes little attention to the view from below.1 Influenced by bottom-up research on the Hitler and Stalin regimes (for example, Kershaw 1983, 2000; Peukert 1987; Kotkin 1995; Fitzpatrick 1999), and premised on the assumption that we cannot gain a comprehensive and holistic picture of the Milošević regime without exploring the micro level, this book, in contrast, seeks to give a much-needed voice to the Serbian people. Based on semi-structured interviews, its bottom-up approach counter-balances the literature’s top-down emphasis. The interview data itself provides valuable new insight into the Milošević regime, including what it was actually like to live under it, and offers a fresh ‘insider’ perspective. A second sense in which this work fundamentally differs from the mainstream literature is that it is not a book about actions, events, or personalities. Rather, it is primarily about perceptions, and more specifically about how the Serbian people see Milošević. It is about Milošević through the eyes of the Serbs. Thus far, Serb views of their former leader have not been systematically examined or accorded the significance they merit. One reason is that certain ideas and assumptions that are very prominent in Western literature would seem to have devalued Serb opinions as a topic for research. Typical examples include the assumption that Milošević enjoyed nearuniversal support (Silber and Little 1996; Meier 1999; Ramet 2002);



Introduction

3

the notion that the Serb nation is gripped by a sense of victimhood (Ramet 1995; Rezun 1995; Posa 1998); the claim that Serbs were massively brain-washed during the 1990s (Bennett 1995; Cohen 1998; Judah 2000a); and the idea that Serbs are in collective denial (Ramet 2007) – these have all mitigated against detailed exploration of Serb views. Alongside this non-representation or under-representation of the Serbian perspective, a strong consensus about Milošević has developed in the literature, as reflected in ‘orthodox’ accounts of the Yugoslav tragedy that ‘presume and then focus on the guilt of “the Serbs” and especially of Slobodan Milošević’ (Hayden 2000: 19). Widely deemed the person most responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia and accused of planning the bloody wars that ensued (see, for example, Zimmermann 1996; Sell 2002; LeBor 2002; Gow 2003), Milošević is represented in the literature above all as a criminal leader who posed a fundamental threat to liberal norms and values. It is this dominant image of Milošević that forms the starting point for this research. By examining how he is seen by people in Serbia, it seeks to offer an alternative view of the former Serbian leader. The aim is not to show that the portrayal of Milošević as a criminal leader is wrong, but simply to demonstrate that conventional wisdom about him should not be unquestioningly accepted. Other viewpoints do exist and they should be explored. They not only offer new insight and perspective, but also facilitate fresh debate. Serb perceptions of Milošević are not only significant in their own right, however. They also have very important ramifications, in particular for how Serbs deal with the past, for the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (henceforth referred to as the ICTY or the Hague Tribunal) and, more broadly, for peace-building (as defined by Lederach 1997).2 The book’s central argument, therefore, is that although Milošević is no longer alive, the manner in which he is perceived and remembered means that he will continue to have an indirect influence on Serbia’s future. From this perspective, Serbia remains in the shadow of Milošević. Serb views and their implications open up, in turn, a whole range of wider issues and points for discussion that are rarely considered in existing works on Serbia and Milošević. To take one example, the interview data raises important questions about Serbian collective denial and Serbian collective guilt, which to date have not been directly or comprehensively addressed.3 The data also invites debate

4

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

about the Hague Tribunal, and in particular its claim that it can contribute to peace and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. While there exists a substantial literature on the Tribunal (see Hayden 1999; Bass 2000; Hagan 2003; Jones and Powles 2003; Hazan 2004; Kerr 2004; Laughland 2007), the significant matter of whether it can in fact play a peace-building role in the region has been heavily overlooked. Examining this, in turn, brings into focus more general questions about the relationship between retributive justice and post-conflict reconciliation (as defined by Staub 2006).4 Many of these complex and under-explored topics are not particular to Serbia. Rather, they are no less pertinent to other post-conflict societies, such as Rwanda.5 By addressing them, therefore, this work not only makes a third valuable contribution to the literature, but also assumes a broader significance and relevance. What it thus seeks to demonstrate is that area studies research does not have to be narrow, or of interest only to area specialists. Such research can speak to wider issues and it can appeal, as this work is designed to do, to a diverse audience. The final way in which this book can be set apart from the existing literature is that it not only deals with Milošević’s Serbia, but also with Serbia after Milošević. Following his overthrow on 5 October 2000, Serbia has received less attention than it did during the 1990s, and this trend can be expected to continue now that the former Serbian leader is dead.6 There have, of course, been significant changes and developments in the country since his removal from power, yet important elements of continuity can be identified, and this is the second sense in which Serbia can be described as remaining in Milošević’s shadow. Furthermore, it is naive to assume that Serbia’s problems ended in 2000. The economy remains weak, corruption is widespread, the far-right Serbian Radical Party is becoming more and more powerful, ordinary people are dissatisfied with what they perceive as a lack of substantive change in the years since Milošević was toppled, and the issue of Kosovo remains unresolved. By examining some of the problems and challenges facing Serbia today, this work offers valuable insight into the neglected reality of postMilošević Serbia, the state upon which the stability of the region most depends. Based upon the author’s doctoral and postdoctoral research, which included extensive fieldwork in Serbia, this book reflects a long-standing interest in Serbia and the former Yugoslavia that dates



Introduction

5

back to a short visit to the region in the summer of 1999. At that time, Milošević was President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia was trying to recover from three months of NATO aerial bombardment. This work appears at a time when Milošević is not only no longer in power, but also no longer alive. What it seeks to demonstrate, however, is that he is not just part of Serbia’s past. He is part of its future and the future of the region. This work comprises seven substantive chapters. Chapter one discusses the rationale for the book’s bottom-up approach and the emphasis it places on the perceptions of the Serbian people. As a key question that runs through this research is whether and to what extent Serbs’ opinions of Milošević are congruent with the dominant Western view of him as a criminal leader, the chapter begins by exploring this image in detail. The second part explains why the Serb viewpoint and, more particularly, the view from below are important. The final part of the chapter provides information on the interviewees whose thoughts and experiences form such a fundamental part of this book. The obvious top-down bias within the existing Western literature has meant that virtually nothing has been written about what it was like to live under the Milošević regime, thus creating a significant gap in our knowledge and understanding. Chapter two directly addresses this lacuna, by painting a detailed picture of everyday life in Serbia during the 1990s. Its principal function is to provide a context within which to interpret and understand the interviewees’ views of Milošević which, to a very significant extent, are based on how his leadership affected their everyday lives. The first part of the chapter provides a macro-level overview of the economic crisis that gripped Serbia during the 1990s. Shifting to the micro level, the second part examines how the economic crisis impacted upon people’s quotidian lives, for example in terms of health, security and emotional and psychological wellbeing. The final part looks at some of the ways in which people coped with the situation, including emigration, suicide and recourse to the paranormal. Chapters three and four analyze the interview data upon which this book is based. Chapter three focuses on the data from a first round of semi-structured interviews conducted in 2004 and examines the two main images of Milošević that emerge from the data. The first is the portrayal of him as a ‘bad’ leader. According to the interviewees, Milošević was a bad leader in the sense that he

6

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

wronged Serbia and its people, cared only about himself and about power, was an incompetent leader with only limited abilities and surrounded himself with individuals who were not sufficiently skilled for the job. The second image of Milošević is as a victim; that is to say a victim of the people around him (in particular his wife), a victim of himself and his own weaknesses and/or a victim of the West. The interview data thus reveals a clear discrepancy between, on one hand, the prevalent Western view of Milošević as a criminal leader and, on the other hand, domestic perceptions of the former Serbian leader, the significance of which is discussed in chapter six. Chapter four analyzes the data from a second round of semistructured interviews undertaken in the summer of 2006 and explores how Milošević’s death has affected the interviewees’ opinions of him. The first part of the chapter demonstrates that the perception of Milošević as a ‘bad’ leader still stands, but has undergone important changes that provide useful insight into the attitudes and concerns of Serbian people today. The second part of the chapter shows that Milošević’s death has directly strengthened and buttressed his image as a victim. The manner in which he died alone in his prison cell in The Hague, the way in which he was buried, the fact that his wife did not attend his funeral and the widespread consensus that his political party abused his death for political reasons, have all reinforced the idea that Milošević was a victim, if not in life then at least in death. The final part of the chapter examines the significance of the interviewees’ reactions to Milošević’s death, in particular their desire to forget him, and of the events that took place in Belgrade on the day of his funeral. Chapter five addresses two potential objections to the interview data and more particularly to the weight that is given in this book to the perceptions and opinions of Serbian people. The first part of the chapter deals with the possible response that Serbs’ views are neither important nor reliable because they are a people in denial. It argues that while public opinion poll data shows that Serbs are more likely to believe, for example, that a particular war crime actually happened if it was perpetrated against Serbs, rather than by Serbs, this does not mean that the Serbs are collectively in denial. Neither does the fact that the interviewees primarily focused on their own suffering, barely mentioning the wars in the former Yugoslavia. There are those who engage in denial, more particularly in what Cohen (2001b) terms ‘interpretative denial’, but such denial is neither collective nor



Introduction

7

is it unique to the Serbs. The second part of the chapter considers a second possible response to the interview data, namely that Serbs’ opinions are of little or no value because they are a collectively guilty nation. Insisting that collective guilt is a morally objectionable and dangerous idea, as well as an impediment to reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia, it argues that there is no Serbian collective guilt. However, drawing upon the work of Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers, it suggests that perhaps we can speak of Serb collective responsibility. Building upon the three preceding chapters, chapter six is concerned with the wider significance of the interview material. The data, it argues, has particularly important implications for the work of the ICTY. On its website,7 the Tribunal makes three key claims about its work: that it is establishing a historical record of the wars in the former Yugoslavia, delivering justice and contributing to peace and reconciliation in the region. The interview data, however, both renders each of these assertions potentially problematic and raises broader questions about the effectiveness of retributive justice in post-conflict societies. The final part of the chapter argues that while the Hague Tribunal has a substantial part to play in the former Yugoslavia, the retributive justice it administers should be complemented with restorative justice initiatives, including the creation of a truth and reconciliation commission. Chapter seven provides an overview of developments in postMilošević Serbia. Its principal argument is that although Milošević is no longer in power, significant aspects of continuity with his regime remain. The first part of the chapter examines four such elements of continuity, namely continuity of structures and individuals, persistent widespread corruption, enduring control of the media and ongoing attacks on non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The second part of the chapter addresses one of the major challenges now facing the Serbian government, ironically the very issue that brought Milošević to power – Kosovo. It examines both the government’s position and Serbian public opinion on this and finally the very real possibility that an independent Kosovo could destabilize the entire region, in particular Macedonia and the Preševo Valley in South Serbia. The conclusion argues that although Milošević is no longer in power, to some extent his influence lives on. Hence, he remains an important figure that academic research should not sidestep simply

8

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

because he is dead. So too Serbia and the former Yugoslavia should not be marginalized as they have to some extent been in recent years. Serbia faces many problems and challenges and the region remains vulnerable to renewed instability. This work thus ends by calling for renewed academic and policy-based engagement with Serbia and the Balkans.

Chapter One The Background and Rationale

This book constitutes a novel study of Milošević through the eyes of the Serbs. Quintessentially revisionist, it goes against the grain of conventional thinking about Milošević, as expressed through the recurrent portrayal of him as a criminal leader, and offers two alternative views. Its emphasis on domestic opinions, however, necessarily raises the question of why Serb generic perceptions of Milošević matter. Specifically concerned with the impressions of ordinary people in Serbia – the so-called ‘masses’ – the distinctive bottom-up character of this research provokes the further question of why the view from below is important. The primary purpose of this chapter is to answer both of these key questions and thus to provide a clear rationale for the particular approach that is taken in this work. The basic starting point for this research was to discover whether and to what extent Serb perceptions of Milošević are consistent with the representation of him in Western literature as a criminal leader. This chapter will begin by exploring this criminal leader image in detail, as it constitutes the backdrop to the interview data and is crucial to understanding the broader significance of Serb opinions of Milošević. The importance of Serb views and the value of a bottomup approach will then be addressed. Finally, the chapter will conclude with a discussion of the interviews upon which this work is based. Milošević as a Criminal Leader Woodward, a leading authority on the former Yugoslavia, has highlighted a general pattern in the post-Cold War period of US officials identifying ‘rogue’ or ‘renegade’ states, ‘headed by “new Hitlers”, such as Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević, who defied all forms of civilized behaviour and had to be punished to

10

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

protect those norms and to protect innocent people’ (Woodward 1995: 7). In Western literature on Milošević, a similar pattern can be observed, as reflected in the broad consensus that he was a criminal leader. This term, however, is never actually defined. One reason for this is that the criminalization of leaderships is a relatively new phenomenon that can be linked to a number of important post-Cold War developments in international relations, including the growing influence of Liberalism (in relation to Realism) and the erosion of the principle of sovereign immunity.1 What is clear, however, is that the concept of the criminal leader is essentially a normative construct, informed by liberal principles. That is to say that while many of the writers discussed in this section – almost all of whom are British or American – supported the legal prosecution of Milošević, they also saw him as criminal on moral grounds. Thus, the term ‘criminal leader’ is not used in this book in a strict legal sense. There are four main elements in Milošević’s construction as a criminal leader, of which the most important is his alleged actions and intentions, followed by his motives, his personality and psychology and his comparison with other ‘criminal leaders’.2 This construction, in turn, is grounded in Liberalism. Actions and intentions The principal charge levelled against Milošević in Western literature is that he was the person most responsible for the break-up of Yugoslavia and for the wars that ensued. Thus, Silber and Little describe him as ‘the instigator of Yugoslavia’s bloody disintegration and the guiding hand behind the wars…’ (Silber and Little 1996: 385); Bass refers to him as ‘the prime mover in the wars of Yugoslavia’s disintegration’ (Bass 2003: 85); Sudetic labels him as ‘the prime mover in Yugoslavia’s slide into nationalist turmoil…’ (Sudetic 1998: 77); and Glenny maintains ‘there can be no doubt that from an early stage, Milošević was well-prepared to accept war as a solution to the Yugoslav problem’ (Glenny 1993: 38). It seems that nationalism is the key to explaining why Milošević is regarded as being most to blame for what happened in the former Yugoslavia,3 and more particularly his desire to create a ‘Greater Serbia’. Notwithstanding the literature’s emphasis on the idea of a Greater Serbia – variously referred to as a ‘dream’ (Boatswain 1995: 3), a ‘well-defined political objective’ (Cigar 1995: 4), a ‘programme’



The Background and Rationale

11

(Gallagher 2001: 236), a ‘project’ (Gow 2003: 2), a ‘plan’ (LeBor 2002: 136) and a ‘vision’ (Sell 2002: 151) – this is a somewhat opaque term that is rarely defined, as if its meaning were self-evident. For many authors, Greater Serbia signifies an aggressive drive for territorial expansion. Thus, a common argument in the literature is that Milošević was trying to acquire as much territory as possible. Cohen, for example, claims that, ‘As the imminent dissolution of the Yugoslav socialist federation came more clearly into view during 1990 and 1991, Milošević turned his attention to efforts aimed at ensuring as much territory as possible for any new Serbian state’ (Cohen 2001a: 142). There is nothing to suggest, however, that Milošević had the same extensive territorial ambitions as Vojislav Šešelj and the Serbian Radical Party (SRS).4 In his speeches, he never actually used the term Greater Serbia, notwithstanding claims that he ‘chose to base his own power on the appeal of “Greater Serbia”’ (Glover 1997: 21); and he and his political party never expressed ‘in public their opinion on a “greater Serbia”’ (Nikolić 2002: 48).5 Furthermore, despite unsubstantiated claims to the contrary (see, for example, Grmek, Gjidara and Šimac 1993; LeBor 2002),6 there was no written document or plan for a Greater Serbia, a significant detail given that such plans had been drawn up in the past.7 For all of these reasons, therefore, much of what has been written on the subject is highly conjectural. While opinions differ in the literature as to whether Greater Serbia was a short-term or long-term policy goal, the more common view is that it was a short-term objective that Milošević abandoned as soon as it no longer proved useful to him. Sell, for example, argues that, ‘After bringing war to half the Balkans, Milošević casually dismissed the idea of a Greater Serbia when it proved beyond his ability to accomplish’ (Sell 2002: 119). It is generally thought that Milošević adopted a Greater Serbia policy between 1990 and 1991 (Doder and Branson 1999; Thomas 1999) and discarded it somewhere between April 1993 and November 1995 (Owen 1996; Sells 1996). If it was such a short-lived policy, however, this raises the question of why the idea of a Greater Serbia has been so heavily underlined in the literature. One explanation, it is suggested, is that it has proven convenient to link Milošević with an aggressive and expansionist policy and thus to blame him for the entire Yugoslav tragedy. Milošević is not only accused of being most responsible for the wars, however, but also of actively planning them and therefore

12

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

intending for them to happen. Gow, for example, argues that although war was ‘highly likely and in the circumstances, even inevitable, it was Milošević’s Belgrade that saw in Yugoslavia’s disarray a perfect opportunity to redraw the map; that planned and instigated war…’ (Gow 2003: 9); LeBor asserts that, ‘War was a deliberate choice for the Milošević regime…’ (LeBor 2002: 328); and Zimmermann accuses Milošević of ‘devising and pursuing a strategy that led directly to the breakup of the country and to the deaths of over 100,000 of its citizens’ (Zimmermann 1996: 212). Such arguments have proven very popular, yet they are too simplistic. First, they suggest that Milošević could dictate the course of events and that he alone sealed Yugoslavia’s fate. In reality, however, Milošević was not functioning in a vacuum. He made decisions and formulated policies in response to developments unfolding around him and pragmatically modified his position as circumstances changed (see chapter three). Second, they imply that Milošević was free to take whatever decisions he so wished. More nuanced accounts of the regime, in contrast, highlight important domestic pressures on him. Hammel, for example, argues that, ‘As the Slovenes and Croatians began to press for independence, Milošević found himself politically threatened at home by right-wing Serbian nationalists such as Vojislav Šešelj’. Hence, ‘His position as a crypto-advocate of a Greater Serbia disguised as a communist federation had to give way to a more direct advocacy of Serbian hegemony in order to maintain his political base’ (Hammel 2000: 31). Rather than claim that Milošević planned war, it might alternatively be argued that war became increasingly useful to the Serbian leader as a means of ensuring the survival of his regime. To cite the Serbian journalist Slavoljub Djukić, while Milošević did not set out to destroy the county, he ‘thrived on chaos which he created in order to demonstrate that he alone could restore order’ (Djukić 2002: 162). Echoing this, Srbobran Branković, the director of the Belgrade polling agency TNS Medium Gallup, argues that, It was soon clear that any normalization of the situation within the country would lead to the strengthening of the democratic pressure exerted on the regime. As a direct result of this, the governing party was faced with the imperative of inciting permanent conflict with its neighbours (Branković 2001: 4).8



The Background and Rationale

13

All of this creates the image of Milošević as a rather weak leader, not the Balkan strongman that he is frequently portrayed as, and symptomatic of this weak leadership is the fact that he was unable to mobilize his people to fight. A strong leader should be able to galvanize his people for war, stirring in them intense patriotic feelings. Churchill in the Second World War and Thatcher during the Falklands Conflict are obvious examples. In the case of Milošević, however, ‘The very fact that the vastly stronger and better armed Yugoslav Army could not defeat poorly armed Croatian troops demonstrated Milošević’s failure to inspire the Serbs to a national crusade’ (Doder and Branson 1999: 97). This failure meant that notwithstanding the gruesome images that appeared in some Serbian media – for example, images of Croatian Ustaše massacring Serb women and children – ‘The attempts to mobilize young men and reserve forces in Serbia to fight in Croatia were stunningly unsuccessful’ (Gagnon 2004: 108). As a consequence, Milošević was increasingly forced to rely upon criminals released from prisons and paramilitary units. The UN Commission of Experts identified 83 paramilitary groups operating on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, of which some 56 were Serbian (Bojičić and Kaldor 1997: 160). That paramilitaries played such a major role in the conflict is very significant, given that Milošević is accused in the literature not only of planning the wars in the former Yugoslavia, but also of planning Serbian war crimes. Cigar and Williams, for example, claim that, ‘The atrocities committed by Serbian forces were part of a planned, systematic and organized campaign to secure territory for an ethnically “pure” Serb state by clearing it of all non-Serb populations’ (Cigar and Williams 2002: 21); and Malcolm maintains that ethnic cleansing in Bosnia was ‘a central part of the entire political project which the war was intended to achieve, namely the creation of homogeneous Serb areas which could eventually be joined to other Serb areas, including Serbia itself, to create a greater Serbian State’ (Malcolm 2002: 246). Such arguments, however, do not take sufficient account of the fact that many of the worst Serbian crimes were committed by paramilitary groups, like Arkan’s Tigers and Šešelj’s Četniks, whose acts of brutality were more spontaneous than premeditated and were often motivated as much by greed and the prospect of looting and plunder as by ultra-nationalism.9 What they also overlook is that although Milošević gave the paramilitaries free rein to sow fear and

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Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

spread mayhem, he had little real control over them. To cite Sikavica, ‘Paramilitary leaders asked nobody’s permission before going into action…’ (Sikavica 2000: 143). As a final point, if Milošević had indeed made the meticulous war plans that some Western authors claim, how is it that the Serbs, despite their vast military superiority, lost the wars? The reality is that the Serbian war effort was chaotic and disorganized and this further reinforces the impression of Milošević as a weak leader. Motives Western literature portrays Milošević as a man who was motivated by power, to the point of being obsessed with it. Hockenos describes him as ‘a tyrant who appeared addicted to power…’ (Hockenos 2003: 154); di Giovanni refers to his ‘insatiable appetite for power’ (di Giovanni 2004: 73); Judah terms him ‘an opportunistic and a cynical leader who was only interested in power’ (Judah 2000a: xii); and Cohen argues that Milošević’s ‘most compelling interest’ was ‘the retention of power at any cost’ (Cohen 2001a: xiv). What is interesting is that this pursuit of power is not seen as rational. Indeed, the rationality of the ‘criminal leader’ is typically denied. On one hand, he is depicted as irrational. This is highlighted by the example of Saddam Hussein, deemed by the Bush administration as ‘reckless, ruthless and not fully rational’ (Mearsheimer and Walt 2003), and characterized as ‘the madman of the Middle East’ (Post 2003: 335). On the other hand, actions that are in fact rational are presented as evidence of the criminal leader’s badness. Milošević, for example, was by no means unique in wanting to preserve his position or in putting himself first. As David asks, ‘can we really expect leaders to act in ways that would undermine their tenure in office?’ (David 1997). Milošević’s hunger for power, however, is not treated as rational, but rather as criminal.10 Thus Hartman, as one example, describes him as ‘un tyran sanguinaire prêt à sacrifier des centaines de milliers de vies sur l’autel de ses ambitions’ (‘a bloody tyrant prepared to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives on the altar of his ambitions’) (Hartman 1999: 14). There is no doubt that Milošević’s pursuit of power was ruthless, but it was arguably more Machiavellian than pure criminal; everything was subordinated to his own political interests.



The Background and Rationale

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Character and psychological traits Milošević is portrayed in the literature as having possessed various negative character traits. Doder and Branson, for example, refer to his ‘consummate capacity for lying, intrigue and secrecy’ (Doder and Branson 1999: 6) and Zimmermann describes him as ‘one of the most duplicitous politicians the Balkans has ever produced…’ (Zimmermann 1996: 249). Narcissism is another negative character trait often attributed to Milošević.11 According to Sell, ‘US psychologists who have studied Slobodan Milošević closely describe him as having a malignant narcissistic personality. They see him as strongly self-centred, vain and full of self-love. He is also completely indifferent to almost anyone or anything else around him’ (Sell 2002: 173). Much is also made of the fact that Milošević was reportedly rather reclusive. Volkan argues that, ‘Most of the time Milošević keeps to himself and has perhaps suffered episodic depression’ (Volkan 1997: 240) and Scharf and Schabas inform us that, ‘Slobodan is said to have been a solitary child. Patterns of abandonment surrounded the young Milošević and could be seen as factors in the formation of a hardened, isolated individual’ (Scharf and Schabas 2002: 5). It is suggested that this aspect of Milošević’s character has been emphasized as a way of showing that he was somehow ‘abnormal’. Ramet, to take just one example, claims that, ‘…the Serbian leader is suffering from an acute personality disorder’ and ‘displays symptoms characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia and psychopathic hostility’ (Ramet 2002: 310). Even Milošević’s relationship with his wife and childhood sweetheart, Mira Marković, has often been portrayed as being somewhat peculiar and ‘unnaturally close’ (di Giovanni 2004: 153). Their fidelity and devotion to each other, which in any other couple would ordinarily be praised, have been depicted as odd and out of the ordinary, cementing the image of Mira and her husband as a bizarre duo, une folie à deux.12 It is important to stress that many of these arguments about Milošević’s personality and psychology are made by authors and commentators who never actually met him and are thus highly speculative. They represent a distant analysis that is based heavily on assumption and guesswork. To take one example, books about Milošević typically go into details about his past, particularly underscoring the fact that both of his parents committed suicide – his father in 1962 and his mother in 1973. It is reasonable to surmise

16

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

that these tragic events would have affected Milošević, but it is impossible to know precisely how. Hence, there is no basis in fact for Volkan’s claim that, ‘Because of the suicide of both of his parents, he most likely could no longer trust parent figures’ (Volkan 1997: 240); or for Ramet’s contention that Milošević’s ‘tendency toward aggression would only have been amplified’ if he ‘also nurtured some vague and indefinable guilt after these suicides’ (Ramet 2002: 309). Such arguments are pure conjecture. One of the most insightful psychological analyses of the former Serbian leader has been offered through the distinctive drawings of the famous Serbian cartoonist, Predrag (‘Corax’) Koraksić. He does not make any explicit claims about Milošević. According to the Serbian psychologist Žarko Trebješanin, however, ‘If we carefully “read” Corax’s non-verbal study of Milošević’s character, we will find the following dominant traits’ – namely autism, narcissism, infantilism, spite/grudge, cunningness, violent temper and selfdestructiveness (Trebješanin 2001: 8). From 1999 onwards, for example, Corax drew Milošević with only slits for eyes, to make the point that the Serbian leader was living in his own world, divorced from reality; and he conveyed the idea that Milošević was narcissistic and arrogant by always making the Serbian leader look very large in relation to other Serbian politicians, such as Vuk Drašković and Vojislav Šešelj (Koraksić 2001).13 The real strength of Corax’s satirical drawings – which are also known as ‘Corax’ – is that they depict a psychologically fascinating character whose complexity few have captured so effectively. Comparisons with other ‘criminal leaders’ According to Doder and Branson, Milošević was the ‘Saddam Hussein of Europe’ (Doder and Branson 1999: 10); Bennett contends that ‘comparisons with both Hitler and Stalin are not far-fetched’ (Bennett 1995: 247); and Hartman describes Milošević as ‘le maître du regime le plus meurtrier d’Europe depuis Hitler’ (‘the master of the deadliest regime in Europe since Hitler’) (Hartman 1999: 14). These, however, are false and ‘mindless’ comparisons (Booth 2001: 316) that hinder understanding and have no place in serious scholarship. Unlike Hitler, for example, Milošević was neither racist nor anti-Semitic. Essentially, he hated anyone who stood in his way, including Serbs (see Clark 2007). His Croatian counterpart, Franjo Tudjman, was the real bigot and ethnic exclusivist.14



The Background and Rationale

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Some Western politicians also resorted to drawing facile parallels. Speaking in June 1999, for example, the then British Foreign Secretary, the late Robin Cook, argued that, ‘the appalling mass deportations we saw from Priština, particularly the use of railways, is evocative of what happened under Hitler and again under Stalin’ (cited in Dunne and Kroslak 2001: 36). Such claims were an effective way to garner support for the NATO bombing, by turning Western public opinion not only against Milošević but also against the Serbs; comparisons between Milošević and Hitler, in turn, encouraged comparisons between the Serbs and the heavily-demonized Germans (see chapter five). Ideological foundations Actions and intentions, motivations, personality and psychological profile and comparison with other criminal leaders are the four major elements in Milošević’s construction as a criminal leader. What underpins this construction, however, is Liberal ideology. Milošević was criminalized because everything that he appeared to represent was seen as antithetical and hostile to liberal values and ideals. This is clearly demonstrated in the rhetoric of British and US policy-makers, who portrayed Milošević and his regime as a threat to such fundamentals as freedom, democracy and liberal peace. Speaking on 2 June 1999, for example, President Clinton declared that, ‘The killing Mr Milošević unleashed in the former Yugoslavia a decade ago is now the last major barrier to a Europe whole, free and at peace…It threatens all the progress made in Europe since the end of the Cold War’ (cited in Auerswald and Auerswald 2000: 1075). Ironically, just four years earlier, at Dayton, Milošević had been lauded as a peacemaker.15 Liberal values were invoked most explicitly as a way to justify foreign intervention in the former Yugoslavia. On 1 September 1999, for example, speaking about the situation in Kosovo, the then US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, declared ‘that this kind of thing cannot stand, that you cannot in 1999 have this kind of barbaric ethnic cleansing. It is ultimately better that democracies stand up against this kind of evil’ (cited in Chomsky 1999: 3). In his speech to the Economic Club of Chicago on 22 April 1999, Tony Blair also underscored the importance of upholding liberal values, declaring, ‘This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values’ (Blair 1999).16

18

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

Alternative images of Milošević do exist in Western literature. Some commentators, for example, regard Milošević primarily as an improviser. Johnstone claims that, ‘Despite a confident façade, Milošević was improvising, while Tudjman knew exactly what he wanted’ (Johnstone 2002: 27); and according to Marshall, ‘Most people believe that Milošević’s idea of strategy was to stumble from one crisis to the next, trying to buy himself time with short-term solutions to long-term problems’ (Marshall 2002: 107). Others, mainly but not exclusively on the political Left, view Milošević as an independent leader who refused to obediently follow the West (more particularly the US) and was consequently made to pay the price (see, for example, Chomsky 1999; Hudson 2003; Parenti 2003). However, it is Milošević’s image as a criminal leader that is predominant within the literature. Moreover, it is the image that forms the background to this research, a guiding aim of which is to find out whether the Serbs themselves regard Milošević as a criminal leader. It is, therefore, imperative to explain why Serb views are important. The Significance of the Domestic Viewpoint The Serbian people are typically represented in the literature either as militant nationalists (see, for example, Mojzes, 1994; Boatswain, 1995; Leurdijk and Zandee, 2001) or, more frequently, as victims and dupes (Bennett 1995; Judah 2000a; Benson 2001). Representations, however, arguably tell us more about the person representing than about the represented; to cite Edward Saïd, ‘representations are embedded first in the language and then in the culture, institutions and political ambience of the representer’ (Saïd 1991: 272). The present work is post-representational. Rather than simply represent the Serbs, it gives them a voice, by exploring how they perceive Milošević. Their views of him, it is argued, are significant for three main reasons. Starting with the most general, the first reason is that leadership is a relationship. To cite Mazlish, …the leader does not exist, fully formed, before the encounter with the group he is to lead. He discovers himself, forms and takes on his identity as a particular kind of leader in the course of interacting with his chosen group. He also finds a public style, which may be quite separate from his private style. It is a creative encounter (Mazlish 1986: 276).



The Background and Rationale

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Thus, one cannot adequately study a leader, including a ‘criminal’ leader, if one ignores half of the leadership relationship – the people. To do so is to gain only a very narrow and incomplete picture. This work, therefore, favours an interactionist approach to leadership;17 ‘for interactionists, the extent to which leaders are able to influence the decision-making process is considered to be contingent upon the interaction between the leader and the leadership environment in which the leader operates’ (Elgie 1995: 7). The people who either support or challenge the leader are clearly a fundamental part of this leadership environment and therefore cannot be overlooked. In short, if leadership is an ‘interaction between leaders and followers’ (Kellerman 1986: xiii), one cannot understand Milošević’s leadership by focusing exclusively on him. The Serbian people were a key part of his leadership and their views can offer valuable new insight and perspective, as well as add richness and texture to existing accounts of the Milošević regime. The second reason that Serb opinions of Milošević are important is that the criminal leader is externally constructed. That is to say that certain leaders, but only ever leaders of non-democratic regimes,18 are criminalized when the foreign policies of the world’s most powerful states demand this.19 The example of the late Saddam Hussein highlights this point. During the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1990), Saddam was useful to the US and was not, therefore, deemed to be criminal, despite committing heinous crimes – like the massacre of Shiites in Dujail (1982) or the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja (1988). By the 1990s, however, Iraq had become a ‘rogue state’ and Saddam a major threat to the American people, to the ‘civilized’ world and to freedom itself – in short, a criminal leader. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991, for example, Margaret Thatcher and President George Bush publicly evoked the necessity of trying Saddam Hussein. This public effort was an attempt, among other things, to criminalize the master of Baghdad and thereby legitimize in the name of universal morality…the validity of the Gulf War campaign against this tyrant (Hazan 2004: 9). It is precisely because the criminal leader is an externally constructed concept that domestic views merit attention. It is important to examine whether the dominant image of Milošević as a criminal leader finds support among the Serbs, particularly since Milošević

20

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

– like Saddam – was not merely theorized as criminal, but also put on trial in an international criminal court. If Serbs do not look upon Milošević as a criminal leader, this will undoubtedly affect their attitudes towards the ICTY which, in turn, raises questions about whether the Tribunal can succeed, as it claims, in delivering justice and contributing to reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. Popular perceptions of Milošević, moreover, are an important indicator of attitudes towards the past and how Serbs are dealing with the legacy of the past has implications both for Serbia’s future and for peacebuilding in the region. The third reason why Serb views matter is that the Serbian people have, thus far, been heavily neglected in Western literature on the Milošević regime. The dominance within the literature of a strongly top-down approach has meant that Milošević, his wife and the Serbian political and cultural elite are typically viewed as the key actors.20 Journalistic accounts are likewise prone to take a very top-down perspective that ‘focuses mainly on institutions and political leaders and their duties and decisions, while leaving the common folk to exemplify trends, to serve as types: a fallen soldier, a screaming mother, a dead baby…’ (Sudetic 1998: xxxii). Hence, Suny’s claim that ‘For too long, Russian history has been written not only from the top down, but with the bottom left out completely’ (Suny 1987: 3) is equally valid if we replace ‘Russian history’ with ‘Western accounts of the Milošević regime’.21 By exploring the opinions and experiences of ordinary Serbian people – defined here as persons who, as individuals, exercise little direct influence on national affairs and policy-making – this monograph thus addresses a significant gap in the existing literature. In addition, by giving the Serbian people a voice, it offers new perspective and insight. As Pottier argues in his work on Rwanda, bringing ordinary people back into the frame allows us ‘a new way of viewing the situation’ (Pottier 2002: 3). This book has been strongly influenced by bottom-up research on the Hitler and Stalin regimes by such scholars as Ian Kershaw (1983, 2000), Sheila Fitzpatrick (1986, 1999), Detlev Peuket (1987), Ronald Grigor Suny (1987), Vladimir Andrle (1994) and Alfred Lüdtke (1995).22 Their work has very effectively challenged the conventional historiography of the Hitler and Stalin regimes23 and in particular the idea that studying these regimes from the top down is sufficient. As Andrle argues vis-à-vis the Stalin regime, for example,



The Background and Rationale

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…once it is accepted that the state was not monolithic in its practices of policy implementation, that it struggled to control the population with only mixed success and that its policies were replete with unintended effects, then the history of the Stalin era is no longer adequately represented by the study of political dictatorship, its ideology and its power apparatus alone (Andrle 1994: 198). Such bottom-up studies offer a more complex and nuanced picture of these regimes and of the relationship between state and society than traditional top-down accounts.24 Yet they have also been heavily criticized, above all on moral grounds. Critics contend that the emphasis on ‘ordinariness’ and ‘ordinary, everyday life’ detracts from the more brutal and violent aspects of these regimes (see, for example, Kenez 1986; Meyer 1986). This, however, is over-simplistic.25 As Norbert Elias argues, ‘an attempt to explain is not necessarily an attempt to excuse’ (cited in Ayçoberry 1999: 7). Thus, for example, one does not ‘excuse’ Milošević’s crimes or ‘sanitize’ his regime by exploring the everyday life experiences and opinions of ordinary people. On the contrary, one actually gains a more comprehensive picture of his crimes, which included – and this is often overlooked – serious crimes against his own people (see chapters two and three). Nevertheless, it is anticipated that some readers may take issue with this book’s emphasis on the view from below and, in particular, with the importance that it attaches to Serb views of Milošević. Some possible objections One potential objection might be that as the Serbs supported Milošević, it makes little practical sense to ask them if they regard their former leader as criminal. What this totally overlooks, however, is the fact that Milošević never had a majority of support within the country, even at the height of his popularity in the early 1990s. In the 1990 presidential elections, for example, Milošević won 65.34 per cent of the votes cast. Although he was the clear victor (his closest rival, Vuk Drašković, won just 16.40 per cent of votes cast), the percentage of votes cast for Milošević only represented 46.72 per cent of the total electorate (Vukomanović 1995: 274). By the time of the next presidential elections, in 1992, support for Milošević had already fallen. In these elections, he won 53.24 per cent of votes

22

Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

cast, which represented just 37.12 per cent of the total electorate (Vukomanović 1995: 275). A second possible objection, a more extreme version of the first, might be that because the Serbs backed Milošević, they are, like the Germans after World War Two, collectively guilty, a reality that largely invalidates their views of Milošević. Linked to this, it might be argued that because the Serbs are collectively guilty, they are in collective denial, thereby rendering their opinions unreliable and of little significance. However, such claims of collective denial and collective guilt are fundamentally flawed and unsustainable (see chapter five). A final objection might be that exploring whether the Serbs regard Milošević as a criminal leader does not alter the fact that he was a criminal leader who was responsible for heinous crimes. Two important points must be made in response. The first is that Milošević, it seems, was never innocent until proven guilty, but always guilty a priori.26 As Laughland notes, …many people in the West …think that they know that Milošević was guilty as charged, or that he was an evil man, even when they are ignorant about the most basic facts concerning the former Yugoslavia, its wars and the NATO attacks of 1999 (Laughland 2007: 5). Thus, even though Milošević died before the conclusion of his trial in The Hague27 and before the ICTY could deliver its verdict, he nevertheless died a ‘guilty’ man. The reaction of various Western statesmen to the news of Milošević’s death clearly shows that, for them, Milošević’s guilt was an established fact about which there was no room for discussion. Richard Holbrooke, for example, the former US Special Envoy to the Balkans, responded to the news of Milošević’s death with the words, ‘I think today’s story is that this man, this…monster, this war criminal who wrecked southeastern Europe in the latter part of the twentieth century, is gone’ (BBC News 2006b). What Holbrooke’s words thus illuminate is that while normative guilt and legal guilt are two separate concepts, this distinction became very blurred in the case of Milošević.28 The second point is that while this author regards as problematic the portrayal of Milošević as a criminal leader, the present research is not specifically seeking to establish the correctness or validity of this



The Background and Rationale

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prevalent Western image of Milošević. Similarly, it is not trying to claim that Serb perceptions of Milošević are more accurate or more important than the opinions of Western authors and commentators. Rather, the twofold objective of this research is both to encourage debate and discussion by showing that alternative views of Milošević do exist and to demonstrate that the implications of how Serbs regard Milošević are very significant, not least for Serbia itself. Hence, the central argument of this book is that although Milošević is no longer alive, the way in which he is remembered and popularly perceived means that he will continue to have an indirect influence on Serbia’s future. The Interviews and Interviewees This work is based upon two rounds of semi-structured interviews, conducted in 2004 and 2006 respectively. 2004 interviews The first round of interviews took place between May and September 2004 in four main areas of Serbia – Belgrade, Vojvodina (Novi Sad, Subotica, Kikinda), Central Serbia (Čačak, Kragujevac) and South Serbia (Niš, Novi Pazar). Two interviews were also carried out in Milošević’s hometown of Požarevac in eastern Serbia and seven interviews were conducted in Kosovo (Kosovska Mitrovica, Gračanica). The principal objective of these interviews was to find out how Milošević was popularly perceived in Serbia and, in order to be able to put the interviewees’ views into context, to learn something about what it was like to actually live under the Milošević regime. A total of 67 people were interviewed in 2004, of which 46 were men and 21 were women, and they fell into two separate groups. The 49 interviewees (30 men and 19 women) in the first group were ‘ordinary people’ (as defined in section two above). They included students, primary school teachers, receptionists/secretaries and housewives. All were permanent residents of Serbia, but some of the interviewees in Belgrade had migrated to the capital from other parts of the country. Two were refugees from Croatia, three were refugees from Bosnia and two of the Kosovo Serb interviewees were internally displaced persons (IDPs)29 now living in Belgrade. Of the 49 interviewees, 25 were under the age of 35, 14 interviewees were between the ages of 35 and 50 and ten interviewees were over 50. Thirty of the interviewees had been to university/were studying

24

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at university and 19 were not university-educated. Thirty of the interviewees spoke English and 19 did not. A snowball sampling strategy was mainly used. Purposive and opportunistic sampling strategies were also used specifically to find interviewees who supported Milošević or had done so in the past. However, it proved very difficult to come upon such people; only six of the interviewees championed Milošević and only four interviewees admitted that they had formerly backed him. As all of the interviewees in this group were promised anonymity, only their initials will be used. The 18 interviewees (16 men and two women) in the second group were ‘elites’, defined as individuals who occupy posts of political authority, as well as individuals who can directly influence policymakers. Six were former ministers or colleagues of Milošević (Vladislav Jovanović, Živadin Jovanović, Oskar Kovać, Mihailo Marković, Kosta Mihailović and Milorad Vučelić); four interviewees worked in the national media (Janko Baljak, Vlada Milić, Saša Mirković and Aleksander Nenadović); six interviewees were academics (Branka Prpa, Vojin Dimitrijević, Aleksa Djilas, Mihailo Pantić, Svetozar Stojanović and Ljubinka Trgovćević); and the remaining two interviewees were politicians (Nikola Lazić and Goran Svilanović). Information about each of these elite interviewees will be given in subsequent chapters. Their inclusion within the interview sample brings to the data added richness and detail and provides a top-down perspective that nicely complements the view from below. 2006 interviews The principal objective of the second round of interviews, conducted between May and July 2006, was to re-interview as many as possible of the interviewees from 2004, in order to find out whether and how their opinions of Milošević had changed as a result of his death on 11 March 2006. As time in the field was limited to just two months, the decision was made to concentrate on two main areas of Serbia – Belgrade and Vojvodina (Novi Sad, Kikinda). Despite some difficulties – for example, some interviewees had changed their email addresses or telephone numbers – it nevertheless proved possible to re-interview 29 of the original interviewees. Twenty-four of the reinterviewed interviewees (13 men and 11 women) were ordinary people. Twenty were between the ages of 35 and 50 and four were over 50. Fifteen had been to university and nine had not. All except



The Background and Rationale

25

two spoke some English. The remaining five interviewees were elite individuals (Dimitrijević, V. Jovanović, Ž. Jovanović, Marković and Prpa). In addition, 12 new people (six men and six women), all of them part of the Serbian elite, were interviewed in 2006. They were purposively selected for interview on the basis that as all of them – except one30 – had been very active opponents and vocal critics of the Milošević regime, they would thus be offer a particularly interesting perspective. However, they were also chosen because Western literature has tended to overlook such courageous individuals who tirelessly fought against the Milošević regime. This marginalization of the voices of ‘Second Serbia’ (see chapter five), in turn, has reinforced the popular myth that the Serbian population wholeheartedly supported Milošević.31 Four of these new interviewees were academics (Ranko Bugarski, Filip David, Jelica Minić, Srbijanka Turaljić); three worked in the NGO sector in Serbia (Miljenko Dereta, Drinka Gojković, Milan Nikolić); and four worked in the national media (Duška Anastasijević, Slobodanka Ast, Predrag Koraksić, Ljubica Marković).32 As there were no major differences between elites and ordinary people in terms of their perceptions of Milošević, the two groups of interviewees will not be treated separately in the data chapters. There were also no fundamental differences between male and female interviewees, although the latter were slightly less critical of Milošević than the former.33 The biggest differences were between younger and older interviewees; the latter were generally far less harsh on Milošević than the former. This is consistent with the fact that young people were often the strongest detractors of the regime, while pensioners constituted one of its principal bases of support.34 All of the interviews were kept as informal as possible, in order to put the interviewees at ease and to encourage them to speak openly, and they were typically conducted in public places, such as coffee shops and café terraces. The interviews with elites were generally more formal and usually took place in interviewees’ offices. Most of the interviews lasted approximately one hour, but some were closer to two hours. The elite interviews tended to be slightly longer than the others. Most of the interviews were tape-recorded, although this was not always possible or appropriate, particularly in cases where there was significant background noise. The majority of the interviews were conducted in English.35 A small number were conducted in Serbian, initially with the aid of a translator and later by the author herself.

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Of course, it cannot be claimed that the interview data presented in this book is representative. It is extremely difficult for qualitative researchers to generate a representative sample, since the number of interviews conducted is typically quite small. More importantly, however, most qualitative researchers – this author included – are not seeking to achieve a strictly representative sample.36 Rather, the aim is to produce a sample that will enrich and deepen our understanding of a particular phenomenon or problem and/or to generate new insight by offering a fresh perspective. To cite Gaskell, ‘The real purpose of qualitative research is not counting opinions or people but rather exploring the range of opinions, the different representations of the issue’ (Gaskell 2000: 41). It is hoped that the interview data that forms such an integral part of this research achieves both. The interview data will be supplemented with public opinion poll data, in order that broader conclusions can be drawn. These public opinion polls were conducted between 1999 and 2007 by four polling agencies in Belgrade – the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID), Marten Board International, the Strategic Marketing and Media Research Institute (SMMRI) and TNS Medium Gallup. Public opinion research by the following organizations will also be used: the Centre for Policy Studies, the Government of Serbia EU Integration Office, the International Republic Institute, the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It will be seen that the interviewees’ perceptions of Milošević strongly reflect and are based upon their personal experiences of living under his regime. In order to give a context to the interviewees’ views, therefore, chapter two will provide a bottom-up overview of what it was like to live in Serbia during the 1990s.

Chapter Two Everyday Life Under the Milošević Regime

The Belgrade sociologist Silvano Bolčić argues that, Since the beginning of the 1990s, when the state of war began and started to spread in the territory of ex-Yugoslavia, most citizens of the country [Serbia] faced an everyday life they probably would not choose. Nor would they consider it in accord with their vital interests (Bolčić 2003: 101). Notwithstanding the extensive Western literature that exists on Milošević and his regime, the sphere of everyday life has been heavily neglected.1 With very few exceptions, research to date has tended to focus on developments at the macro level, whilst failing to explore what impact these had at the micro level. Yet analysis of the Milošević regime is necessarily incomplete if one does not examine what it was in fact like to live under it. The present chapter seeks to address this gap in the literature by painting a picture of everyday life in Serbia during the 1990s. As Nikolić-Ristanović argues, ‘the Serbian case is one of the most striking examples of the manifestations of macro-structural changes in the everyday lives of people’ (Nikolić-Ristanović 2002: 33). The primary purpose of this chapter, however, is to provide a context for the interview data that forms the basis of chapters three and four. It will be seen that the interviewees primarily judged Milošević on the basis of how his leadership affected their everyday lives, particularly in economic terms. Hence, it is important for the reader to have some sense of what daily life was like for the majority of people living in Serbia during the 1990s.2 The former Yugoslavia became engulfed in war in 1991. Although Serbia itself was not directly affected by war until 1999, when it

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sustained three months of aerial bombardment from NATO airplanes, it was indirectly affected by the wars raging in neighbouring Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina between 1991 and 1995, most notably by having to deal with and accommodate a large influx of refugees. At the end of April 1993, for example, around 590,000 refugees were registered in Serbia, but the actual figure was probably 20 to 30 per cent higher (Blagojević 2002: 194).3 In 1994, 16 per cent of households in Belgrade accommodated refugees and every fifth household supported refugees in some other way (Blagojević 2002: 185). This is just one illustration of how the wars affected the lives of Serbian citizens.4 The huge increase in Serbia’s military budget, which rose from about $1.7 billion to $4.5 billion in 1996 (Palairet 2001: 915), also had a very significant impact on the lives – and in particular the health – of people in Serbia. As the Serbian government poured money into helping Serbs fighting in Croatia and Bosnia, public services in Serbia directly suffered. In 1997, for example, ‘the hospitals, burdened with unpaid bills to the pharmaceutical houses, had run out of drugs of all kinds and even saline drips and surgical thread’ (Palairet 2001: 915).5 What many people in Serbia remember most about the 1990s, however, is not the wars that were raging around them (with the exception of the ‘war’ with NATO in 1999), but rather the disastrous economic situation and it is within the framework of this economic crisis and its consequences that the interviewees both recalled and described their everyday lives in Serbia during the Milošević period. This chapter will begin by examining the manifestations of this economic crisis at the macro level. The second part will look at how the crisis affected people’s everyday lives and the final section will explore some of the ways in which ordinary people coped with the harsh reality of their new lives. Serbia’s Economic Crisis In economic terms the 1990s were extremely difficult for most people in Serbia and without question much of the blame lies squarely with Milošević. Nevertheless, this statement requires some qualification. First, it is important to point out that there were very serious economic problems even before Milošević came to power. During the 1970s, the Yugoslav government had fuelled growth with foreign loans. However, due to a Western recession that started in 1975 and



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29

subsequently developed into a worldwide economic recession, these loans began to dry up towards the end of the decade. After 1978, for example, commercial banks virtually stopped lending money to Eastern European states. Nonetheless, Yugoslavia still needed to repay its huge foreign debt.6 In 1982, therefore, the government obtained a so-called ‘three-year standby loan’ from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and as Woodward explains, The IMF conditions were that the government introduce domestic economic reforms to make the country better able to service its debt. It proposed, in effect, an anti-inflationary macroeconomic stabilization policy of radical austerity, trade and price liberalization and institutional reforms to impose on firms and governments monetary discipline and real price incentives (Woodward 1999: 49).7 All of this, however, came at a price for ordinary people. Food subsidies were abandoned in 1982 and prices for petrol, heating fuel, food and transportation rose by one-third in 1983. Firms showing losses were obliged to lay off workers and there was high inflation. Aggregate inflation for the period 1979–1985, for example, exceeded 1,000 per cent, compared to a European average of less than 50 per cent (Lampe 1996: 293). Inflation, in turn, created poverty. To take one instance, ‘By the end of 1984, the average income was approximately 70 per cent of the official minimum for a family of four and the population living below the poverty line increased from 17 to 25 per cent’ (Woodward 1995: 52). Second, it must be recognized that certain external factors – such as UN sanctions – significantly contributed to Serbia’s economic crisis during the 1990s. These sanctions, which were first imposed on 30 May 1992,8 had an extremely detrimental effect on the Serbian economy. For example, After one year of sanctions (mid-1992 to mid-1993), the loss of revenue in the new Yugoslavia is estimated to be some $25 billion and the per capita national income has dropped by an order of ten, from around $3,000 to $300. In that one year, the price of bread has increased 800 times, while the price of milk has increased over 1,000 times.9 GNP dropped by $12 billion in that year, the value of foreign trade fell by $9 billion,

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industrial output fell by 40 per cent in the first five months of 1993 over the same period in 1992 and one half of the labourforce is unemployed (Bookman 1994: 114). The result of UN sanctions was that the whole Serbian economy was now outside of international law and this resulted in a heavily criminalized economy. Sanctions opened up a large space for illegal activities, in particular fuel and weapons trade and foreign currency transactions, and were a major factor in fuelling the growth of the so-called ‘grey economy’; that is to say, ‘economic actions that bypass the costs and are excluded from the protection of laws and administrative rules covering property relationships, commercial licensing, labour contracts, torts, financial credit and social security systems’ (Cvejić 2002: 124). In addition, sanctions significantly contributed to falling outputs. The manufacturing sector had formerly imported many of its raw materials and exported even more of its final products, but because of sanctions it was no longer able to do so.10 Thus, in 1993 the highest ever decrease of output in one year was recorded in the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro) and the total industrial output was down by 37 per cent in relation to 1992, which meant that it was now at the 1975 level. Overall, manufacturing outputs decreased by 58 per cent in the period 1990–1993 (Nikolić 1994: 63–65). Serbia’s economy also sustained enormous damage as a result of the three-month NATO bombing campaign in 1999. It is estimated that in that year, the GDP fell 44.4 per cent in relation to 1998 (Dinkić 1999: 9); and according to analysis by the economic group G17, direct damage suffered by Serbia – excluding Kosovo – amounted to approximately $3.8 billion, while indirect damage amounted to $30 billion (Antonić 2002: 282). Furthermore, thousands of people were rendered jobless as a result of NATO’s destruction of factories and large industrial complexes, like Zastava in Kragujevac, Krušik in Valjevo, the MIN machine-tool factory in Niš and the Nitrogen Plant in Pančevo. All of this is not to downplay Milošević’s responsibility for the economic crisis, but to simply emphasize that it was not a mono-causal phenomenon. One of the most visible manifestations of Serbia’s economic troubles and one that Serbian people remember particularly vividly was hyper-inflation. This hyper-inflation lasted for 24 months and reached a peak in January 1994, when the monthly rate of inflation



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in Serbia averaged 313,563,558.0 per cent. This meant that the daily rate of inflation averaged 62.02 per cent for that month (Gordy 1999: 170). People’s everyday lives were particularly affected by soaring prices.11 For example, retail prices went up by 218 times in 1991, by 9,336 times in 1992 and by as much as 116,945 times in 1993 (all in relation to the preceding year) (Nikolić 1994: 79). Thus, interviewees recalled having to write several cheques to the maximum value in order to buy basic items like eggs and bread.12 Wages themselves, however, did not increase. At the end of 1993, they were nearly 20 times lower than in 1991 (Lazić 2002: 120),13 and gross national income fell from $2,330 per citizen in 1991 to $1,225 in 1993 (Vujović 2002: 120). If most people’s salaries were insufficient to satisfy their basic existential needs, there was also a serious lack of job security. In the period between 1991 and 1993, for example, the total number of employed decreased by 15 per cent while the number of unemployed increased by 12 per cent (Nikolić 1994: 65); and in 1999, unemployment figures rose by nearly one-third in relation to 1990 (Milošević 2002b: 142). However, it is very difficult to know exactly how many people were out of work. First, those officially classed as being employed included those on so-called ‘compulsory vacation’ (‘prinudan odmor’); some 100,000 people were forced to take a compulsory vacation, henceforth receiving just a minimum wage (Lazić 2002: 62). Second, in June 1993, on the initiative of Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Serbian Parliament adopted a Law on the Special Conditions for Hiring and Dismissing Employees during the UN Security Council Sanctions. Under this law, it was impossible to fire an employee while the sanctions were in effect (Obradović 2000: 448). This meant that many people were officially in employment, even though in reality there was no work for them to do. Hence, the number of people who were actually unemployed was certainly considerably higher than the official statistics suggest. The inevitable consequence of dramatically inflated prices, falling wages and rising unemployment was widespread poverty. According to the results of a survey in 1993 on a sample of 1,200 respondents in Serbia and Montenegro, almost one-fifth faced a serious existential threat; that is to say that they were living in poverty and faced great difficulties trying to feed themselves and satisfy other elementary needs (Vujović 2002: 121). In 1999, 100,000 Serbian citizens got

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their meals in public kitchens for the poor and 150,000 received other kinds of social support (Nikolić-Ristanović 2002: 38). Hence Božo Milošević describes the emergence of an ‘ekonomija preživljavanja’, or ‘economy of survival’, which manifested itself as a struggle to obtain the means to survive. This, in turn, formed the basis of a ‘kultura siromaštva’, or ‘culture of poverty’ (Milošević 2002b: 155). According to Stevanović, ‘Until Milošević came to power, modern Serbia had never experienced real hunger’ (Stevanović 2004: 156). While the vast majority of the population struggled to make ends meet, a tiny minority benefited from the economic crisis. The middle class disappeared and in its place emerged a new class of war profiteers who used war and economic sanctions as a means to enrich themselves The Serbian paramilitary leader Arkan, for example, controlled a vast business empire heavily based on sanctions-busting. His most profitable activity was the smuggling of fuel. The gap between rich and poor thus increasingly widened; according to one survey conducted in 1993, the richest 10 per cent in Serbia had at their disposal 37 per cent of national income, while the poorest 10 per cent had only 1.6 per cent of it (Nikolić 2002: 88). All of the above merely reiterates what is already known – that Serbia faced an extremely serious economic crisis during the 1990s. What remains under-researched, however, is how this economic crisis impacted upon the everyday lives of individuals and families in Serbia. Hence, the remainder of this chapter will focus on exploring how the economic crisis manifested itself at the micro level. Economic Crisis and Everyday Life According to Tomanović, ‘the dominant characteristic of family life in Serbia in the past two decades is seen in its being heavily burdened with material deprivation and social crisis reflected in the hardships of everyday life’ (Tomanović 2005: 211). It was because of these deprivations and hardships, to which UN sanctions were a significant contributing factor, that many people became actively involved in the so-called ‘grey economy’. To cite Božović, In their effort to evade the stiff and comprehensive sanctions imposed by the international community, the citizens, enterprises and banks sought various irregular and often illegal modes of doing business and generating income for the sake of maintaining production and living standards to at least some



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extent, so that a large proportion of economic transactions took place outside laws and regulations (irregular economy) (Božović 1993: 75). According to a survey in 2000, nearly 1.2 million people in Serbia were involved in the grey economy (Cvejić 2002: 134). This means that they were engaged in activities that included illegal importing and exporting, non-registered foreign exchange inflow from foreign sources, illegal sales in the domestic market, credit arrangements between businesses and households outside laws and regulations, tax evasion and keeping goods out of circulation in anticipation of higher prices, with their subsequent sale in the black market. The latter caused artificial shortages in the domestic market which, in turn, was an additional cause of rising prices. Soaring food prices and food shortages particularly affected those living in cities like Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city. Hence, many families relied heavily on food supplies from friends or relatives living in villages in rural Serbia. A male interviewee in Belgrade remembered his mother walking down to the bus station twice a week to collect huge packages of food that her parents living in the countryside were sending her. Another interviewee, in the city of Kragujevac, emphasized the importance to him and his family of weekly food parcels from his mother. Nevertheless, everyday life remained a struggle for the vast majority of people, not least because of the job situation. According to Bolčić, ‘nearly every other family was affected’ by the aforementioned ‘compulsory vacation’ (Bolčić 2003: 103). For those who did retain formal employment, the decrease in real wages and inflation reduced the value of their work and income. Many people consequently turned to the informal labour market. According to a survey undertaken at the beginning of 1998, 30 per cent of employees were engaged in unregistered labour market activities in the form of second jobs, motivated by economic necessity, and about 40 per cent of them were women (Nikolić-Ristanović 2002: 19–20). This growth of the informal labour market had two particular consequences. First, it meant that a significant number of people were left relatively unprotected in their jobs and vulnerable to exploitation – inappropriate wages, long hours and lack of any rights. Second, it further contributed to the state of lawlessness that prevailed in Serbia during the 1990s. Indeed, it can be argued that, ‘Law as a basic form

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of social regulation, characteristic of modern societies, was almost totally abolished, exactly because the law lost relevance for people’s everyday life’ (Bolčić 2003: 104). In her diary entry for 26 March 1998, for example, the Serbian writer Jasmina Tesanović explains that her neighbours have recently vandalized her car and remarks, ‘They did it openly, saying they’d lost their cars, so why should I have mine? I know I should fight back, but how? The law doesn’t exist anymore and the police won’t protect a woman with a luxury car’ (Tesanović 2000: 37). As the law became less and less germane to people’s everyday lives and as they increasingly struggled to make ends meet, their values and morality began to change. According to a study by the Belgradebased Centre for Policy Studies in the first half of 2000, 25 per cent of the 1,600 respondents admitted to having bribed someone at least once; over 30 per cent believed that the circumstances of the time were such that they were forced to demand bribes for things that they would ordinarily have provided freely; more than 50 per cent of respondents felt that smuggling was morally acceptable; and almost 20 per cent considered that tax evasion was morally justifiable (Bjekić 2000). Ultimately, in the words of Antonić, ‘corruption penetrated every single pore of the society – from company director to night watchman. A large portion of the society became part of the same clientelist network’ (Antonić 2005: 28). While many laws progressively lost their significance for people’s everyday lives, crime increasingly affected them. To cite the Belgrade documentary film-maker Janko Baljak, ‘War and weapons that arrived in the capital, as well as the large number of refugees and all sorts of war syndromes, made Belgrade the “Chicago of the 90s”’ (Trbić 2000). Between 1990 and 1993, for example, the number of reported crimes in the FRY rose from 120,442 to 173,642 (NikolićRistanović 1996: 613); and according to a victimization survey for Belgrade, as many as 85.4 per cent of respondents reported that they had been victims of crime in the period 1990–1995. Of these, 56.5 per cent reported theft, 16 per cent assault or threats, 16 per cent burglary or attempted burglary and 4.3 per cent robbery (NikolićRistanović 1996: 615). A 1994 survey on a representative sample of 800 adults in the Belgrade region, moreover, revealed that every sixth family had procured firearms as a result of the proliferation of crime (Bolčić 2003: 102).



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This upsurge in violence particularly affected women, as the 1990s witnessed a rise in domestic violence in Serbia. It is interesting to note that while violence, in particular rape, against women in Bosnia has been extensively written about (see, for example, Stiglmayer 1994; Allen 1996), the opposite is true regarding the use of violence – including rape – against women in Serbia. According to a 1993 study on the prevalence of domestic violence in Serbia, based on a sample of 192 women chosen at random from the general population of Belgrade, 58.3 per cent of respondents said that they were victims of some kind of spouse abuse. Of these, 49 per cent reported psychological violence, 18.7 per cent reported being victims of battery and 18.7 per cent said that they were being raped by their husbands. The reasons the women most frequently gave for their husbands’ violent behaviour towards them were quarrels regarding money (14.3 per cent) and parents (10.4 per cent) (Nikolić-Ristanović 2002: 79). The wars also increased women’s vulnerability to domestic violence. To cite Nikolić-Ristanović, the head of the Victimology Society of Serbia, ‘men who, during the war, went occasionally to see their wives and parents, as well as those who came back home, were also reported to be violent, tending to show their newly won hegemonic masculinity, often using weapons’ (Nikolić-Ristanović 2002: 97). It is noteworthy, for example, that the number of women who called the SOS hotline in Belgrade increased from 499 in 1990 (before the outbreak of war) to 1,377 in 1995 (after the wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia) (Nikolić-Ristanović 1996: 617). In addition, the wars had a negative effect upon some of the younger generation and not only upon those who went away to fight. Those who did not directly participate in the conflict were nevertheless exposed to scenes of graphic violence on television and, perhaps more importantly, were encouraged to look up to and to respect violent gangsters like the paramilitary leader Arkan. One of the consequences was that, ‘Apart from the increase in the calls of women who were molested by their husbands, the number of women who reported being beaten by their sons increased from 6.4 per cent in 1991 to 11.4 per cent in 1993’ (Nikolić-Ristanović 1996: 618). This rise in filial violence can also be partly attributed to the generational divide that emerged during the Milošević years. While the older generation who grew up in Tito’s Yugoslavia tended to support Milošević, believing that his politics were ‘a continuation

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of the “righteous Partisan fight” for Socialism’ (Mares 2000), the younger generation were most likely to be strongly anti-Milošević. For example, according to a survey by the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade in November 1992, only 2 per cent of students supported Milošević’s SPS, in contrast to 50 per cent of pensioners and 40 per cent of housewives (Branković 1995: 87–88). Finally, it should be noted that the NATO bombing also had a substantial impact on domestic violence. According to analysis by the Victimology Society of Serbia of cases that were reported to the Counselling Service Against Domestic Violence, more women asked for help during the bombing than in previous periods (54 compared to 46) and more of them reported a combination of emotional and physical abuse (34 in comparison to 27 cases) (Nikolić-Ristanović 2002: 80). One reason for this is that the NATO bombing significantly contributed to rising unemployment in Serbia,14 and some men dealt with the frustration and stress of losing their jobs at a time of economic crisis by becoming increasingly violent towards their wives. While domestic violence specifically affected women, the 1990s took a serious toll on almost everybody in some way. The nation’s health, for example, greatly suffered as a consequence of poor nutrition, inadequate medical supplies, overcrowded living conditions and stress. As noted by Bolčić, ‘In nearly every third family, there were serious illnesses requiring hospital care or home therapy for more than a month’ (Bolčić 2003: 102). Tuberculosis was on the increase from 1994 onwards and the Ministry of Public Health registered 1,767 confirmed cases of jaundice between January and October 1999. This represented a two-and-a-half-fold increase in relation to the same period in 1998 (Vasović 2000b). The NATO bombing also had a very serious impact on public health in Serbia. In its three-month military campaign, NATO used armour-piercing shells loaded with depleted uranium, which is toxic, radioactive and carcinogenic. While the full extent of the damage to the nation’s health is not yet known, there has been an increase in cases of cancer, birth deformities and miscarriages.15 For example, 17.8 per cent of men in Serbia (excluding Kosovo) died from malignant neoplasms in the period 1990–92 (Penev 2003: 108) and 19.5 per cent died from the same cause between 1999 and 2001 (Penev 2003: 111). Overall, between 1993 and 2002 cancer rates in Serbia and Montenegro rose by 43 per cent (World Health Organization 2006)



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and there is no doubt that NATO’s ‘humanitarian intervention’ contributed to this increase, which is likely to continue. NATO also launched daily attacks on chemical, petrochemical and pharmaceutical plants, refineries, fuel storage plants and heating plants, thus releasing into the atmosphere large amounts of pollutants, like vinyl chloride monomer (VCM); this can induce vomiting, unconsciousness, liver and kidney damage and cancer. In Pančevo, for example, which is 12 miles from Belgrade, NATO destroyed the town’s three major industrial plants. Fires raged for ten days, creating black rain and a cloud of smoke more than ten miles long, and almost eight tons of metallic mercury leaked from an electrolysis plant into the soil (Joksimovich 2000: 147). It was not only the nation’s physical health that suffered during the 1990s. So too did its emotional and psychological wellbeing. This is highlighted by the results of a survey conducted between 30 August and 4 September 1999 by a team from the Centre for Policy Studies in Belgrade, headed by Srećko Mihailović. According to this research, based on a sample of 1,588 respondents in Serbia (excluding Kosovo), In brief, it may be concluded that a decade of constantly deteriorating living conditions and the recent bombing have left their mark on the citizens of Serbia, though not all have been affected to the same degree. One-fifth of respondents feel the majority of these symptoms frequently, or even on a daily basis, while the percentage of those affected by one symptom or another is, of course, much higher. Thus, 38 per cent feel tired and exhausted frequently or everyday and, conversely, 30 per cent never or seldom feel full of energy; 32 per cent are tense and short-tempered frequently or everyday; 37 per cent frequently feel at the end of their tether; 22 per cent are frequently or daily gripped by bleak thoughts (Centre for Policy Studies 1999: 4). It is, therefore, unsurprising that one of the best-selling medicines in Serbia during the Milošević years was the sedative Bensedin. According to Vasović, ‘Each month, an estimated 50,000 packages of Bensedin are sold in Belgrade alone’ (Vasović 2000b). In her diary entry for 5 April 1999, Tesanović similarly remarks on the popularity of tranquilizers (Tesanović 2000: 83–84).

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The research by Mihailović and his team also revealed the prevalence of fear among Serbian citizens, in particular among women, the older generation and the lower classes. The respondents’ four principal anxieties – namely living standards (92 per cent), inflation (89 per cent), unemployment (86 per cent) and illness and access to medical care (84 per cent) – attest to the impoverishment of a large section of the Serbian population. In these circumstances, almost a quarter of the respondents felt that it would be irresponsible to bring children into the world (Centre for Policy Studies 1999: 4–6) and Serbia’s birth-rate did in fact witness a decline during the 1990s (Vujović 2002: 123). At the same time, many young people decided to leave the country and to make new lives for themselves elsewhere. Migration/emigration was, for some, the only way of dealing with the situation. Some Common Coping Strategies During the 1990s, the daily lives of Serbia’s citizens underwent fundamental change. As Bolčić emphasizes, For most people, the elementary conditions of living (food, clothing, health, earnings, supplying all kinds of goods, transport to the place of work, all kinds of travel, socializing) worsened drastically. Yesterday’s peaceful life in the family, the neighbourhood and the state came to a halt almost overnight and was replaced by a time of decay of the old state and the foundations of society (Bolčić 2003: 101). Examining some of the ways in which individuals and families coped with this situation, which remains largely unexplored, provides deeper insight into everyday life in Serbia during the 1990s. This, in turn, further enriches the background picture that this chapter seeks to create and against which the interview data should be viewed. One of the most common strategies used to deal with the unpleasant reality of everyday life in Milošević’s Serbia was migration (or in some cases emigration). Based on surveys conducted by the Institute for Sociological Research in Belgrade in 1994 and 1999, it is estimated that around 5 per cent of the total Serbian population left the country during the 1990s (Bolčić 2002: 160). This option was particularly popular among young people (those under 30), an estimated 300,000 of whom left Serbia for abroad (Bolčić 2003:



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110). It is important to point out that economic migration was not a new phenomenon. It began during the mid-1960s and ‘culminated in 1970 when 47,018 people from Serbia and Montenegro went to work abroad’ (Grečić et al. 1998: 59). During the 1990s, however, the number of people who migrated to overseas countries ‘visibly increased’ (Vuković 2005: 142). This new wave of migration was not only quantitatively different, but also qualitatively different from earlier migratory patterns. First, during earlier decades, migrants had sought work mainly in Western Europe, in particular Germany and Switzerland. However, during the 1990s, as a consequence of stricter European regulations on the employment of foreign citizens, migrants now tended to go much further afield; Canada, Australia and the US were the three most popular destinations. Owing to the vast distances involved, these migrations were thus more likely to be permanent. In 1993, for example, Canada, Australia and the US issued 7,000, 3,000 and 1,000 emigration visas respectively for citizens of Serbia and Montenegro. This was double the number they had granted in previous years (Vuković 2005: 142). Second and more importantly, whereas earlier migration had been characterized by the movement abroad of a largely unskilled labour force, during the 1990s, in contrast, many of those who decided to leave Serbia were highly-skilled and university-educated, including scientists, doctors and electrical engineers. This ‘brain drain’ (‘odliv mozgova’), which was most intense during the period 1990–1994, will have ‘a negative impact on the demographic, economic and social development of the country’ (Vuković 2005: 145). In other words, it will have lasting consequences for Serbia and as Palairet argues, ‘the erosion of human capital could indeed prove the most intractable and unforgivable legacy of the Milošević regime’ (Palairet 2001: 917). Those who left Serbia did so primarily on socio-economic grounds. According to research in 1995, 24.8 per cent of respondents said that their main reason for going abroad was ‘low level of living standards’, 18.7 per cent emphasized ‘future uncertainty’ and 6.2 per cent cited ‘housing problems’ (Vuković 2005: 144). However, these were not the only factors involved. Many men left Serbia in order to avoid having to fight in the wars ravaging the former Yugoslavia; it is estimated that ‘between 50 and 85 per cent of Serb men called up to fight in Croatia either went into hiding or left the country (200,000

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men reportedly went abroad to avoid the draft) rather than fight’ (Gagnon 2004: 109). Leaving the country, though, was not an option for everyone, in particular for the social group most affected by Serbia’s economic crisis – the elderly. Writing in 1999, Vasović observed that ‘the sight of the elderly begging or rummaging through rubbish containers in the streets of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, is becoming more and more common’ (Vasović 1999). Pensions were erratic, rarely paid on time and extremely meagre. In 1999, for example, the average pension was just $45, but many pensioners received far less than this. Furthermore, instead of paying pensions for May, June and July 1999, the Serbian government decided to issue coupons, yet these could only be used for payment of electricity bills or the purchase of wood for fuel.16 They were thus of little use to many pensioners who had already paid their electricity bills, following an earlier government campaign offering them lower rates in exchange for prepayment of bills. Many pensioners were also badly hit (like thousands of other people in Serbia) by the collapse of the fraudulent Dafiment Bank, in which they had invested their life savings.17 The only way that some of them could deal with the extreme poverty that blighted their existence during the 1990s was by taking their own lives (Vujović 2002: 123).18 Of the 453 suicides that were registered on the territory of southeast Serbia in the period 1995–2001, 295 (or 65.1 per cent) involved people over the age of 60 (Petrović et al. 2004: 21). Tragically, it seems that some senior citizens preferred to ‘die by their own hand than by hunger’ (Vasović 1999). It is thus ironic that pensioners were among the strongest supporters of Milošević and the SPS (see chapter three). One explanation is that the older generation is most afraid of change; to cite Lazić, ‘Conservative Serbia fears changes and finds an inferior present more desirable than an uncertain future’ (Lazić 1999: 17). Other people dealt with the situation through less permanent forms of escapism, including drugs and alcohol. Alcohol was to become a crutch particularly during the three months of the NATO bombing campaign, a time when people partied a great deal. Despite the bombs falling around them, Serbs wanted to try and enjoy themselves as they did not know if they would survive. This point was made by several of the interviewees, particularly those under 30, and echoed by Tesanović; in her diary entry for 12 April 1999, she



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wrote that ‘the kids go to discotheques and hold parties during the day. They say it may be their last bit of fun’ (Tesanović 2000: 89). Many people had never actually expected NATO to bomb Serbia,19 which made it especially difficult for them to comprehend the reality of what was happening around them.20 According to a public opinion poll by the Institute for Policy Studies in Belgrade during the first week of May 1999, 96 per cent of Serbia’s citizens were suffering from psychological problems caused by worries about their own future and the future of their families (Institute for War and Peace Reporting 1999). Thus, almost everybody – particularly those living in Belgrade – had their own way of trying to deal with, or escape from, the reality of their new lives amid falling bombs and wailing sirens. One interviewee engrossed himself in a dissertation that he was writing on the Lord of the Rings, another interviewee spent most of her time reading, playing video games and watching television (when there was electricity) and a third interviewee slept a great deal. Others tried to live their lives as if everything was normal. One interviewee with two small children wanted to protect them from fear and thus attempted to act as though the bombing was not really happening, for example by deciding against using the bomb shelters. Indeed many people in Belgrade, particularly during the first two months of the bombing, refused to do so. During the evenings, they preferred to gather on the bridge over the Danube in a show of defiance to NATO, rather than retreat underground like frightened animals. They became very stoical and fatalistic. Some found solace in religion. On 11 April 1999, for example, Tesanović observed, ‘Last night at midnight, Belgrade was in the streets. The sirens were going, but still people crowded into churches for the Easter service’ (Tesanović 2000: 88). This return to religion did not begin in 1999, however. The harsh realities of everyday life in Serbia during the 1990s, coupled with the ideological vacuum that had been created by the collapse of Communism, had already caused people to turn to religion. The 1990s thus witnessed an increase in the number of young Serbs, of both sexes, interested in studying at the Theological Faculty of the Serbian Orthodox Church (RadisavljevićĆiparizović 2002: 219) and the number of young people entering the monasteries is reported to have trebled during the decade (Palairet 2001: 916).

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According to research conducted by the Faculty of Sociological Research in Belgrade, the number of respondents who described themselves as ‘religious’ was 23.8 per cent in 1982, 25.1 per cent in 1990, 71.3 per cent in 1993 and 59.3 per cent in 1999 (RadisavljevićĆiparizović 2002: 224). At the end of 1999, according to the same research, 83.3 per cent of respondents said that they had had their children christened, or that they would like to have them christened; 13.0 per cent said that they now celebrated religious holidays and Slava,21 which they had not done in the past; and 11.7 per cent said that they now went to Church more frequently than they had in the past (Radisavljević-Ćiparizović 2002: 226–232). Traditional religious beliefs, however, were not always enough and some people also turned to the paranormal. During the 1990s, government-controlled Radio Television Serbia (RTS) featured various programmes with ‘Mystic Megović-type characters. Their role was to read the future and assure Serbs that the future was bright, that the country was going in the right direction…This was prime time TV and it was taken seriously’ (Marshall 2002: 23). In short, clairvoyants became an important part of Milošević’s propaganda machine. The state publishing house Politika, for example, ‘launched over 80 clairvoyants and fortune-tellers who are unanimous in lauding the superior qualities of Slobodan Milošević and predicting that he will remain in power until 2010’ (Grujić 2000). Recourse to the paranormal became more widespread during 1999, as people attempted to make sense of everything that had happened to them and to regain their bearings after 78 days of bombing. According to the Belgrade psychologist Dragan Popadić from the Faculty of Philosophy, ‘Insecurity, worry, feelings of fear, helplessness and personal weakness all encourage people to abandon the path of rational control’ (cited in Grujić 2000). Thus, more and more people sought explanations and/or escapism in Zone Šumraka (The Twilight Zone), Dosije X (The X-Files), Treće Oko (The Third Eye) and Čudo (Miracle), just some of the magazines that appeared in the aftermath of the bombing. These magazines covered ‘a world where alien creatures have control over Prime Minister Tony Blair and the US Army is deploying squads of witches in a war of magic against Serbia’ (Tončić 1999). This interest in the paranormal even extended to the Yugoslav Army. In May 2000, for example, Colonel Svetozar Radišić, a renowned expert in the paranormal, was appointed as spokesman



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for the Army. Army officers were also involved in the mysterious and secretive Group 69, a team of enthusiasts for the supernatural supposedly engaged in the development of a para-psychological defence system and who claimed to be able to use the ‘power of their minds’ to down enemy aircraft and rockets (Molnar 2000). The members of Group 69 met on a regular basis in the Yugoslav Army headquarters. All of these strategies for coping with, or escaping from, the painful realities of daily life are evidence of powerful feelings of helplessness and desperation that were widespread in Serbia during the 1990s. These were hard times in which the people of Serbia themselves greatly suffered – a fact that has often been overlooked in the existing literature – and as will now be seen in chapter three, this suffering has strongly influenced and shaped the interviewees’ perceptions of Milošević.

Chapter Three Milošević Through the Eyes of the Serbs

Thus far, the Serbian people have not received the attention that they deserve. Most frequently, they have been the subject of sweeping claims and generalizations; these include Boatswain’s contention that the Serbs ‘are determined to achieve the goal of a Greater Serbia and carve large chunks from the nascent states of Croatia and Bosnia’ (Boatswain 1995: 15) and Mojzes’ assertion that the Serbs ‘are capable of exterminating over a million Albanians in pursuit of their goal of holding on to Kosovo’ (Mojzes 1994: 53). Habitually treated as a homogenous and undifferentiated whole, the Serbs have been overlooked in existing Western literature on the former Yugoslavia. Furthermore, while they have been spoken about, they have largely been denied the opportunity to speak for themselves. In the present work, therefore, the Serbian people are not only assigned a central role, but are also given a voice. To cite Kokin, ‘there is no substitute for letting people speak in their own words as much as possible’ (Kotkin 1995: 21). Based on analysis of the data from a first round of semi-structured interviews, conducted in the summer of 2004, this chapter will explore Serbian perceptions of Milošević and the degree to which they coincide or conflict with the prevalent Western view of Milošević as a criminal leader. What it will reveal is the existence of a fundamental discrepancy between domestic and external opinions of Milošević, the implications of which will be discussed in subsequent chapters. Rather than regard Milošević as a criminal leader, the interviewees overwhelmingly viewed him as a ‘bad’ leader and/or as a victim. Milošević as a ‘Bad’ Leader All 67 interviewees were asked the question, ‘what sort of leader do you consider Milošević to have been?’ With only a very small number



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of exceptions, the most common response was that he had been a ‘bad’ leader. This adjective, however, was not used as a synonym for ‘criminal’. Rather, his ‘badness’ was understood in much broader terms. First and foremost, the interviewees claimed that Milošević impoverished Serbia and its people, such that they should be regarded as his biggest victims. They further maintained that he was a selfish and egocentric leader who cared only about himself and about power, an incompetent leader with limited abilities and a leader who made poor choices with respect to the people he had around him. Milošević’s economic ‘crimes’ While Western literature underscores Milošević’s responsibility for the Yugoslav wars, the interviewees, in contrast, barely mentioned the wars,1 concentrating instead on what their former leader did to Serbs. Describing how they had personally suffered under Milošević, the interviewees judged him not from a normative perspective – focused on his contravention of liberal norms and values – but rather from a socio-economic standpoint. Emphasizing his economic ‘crimes’, they argued that Milošević was a leader who massively wronged his own people. To cite a male interviewee in Kragujevac, ‘In the history of the Serbs, starting from the seventh century, there never was a man who caused more suffering and more deaths among the Serbian people than Milošević’.2 It was very striking how the interviewees recalled the 1990s through the prism of Serbia’s economic crisis. Highlighting this, a male resident of Kikinda explained that, ‘Most of us, when you mention the Milošević period or era, remember the hyper-inflation in 1993. That was probably the worst thing that happened to us’.3 This hyper-inflation reached a peak in January 1994, when a kilogram of potatoes that had cost 4,000 dinars on 10 November 1993 now cost 8,000,000,000,000,000 dinars (Gordy 1999: 71). Such numbers were completely meaningless as the dinar no longer had any real value. In August 1992, for example, 35 million dinars were equivalent to just DM 1 (Bookman 1994: 117). According to a female interviewee in Belgrade, ‘…it was complete madness, like living in a twilight zone.4 What made the situation even more surreal was that Milošević’s speeches promised Swedish standards and talked about economic progress and rejuvenation; ‘The country’s great economic achievements were proclaimed every evening’ (Stevanović 2004: 91).5

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When Milošević did acknowledge economic difficulties, he would habitually blame external developments. Thus, his inaugural speech as Yugoslav President, on 23 July 1997, stressed that Serbia had suffered numerous ‘blows’ in the preceding six years and that ‘These blows were brought about by the historical whirlpool that engulfed this part of the world’ (Milošević 1997). A small number of interviewees similarly claimed that extraneous factors were the chief cause of Serbia’s economic crisis. Insisting, for example, that UN sanctions were the real culprit, Dr Oskar Kovać6 from the Economics Faculty in Belgrade argued that it was ‘rubbish’ to blame Milošević for Serbia’s economic crisis. While admitting that Serbia’s GDP dropped by almost 60 per cent between 1992 and 1994, he stressed that, …from 1994 until 1998, Serbia had rates of growth of GNP between 5 and 6 per cent, which nobody had in the whole of Europe, at least not in Eastern Europe in the so-called transition countries, because they had the so-called transitional recession. So Milošević’s policies certainly were not bad economic policies if they could stop hyper-inflation and produce for four or five years average rates of growth of 5 or 6 per cent.7 The economist Professor Kosta Mihailović8 likewise maintained that Milošević was not responsible for Serbia’s economic troubles, insisting that, ‘the core of Milošević’s economic policy was very practical – how to survive and to get out of that economic crisis’. The problem, however, according to Mihailović, was that ‘external conditions directed the behaviour of Serbia and the Serbian economy, so that Slobodan Milošević was not in the position to influence seriously – in either a positive or a negative sense – the country’s economic policy’.9 While certain external factors – most notably UN sanctions and the NATO bombing – significantly fuelled the crisis and seriously exacerbated the country’s many problems, the vast majority of interviewees squarely blamed Milošević for Serbia’s economic malaise and for the misery that its people were forced to endure.10 In the words of one Beograđanin (a male inhabitant of Belgrade), ‘Thanks to Milošević, the country was broken economically. Two hundred years of effort were put back in just ten years’.11 Expressing a likeminded view, the politician Goran Svilanović12 asserted that,



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The price the country had to pay during Milošević’s time in power was enormous…And I think that it would be very difficult to find a parallel case in human economic history. Other leaders have led their nations into war, but none of them lost so much – in terms of the economy – as Milošević. Serbia’s economic losses during the ten years of Milošević’s governance are incomparable.13 Numerous interviewees maintained that those ten years were lost years in which they had merely survived, struggling to make ends meet, unable to make any plans and feeling as though they had no control over their lives. The historian Branka Prpa14 explained, ‘You could never believe that you would find yourself living in that kind of situation. It was something that you only read about in books’.15 More than half of the interviewees not only stressed how Milošević had harmed his own people, the Serbs, but further claimed that he had committed his greatest crimes against them. A male interviewee in Čačak insisted that, ‘Milošević is guilty for what he did to the Serbian people – for robbing and humiliating them. That is what he should be blamed for, not for war’.16 For many, therefore, Milošević should have been put on trial in Serbia, not in The Hague, since he needed above all to answer to the Serbian people. To cite a male Kosovo Serb interviewee, an IDP now living in Belgrade, ‘I think that Serbian people should have tried Slobodan Milošević, because he did more to us than to anybody else’.17 The prevalence of this viewpoint, moreover, is one factor that can help to explain Serbian opposition to the ICTY (see chapter six). To conclude this discussion, it is important to point out that while the interviewees primarily focused on Milošević’s economic crimes, it is almost certain that the data would have yielded very different results had particular social groups been strongly represented in the interview sample, most notably pensioners, farmers, manual workers and peasants. Milošević’s SPS ‘endeavoured to present itself as a “people’s party” that represented the interests of the Serbian people and Serbia, but also as the protector of the interests of potential “social losers” in the process of economic transition’ (Obradović 2000: 432). Hence, it adopted various measures specifically aimed at helping dependent social groups. As three examples, during its 1990 election campaign, the party’s main slogans were ‘land for the

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farmers’, ‘pay for workers’ and ‘pensions for pensioners’; following the introduction of sanctions, the regime ‘…limited wage differences and paid out guaranteed wages, rationed supplies of staple foods and set low prices for them and exempted the poorest sections of the population from communal charges’(Slavujević 1995: 176); and in 1990, appealing to the needs of its rural constituency, the SPS effected the restitution of land confiscated from the peasantry by the authorities in 1946 and 1955. It is not surprising, therefore, that these same social groups formed the party’s main support base. As Pribićević has noted, ‘A number of polls show that the most important SPS strongholds need to be looked for among manual workers, pensioners and the elderly population in general, farmers, the less educated, civil servants and the military’ (Pribićević 1997: 111). Indeed, of the very small number of pensioners that were interviewed, all of them spoke highly of Milošević and his economic and social policies. Had it been possible to interview a much larger number of pensioners,18 therefore, it is almost certain that more positive views of Milošević would have emerged from the data. Milošević cared only about himself and about power Among the interviewees, there was a widespread consensus that Milošević only cared about himself and not about the Serbian people. According to a female interviewee in Belgrade, ‘Milošević was thinking only of himself. His power led him. And I feel that everything he did was for his family, not for the people in the country’.19 For Janko Baljak,20 a documentary film-maker, ‘The Serbian people were in the hands of a lunatic gambler. Milošević was just gambling with them and with the image of the Serbs. And he was not even a good gambler. He always lost; wars, territory, people, image, everything’.21 Interviewees from Kosovo were particularly bitter and described how they felt betrayed. While Milošević had come to power pledging to protect the Kosovo Serbs,22 a male interviewee in Kosovska Mitrovica insisted that, ‘He did not do anything for the Kosovo Serbs. He was as bad to the Serbs as he was to the Albanians’.23 When one considers how Milošević conducted himself, it is perhaps not difficult to understand the interviewees’ belief that the Serbian people were of little importance to him (as long as they did not threaten his regime). For example, he made very few public



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appearances and never wanted to walk though the streets of Belgrade; Borisav Jović, a former close associate of Milošević, recalls how the Serbian leader would always ask, ‘Zašto nam to treba?’ (‘Why do we need to do that?’) (Jović 2001: 15). This was in striking contrast to the late Zoran Đinđić, Serbia’s former Prime Minister, and to Boris Tadić, the current President of Serbia.24 When Milošević did speak in public, he showed no emotion and rather than engage with his audience he would look past them, ‘the square head turned upwards as if breathing an unpleasant smell’ (Morgan 1997: 72). One possible explanation for such behaviour might be that he was naturally reclusive; Doder and Branson maintain that ‘to the end he remained, at least in spirit, a mountain man’ (Doder and Branson 1999: 14), a reference to the fact that both of Milošević’s parents were from Montenegro. This, however, is to somewhat overlook the fact that he was a very able communicator – according to Almond, Milošević ‘had the gift of communication’ (Almond 1994: 10) – and a highly charismatic leader who, when he wanted to, could skilfully tap into the emotions of his audience. It is suggested, therefore, that perhaps arrogance and a sense of self-importance better account for his lack of public appearances. This is consistent with the interview data and with the claim that Milošević had little time for the Serbian people. It should also be noted that he never visited wounded Serbian soldiers in hospital or Serbian troops at the front, he never mentioned war widows, invalids and orphans – the forgotten victims of the war25 – and he stood by as some 200,000 Serbs were expelled from the Krajina, in Croatia, in the summer of 1995. All of this has simply reinforced the belief that the Serbian people did not matter to him. According to the historian Professor Ljubinka Trgovćević,26 ‘Milošević was so autistic. He hadn’t any, any emotions for others and that was the problem.27 He just wanted to know what was good for him, not what was good for others’.28 What is also very striking about these examples, however, is that Milošević clearly did not act like a war leader. This was likely due to the fact that until 1999, Serbia was not officially at war. War was never declared, Milošević’s speeches did not mention the wars (Kosovo aside) – except indirectly when they referred to Serbian refugees – and he never actually defined Serbia’s war aims. Tanner notes that, ‘Time and time again the complaint was raised that Serbia’s goal in the war had never been stated. No one knew for what frontier

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the Serbs were fighting’ (Tanner 2001: 270). Milošević’s failure to conduct himself like a war leader, therefore, may be seen as a strategy for propagating the myth that Serbia was not engaged in war and for disassociating himself from the conflict. He thus assumed a dual role, as ‘both the frontline commander and the innocent bystander who had no connection whatsoever with the war’ (Stevanović 2004: 99). The interviewees portrayed Milošević not only as a selfish, cold and hard-hearted individual, but also as a man hungry for power. In the words of a male interviewee in Belgrade, ‘Milošević was driven by his ambition. He thought only about himself and his power’.29 Echoing this, the journalist Aleksandar Nenadović30 maintained that, ‘Milošević was a power-hungry man who enjoyed power as much as he enjoyed whiskey [his favourite tipple]. He did not have faith in anything serious. He was obsessed with power’.31 In Serbian literature on Milošević – as in Western literature – his lust for power is similarly underscored. According to the sociologist Pribićević, for example, Milošević ‘does not follow any particular ideology, but only and exclusively his interests in preserving his own power’ (Pribićević 1997: 115); Stevanović claims that Milošević ‘had no specific programme, either economic or political, other than to preserve power for himself’ (Stevanović 2004: 34); and the journalist Djukić contends that, ‘…Milošević simply lusted for power’ (Djukić 2001: 79). While Milošević undoubtedly enjoyed power, it is greatly oversimplistic to see his leadership as nothing but a naked struggle for power. He did have specific goals. For example, he initially wanted to preserve Yugoslavia – which he once described as the ‘zajednička domovina svih jugoslovenskih naroda’ (‘communal home of all Yugoslav peoples’) (Milošević 2001: 37) – but he had to revise this after Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in June 1991. He was also determined to address the status of Serbia’s two autonomous provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina.32 A new Serbian constitution was thus adopted in 1990, Article Six of which stipulated that the provinces were still autonomous, but were strictly units of territorial autonomy without state functions. The important point is that Milošević was not operating in a vacuum and as the environment in which he was functioning changed, so too he had to modify his objectives and re-evaluate his position. The impact on Serbia of UN sanctions, for example, forced



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Milošević to reconsider his policy vis-à-vis the Bosnian Serbs.33 This does not mean that he was inconsistent in his political line. Rather, he was consistently very pragmatic and, in the words of Pribićević, ‘demonstrated an enviable skill to adjust to new situations and the popular mood’ (Pribićević 1997: 115). One of the reasons why Milošević was so adept at manoeuvring is that he was flexible, rather than dogmatic, and was prepared to embrace different ideologies as and when they suited him. This not only gave him broad-based appeal (see, for example, Vujačić 1995; Johnstone 2000; Pavlowitch 2002), but also enabled him and his party to ‘move comfortably up and down and across the political arena’ (Branković 1995b: 112). It was not only Milošević’s objectives that changed in response to circumstances, but so too did the nature of his regime. Slobadan Antonić, a Serbian expert on the subject, identifies two periods in the lifetime of the regime. Up until 1996, it was characterized by ‘caesarism’, by which Antonić means personal rule which has a rudimentary democratic (most often plebiscitary) form of legitimacy (Antonić 2002: 420). Thereafter, the regime entered a second phase, during which it manifested what Chehabi and Linz have identified as the main traits of ‘sultanism’, including a blurring of the line between the regime and the state, personalization of power, constitutional hypocrisy and a narrow social base (Chehabi and Linz 1998). What precipitated this change in the Milošević regime, according to Antonić, was that it lost popular support (Antonić 2002: 440). Attracting more and more opposition, it thus became increasingly repressive, as demonstrated by the adoption in 1998 of a draconian Media Law and University Law, both of which were designed to silence critical voices.34 In short, it was when he felt his power slipping away from him that Milošević most became the power-hungry leader that he has so often been portrayed as, bent on retaining his position at all costs. Milošević was an incompetent leader with limited abilities In contrast to the Balkan strongman image of Milošević that one finds in much of the existing Western literature, the interview data yields a very different portrait of him as a rather weak and incompetent leader. To cite a female interviewee in Belgrade, ‘Milošević was a very average politician in historically the most important moment in our history. That was his misery and it was ours too’.35 Professor Jovica Turkulja, from the Law Faculty in Belgrade, adds that Milošević was

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‘a swaying Bonaparte-like figure with…the limitations of a minor apparatchik and careerist that cannot function successfully in a serious political game and is incapable of coming to grips with even the most banal weaknesses’ (Turkulja 2001: 123). According to the interviewees, Milošević demonstrated his incompetence and mediocrity in four particular ways. First, he did not make any long-term plans. In the words of a male interviewee in Novi Sad, ‘Milošević was not able to see far ahead. The decisions he took were made on the basis of short-term, not long-term, calculations. They were made on a day-to-day basis’.36 Arguing the point more forcefully, a man interviewed in Kragujevac claimed that, Milošević’s politics was catastrophic. He was not born for politics. For a man to be a successful politician, he must have vision and the ability to think ten years ahead. Milošević had neither. He had no plans at all – it was real chaos.37 Had Milošević had no plans at all, it is very unlikely that he could have stayed in power for as long as he did. Thus, it would be more accurate, it is suggested, to argue that he constantly had to revise and to reconsider his plans – for example, to keep Yugoslavia intact – as circumstances changed. Given that he made few public appearances, however, the Serbian people would understandably have struggled to identify any clear programme as the country stumbled from one crisis to another. Second, Milošević failed to acknowledge his own limited abilities, always thinking that he was stronger and more powerful than he actually was. Emphasizing the former Serbian leader’s flawed personality, a male interviewee in Belgrade claimed, Sometimes Milošević presented himself as bigger than he really was. It’s quite incredible. He was a very good actor – a very good actor. He presented himself as if he were a big man, a big leader. He was so full of himself. It was like he was above, so much above everybody else. Even when he spoke with some Western leaders, he was so pompous.38 Some interviewees also maintained that Milošević’s rise to power, which began in 1987, had far more to do with circumstances than with his skills as a leader. In the words of a male interviewee in



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Novi Sad, ‘At the right time and in the right place, one man came along and said the right words. A few right words.39 And that was it’.40 If Milošević was thus an accidental leader, the problem is that he himself was not able to appreciate the fundamental role that circumstances played in his rise to power and political career. In the view of Professor Svetozar Stojanović,41 Milošević has never been able to distinguish between his abilities and capabilities and just what you would call circumstances or historical luck/misfortune. In the initial phases of his power, historical circumstances assigned him a much greater role than his real capacities as a personality and as a ruler, but he never understood that hiatus.42 Unable to recognize his own limitations, Milošević behaved arrogantly and with a sense of superiority that antagonized those whom he should have sought as allies. According to a female Bosnian Serb refugee in Kosovska Mitrovica, ‘Milošević should have been smart and had the United States as his friend, not as his enemy. Instead, he acted with inat [this is a specific Serbian term that has no direct English equivalent, but it means something like ‘spite’] towards the United States and towards the whole world’.43 What is more, as he created a growing number of enemies, his leadership was increasingly detrimental to the Serbian people. As a male interviewee in Belgrade pointed out, ‘You cannot be a good leader if you have war, you have sanctions and you argue with half of the world’.44 Third, according to the interviewees, Milošević was out of touch with reality. He was, insisted Professor Mihailo Pantić,45 ‘a post-Communist emperor who was out of his time and living in his own reality’.46 Milošević’s view of the international political situation demonstrated this. He regarded himself as a key figure on the international stage, yet seemingly failed to realize that several important scene changes had taken place – notably the end of Communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall – and fundamentally altered the nature of that stage. As one example, highlighted by the Belgrade journalist Vladimir Milić,47 Milošević acted under the false belief that the Communists would return to power in Russia and that Russia would help Serbia.48 He simply did not understand that the world had

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changed and that Communism was dead. By the time he realized this, it was too late.49 If Milošević had such a tenuous grasp of the new international order and such limited abilities as a leader, the image that we get of him is above all an image of incompetence, rather than belligerence. In the words of Professor Stojanović, ‘Surely, in terms of Serbian national interests, he was a sheer catastrophe’.50 Intercepted telephone conversations between Milošević and the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić, between 1991 and 1992, appear to reinforce this picture of incompetence. They show that Milošević seemed to have far less knowledge and information about events on the ground than we might expect a leader to have. During a conversation that took place on 10 September 1991, for example, Karadžić asked Milošević if Koštajnica had been taken. Milošević replied, ‘Well, I don’t have precise information’. Later, on 19 September 1991, Karadžić remarked, ‘…we have confidential information that the situation with the army in Slavonia [in Croatia] is catastrophic’, to which Milošević responded, ‘Really! I also heard that there are great difficulties, but I don’t have correct information’.51 That Milošević appeared to be so poorly informed about what was happening is very significant given that in his trial in The Hague, the Prosecution was seeking to establish his ‘command responsibility’. That is to say that it was seeking to prove either that Milošević had personally ordered killings to be committed, or that he had known about atrocities being perpetrated and had chosen not to stop them.52 The fourth and final way in which Milošević showed his lack of competence was by neglecting vital public relations work. A male interviewee in Belgrade, a strong supporter of the former Serbian leader, claimed that, ‘Milošević didn’t know how to use marketing and public relations. He didn’t want to spend money on that, but he is now paying a much higher price’.53 For his part, the Belgrade intellectual Aleksa Djilas54 argued that, Milošević completely lacked imagination. He had lived in the West and he spoke good English. He should, therefore, have understood the power of the media and the influence that it has on politicians. Yet, it took him a long time to realize this. Consequently, he did little to try and change the West’s image of the Serbs, unlike Tudjman and Izetbegović who hired PR companies to garner international sympathy.55



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In August 1991 and June 1992 respectively, the Croatian and Bosnian governments (and later also the Kosovar Albanians) hired the American public relations firm Ruder Finn Global Affairs. Its work for its Balkan clients included organizing trips to Croatia for US congressmen in 1992, press releases, briefings for journalists, setting up the Bosnia Crisis Communication Centre and coaching the then Bosnian Foreign Minister – Haris Silajdžić – in speaking to the media. The Slovenian government, for its part, turned to the US lobbying and law firm Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand. Serbia, in contrast, paid little attention to PR and ‘ignored the most vital weapon of war, the media’ (Stanković 2000: 436). One possible explanation is that by making little effort to change international public opinion about Serbia, Milošević could thus continue telling the Serbian people that the world was against them. He repeatedly argued that there were various forces seeking to harm Serbia. Speaking in Belgrade on 24 December 1996, for example, he claimed that a strong Serbia was not in the interests of many powers outside Serbia and that these powers were working with a ‘fifth column’ inside Serbia – the Opposition ‘Zajedno’ (‘Together’) coalition – in order to destabilize the country (Milošević 2001: 91). This use of conspiracy theories, in turn, can be seen as a strategy for trying to unite the Serbian people behind him. Thus, in the aforementioned Belgrade speech, Milošević declared that despite efforts to weaken Serbia, ‘Izaći ćemo ne slabiji nego jači, jer se Srbija pod pretnjama i pritiscima uvek ujedini čvršće i snažnije’ (‘We will emerge not weaker but stronger, because when threatened and under pressure Serbia unites more firmly and strongly’) (Milošević 2001: 92). It can be argued, therefore, that Milošević’s neglect of PR was more tactical than short-sighted. Milošević surrounded himself with the wrong people It was claimed, particularly by those interviewees who had actually worked with Milošević, that the Serbian leader made the mistake of surrounding himself with people who lacked competence. The politician Milorad Vučelić,56 for example, maintained that, ‘Milošević’s greatest weakness was choosing the wrong type of people to have around him, starting with me! [laughed]. He chose the wrong people and gave them positions for which they were not equipped’.57 This would suggest that Milošević had poor judgement, further conveying the picture of a rather weak leader. Reinforcing

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this, Živadin Jovanović,58 Milošević’s former Minister for Foreign Affairs, expressed the opinion that, Milošević surrounded himself with rather incompetent people, but people who would please him and his family…Many people around him did not fulfil the criteria of competency but the criteria of formal loyalty. So I think it was a great weakness – the absence of clear-cut criteria so that people would be selected to fit functions and not vice-versa. Milošević thus comes across as a vain and narcissistic man; he chose individuals who would praise him to the skies (Jović 2001: 18). The calibre of people he selected, moreover, also hints at a further character trait, namely Milošević’s ‘fear of opponents and his terror of losing control…’ (Stevanović 2004: 60). Hence, he only surrounded himself with people who would not challenge him or endanger his position, thereby enabling him to maintain an unfettered grip on power. It would seem, however, that Milošević’s choices were not always his own. On 28 November 1995, for example, six senior SPS figures – among them Professor Mihailo Marković, Milorad Vučelić and Borisav Jović – were dismissed from the party’s executive committee. All six had been vocal critics of Milošević’s wife and her political party, the Yugoslav United Left (JUL),59 and were replaced with people of whom she approved. In the opinion of Professor Mihailo Marković,60 a former vice-president of the SPS, ‘Mira was undoubtedly behind these dismissals’.61 Certainly, her political influence significantly increased after 1994 following the creation of JUL, a pro-Yugoslav and Marxist party that was to become very powerful. To cite Djukić, ‘…the Socialist Party was shaken from its roots by JUL, which quickly established itself as the most influential Serbian party. Suddenly, “the regime” no longer referred to the Socialists but to JUL, even though it was in fact a minority party’ (Djukić 2001: 84). One particularly amusing example illustrates just how much power Mira wielded in Serbia. There is a brand of milk called ‘Moja Kravica’ (‘My Cow’), owned by the company Tetra Pak. The ‘Moja Kravica’ milk cartons, as one might expect, feature an image of a cow and this cow used to wear a flower in her head. However, as it was Mira’s trademark to wear a plastic flower in her hair – reputedly in homage to her late mother, Vera Miletić, who was shot by firing



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squad during the Second World War – she strongly objected to the ‘Moja Kravica’ cow also donning a flower. Tetra Pak consequently removed the flower from the cow’s head! According to many of the interviewees, Mira was a particularly negative and harmful influence on her husband. For one male interviewee in Kragujevac, Milošević’s main mistake was that he listened to his wife; ‘Some of the things he did were only because of Mira and the nation suffered as a result. She was a megalomaniac for power, control and money. She wanted more and more and she is guilty for everything’.62 Highlighting Mira’s capacity to affect her husband’s decisions, Professor Stojanović recalled, I was a witness on several occasions when, in the evening, he would agree with more rational people and he would promise to do this and not to do that. And then, next morning, he would change his mind, so something had happened during those 12 hours. Well, he went home!63 Interestingly, the very small number of interviewees who expressed support for Milošević significantly downplayed Mira’s influence. According to a female pensioner in Belgrade, for example, ‘The West, by creating stories about the enormous influence that Mira had over her husband, was just trying to deprive Milošević of his manhood’.64 A male pensioner, also in Belgrade, claimed that, ‘Mira could not influence her husband because he was simply not the type of person that you could influence’.65 The prevalent view among Serbs, however, is that Mira was the real power behind the Milošević throne – a belief similarly expressed in some Western media (see, for example, Rees 1999; BBC News 2001) – and this largely explains why she is so heavily despised. While the interviewees overwhelmingly argued that Serbs were Milošević’s biggest victims, some of them also maintained that he himself was a victim of his wife. To cite a male interviewee in Belgrade, ‘I think that a big, big factor in his decision-making was his wife, Mira, who influenced him so much. And I think that he just lost touch with reality by listening to her, her decisions and her opinions’.66 This leads on to the second image of Milošević that emerged from the interview data – as a victim.

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Milošević as a Victim Although it proved extremely difficult to find interviewees who supported Milošević, or who were willing to admit that they had supported him in the past, it was clear from the interviews that there was, nevertheless, considerable sympathy for him. This was reflected in the perception that some interviewees had of Milošević as a victim, which in turn mirrors the broader idea – particularly fostered by the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC),67 nationalist writers like Dobrica Ćosić, as well as by Milošević himself – of Serbia as a victim throughout history (see chapter six). The interviewees viewed the former Serbian leader as a victim of the people around him, of himself and of the West. Milošević as a victim of the people around him Milošević was seen above all as a victim of those around him. Aleksander Nenadović, a fierce critic of the Milošević regime, argued that, ‘Milošević was pushed by those who had more knowledge and more experience than he did’, for example the intelligentsia. These ‘empty heads’, as Nenadović described them, were eager to help Milošević, ‘and to convince him that if he wanted to be successful, then he should listen to them – they would provide him with arguments. Milošević loved the love that was offered to him by these people’.68 Some interviewees also claimed that the people around Milošević simply used him. According to Professor Mihailo Marković, for example, sanctions enabled a small number of private individuals to become extremely rich and Milošević erroneously believed that he could make these nouveaux riches his allies, by organizing them into a political party which his wife would lead, namely JUL. However, ‘These wealthy business tycoons were motivated by self-interest and were merely interested in the privileges and benefits that they would receive from being in an alliance with Milošević’.69 Incidentally, many of these ‘businessmen’ remain very powerful today (see chapter seven). Others argued that Milošević’s entourage deliberately kept him misinformed. For example, although his mandate as President of Yugoslavia did not expire until July 2001, Milošević called early elections for 24 September 2000, in which he lost to Vojislav Koštunica, Serbia’s current Prime Minister. According to Professor Stojanović, ‘Milošević somehow persuaded himself, and was



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persuaded by his wife and the people around him, that his standing among the Serbs was so high that he would defeat everybody in the elections’.70 Milorad Vucelić similarly maintained that, ‘In the end, Milošević lost touch with reality. He called elections a year early because he believed he had never been stronger. This is what the people around him were telling him’.71 Analysis of Milošević’s speeches, however, does not necessarily support such arguments. For example, whereas in his earlier speeches ‘Milošević rarely insulted opposition leaders, preferring to regard them as politically irrelevant’ (Thomas 1999: 75), this was to change as his regime became less secure. In his Closing Statement to the Fourth SPS Congress on 17 February 2000, for instance, he declared that Serbia did not have an opposition. Rather, the country simply had ‘a group of bribed weaklings and blackmailed profiteers and thieves’ who were exploiting the situation and manipulating the Serbian people (Milošević 2000a). Later, in rallies in Belgrade and Montenegro on 21 September 2000, just three days before the elections, Milošević ‘delivered slashing attacks on the opposition, calling them “rabbits, rats and even hyenas” who wanted to turn Serbia into a “permed poodle” and had “the loyalty of dogs” to the NATO masters “who bribe and pay them”’ (Sell 2002: 337). This was the first time since coming to power in 1989 that Milošević had made two campaign appearances in one day. Finally, he devoted his Address to the Nation on 2 October 2000 – the day of the run-off elections with Koštunica72 – to attacking the opposition. According to Cohen, it was ‘a desperate address by a desperate man’ (Cohen 2001a: 422), whose regime was spectacularly toppled just three days later. The fact, therefore, that Milošević’s behaviour and rhetoric significantly changed during his final months in power would seem to suggest that he was very aware of his own vulnerability and actually more in touch with reality than is often claimed. Milošević as a victim of himself Some interviewees saw Milošević as a victim of himself and his own weaknesses. According to a female Bosnian Serb refugee in Kosovska Mitrovica, Milošević had good intentions, but ‘he did not have enough political wisdom to do the things he wanted to do’.73 Echoing this, a male Kosovo Serb interviewee in the same municipality maintained that, ‘Milošević did not have good politics,

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but he did have good intentions’.74 While such views may be naive, no less problematic are claims that the Yugoslav tragedy flowed from the ‘criminal’ nature of Milošević’s intentions (see chapter one). To cite Kershaw, ‘…an “intention” is not an autonomous force, but is affected in its implementation by circumstances which it may itself have been instrumental in creating’ (Kershaw 2000: 90). It is thus impossible to truly know what Milošević’s real intentions actually were. For other interviewees, Milošević was a victim of his own misguided beliefs. According to a female Kosovo Serb interviewee in Gračanica, for example, ‘Milošević is convinced that he was right and that he was doing the right thing for the people’;75 and a male interviewee in Belgrade emphasized, ‘I think Milošević really thought he was doing what was best for Serbia. He wasn’t just a bad guy who decided to become rich and powerful. It’s just that he saw himself as a sort of national messiah or something’.76 These assertions that Milošević had good intentions and a deep-felt, if misplaced, conviction that he was acting in the best interests of Serbia and of the Serbian people, make him appear more tragic than criminal. In the words of a female interviewee in Belgrade, ‘Everything that Milošević was fighting for and dreamed of is in mud now. He had the role of a superhero who would save his own people and now he is in the role of a super butcher who destroyed his own people’.77 By portraying Milošević as a tragic leader, attention is thereby drawn to his defects and viewing him thus as a flawed individual, rather than simply as someone who was evil and malevolent, is arguably the most useful and insightful way to analyze him. Milošević as a victim of the West The third sense in which some interviewees perceived Milošević as a victim was as a victim of Western Powers. According to this view, Milošević became an obstacle in the eyes of the West, in particular the US, and thus needed to be removed.78 This is not to say that the Occident was always against Milošević. A male interviewee in Belgrade observed that, ‘Milošević appeared in Serbia out of nowhere, so to speak, and he had a very fast rise in the political life of Serbia. That’s really strange, you know’. The only explanation, the interviewee argued, was that, ‘He had to have had some backing from the West, from the United States itself, and in the beginning I think he was their man’.79 Certainly, before embarking upon a



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career in politics Milošević had made several visits to the US and was viewed at the time as a liberal. The former US deputy Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, for example, recalls that Milošević ‘talked so convincingly about westernizing Yugoslavia’s economy’ (cited in Zimmermann 1996: 59). Initially, Serbia and Milošević also had British support, including from left-wing Labour MPs such as Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner. According to Tanner, the explanation can be sought in, inter alia, ‘the average Englishman’s instinctive Protestant fear of Catholicism’ (both Slovenia and Croatia are Catholic countries); ‘an ever-growing paranoia about Germany’, the country that most strongly championed the independence of its former World War Two ally, Croatia; and the fact that Milošević spoke English very well, in contrast to his Croatian counterpart – Franjo Tudjman – whose ‘essays into English were either inaudible or incomprehensible’ (Tanner 2001: 273). The interviewees maintained, however, that once Milošević had served his purposes – for example, to help to bring an end to the three-year war in Bosnia – the West began to see him as a nuisance and suddenly turned against him.80 In the words of a male interviewee in Belgrade, At some point, when the West saw that any form of co-operation was too expensive for them, they just decided that it was easier for them to fight and to overthrow Milošević. I think that they used a cost-effective scheme. They simply calculated that it wasn’t paying – it wasn’t worthwhile to negotiate with him. Generally the Serbs, Serbia, were an example of a rogue state – a state that obeys no orders. And the West estimated that such an example of a state could not be tolerated.81 A Milošević supporter in Belgrade insisted that it was because Milošević refused to be the West’s ‘yes man’ that he was at that moment sitting in a courtroom in The Hague; ‘Milošević is on trial only because he resisted against very unjust demands from abroad. That is his only guilt. If he had listened to the West’s demands and conditions, he would not have been transferred to The Hague Tribunal’. The interviewee added, ‘It’s quite certain that Milošević could have been the greatest killer, but if he had followed the West’s wishes and tastes he wouldn’t have been punished’.82

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On this latter point, it is certainly interesting that Tudjman himself, who died from cancer in December 1999, was not indicted for war crimes83 and was treated very differently to Milošević. The last US Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann, once described Tudjman’s regime as ‘a narrow-minded, crypto-racist regime, hostile to Serbia and to the Yugoslavia that it erroneously believed Serbia controlled’ (Zimmermann 1996: 246). For Zimmermann, however, ‘Tudjman’s saving feature, which distinguished him from Milošević, was that he really wanted to be seen as a Western statesman. He listened to Western expressions of concern and…often did something about them…’ (Zimmermann 1996: 77). Commenting on this very telling statement, Hudson notes, ‘In some senses, Zimmermann has hit upon the core of the issue. Tudjman could be backed because he was essentially pro-Western, whereas Milošević had to be broken because he was not’ (Hudson 2003: 70). Thus, in a very short period of time, Milošević went from being hailed in the West as a peacemaker – due to his pivotal role in negotiating the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia – to being widely condemned as ‘the Butcher of the Balkans’ who had to be removed from power (Bennett 1998).84 This necessarily raises the question, ‘If indeed a leader is deemed criminal only with convenient hindsight, what is the element of complicity of foreign governments that engaged in full diplomatic intercourse with that leader?’ (Thakur 2004: 277). It has of course, however, been convenient for Western governments to overlook their own role in the Milošević story, one example of what Hayden has termed ‘an inconvenient fact’ (Hayden 1996: 743). Through its analysis of the two dominant (and sometimes overlapping) images of Milošević that emerged from the first round of interviews, as a ‘bad’ leader and as a victim, what this chapter has revealed is that the interviewees’ perceptions of Milošević were highly nuanced. They saw him not in simple black and white terms, but rather in terms of grey. They were mainly critical of him, judging him first and foremost on the basis of his crimes against Serbs, although some interviewees also evinced varying levels of sympathy and pity for him. It has also exposed a fundamental dichotomy between, on one hand, Serbian opinions of Milošević and, on the other hand, the prominent Western view of him as a criminal leader. As this discrepancy has very significant implications for the work of



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the Hague Tribunal and for the peace-building process in the former Yugoslavia, it is important to establish whether it remains equally pronounced after the death of Milošević.

Chapter Four The Death of Milošević

On 11 March 2006, Milošević died in his prison cell in Scheveningen in the Netherlands. His death, and in particular the rumours that he had been poisoned, momentarily captured the world’s attention. The media announced the death of ‘the architect of war’ (BBC News 2006a) and the ‘architect of Balkans carnage’ (CNN 2006), the very same terms that had been used to describe Milošević during the 1990s. Various international statesmen, like Philippe DousteBlazy, the French Foreign Minister, expressed their satisfaction that ‘with the death of Milošević, one of the main actors if not the main actor in the Balkan wars of the late twentieth century has left the scene’ (BBC News 2006b). It was as if the principal importance of Milošević’s demise was that it had rid us all of a dangerous and destructive man who would never again be able to commit crimes. By exploring whether and how Milošević’s passing has affected Serbs’ perceptions of him and by examining how Serbs reacted to his death, this chapter will reflect on the deeper significance of the event. Milošević’s Death and His Image as a ‘Bad’ Leader During the second round of interviews, between May and July 2006, all interviewees were once again asked the question, ‘What sort of leader do you consider Milošević to have been?’ As in 2004, by far the most frequent answer given was that he had been a ‘bad’ leader. However, in contrast to 2004, the interviewees no longer placed the main emphasis on Milošević’s economic crimes. The principal reason for this, it is suggested, is that in 2006, the interviewees as a whole were more dissatisfied with the economic situation in Serbia than they had been in 2004 and less optimistic about the prospects of economic amelioration.1 According to a male interviewee in Belgrade, for example,



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Things are worse today than they were under Milošević. For instance, there are more people out of work today than there were under Milošević. He kept people in their jobs. He was buying social peace.2 I am really not sure if the country today is going in the right direction – in the direction that will reduce unemployment… It’s like it was under Milošević, only now it’s worse. Under Milošević, people knew that the situation was not normal, but now the situation is being presented as something normal, as part of the process of building liberal democracy and a market economy.3 For her part, the journalist Ljubica Marković4 lamented that, ‘Things are not getting any better and it will take at least another decade for things to change…The most difficult thing is that you don’t see any perspective. You don’t know how long this economic situation will last’. She added, ‘It is a very sick situation’.5 While there has undoubtedly been real economic progress since 2000, ordinary people have generally yet to see and feel substantial benefits. The problem is compounded by the fact that after the overthrow of the Milošević regime, expectations were extremely high; ‘October 5 was experienced as a rupture, a breaking point between a “before” and “after”’ (Golubović, Spasić and Pavićević 2003: 302). Thus, major progress was anticipated, ‘a radical turn that will bring profound changes in the political and social order and in the way and quality of life’ (Golubović, Spasić and Pavićević 2003: 302). Yet these expectations were often unrealistic. The inevitable result is that many people have felt more and more disappointed and let down as the years have passed without them directly experiencing any significant economic improvement. This is reflected not only in the interview data, but also in public opinion poll data. In a survey by the Serbian polling agency TNS Medium Gallup, for example, in November 2005, 1,000 respondents were asked, ‘Compared with this year, in your opinion will next year be a year of economic prosperity, economic difficulty, or will it remain the same?’ Only 8 per cent of respondents said that the next year would be a year of economic prosperity (as compared to 11 per cent in 2004 and 18 per cent in 2003); 37 per cent thought that the economic situation would remain the same (in comparison to 33 per cent in 2004 and 36 per cent in 2003); and 47 per cent believed that it

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would be a year of economic difficulty (in contrast to 50 per cent in 2004 and 36 per cent in 2003) (TNS Medium Gallup 2005: 3). The following year, in May 2006, TNS Medium Gallup asked 1,000 adult citizens of Serbia to evaluate their household’s material situation in relation to the previous year. Only 0.5 per cent of respondents said that it had greatly improved; 4.6 per cent said that it had mainly improved; 40.5 per cent claimed that it had remained the same; 40.4 per cent maintained that it had mainly worsened; and 12.6 per cent said that it had greatly worsened. Asked whether they believed that their family’s material situation would improve or worsen during the following year, only 0.4 per cent of respondents said that they expected it to greatly improve; 11.9 per cent expected it to mainly improve; 40.8 per cent expected it to remain the same; 28.9 per cent expected it to mainly worsen; and 5.9 per cent expected it to greatly worsen (TNS Medium Gallup 2006b: 1–3). More recently, in June 2007, in a survey by the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID), 73 per cent of the 1,677 respondents expressed dissatisfaction with living standards (only 8 per cent were satisfied) and 74 per cent were dissatisfied with the general economic situation (just 7 per cent were satisfied) (CESID 2007: 25). Having endured hyper-inflation, food shortages and sanctions, Serbs now just want to ‘live normally’ again. Hence, economic issues are the main priority for many people and this, in turn, can help to account for the success of the SRS. Today the most popular political party in Serbia, the SRS has particularly recognized the value of appealing to the public’s desire for a better standard of living. Famously promising to lower the price of a loaf of bread to just three dinars, the party makes very attractive pledges; these include economic development and rejuvenation, the creation of jobs through economic growth, increased investment and higher competition, reform of the pensions system, a new social politics that will particularly benefit children, equal opportunities for all young people and better and cheaper medical care.6 Thus, according to public opinion research by the International Republic Institute in September 2005, the highest number of respondents – 36 per cent – named the SRS as the political party that most addressed the issues they care about (International Republic Institute 2005). During the first round of interviews in 2004, various interviewees emphasized how well they had lived in Tito’s Yugoslavia, contrasting this ‘golden era’ with the harshness of life under the Milošević regime.



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In 2006, however, interviewees were more likely to compare their lives under Milošević not with how they had lived under Tito, but rather with the lives they were currently living under the government of Vojislav Koštunica. Increased pessimism about, and frustration with the economic situation in Serbia had affected how they recalled their daily lives during the 1990s, with the result that, overall, the interviewees spoke considerably less about Milošević’s economic wrongdoings than they had done two years earlier. In 2004, the interviewees claimed that the second reason why Milošević was a bad leader was that he had thought only about himself and about power. Two years later, however, this argument was made less frequently. One reason for this is that by 2006, the interviewees had become more disillusioned with the political situation in Serbia and more critical of the country’s government and politicians, accusing them of caring only about their own interests and privileges. A female interviewee in Belgrade, for example, explained, ‘I feel that for the last one or two years, the country has been going backwards…Đinđić had vision and he gave people hope.7 Other politicians don’t have vision. They just want to get rich’.8 Some of the harshest judgements came from those interviewees who had been prominent critics of Milošević and initial supporters of Koštunica. The sociologist Milan Nikolić,9 for example, claimed that, ‘People in the government are self-indulgent and wrapped up in their own interests. There are few among them who can think as statesmen and put the interests of Serbian citizens first’;10 and the NGO leader Drinka Gojković11 insisted that, Today, we have worse politicians than ever. We expect more of politicians now, but those expectations are not fulfilled at all… People are more ready for change than the politicians, who are scared of losing their power…You cannot rely on anything that politicians say…I have the impression that nobody takes care of what the people feel and want. Our politicians see themselves as self-sufficient.12 Public opinion polls attest to the prevalence of such views. According to a report by CESID in November 2005, ‘Mistrust, dissatisfaction, disappointment and an extremely poor image of people in power… have become a general conviction, the standard. It is hard to find another similar post-communist country for a comparison’ (CESID

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2005: 12). The report was based upon a survey of 1,276 respondents, of whom only 35 per cent had trust in Koštunica (57 per cent had no trust); just 30 per cent had trust in the government of Serbia (62 per cent had no trust); and only 27 per cent had trust in Serbia’s National Assembly (65 per cent had no trust) (CESID 2005: 13).13 One of the significant consequences of this lack of trust is that less and less people are choosing to vote. For example, in the period between June 2005 and May 2006, the percentage of those who abstained from voting increased from 56 per cent to 58 per cent (TNS Medium Gallup 2006c: 3). Research has shown that voter apathy has particularly affected those who would ordinarily vote for parties like the Democratic Party (DS), the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and G17 Plus and this has clearly benefited the SRS. Voter abstention rates, therefore, further help to explain why the Radicals have become so strong. In the Serbian parliamentary elections on 21 January 2007, for example, the Radicals secured 28.7 per cent of the vote, followed by the DS with 22.9 per cent of the vote and the DSS with 16.7 per cent of the vote.14 Returning to the interview data, by 2006 the majority of interviewees had become decidedly more critical of Serbia’s government and politicians than they were in 2004 and accusations that they had formerly made about Milošević were now also directed at the current political elite. As a consequence, Milošević’s negligence vis-à-vis the Serbian people and his hunger for power were not underscored to the same extent that they had been two years earlier, although interviewees continued to stress that power was what mattered most to him. According to the NGO leader Miljenko Dereta,15 ‘Milošević exemplifies two fundamental aspects of power. First, power always wants to grow. Second, power corrupts’.16 According to the 2004 interview data, after Milošević’s economic crimes and failure to care about his own people, the third reason why he was a bad leader is that he was incompetent and lacked aptitude as demonstrated, inter alia, by his neglect of PR. In 2006, the interviewees placed far greater emphasis on Milošević’s laxness regarding PR. Particularly accentuating the harm that he did to the international image of Serbia and the Serbian people, partly through his inability to recognize the importance of PR, the interviewees cited this as the principal reason why he was a bad leader. For example, a female refugee from Bosnia argued that, ‘Because of Milošević, Serbian people are seen as bad. He left a very bad picture



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of the Serbs’;17 and a male interviewee in Novi Sad explained, ‘I will remember Milošević as the most negative guy in our history. Really. I know Serbian history very well and no one in our history turned the whole world against Serbia. No one’.18 Like the Germans before them, the Serbs’ image was damaged in such a way that it cannot quickly be repaired,19 and the interviewees’ arguments reflect the recognition that it will take time for attitudes towards Serbia and its people to change. ‘How much more do Serbs have to give up before we are no longer the devils of Europe?’ asked a male interviewee in Belgrade, adding ‘We are not devils!’20 The interviewees’ claims that Milošević sullied the Serbs’ image in the world, however, also manifest their growing frustration with the international community, which has been nourished by the widespread perception that Serbia is not being treated fairly. Whilst the interviewees were strongly in favour of Serbia joining the EU, as indeed are Serbian people generally (see chapter seven), many were also very critical of what they saw as constant external pressure on Serbia and unwarranted interference in the country’s affairs. In the words of a male interviewee in Belgrade, ‘The problem today is that Serbia doesn’t have its own politics…Foreign Powers are interfering in our politics…The foreign factor in Serbia is more than is good for the country and more than the people want’.21 Such views were not only prevalent among the interviewees. For example, according to a survey by CESID in April 2006, in which 1,488 respondents were asked the question, ‘Who rules Serbia?’ 20 per cent answered ‘the international community’. This was the second most popular answer, after ‘criminals’ (22 per cent) (CESID 2006). There was concern among some interviewees that continued Western pressure on Serbia has benefited the far-right SRS, which is implacably opposed to Europe and the international community telling Serbia what to do. With its anti-Western rhetoric and hardline stance on core issues such as co-operation with the ICTY and Kosovo’s final status, the SRS is anathema to many Western governments. According to a male interviewee in Belgrade, however, ‘I’m not sure if the international community understands just how counter-productive the pressure it is putting on Serbia can be and it is very counter-productive. The Radicals are getting stronger and stronger’.22 There was also palpable anger among some interviewees that when the Serbian government does not comply with Western demands, it

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is the Serbian people who are consequently punished. In April 2006, for example, due to the Serbian government’s failure to extradite the former Bosnian Serb general, Ratko Mladić, to the ICTY, the EU took the decision to break off Association and Stabilization talks with Serbia (these were resumed on 13 June 2007). A female refugee from Croatia thus claimed that, ‘In the 1990s, Western Europe punished Serbian people because of Milošević.23 Now, it is punishing Serbian people because of men like Mladić. The West is not helping ordinary people by putting so much pressure on the Serbian government’.24 Expressing a similar view, the historian Branka Prpa argued, ‘The West must pressure the Serbian government over Mladić. But all of us should not be his hostages. First of all, we were hostages of Milošević’s government. Now we are hostages again. Why are we guilty for Mladić?’25 On this last point, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its Judgement of 26 February 2007, found that Serbia was not legally responsible for the genocide in Srebrenica, in July 1995. However, it found that by virtue of its failure to arrest Mladić, the principal architect of Srebrenica, Serbia had ‘failed in its duty to co-operate fully with the ICTY and therefore has violated the obligation to punish genocide’ (Higgins 2007). The Serbian government itself has consistently stalled on the issue of Mladić. On one hand, it has made numerous promises to hand Mladić over to the Hague Tribunal; in July 2007, for example, Rasim Ljajić, president of the National Council for Co-operation with the ICTY, stressed that Serbia was doing ‘everything in its power to have Ratko Mladić and other Hague indictees captured and delivered to the ICTY’ (B–92 3 July 2007). On the other hand, the government has repeatedly maintained that it does not know the whereabouts of the former Bosnian Serb commander. The ICTY, however, is equally adamant that Mladić is somewhere in Serbia. In February 2006, for example, Florence Hartman, the spokesperson for the Office of the Prosecutor, claimed that, ‘Mladić je pod zaštitom ljudi koji su dužni da ga uhapše…’ (‘Mladić is under the protection of people who have an obligation to arrest him’) (Andrić 2006: 42); and in July 2007, Carla Del Ponte, the former chief prosecutor at the ICTY,26 told a news conference that Mladić was hiding in Serbia, stressing that, ‘the authorities in Belgrade are also aware of this’ (B–92 4 July 2007).27 Whatever the truth, as the ICTY is due to complete its work by the year 2011, it seems unlikely



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that either Mladić or Radovan Karadžić – the former leader of the Bosnian Serbs and the Tribunal’s second most-wanted indictee – will stand trial. If these two men remain at large, this will undoubtedly affect the Tribunal’s legacy and lend further ammunition to its detractors. That Milošević died in his prison cell in The Hague was itself a significant blow to the ICTY’s image (see section two). To conclude this section, in 2006 the interviewees continued to regard Milošević as a ‘bad’ leader. In this respect, therefore, it can be argued that Milošević’s death had little direct effect on their perceptions of him. However, the interviewees’ reasons for viewing Milošević as a bad leader had clearly changed since 2004. This was in large part due to their growing pessimism about, and disappointment with the economic situation in Serbia, their increasing lack of trust in Koštunica, the government and Serbia’s politicians and their growing frustration with the international community. In 2006, the interviewees primarily emphasized the damage that Milošević did to Serbia’s international image and this is significant because it provides important insight into Serbian attitudes towards the West. These, in turn, reflect fears and concerns that Western governments should take note of if they are serious about wanting to improve relations with Serbia. In the words of Beloff, ‘Too much damage has been done by ignorant and arrogant outsiders who pay no attention to the feelings and fears of the local peoples’ (Beloff 1997: 134). Milošević’s Death and His Image as a Victim Analysis of the 2006 interview data reveals that Milošević’s death has had a very direct impact on the perception of him as a victim. First, his death has reinforced and cemented the belief among interviewees that he was a victim of the people around him, in particular members of his own political party. For example, there was a general consensus among the interviewees that the SPS abused and took advantage of Milošević’s death for political ends. A female interviewee in Belgrade explained, There is an excellent movie called Maratonci trče počasni krug (Marathon runners make the lap of homage). That is the best picture of what happened with Milošević’s death. The movie is about a family of funeral directors. There are four or five generations of men in that family. Then the oldest member dies

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and the others struggle for the heritage. And that is exactly what is going on after Milošević’s death – his most loyal party members are struggling for the heritage.28 And it was funny at the beginning, but at one moment it stopped being funny and became grotesque…It was such a grotesque abuse of somebody’s death.29 For her part, the journalist Slobodanka Ast30 maintained that, ‘The SPS exploited Milošević’s death for political ends. It was ugly and disgusting for all of us. The Socialists were clever to use this opportunity. They just talked about their own programmes, not about Milošević’.31 Such arguments – which were also made by members of Milošević’s own family32 – can help to explain why, for example, between February 2006 and March 2006 support for the SPS increased from 8 per cent to 11 per cent. By May 2006, however, this figure had dropped to just 6 per cent (TNS Medium Gallup 2006c: 5). Thus, any benefit that the SPS gained from Milošević’s death was ephemeral. Indeed, in the long-term, it seems likely that the demise of its former leader has further weakened the SPS, rendering the prospect of its political revival even more remote. According to Miomir Ilić, the president of the SPS in Požarevac, ‘One of the consequences of Milošević’s death is that there is now a vacuum in the leadership of the SPS. There is nobody who can really lead the party’.33 Second, Milošević’s death has buttressed the argument that he was a victim of his wife. Despite the Serbian government’s pledge to drop the corruption charges against Mira, in order to allow her to attend her husband’s funeral, she nevertheless failed to do so. For some interviewees, this was proof that she never really cared about Milošević. A female interviewee in Kikinda, for example, insisted that, ‘The only thing that matters to Mira is Mira. The fact that she didn’t come to the funeral proves that she didn’t love Milošević. The heart that she sent him was sick.34 It was a charade’.35 Notwithstanding her own absence, Mira drew up a list of all the people whom she had decided could be present at her husband’s funeral. The fact that nobody from Milošević’s party was on this list, with the exception of the SPS vice-president Milorad Vučelić, is very telling; it highlights Mira’s continued poor relationship with the SPS leadership, the roots of which can be traced back to the creation of JUL in 1994.



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The way in which Mira made her influence felt at Milošević’s funeral is reminiscent of the manner in which she did so when her husband was in power – that is to say from behind the scenes. Widely regarded as the real power behind the Milošević regime, she was already highly unpopular in Serbia and it appears that after Milošević’s death she is now even more detested. To cite a male interviewee in Belgrade, I was not surprised that Mira did not attend Milošević’s funeral. She always talked about him as if he were her political instrument, her toy. In the first interview she gave after Milošević’s fall from power, she said “On je bio dobar čovek” (“He was a good man”), as if were already dead because he had lost power. Her absence at her own husband’s funeral says it all! 36 Third, there was a strong feeling among the interviewees that when he died, Milošević became a victim of sorts, owing to the farcical way in which he was buried – under a lime tree37 in the garden of the Milošević family home in Požarevac. A female interviewee in Belgrade, for example, stressed that, ‘Whatever his crimes, Milošević deserved to be buried like a human being, not like a pet’.38 According to the results of an Internet survey, published on 18 March 2006 by the Serbian newspaper Večernje Novosti, 53 per cent of the 2,694 respondents believed that Milošević should have had a State burial (46.03 per cent did not) (Večernje Novosti 2006: 12). Although the majority of interviewees did not share this view, they felt strongly that their former leader should have been interred in the correct way; that is to say before sunset and in the presence of a priest. That his coffin was lowered into the ground after sunset and without a priest in attendance – Mira, a committed Marxist, had apparently decided that her husband would not have a religious burial – only made a further mockery of his funeral. Hence, even those interviewees who were very critical of Milošević in 2004 nevertheless expressed some sympathy and pity for him in 2006. The journalist Slobodanka Ast, for example, who actively opposed the Milošević regime throughout the 1990s, revealed, ‘If ever there was a time when I felt sorry for Milošević, it was on the day of his funeral’.39

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Finally, the fact that Milošević died alone, in his prison cell in The Hague, further contributed to the belief that he was a victim, at least in death. When he died, the Serbian tabloids immediately claimed that the ICTY had poisoned him – ‘Hag ubio Miloševića!’ (‘The Hague killed Milošević!’), screamed the headlines of Press (2006a) and Glas Javnosti (2006) – and a small number of interviewees shared this view.40 A male interviewee in Belgrade – a longstanding supporter of Milošević – claimed that, ‘Milošević didn’t die, he was killed. He was murdered by The Hague Tribunal!’;41 and a female interviewee in Belgrade explained, ‘I believe that the Tribunal contributed to Milošević’s death. It could not take the risk of having such a long trial. The international community had a schedule and it could not allow Milošević’s trial to get in the way’.42 Although the majority of the interviewees were of the opinion that Milošević died of natural causes, many of them were nevertheless very critical of the ICTY for not allowing him to go to Russia for medical treatment. A female refugee from Croatia maintained that the ICTY thus made a very serious mistake; ‘It should have given a positive answer when the Russian government gave a guarantee that Milošević would be returned to The Hague. This incident will affect its relationship with Serbia. It should have thought more about what it was doing’.43 Some interviewees also made the point that Milošević was not the first Serb defendant to die in The Hague; six previous defendants had died ‘either in The Hague or shortly after release’ (Laughland 2007: 3). They included Milan Kovaćević from Prijedor; Slavko Dokmanović, the former mayor of Vukovar; and Milan Babić, the former president of the Republika Srpska Krajina, who committed suicide in his cell just a week before Milošević’s death. The belief that the ICTY had contributed to Milošević’s death was widespread not only among the interviewees. According to a public opinion poll by Marten Board International, for example, taken shortly after Milošević’s death, 40.4 per cent of the 603 respondents said that the ICTY was completely responsible for Milošević’s death, while 29.1 per cent of respondents maintained that the Tribunal was partly responsible (Marten Board International 2006a). It appears, therefore, that the ICTY’s already poor image among Serbs has suffered further damage due to Milošević’s passing. Hence, it is suggested that the Tribunal is now even less equipped than previously to foster reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia (see chapter six).



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To bring this section to a close, Serbs’ perceptions of Milošević are inextricably linked to their attitudes towards the past – how they assess Serbia’s role in the wars in the former Yugoslavia, how they characterize those wars and how they apportion blame and responsibility. Thus, part of what this chapter has sought to do is to establish how fixed and entrenched the interviewees’ beliefs about Milošević actually are, by comparing the opinions they expressed in 2006 with what they had said about him two years earlier. In so doing, it has endeavoured to explore whether and how Milošević’s death has affected the interviewees’ thinking about their former leader. While their views have not undergone fundamental change, part of the significance of Milošević’s death is that, to cite the Serbian writer Filip David,44 ‘It has resulted in growing sympathy for him. So, in the end, he became the victim’.45 The perception of Milošević as a victim has obvious relevance in terms of how the wars and his role in them are understood. How Serbs deal with the past, in turn, has important long-term ramifications. As Duvenage argues vis-à-vis South Africa, …one can safely predict that the manner in which South Africans, white and black, are going to deal with the grim and tragic past that carries the name of apartheid will have a major impact on the burning issue of living – individually and collectively – in a multicultural and heterogeneous democracy (Duvenage 1999: 2). Hence, it can be argued that although Milošević is no longer alive, he will continue to exercise an indirect influence on Serbia’s future and, more broadly, that of the region. Reactions to Milošević’s Death Further insight into the import of Milošević’s death can be gained by exploring popular reactions to this event; first, among the interviewees and second, among the population of Belgrade. The interviewees’ reactions According to public opinion research by Marten Board International between 20 and 29 March 2006, 43.9 per cent of the 603 respondents said that they had no emotional reaction of any kind to Milošević’s death (Marten Board International 2006a). Similarly, most of

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the interviewees claimed they felt nothing when they heard that Milošević had died. A female interviewee in Belgrade explained, ‘I wasn’t sorry when he died. I actually didn’t feel anything. It just happened and that’s it. The gate is closed’.46 In 2004, some interviewees had stressed their desire to forget Milošević and it seems that this urge to forget and to move on has been greatly strengthened by his death. In the words of a female interviewee in Gračanica, ‘I do not want to remember Milošević at all. The period when he was ruling is a black hole in my memory. That’s it. I just want to forget. We should all concentrate on the future, not on the past’.47 Certainly, this last point is one that some scholars would endorse, in the belief that it can be positively harmful for nations to dwell upon the past. Nietzsche, for example, famously argued that, ‘The past has to be forgotten if it is not to become the gravedigger of the present’ (cited in Olick 2003: 22); and Bell maintains that, ‘Memory is not always beneficial; it can be counter-productive. It can obstruct the potential for moving forward, for envisaging alternative futures’ (Bell 2006: 24). Indeed, there are many historical examples of collective amnesia, including ‘the massive project of forgetting that swept across Europe – from West to East – at the end of World War II’ (Esbenshade 1995: 79). France’s leaders, for example, sought to create a democratic republic not by confronting the legacy of the Vichy collaboration with the Nazis, but by emphasizing De Gaulle’s unifying myth of French resistance. Later, in Spain, after the death in 1975 of the dictator Francisco Franco, there was ‘an exercise in collective amnesia…Everything was subordinated to the peaceful transition to democratic rule…’ (Rigby 2001: 2).48 However, while there may be some merit in Renan’s view that, ‘It is good for everyone to know how to forget’ (cited in Farmer 1999: 207), a more common viewpoint is that it is positively harmful for nations to forget the past. This is because, ‘What we risk by forfeiting our tactics of remembering is the break out of further repetitions’ (Meskell 2006: 175). Thus, some commentators maintain that Yugoslavia’s ‘unresolved past’49 was a fundamental reason for the country’s disintegration and slide into bloodshed at the beginning of the 1990s. That is to say that because the past – notably the bloody civil war that was fought in Yugoslavia during the Second World War50 – was suppressed rather than dealt with,51 old grievances thus continued to fester. Petranović, for example, claims



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that, ‘Aspirations to exact revenge and emotional demands to “pay back” for 1914–1918 and 1941–1945 cannot be wiped away from the minds of many’ (Petranović 2002: 146); and Cohen maintains that, ‘The methods held Tito’s state together – an immense achievement – but left old wounds unsettled. Serbs and Croats, especially in exile, continued to nurse their wounds’ (Cohen 1998: 45). While it would be over-simplistic to see the wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s as simply a settling of old scores, it is certainly the case that some jingoistic television stations in the former Yugoslavia exploited memories and images of the Second World War as a means of instilling fear and inciting hatred. For those who believe that the past must be confronted, not buried, the Serbs’ wish to forget Milošević is likely to be viewed as potentially very harmful. A key question, however, is why do so many Serbs want to forget Milošević? It is suggested that this desire to forget should perhaps be understood less as a wish than as a need, that it to say as a type of coping mechanism for dealing with a traumatic past. Jansen’s study of five post-war Croatian villages, for example, shows how ‘largely homogeneous narratives of past and present relied on strategies of vagueness and selective amnesia. In a context of danger and poverty, such ways of coping allowed people not to be implicated in potentially threatening debates’ (Jansen 2002: 88). Similarly, in her work on post-genocide Rwanda, Buckley-Zistel argues that, ‘to choose amnesia serves a particular function deriving from particular needs of the present’ (Buckley-Zistel 2006: 134). In the specific case of Rwanda, she maintains that, Only through remembering what to forget, or chosen amnesia, are rural Rwandans able to cope with their present social milieu, their day-to-day life in the proximity of “killers” who, truly or falsely, participated in the genocide, or “traitors” who denounced the right or wrong people (Buckley-Zistel 2006: 146). If the Serbs’ desire to forget Milošević is itself a form of coping mechanism, research is needed to explore what specific needs – in particular emotional and psychological needs – this coping mechanism is serving. Of course, the argument can be made that the Serbs’ wish to forget Milošević is a form of collective denial and certain NGOs in Serbia would endorse this. Sonja Biserko, for

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example, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, claims that Milošević’s extradition to The Hague ‘pokrenuo odbrambeni mehanizam gotovo cele zajednice – kolektivno poricanje’ (‘triggered a defence mechanism of almost the entire community – collective denial’) (Biserko 2006: 3). Yet, denial itself can be viewed as a form of coping mechanism; to cite Reemtsma, ‘Denial is a way to preserve the self-image by transforming the reality’ (Reemtsma 2002: 10). While there is no such thing as Serbian collective denial (see chapter five), specific examples of denial can be found and this denial and willed amnesia may be seen as a mechanism for erasing everything that tarnished the Serbs’ image and reputation during the 1990s. The key point is that, ‘What each society decides to remember and forget largely determines how it projects its future’ (de Brito 2001: 160). Thus, whether and how Serbia remembers its former leader is very significant and further demonstrates that Milošević will posthumously exert a level of influence on Serbia’s future. In this sense, therefore, it can be argued that the country remains in Milošević’s shadow. That Milošević died before the conclusion of his trial is also very relevant in terms of Serbia’s future. His death, according to some interviewees, means that now there will never be any real closure; in the words of a female interviewee in Belgrade, ...now everything remains unfinished…There will always be some space for controversies and school textbooks will change according to who is in power…I don’t know if it’s politically correct to say “established truth”, but there will never be something that everybody agrees upon. Never.52 This lack of closure has potentially important implications for how Serbs deal with the past which, in turn, will impact upon reconciliation processes. In order for reconciliation to occur, for example, ‘There needs to be some shared commitment to move forward and let go of the past’ (Rigby 2001: 180), but such letting go is very difficult if that past remains unfinished. The dominant reaction among interviewees to Milošević’s death – namely anger and/or disappointment that he escaped punishment – highlights a further possible obstacle to reconciliation. While the majority already viewed the Serbs as Milošević’s biggest victims, the perception



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that his death has robbed Serbian people of justice for the crimes committed against them appears to have reinforced the image of Serbs as victims. This is potentially problematic because as Amstutz argues, the sense of being a victim ‘leads groups to focus solely on their own historical traumas and so disregard the suffering of others. And when groups become totally self-absorbed by their own hurts and injustices, they are likely to lose perspective about the suffering of others’ (Amstutz 2005: 185). For two interviewees, however, the fact that Milošević died when he did, before his trial had come to an end, was an enormous relief. A male interviewee in Belgrade argued that, It’s hard to say, but dying was probably the best thing that Milošević could have done for Serbia in that moment, because it would have been more tragic if he had been sentenced and found guilty of genocide. It would have been a great burden for us as a nation if we were proclaimed as a genocidal nation, which probably would have happened if he had been sentenced by the Hague Tribunal.53 Expressing a similar viewpoint, a male interviewee in Novi Sad claimed that, ‘Milošević’s death was a big relief for Serbia…He died like an innocent man, which is bad. But if he had been sentenced, it would have been seen here as a collective punishment, as if only Serbs are guilty’.54 Such views reflect the deep fear that many Serbs have of being branded collectively guilty (see chapter five) and this fear can further help to explain why so many people in Serbia would now like to forget the Milošević era. Belgrade’s reaction Milošević always stressed the importance of Serbian unity and the dangers of disunity. In his now famous speech in Gazimestan on 28 June 1989, for example, he claimed that it was ‘the tragic disunity in the leadership of the Serbian state’ that had significantly contributed to the Serbian defeat in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo; and he emphasized that it was ‘the obligation of the people to remove disunity, so that they may protect themselves from defeats, failures and stagnation in the future’ (Auerswald and Auerswald 2000: 31–33). Such unity, however, proved to be elusive. Milošević was a leader who created a fundamental divide in Serbia between supporters and opponents

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of his regime and in death he continued to polarize the country, as demonstrated by events in Belgrade on the day of his funeral. On this day, 18 March 2006, two gatherings took place in Belgrade. A crowd of between 80,000 and 100,000 people, pensioners particularly prominent among them, amassed outside the Federal Parliament building to pay their last respects to their former president. Close by, a smaller, younger crowd of a few thousand people – many of them long-time critics of the Milošević regime – came together in Trg Republike (Square of the Republic). From there, they walked to Kalemegdan fortress, where they released balloons as a way of marking the end and letting go of bad memories. These two meetings microcosmically illustrate how Milošević’s death divided Serbia. Perhaps more importantly, however, they can be seen as representing two very different Serbias – one conservative, authoritarian and focused on the past and the other liberal, democratic and progressive. This point is eloquently made by Dr Branka Prpa, who herself was part of the gathering in Trg Republike. In her words, The people that came to Milošević’s funeral were the victims of transition – plebs and paupers, marginalized social groups. These people represent the second face of Serbia. Like Janus, Serbia has two faces – a young and pretty face and an old and ugly face. You can’t even hate those people who came to his funeral, because they are poor and tragic persons. After seeing them you asked yourself, “What can I do about this unhappy and terrible side of my country?”55 The idea that there are two Serbias56 is very significant, especially in policy terms. In short, if the West (in particular the US) is to regain the trust and confidence of the Serbian people and if it is to avoid making unnecessary errors which simply have the effect of fuelling anti-Western feeling, it needs to recognize that Serbia is a very divided society. Any constructive dialogue between Serbia and the West must take account of this fact. According to a female interviewee in Belgrade, the meeting in Trg Republike – in which she herself participated – was precisely about demonstrating to the world that there are two Serbias. ‘It was our way to show that there is another Serbia’, she argued, ‘because you probably know that this is a deeply divided country...When you live



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here, you sometimes feel like you are living in a parallel reality in which there are two completely different spheres of thinking and value systems’.57 Western media, however, devoted little attention to the meeting in Trg Republike, choosing instead to focus on the crowd gathered outside the Federal Parliament building. Branka Prpa insisted that this was racist, because ‘Milošević’s supporters are people that you can’t respect. And Western publics cannot feel solidarity with such people. For the West, the other side of Serbia does not exist’.58 Whether there are two Serbias or several Serbias, the key point is that there is no one single ‘Serbia’. Hence, sweeping statements and generalizations59 cannot be made about such a diverse and complex country. While he was alive, it was Milošević who determined Western policy towards Serbia and who destroyed Serbia’s relations with the Occident. Paradoxically, even now that he is dead he is still able, indirectly, to influence both Western policy towards Serbia and Serbia’s relationship with the West. If Western policy-makers acknowledge the fundamental divide in Serbian society that Milošević’s death exposed and if this acknowledgment is in turn translated into more nuanced and sensitive policies towards Serbia, Serbs might then have more trust in the international community, thus helping to improve the overall relationship between Serbia and the West. To conclude this chapter, the significance of Milošević’s death is essentially threefold. First, it reinforced the image of Milošević as a victim and Serbs’ perceptions of themselves as Milošević’s victims, both of which have important implications for how Serbs deal with the past and hence for the future of Serbia and the region. Second, his death appears to have heightened the Serbs’ desire to forget him, which raises broader questions about the function of amnesia and denial in post-conflict societies. Third, Milošević’s passing highlighted a critical divide in Serbia, thus demonstrating the need not only for more nuanced policies towards the country, but also for a form of reconciliation among Serbs themselves.

Chapter Five Serbian Collective Denial and Collective Guilt

Any research relating to the former Yugoslavia is highly sensitive and often generates strong reactions. This is especially true of revisionist studies that go against ‘the orthodoxy that governs most other works on the demise of the former Yugoslavia…’ (Hayden 2000: 19). It is, therefore, anticipated that some readers will take issue with elements of the present work and in particular with the weight that it attaches to the opinions of the Serbian people. This chapter will address two possible objections. What may have stood out from chapters three and four is first, that the interviewees barely mentioned the wars in the former Yugoslavia and second, that they overwhelmingly perceived themselves – the Serbs – as Milošević’s biggest victims. Some readers might interpret this as evidence of Serbian collective denial, thus concluding that the interviewees’ views are neither valuable nor reliable. A second and related possible response to the interview data might be that the reason the Serbs are in collective denial is because they are a collectively guilty nation with something to hide, such that it is both morally objectionable and meaningless to attach any significance to their opinions. This chapter seeks to demonstrate that such arguments are unsustainable. Collective Denial History is replete with examples of collective denial. These include the Turkish government’s denial of the Armenian genocide (1915–1917),1 denial of the Holocaust2 and Japanese denial of atrocities in Asia during the period 1931–1945, in particular the ‘Rape of Nanking’ (1937).3 Some commentators might add to this list Serbian collective denial of Serb war crimes committed during the 1990s. As one prominent example, Ramet claims that, ‘Even today…in spite of



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the broadcast on Serbian television of video documentation of Serb atrocities, many Serbs remain in denial’ (Ramet 2007: 51). According to Ramet, therefore, a significant part of Serbian society is caught up in a ‘denial syndrome’ (Ramet 2007: 41). Certainly, some public opinion poll data would seem to support Ramet’s argument. In April 2001, for example, in a poll by the Strategic Marketing and Media Research Institute (SMMRI) in Belgrade, 52.50 per cent of the 2,171 respondents were not able to name a single crime committed by Serbs. In contrast, 82.5 per cent of respondents were able to name one or more crimes committed against Serbs (SMMRI 2001: 25). According to similar research by SMMRI in April 2005, 74 per cent of the 1,205 respondents said that the Serbs had committed fewer crimes than the Croats, Albanians and Muslims during the wars in the former Yugoslavia, of which 24 per cent also thought that Serbs had carried out fewer crimes than the Slovenes (SMMRI 2005: 15). Not only are crimes committed against Serbs more likely to be remembered than crimes committed by Serbs, but ‘The fading of memories appears even more striking when comparing recollections of the wars in 2005 and 2001. Even if they had heard about an event, fewer people in 2005 than in 2001 believed the event had really happened’ (Petrović 2006: 472). Research by SMMRI illustrates this. In 2005, 27 per cent of respondents had heard that paramilitary groups from Serbia killed civilians in Bijeljina during the war in Bosnia (compared with 30 per cent in 2004 and 53 per cent in 2001) and 14 per cent believed this (as in 2004, but in contrast to 30 per cent in 2001); and 47 per cent of respondents in 2005 had heard that paramilitaries and members of the Yugoslav Army (JNA) killed civilians in Vukovar in Croatia (in contrast to 54 per cent in 2004 and 64 per cent in 2001) and 23 per cent believed this (in contrast to 24 per cent in 2004 and 51 per cent in 2001) (SMMRI 2005: 10–11). Such data would thus seem to show that, Knowledge of events related to the wars in the former SFRY [Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia] in the 1992–1995 period is extremely selective. Opinions of them are very biased, depending on who the perpetrators and who the victims were. More citizens have heard of a specific event, believe it actually happened and qualify it as a war crime if its victims were Serbs

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and if it was perpetrated by persons belonging to another nationality (Bandović 2005: 336). One should not, however, conclude from such data that the Serbs are in collective denial. Indeed, it is meaningless to claim that the Serbs are ‘in denial’. To cite Cohen, ‘denial is not a stable psychological condition…Unless psychotically cut off from reality, no one is a total denier or non-denier, still less “in denial” or “out of denial” permanently’. Rather, ‘People give different accounts to themselves and others; elements of partial denial and partial acknowledgement are always present; we oscillate rapidly between states’ (Cohen 2001b: 54). To describe Serbs as being ‘in denial’ not only overlooks the fluidity of denial, but also implies that all Serbs are engaging in the same form of denial. Denial, however, is not uniform. In his superb book States of Denial, Cohen distinguishes between three types – literal, interpretative and implicatory denial. Literal denial is ‘the assertion that something did not happen or is not true. In literal, factual, or blatant denial, the fact or knowledge of the fact is denied’ (Cohen 2001b: 7). This is the most extreme version of denial and in practice it is often accompanied by interpretative and implicatory denial.4 In the case of interpretative denial, ‘it is not the raw facts (something happened) that are being denied, but they are given a different meaning from what seems obvious to others’ (Cohen 2001b: 7). Cohen gives the example of an alcoholic who insists that he/she is just a ‘social drinker’. Implicatory denial occurs when ‘there is no attempt to deny either the facts or their conventional interpretation. What are denied or minimized are the psychological, political or moral implications that conventionally follow’ (Cohen 2001b: 8). A recent example might be ‘the reluctance of global superpowers to characterize Darfur as genocide’ (Lippman 2007: 195).5 Among Serbs, all three types of denial can be found to some degree, but in particular interpretative denial. Those who use interpretative denial are not disputing that certain key events of the wars occurred, but rather the interpretation of such events as war crimes. For example, according to research by SMMRI in 2004, 75 per cent of respondents said that operations ‘Bljesak’ (‘Flash’) and ‘Oluja’ (‘Storm’) – during which some 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from the Krajina, in Croatia, in the summer of 1995 – were war crimes. In contrast, only 18 per cent of respondents believed that



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Vukovar, which was under siege from the JNA for three months in 1991 and razed to the ground,6 was a war crime; and only 16 per cent believed that the 1,000-day siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, was a war crime (SMMRI 2004: 33). Interpretative denial has arguably been most pronounced vis-à-vis Srebrenica. The massacre of some 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men from Srebrenica, in July 1995, is widely regarded as constituting genocide and both the ICTY and the ICJ have defined the crime as such. Not all Serbs would agree, however. According to a survey by the International Republican Institute in late September 2005, 35 per cent of the 2,237 respondents said that Srebrenica was a war crime, 25 per cent said that it was a war necessity, 10 per cent said that it was a massacre and 4 per cent claimed that they did not know of it (International Republican Institute 2005). The Serbian government has also engaged in interpretative denial over Srebrenica. On the tenth anniversary of Srebrenica, for example, the NGO sector in Serbia submitted to the Serbian Assembly a draft ‘Declaration on Srebrenica’, asking that it recognize Srebrenica as genocide. However, as political parties could not reach any agreement on this, Prime Minister Koštunica issued a statement condemning all crimes, ‘including the mass crime in Srebrenica’ (Petrović 2006: 468). Thus, according to Miller, ‘Whereas Armenian genocide deniers disavow a fact of history itself, Srebrenica denial seems merely to entail questioning how to name that fact’ (Miller 2006: 313). One likely explanation for interpretative denial vis-à-vis Srebrenica, particularly on the part of the Serbian state, is fear of the consequences and implications of recognizing that what happened in this Bosnian town constituted genocide. If the crime is acknowledged as genocide, this raises the issue of responsibility and no state or nation wants to be tainted as being responsible for genocide. Responsibility for genocide, moreover, incurs an obligation, under the Genocide Convention, to make reparations. Interpretive denial regarding Srebrenica, therefore, is closely linked to implicatory denial. The need to engage in implicatory denial itself has arguably been lessened following the recent Judgment, on 26 February 2007, of the ICJ. It found that Serbia was not responsible for genocide in Srebrenica and hence was not required to pay compensation to Bosnia (ICJ 2007). Nevertheless, attitudes and thinking will not change overnight. As in Germany,7 it will take time before Serbian society as a whole is ready to confront the past and in the meantime forms of denial are

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likely to persist. The fundamental point, however, is that there is no Serbian collective denial. It might be argued that the interview data itself is evidence of Serbian collective denial. Certainly, the interviewees barely mentioned the wars in the former Yugoslavia, but it is important to emphasize that they did not directly experience war until 1999. Hence, their memories and opinions of Milošević have primarily been shaped by what they personally experienced during his years in power, above all economic misery and hardship. Focusing on their own sufferings, the interviewees thus regarded themselves – the Serbs – as Milošević’s principal victims. Two important points, however, should be made in relation to this. The first is that because the Serbs were widely vilified during the 1990s,8 their own suffering received little international attention or sympathy. In his discussion of the war in Bosnia, for example, the former BBC war correspondent Martin Bell asks, ‘…when had we ever shown a civilian victim of sniper fire on the Serb side of the lines? When had we reported from their hospitals?’ (Bell 1996: 114); and John Simpson, the BBC’s World Affairs Editor who reported from Belgrade during the NATO bombing, received ‘large amounts of hate mail from people who didn’t want to be told what it was like to be on the receiving end of NATO’s bombing’ (Simpson 2001: 286). Not surprised by this, he explains, ‘…I always knew I would get a lot of grief for sleeping with the enemy; or at any rate living, working and to some extent suffering with them’ (Simpson 2001: 286). The world, in short, was not interested in hearing about the Serbs’ pain and misery. In view of this, it is perhaps unsurprising that the interviewees wanted to emphasize what they themselves had endured living under Milošević. The second point is that crimes against Serbs largely continue to go unacknowledged today. How many people, for example, have heard of Kravica, a Bosnian village near Srebrenica in which more than 100 Serbian soldiers and civilians were massacred by Bosnian Muslim forces on 7 January 1993 (the Orthodox Christmas)? How many know about the Bosnian Muslim prison camp at Čelebići in eastern Bosnia, where Serbian men were tortured and murdered during the war in Bosnia? Nikolić-Ristanović, from the Victimology Society of Serbia, thus highlights ‘the problem of the lack of international recognition of the crimes committed against the Serbs’ (NikolićRistanović 2004). This, however, is only one part of the problem.



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The other part is that there are individuals and organizations in Serbia, particularly within the NGO sector, who perceive the Serbs as the exclusive culprits; to cite Nikolić-Ristanović, ‘While extreme nationalists recognize only the victims on the Serbian side, extreme antinationalists9 recognize only non-Serbian victims…’ (NikolićRistanović 2004). The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), therefore, stresses ‘how deeply the Serb community needs acknowledgement of the crimes they suffered in the past’ (Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 166); not only during the 1990s, but also during the Second World War.10 Such acknowledgement, it is suggested, will help to overcome the problem of denial that exists among parts of the Serbian population and this, in turn, will facilitate reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. To conclude this section, it is important to point out that while there are Serbs who engage in denial, particularly interpretative denial, they are by no means unique in this regard. According to the UNDP, …the public in many countries [throughout the region] is… engaging in denial of war-related responsibility. Examples include the public demonstrations in support of Ante Gotovina11 in Croatia…and the outrage among Albanians in Kosovo whenever there is a prosecution of KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] members for war crimes. In each case, civilians have been unwilling to accept the truth about what their military and political leaders did during the war years (Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 116). A further example is Croatia’s ‘Declaration on the Patriotic War’, passed by the country’s parliament in October 2000. This states that the Republic of Croatia ‘led a just and legitimate, defensive and liberating…war’, in which ‘she defended her territory from the great Serbian aggression within her internationally-recognized borders’ (Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 154). The purpose of this document, which is still considered valid today, ‘was to officially deny that the Croatian armed forces attacked Bosnia and Hercegovina…in an attempt to seize parts of its territory inhabited by ethnic Croats’ (Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 155).12 If denial ‘is a very common, perhaps universal, defence mechanism13 in combat and conflict situations’ (Shale et al. 2003:

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729), the example of the former Yugoslavia would suggest that it is no less prevalent in post-conflict situations. Denial serves as a means of coping with loss, trauma, guilt, anxiety and other painful emotions and it will persist unless and until there is a readiness to confront the past. Only then can true reconciliation occur. These complex processes, however, necessarily take time and cannot be hurried. It seems, however, that certain NGOs in Serbia – like the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and the Humanitarian Law Centre – have failed to recognize this. Their insistence that Serbian people must now face the past, combined with their rather aggressive and confrontational approach, is unhelpful. Drinka Gojković, for example, head of the War Documentation Centre in Belgrade, claims that, In Serbia, 70 per cent of NGOs launch into moralizing mode, blaming the whole population. They say, “We, all the Serbs”. I don’t understand what it means to say “We have to face the past”, until somebody says “the politicians must do x, the population must do y”, et cetera.14 Other NGOs in Serbia – including Gojković’s War Documentation Centre, the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights and the Victimology Society of Serbia – have opted for a far less antagonistic approach, based on bringing different ethnic groups together to discuss and to share their personal experiences and suffering. Influenced by the so-called ‘contact thesis’, which ‘stresses the importance of contact between people belonging to different groups as a way to overcome prejudice and hostility’ (Staub 2006: 887), this method is arguably one of the most effective means to facilitate engagement with the past and, thus, post-conflict reconciliation.15 It is to be hoped, therefore, that more investment will be put into this restorative-based approach (see chapter six). Collective Guilt The primary focus of academic debate surrounding the notion of collective guilt has been Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, the Germans representing the archetypal ‘guilty’ nation.16 In the 1990s, however, it was the Serbs who, for some, came to epitomize collective guilt. It was during the war in Kosovo, in 1999, that the idea of Serbian collective guilt particularly began to take hold. Milošević was



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increasingly likened to Adolf Hitler,17 and the Serbs were compared to the ‘collectively guilty’ Germans. In an article in The New Republic in May 1999, for example, Sullivan argued that, ‘Whatever else we do in Kosovo, we must face the fact that, to all intents and purposes, many ordinary Serbs are – to paraphrase Daniel Jonah Goldhagen – Milošević’s willing executioners’ (Sullivan 1999: 28)18. Goldhagen himself maintained that Serbia needed to be occupied on the grounds that, Any people that commits such deeds in open defiance of international law and the vehement condemnation of virtually the entire international community clearly consists of individuals with damaged faculties of moral judgement and has sunk into a moral abyss from which it is unlikely, any time soon, to emerge unaided (Goldhagen 1999: 17). Not only should such arguments be wholly rejected, but so too should the generic idea of collective guilt. This is a morally objectionable and flawed concept. In the words of Arendt, ‘There is no such thing as collective guilt or collective innocence; guilt and innocence make sense only if applied to individuals’ (Arendt 2003: 29).19 The meaning of ‘Serbian collective guilt’ To claim that the Serbs are collectively guilty raises a fundamental question: what are they guilty of? It might be argued that they are guilty for supporting Milošević, but this only raises further questions – in particular, how much support did Milošević actually have and why did people in Serbia back him? Taking the first of these questions, there is no doubt that Milošević enjoyed immense popularity when he first came to power in 1989. According to Ramet, for example, ‘Milošević was genuinely loved by many (though not all) Serbs as no other leader had been since Četnik leader Draža Mihailović’ (Ramet 2002: 36). Nevertheless, it is important not to exaggerate levels of support for Milošević, which steadily decreased throughout the 1990s. This is evidenced not only by anti-regime protests, like those of 1991 and 1996–1997, but also by election results. It was pointed out in chapter one, for example, that although Milošević was the clear victor in the 1990 presidential elections, the percentage of votes cast for him only represented 46.72 per cent of

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the total electorate (Vukomanović 1995: 274), falling to just 37.12 per cent of the total electorate in the 1992 presidential elections (Vukomanović 1995: 275). Furthermore, there was a parallel decline in support for Milošević’s party, the SPS. In the first multi-party elections in Serbia in December 1990, the SPS won 46.1 per cent of votes cast (32.9 per cent of the whole electorate); and in the second parliamentary elections held in December 1992, it won 28.8 per cent of votes cast (20.1 per cent of the total electorate), thereby losing its parliamentary majority (Vukomanović 1995: 268–270). Further proof of the SPS’s declining popularity is the fact that it needed to enter into coalitions with other parties, namely JUL and New Democracy (1997) and JUL and the SRS (1998). In short, The election results reveal that Milošević’s regime enjoyed the support of a significant element of the Serbian population (about 40 per cent) only until 1992. From 1992 onward, this support rapidly deteriorated, amounting to only 20 per cent of the electorate in 1997. On the other hand, the systematic opposition to Milošević kept growing and in 1997 it exceeded 40 per cent of the electorate (Antonić 2002: 507). We can now turn to the second question of what those Serbs who championed Milošević were actually giving their support to. Were they, as Goldhagen claims, endorsing an ‘eliminationist project’ (Goldhagen 1999: 16)? Although there are no detailed studies of why people in Serbia supported Milošević, analysis of his speeches, a valuable yet often neglected primary source,20 can provide important insight. One of the few speeches to have received any significant attention is the speech that Milošević gave at Gazimestan in Kosovo on 28 June 1989.21 Although this was quite a lengthy speech, delivered on the 600th anniversary of the famous Battle of Kosovo, only one particular paragraph of it is ever cited. This is the paragraph where Milošević declared, Six centuries later, now, we are being again engaged in battles and are facing battles. They are not armed battles, although such things cannot be excluded yet. However, regardless of what kind of battles they are, they cannot be won without resolve, bravery and sacrifice, without the noble qualities that were



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present here in the Field of Kosovo in the days past (Auerswald and Auerswald 2000: 33–34). Various commentators regard this reference to possible armed battles as evidence that Milošević was planning war in Yugoslavia. Zimmermann, for example, argues that at Gazimestan, ‘For the first time he [Milošević] raised the specter of war…’ (Zimmermann 1996: 20); and Doder and Branson maintain that at Gazimestan, Milošević ‘rattled his saber…as he identified himself with a holy cause and invoked the spirit of violence. Only when the cause was won could the saber be sheathed’ (Doder and Branson 1999: 4).22 They strikingly ignore, however, what Milošević went on to say next, namely, ‘Our chief battle now concerns implementing the economic, political, cultural and general social prosperity, finding a quicker and more successful approach to a civilization in which people will live in the twenty-first century’ (Auerswald and Auerswald 2000: 34). Thus, it can be argued that the principal battle with which Milošević was concerned was not an armed battle, but a battle to realize Serbia’s prosperity.23 Indeed, the economy was a recurrent and prominent theme in his speeches throughout the 1990s. In his speech in Pančevo, for example, on 10 May 1990, he declared that Serbia was resolved upon a programme of economic and social reforms (Milošević 2001: 22); and addressing an audience at the Sava Centre in Belgrade on 20 October 1994, he argued that Serbia must draw upon all her resources to bring about economic stabilization and development and to raise both community and individual standards (Milošević 2001: 84). The heavy emphasis placed in Milošević’s speeches on economic issues suggests that at least part of his appeal was very practical and that what he instilled in his followers was the hope of a better life. That his supporters mainly came from low-income social groups would seem to corroborate this.24 If there was a very practical element to Milošević’s popularity, not only does this challenge claims that he appealed to and relied upon ethnic hatred and chauvinism,25 but it also makes it far more difficult to argue that the Serbs are guilty for having voted for him. Is it, therefore, more correct to claim that the Serbs are collectively guilty for remaining silent while crimes were being committed in their name? This is essentially to argue that the Serbian people should have done more to oppose Milošević and the wars, but this

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is problematic for at least three reasons. First, there is the issue of how much ordinary people actually knew about what was happening outside of Serbia. It is well-documented that during the Milošević years, there was very strong media control26 and media manipulation in Serbia (see, for example, Bennett 1995; Lampe 1996; Judah 2000a). RTS, for example, was totally controlled by the Milošević regime and it generally made no mention of crimes committed by Serbs. When it did show images of Serbian crimes, it claimed that Serbs had been the victims. RTS and other state media thus fed the Serbs a completely distorted and propagandistic version of events. Furthermore, according to research by SMMRI in April 2001, 80.4 per cent of respondents said that their main sources of information during the wars were RTS and various other state media. Just 42.4 per cent said that they relied mainly on independent media, like Radio B–92, for information (SMMRI 2001: 54).27 Second, it is perhaps easy for outsiders to maintain that the Serbs should have protested more strongly against the Milošević regime and against the wars. A similar argument might be made vis-àvis the Germans under Hitler. According to Lewis, however, the question that needs to be asked is, ‘what could have been expected of the average German citizen in the swirling tide of the events which engulfed him and others eventually in the deep vortex of war?’ (Lewis 1991: 29). A similar question, it is suggested, must also be asked in relation to the Serbs. According to research by TNS Medium Gallup in April 2000, for example, when asked the question, ‘Do you believe that people like yourself can have some effect on the decisions made by the national government?’ only 1.8 per cent respondents answered ‘Almost always’, while 65.0 per cent answered ‘Almost never’ (TNS Medium Gallup 2000). In the words of a female interviewee in Belgrade, ‘The worst thing about living under Milošević was the feeling that you were not in control of your own life. You felt as if someone else was controlling it’.28 Third, while it might be argued that the Serbs did not do enough to oppose Milošević, the truth is that Western governments did not do enough to aid and support those who did actively resist and protest against the regime – people like the ‘Women in Black’, the members of ‘Otpor’,29 and prominent human rights activists. According to the economist Jelica Minić,30 who became heavily involved in the struggle against the Milošević regime,



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From the beginning, an important segment of the Serbian population was against Milošević, but we could not get any support from abroad. We were let down by the West…In 2000, the opposition received considerable support from the West, especially the EU, but not before that. Milošević could have been overthrown before 2000 if the West had helped us more.31 Critics of the regime often paid a high price – threatening phonecalls, death threats, beatings, sackings.32 Nevertheless, they have seldom received the recognition and credit they deserve, not least because it has been much easier for the outside world to ignore than to acknowledge the existence of this ‘Second Serbia’. Overlooking the reality of opposition to the Milošević regime – another ‘uncomfortable fact’ (Hayden 1996: 743) – has aided the propagation of the myth that Milošević enjoyed universal support which, in turn, facilitates the argument that the Serbian nation is collectively guilty. Such a claim is highly objectionable, particularly on moral grounds, but also on practical grounds. Some objections to the notion of Serbian collective guilt In 1945 Edvard Beneš, the President of Czechoslovakia, signed a series of decrees that expelled close to 3 million ethnic Germans of the pre-war Czechoslovakia, depriving them of citizenship and confiscating their property. According to Hayden, ‘Beneš’s decrees were explicitly based on the concept of collective guilt and the action was approved by the Great Powers at Postdam’ (Hayden 1996: 728). Moreover, it was not only the Sudetenland Germans who were affected; between 1945 and 1946, 6 million ethnic Germans were expelled from Poland, 3 million from Czechoslovakia, half a million from Yugoslavia and others from Hungary and elsewhere. Yet, this brutal expulsion of 10 million Germans, as Germans, ‘is and was of no interest to anyone not German…The Germans, it is usually said, deserved it’ (Hayden 1996: 730). Similarly, when Croat forces, supported by the US, expelled some 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina in August 1995, in what constituted the largest single act of ethnic cleansing of the wars, implicit in the absence of international condemnation of the Croats was the feeling that the Serbs were simply getting what they deserved. Peter Galbraith, for example, the then American ambassador to Croatia,

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claimed that the expulsion of Serbs from the Krajina did not amount to ethnic cleansing because ‘ethnic cleansing is a practice supported by Belgrade and carried out by Bosnian and Croatian Serbs’ (cited in Hayden 1996: 738). The international community has also shown little interest in the plight of the Kosovo Serbs, more than 200,000 of whom have been ethnically cleansed from Kosovo since 1999. NATO could not stand by and watch as Kosovar Albanians were being expelled from the province,33 but it has been able to do just that in the face of reverse ethnic cleansing, presumably because the Serbs deserved to be driven out of Kosovo whereas the Albanians did not.34 To cite Woodward, ‘This time murder and displacement were regretted but excused as understandable revenge for the horrors of the Yugoslav campaign against Albanians during NATO’s bombing operation’ (Woodward 2001: 334). Collective guilt is such a dangerous and morally objectionable idea precisely because it encourages the belief that crimes against a particular people or nation may be justified.35 Furthermore, ‘raising this idea of justification simply returns to an acceptance of the concept of collective guilt that underlies any movement for mass expulsion’ (Hayden 1996: 747). The notion of collective guilt is also harmful because it hinders a more general process of human understanding. If we believe that an entire nation is collectively guilty of heinous crimes, we are likely to regard that nation as being fundamentally different from ourselves. If we proceed on this ‘us’/ ‘them’ basis, we thereby close our minds to any possibility of understanding why the crimes were committed in the first place. This is extremely dangerous because, in the words of Todorov, ‘It is understanding, not the refusal to understand, that makes it possible to prevent a repetition of the horror’ (cited in Hayden 1996: 730). We cannot empathize with a ‘criminal’ nation and we do not want to. It is much easier and more palatable to emphasize the nation’s ‘otherness’36 than to see in that nation elements of ourselves. Yet if we focus only on a nation’s ‘otherness’, we thereby avoid asking ourselves a fundamental question – how would we have behaved in similar circumstances? For example, it can be argued that the German people were collectively guilty for embracing National Socialism, but how do we know that we ourselves would not have embraced it in the same circumstances? In other words, ‘What



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business do we have condemning these people if…we too would have naturally absorbed those beliefs had we been brought up in their society?’(Cooper 2001: 209). In addition, the idea of collective guilt is a fundamental obstacle to peace-building and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. Cooper, who uses the terms ‘collective guilt’ and ‘collective responsibility’ interchangeably, contends that, a people, a culture, a nation or whatever can be held responsible and judged in the harshest terms without it being the case that the individual members of such a collective are blamed…And the possibility would thereby be opened up for exoneration, forgiveness and reconciliation at the level of the individual, personal intercourse between the erstwhile victims and oppressors (Cooper 2001: 210). This, however, is over-simplistic. If the Serbian nation is held collectively guilty, the Serbs’ former enemies are unlikely to make subtle distinctions between the nation’s guilt and the guilt of individual Serbs, instead viewing all Serbs as being in some way culpable. Yet, ‘For reconciliation to occur between perpetrator and victim…the victims, for their part, need to refrain from demonizing and blaming their former enemy collectively’ (Futamura 2006: 479). On this point, it is important to note that the ICTY, which maintains – though this is highly questionable (see chapter six) – that its work is contributing to reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia, itself entirely rejects the notion of collective guilt.37 One of the principal justifications for international war crimes tribunals is precisely that they individualize guilt and indeed all international tribunals to date have expressly dismissed the idea of collective guilt.38 As Arendt famously argued in her article ‘Organized Guilt and Universal Responsibility’ (1948), ‘Where all are guilty, nobody in the last analysis can be judged’ (Arendt 1991: 278). In this sense, the recent Judgement of the ICJ, in the case of Bosnia and Hercegovina versus Serbia and Montenegro, is to be welcomed. If the Court had found that the Serbian state had committed, or was responsible for genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, this would arguably have cemented the idea of Serbian collective guilt.

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One of the reasons that collective guilt is an impediment to reconciliation is that its corollary is collective innocence. The innocent are by definition victims, yet a strong sense of victimhood, to quote Buruma, ‘cannot result in mutual understanding’ (cited in Barkan 2000: xvii)39 and such understanding is an essential ingredient for reconciliation. The way forward, therefore, is not to attribute collective guilt to the Serbs. Rather, it is to recognize, in the words of Gibson, that, ‘Sharing responsibility, blame and victimhood creates a common identity, which can provide a basis for dialogue. If people are no longer dogmatically attached to a “good versus evil” view of the struggle, then perhaps a space for reconciliation is opened’ (Gibson 2006: 414). Collective responsibility Collective guilt is a dangerous and unhelpful concept that should be wholly rejected. However, while there is no basis for arguing that the Serbs are collectively guilty, perhaps we can speak of their collective responsibility. Various authors use the terms ‘collective guilt’ and ‘collective responsibility’ interchangeably. Tollefsen’s article, for example, has the title ‘The rationality of collective guilt’, yet in her introduction she states that ‘my focus will be on collective responsibility’ (Tollefsen 2006: 222). Meierhenrich similarly confuses collective guilt with collective responsibility. Citing a speech given by Kofi Annan in 2004, in which the latter declared, ‘The international community failed Rwanda and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret and aiding sorrow’, Meierhenrich claims that Annan thus ‘gave voice to the collective guilt of international society’ (Meierhenrich 2006: 337). However, what Meierhenrich is actually referring to here is collective responsibility. Guilt and responsibility are two distinct concepts. Thus, for example, ‘The question “Who is responsible for My Lai?” is not the same question as “Who is guilty of murdering people at My Lai?”’ (Baier 1991: 199).40 Two particularly significant contributions to this debate about collective guilt and collective responsibility have come from Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers; these two writers have most fully articulated and explored the distinction between the two concepts. For both Arendt and Jaspers, collective responsibility is always political. According to Jaspers, ‘a people answers for its polity’ (cited in Abdel-Nour 2003: 693) and in a similar vein, Arendt argues that,



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‘Every government assumes political responsibility for the deeds and misdeeds of its predecessor and every nation for the deeds and misdeeds of the past’ (Arendt 1994: 298). This liability is imputed on the basis of association and exists, to cite Arendt, ‘quite apart from what the individual member of the group has done and therefore can neither be judged in moral terms nor be brought before a criminal court’ (Arendt 1994: 298). It is in this particular sense, therefore, that the Serbs can be regarded as collectively responsible. For Arendt, however, the key point is that we can be responsible without being guilty. Thus, she insists on a ‘sharper dividing line between political (collective) responsibility, on one side and moral and/or legal (personal) guilt, on the other…’ (Arendt 2003: 150–151). Central to Arendt’s understanding of collective responsibility is the idea of humanity which, according to her, ‘has the very serious consequence that in one form or another men must assume responsibility for all crimes committed by men and that all nations share the onus of evil committed by all others’ (Arendt 1991: 282). This rationale for collective responsibility overlaps with what Jaspers calls ‘metaphysical guilt’. According to him, metaphysical guilt41 is the feeling produced by the knowledge of crime and can be understood as a universal feeling which interferes with a person’s conception of the self as fully human. What lies at the heart of this metaphysical guilt is human solidarity; as Jaspers explains, ‘There exists a solidarity among men as human beings that makes each coresponsible for every wrong and every injustice in the world, especially for crimes committed in his presence or with his knowledge (Jaspers 2000: 26). It is in this ‘metaphysical’ sense, it is suggested, that we might also speak of the Serbs’ collective responsibility. The point is that, ‘Although no one is “responsible” for others in the sense that he is answerable for the conduct of others, we are all extensively “responsible for” our fellows in the sense that we have duties towards them…’ (Lewis 1991: 32). In short, all of us have ‘duties to further the wellbeing of others, independently of any advantage to ourselves’ (Lewis 1991: 32). While it might be argued that this notion of metaphysical responsibility is excessively broad and even unhelpful, it can be counter-argued that the concept reflects the realities of the inter-dependent world in which we now live, as well as the duties that arise from that inter-dependency. Rather than diluting the idea of responsibility, the notion of metaphysical responsibility actually

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strengthens it, by reminding us of our obligations to each other as human beings. Furthermore, if human solidarity is emphasized, there may be less danger of history repeating itself. To cite Arendt, In political terms, the idea of humanity, excluding no people and assigning a monopoly of guilt to no one, is the only guarantee that one “superior race” after another may not feel obligated to follow the “natural law” of the right of the powerful and exterminate “inferior races unworthy of survival”; so that at the end of an “imperialistic age”, we should find ourselves in a stage which would make the Nazis look like crude precursors of future political methods (Arendt 1991: 282). Of course, the broadness of metaphysical responsibility is such that it would not only encompass the Serbs. This, however, is not to mitigate the Serbs’ responsibility, but rather to recognize that many others, including the international community, bear some responsibility for the tragic events that befell Yugoslavia.42 It is precisely such recognition that could help Serbia to deal with the past. Finally, in contrast to the notion of collective guilt, the idea of metaphysical responsibility can potentially make an important contribution to the peace-building process. To cite Perović, ‘The only way to break through the thick wall made of disbelief, despair and nausea…is by appealing to basic human solidarity. The moment people empathize with the victimized, they turn against the killers’ (Perović 2001: 108). This chapter has sought to pre-empt and counter two possible responses to the interview data that forms such a quintessential part of this book. The first is that the data is unreliable because the Serbs are in collective denial about what happened during the 1990s and, in particular, the crimes committed in their name. The second is that the data is of questionable value because the Serbs are collectively guilty. Both arguments have been rebutted and exposed as flawed. However, this still leaves unanswered the question of why the interviewees’ opinions matter. Chapter six will now address this, by exploring some of the key implications of the interview data.

Chapter Six The Hague Tribunal, Retributive Justice and Peace-Building

The rich qualitative data upon which this book is based offers important new insight into the Milošević regime through the eyes of the Serbian people. However, while the data is intrinsically valuable in its own right, this chapter is specifically concerned with examining its wider significance. It will seek to demonstrate that the data has substantial implications for the ICTY and, consequently, for peace-building in the former Yugoslavia. The Tribunal makes three particularly important claims about its work; that it is establishing a historical record of the wars in the former Yugoslavia, delivering justice and contributing to peace and reconciliation in the region. The first three sections of this chapter will endeavour to show that the interview data renders each of these claims potentially problematic. The final section will argue that one of the conclusions to be drawn from the data is that in order to facilitate peace-building and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia, it is necessary to look beyond exclusively retributive justice mechanisms by exploring the rich possibilities of restorative justice. Establishing a Historical Record According to the ICTY’s website, ‘As the work of the ICTY progresses, important elements of a historical record of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s have emerged. Facts once subject to dispute have now been established beyond a reasonable doubt by Judgements’.1 Yet, the interviewees’ perceptions of Milošević – as either a ‘bad’ leader and/or as a victim – arguably call into question such claims. While it is impossible to know from the interview data how representative of Serbian public opinion the interviewees’ opinions actually are, what is clear is that crucial discrepancies exist

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in terms of how Milošević is seen. The interviewees’ assessments of Milošević are not only fundamentally at odds with the principal image of him in Western literature as a criminal leader, but are also in sharp contrast to how Milošević is viewed by non-Serbs throughout the former Yugoslavia. When Milošević died, for example, the headline in the Bosnian daily Dnevni Avaz was, ‘The butcher of the Balkans has died’, while the Sarajevo-based Oslobođenje described the former Serbian leader as a ‘banker, politician, president and criminal’ (BBC 2006c). In Croatia, following the news of Milošević’s death, parliament speaker Vladimir Seks referred to him as ‘the executioner of the Balkans’; and Ivica Račan, leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party, maintained that, ‘Milošević is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and he deserved to be put on trial’ (Croatian RadioTelevision 2006). For many of the interviewees, on the other hand, Milošević’s demise reinforced their perception of him as a victim, particularly as a victim of the ICTY. These conflicting views of Milošević are very significant because the manner in which people in the region perceive Milošević affects and has important implications for how they view the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Outside of Serbia, these wars are widely seen as wars of Serbian aggression, fuelled by Milošević’s drive to create a ‘Greater Serbia’.2 In contrast, various interviewees stressed that the wars were civil wars, not predatory wars.3 What the interview data therefore highlights, it is argued, is the difficulty of establishing any consensus or ‘shared truth’ about the wars. This, in turn, calls into question the ICTY’s claim that it is establishing a historical record. An important justification often given for criminal trials is that they will produce the truth. According to Orentlicher, for example, ‘the most authoritative rendering of the truth is possible only as a result of judicial inquiry and major prosecutions can generate a comprehensive record of past violations’ (cited in Fletcher and Weinstein 2002: 587). Supporters of the Hague Tribunal are similarly confident that it can deliver in this regard. Thus, Akhavan argues that, ‘The ICTY will contribute to interethnic reconciliation by telling the truth about the underlying causes and consequences of the Yugoslav tragedy’ (Akhavan 1998: 741); and Nataša Kandić, head of the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade, maintains that the ICTY has left us ‘a legacy of the truth as an ineradicable memory and a potent weapon against denial’ (Kandić 2005: 789).

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The fundamental point, however, is that the truth can have no positive effect unless it is acknowledged. As Akhavan himself admits, ‘Of course, even if the ICTY can establish a factual record of what happened, it cannot contribute to national reconciliation if this record is not recognized and internalized by the peoples of the former Yugoslavia’ (Akhavan 1998: 770). One of the inferences to be drawn from the interview data is precisely that the interviewees have not recognized and internalized the ‘truth’ that has been established in The Hague. When the interviewees were first interviewed in 2004, two years after the start of Milošević’s trial, the majority portrayed their former leader as a ‘bad’ leader who had primarily wronged his own people – the Serbs. When interviewed two years later, in 2006, their views had not fundamentally changed. In fact, overall, they were slightly less critical of Milošević than they had been in 2004, for reasons discussed in chapter four. In other words, despite four years of work by the Prosecution to establish the facts about Milošević’s role in the wars, this appears to have had little impact on the interviewees’ own understanding of events. Thus, while Gow and Zveržhanovski claim that the evidence presented by the Prosecution in Milošević’s trial ‘goes a long way towards establishing a historical narrative of the events…’ (Gow and Zveržhanovski 2004: 915), what is important is that this narrative will not promote closure and healing if the ‘truth’ it establishes about past events is contested. To speak of ‘the truth’, it is suggested, is too simplistic. To cite Hamber, ‘there is not only one truth, but many truths about the past. Any notion of revealing the truth about the past is an inherently troublesome undertaking’ (Hamber 1998: 3). This is certainly the case regarding the wars in the former Yugoslavia. For the overwhelming majority of the interviewees, the truth is that the Serbs were Milošević’s biggest victims. This, however, collides with the truth of other ethnic groups, each of which views itself as the principal victim of the wars.4 Emmert and Ingrao, for example, argue that just as overcoming misrepresentations of history has been a problem for the Serbs, so this ‘has also been a serious problem for Bosniaks, Croats and Kosovar Albanians, whose sense of victimhood has mortgaged their ability to acknowledge legitimate Serb grievances that helped empower popular politicians like Milošević’ (Emmert and Ingrao 2004: 728).

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Undoubtedly, these competing feelings of victimhood are an obstacle to reconciliation in the region, because ‘…it is very difficult for victims – or for people who perceive themselves as victims – to acknowledge that they can also be victimizers’ (Yerkes 2004: 935). Furthermore, the ICTY’s endeavours to establish ‘the truth’ will not eradicate this obstacle. Indeed, it can be argued that the Tribunal has in fact helped to deepen feelings of victimhood, particularly among the Serbs.5 The interview data clearly problematizes the ICTY’s claim that it is helping to establish the truth about the wars. One of the conclusions that can be drawn from this, it is suggested, is that what is needed is an exchange of truths. That is to say that each side must be able to present its truth and to have its truth heard and acknowledged. In the words of Rigby, …to ensure that rival narratives do not fuel future conflicts, it is vital that people learn to acknowledge the validity of other people’s truths. This is a reciprocal process – it is far easier to render respect to the history of others if they, in turn, respect one’s own. In acknowledging the reality of the other’s history, even when you view the past through a different lens, the basis for a kind of organic solidarity embodying a fundamental respect for difference can be laid (Rigby 2001: 190–191). As part of this process, there must be recognition that there were victims on all sides,6 because suffering that is not acknowledged is as great an impediment to reconciliation as suffering that is constantly emphasized. As Buckley-Zistel observes in relation to Rwanda, ‘… everyone who was present in Rwanda in 1994 feels like a victim. Yet…victimhood is exclusively reserved for the survivors of genocide. This is deeply resented among Hutu and stands in the way of future reconciliation’ (Buckley-Zistel 2005: 47). For such reciprocal exchange and acknowledgment to be possible requires that we think beyond retributive justice, by paying greater attention to – and investing more in – restorative justice; that is to say ‘a process whereby parties with a stake in a specific offence resolve collectively how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future’ (Marshall 2003: 28). The ultimate goal should be the creation of a joint history of the wars that encompasses different perspectives. To cite Staub, ‘When views about what has

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happened and why cannot be reconciled, a joint history ought to include a plurality of perspectives, varied statements about events and interpretation of those events’. In turn, this ‘can provide an example of and foster pluralism, which is an important aspect of the creation of a non-violent society’ (Staub 2006: 884). Delivering Justice If truth is a contested concept, then so too is justice. According to the website of the ICTY, two of its four objectives are ‘to bring to justice persons allegedly responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law’ and ‘to render justice to the victims’.7 The interview data, however, raises questions about the extent to which the Tribunal can fulfil this goal of delivering justice. The data revealed a sharp discrepancy between, on the one hand, the predominant Western view of Milošević as a criminal leader and, on the other hand, the interviewees’ perceptions of him as a bad leader and/or as a victim. While it might be argued that such a divergence of opinion was to be expected, it is the implications of this discordance that are important. Milošević was not merely regarded in the West as criminal. He was extradited to The Hague to stand trial in an international criminal court that seeks to achieve justice.8 The disagreement highlighted by the interview data, however, suggests that had the ICTY found Milošević guilty of the crimes for which he stood accused, at least part of the Serbian population would have seen this as a major injustice. This is supported by the fact that many of the interviewees claimed that Milošević should never have been sent to The Hague at all and should, instead, have been put on trial in Serbia to answer to the crimes he committed against his own people.9 Similarly, public opinion surveys have revealed that, ‘a broad majority of the Serbian people would like to see Milošević prosecuted, albeit for violations of Serbian – not international – law’ (Gordy 2003b: 59).10 If, as the interview data strongly suggests, a guilty verdict against Milošević would have been challenged in Serbia, this raises important questions about the ICTY’s claims to bring justice. Supporters of the Tribunal speak as though ‘justice’ were a selfevident and straightforward notion. Antonio Cassese, for example, a former president of the ICTY,11 maintains that the Tribunal has ‘fulfilled at least the hope that so many persons had pinned on it: to do justice’ (Cassese 2004: 597); and Miroslav Lajćak, the High

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Representative of Bosnia, insists ‘it is important to ensure that justice is served’ (Lajćak 2007). In reality, however, ‘individual conceptions of “justice” differ from person to person, place to place and time to time’ (Mendeloff 2004: 367). Hence, justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done and this is why it matters how the ICTY is perceived by people in the former Yugoslavia.12 What both the interview data and public opinion polls demonstrate is that the ‘justice’ dispensed by the ICTY is contested justice. Serbs dispute Hague justice on three main grounds; they view it as biased justice, politicized justice and selective justice. Biased justice Justice must be perceived as fair and impartial. However, many of the interviewees – in both the first and second round of interviews – insisted that the Tribunal is biased against Serbs. A male interviewee in Čačak, for example, claimed that, ‘The Hague is an ad hoc tribunal, created only for judging the nations of the former Yugoslavia and above all the Serbs. Somebody must be blamed for everything and the Serbs are guilty because they lost the wars’;13 and according to a female interviewee in Kikinda, All the other sides in the wars have been favoured, but actually the biggest part of the guilt should be shared between Milošević, Tudjman and Izetbegović. One nationalism feeds another and creates euphoria and hatred. During Operation Storm, in 1995, more than 200,000 Serbs fled from Croatia, yet only Ante Gotovina [the overall operational commander of Croatian forces deployed as part of Operation Storm] is in The Hague for this crime. Why? Where is the justice?14 Such views, moreover, are widespread in Serbia. According to the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, for example, ‘More than twothirds of the population consistently believe that ICTY trials of Serb indictees are partial and most cite the greater number of indicted Serbs as the reason why they think so’ (Petrović 2006: 473).15 Similarly, research by SMMRI in 2003, 2004 and 2005 shows that in each year, only 10 per cent of respondents said that they trusted the Tribunal to judge Serbian nationals fairly. In contrast, 69 per cent of respondents said that they had no trust in the ability of the

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ICTY to judge indicted Serb nationals impartially on the basis of established facts (SMMRI 2005: 20). While it might be argued that such opinions are only to be expected from a people that suffers from an eternal ‘victim complex’ (Ramet 1995: 119),16 two important points must be made in response. The first is that it is not only Serbs who perceive ICTY justice as biased. Croatia, in particular, has frequently alleged that the Tribunal is anti-Croat. The former Minister for Foreign Affairs and Justice, for example, Dr Zvonimir Šeparović, has described the former ICTY deputy prosecutor, Graham Blewitt,17 as ‘one of the Croat eaters (hrvatožder) in The Hague’; and Maja Freundlich, the former vicepresident of the Croatian Democratic Party, has claimed that, ‘In the Hague court everyone is guilty, if they are Croatian’ (cited in Dimitrijević 2005: 361). Moreover, some prominent Western commentators have also accused the ICTY of bias. Chandler, as one illustration, maintains that, ‘There has been little pretence of judicial impartiality. The first president of the Tribunal publicly declared that the Bosnian Serb leaders, Karadžić and Mladić, were “war criminals”, a presumption of guilt which would have disqualified him in domestic legal systems’ (Chandler 2002: 142); and Herman argues that, ‘Serb actions are invariably ethnic cleansing. Croatian actions of comparable or greater anti-civilian scope are merely “military operations”, never ethnic cleansing, in accord with a clear political agenda’ (Herman 2005). The fact that such views are not confined to Serbs shows that their accusations of ICTY bias should not simply be dismissed as inevitable. Rather, they should be taken seriously, not least by the Tribunal itself. The second and more important point is that, ‘Justice is a matter of both actions and the perceptions they create’ (Staub 2006: 884). Thus, whether or not there is any substance to Serbs’ views of ICTY justice as biased is not the fundamental issue. What matters is that such opinions exist and have serious implications for the work of the ICTY, in particular for its goal of contributing to the restoration and maintenance of peace. As Reydams argues apropos of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), ‘a prosecutorial policy perceived as one-sided risks being a serious obstacle to – or perhaps has compromised already – the stated broader goal of the ICTR: national reconciliation and the restoration and maintenance of peace in the region’ (Reydams 2005: 978).

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Politicized justice ICTY justice is not only seen as biased justice. It is also regarded as politicized justice, primarily due to the manner in which the Tribunal came into being. The ICTY is a creation of the UN Security Council,18 an executive body with no actual authority to establish courts. Thus, according to Laughland, ‘The fact that the ICTY was brought into being in this manner should be a matter of the gravest concern to anyone interested in the rule of law’ (Laughland 2007: 72). The UN Security Council is composed of governments and two of its permanent members are the very same Powers that played a critical part in the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 – the US and the UK. This has resulted in the widespread belief among Serbs that the ICTY is a political court that has no independence and is based on ‘victor’s justice’.19 A female interviewee in Belgrade, for example, argued that, ‘The idea of a court in The Hague was a good idea. But the Tribunal betrayed its role and the idea of international justice. It is a political court. It is not democratic or independent’;20 and Vladislav Jovanović,21 Serbia’s former Foreign Minister, described the Tribunal as, ‘A terrible political instrument to fulfil the policy of the United States’.22 Once again, some Western commentators echo such views. Beloff, for example, observes that in the years between Nuremberg and the creation of the ICTY, there had been some 34 civil wars, many of them causing far more deaths than the wars in the former Yugoslavia; ‘Yet, Washington has never felt it necessary to show why “justice” was required only in the case of Yugoslavia’ (Beloff 1997: 91). Johnstone, for her part, remarks that, ‘…the Tribunal has been heavily dependent on the government of the United States, which sponsored its creation and provided it with personnel, resources and information needed to formulate indictments’ (Johnstone 2002: 94); and Chandler maintains that, ‘the Tribunal lacks any independence from the major world powers, particularly the United States’ (Chandler 2002: 143). The very existence of such opinions is extremely damaging to the image and credibility of the ICTY and raises fundamental questions about what sort of justice it can deliver.

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Selective justice If the ICTY is a political court, this would explain why it has chosen to ignore the war crimes committed by Western Powers during the three-month NATO bombing of the FRY in 1999. These war crimes include the bombing of RTS on 22 April 1999, which killed 16 civilians, and the attack on the south Serbian city of Niš on 7 May 7 1999. The latter involved the use of cluster bombs and resulted in the deaths of 15 people. It should be noted that the employment of cluster bombs was central to the 1995 indictment for violations of the laws and customs of war against Milan Martić, the former President of the Republika Srpska Krajina in Croatia. In contrast, a committee established by the ICTY Prosecutor to review the NATO bombing campaign decided that there should be no investigation into NATO’s use of cluster bombs in Niš. This decision, according to Hayden, was ‘remarkable’ (Hayden 1999: 553) and part of a ‘pattern of politically driven prosecution… accompanied by the use of the Tribunal as a political tool for those western countries that support it and especially the United States…’ (Hayden 1999: 551). Graham Blewitt, however, the former ICTY deputy prosecutor, claims that no investigation into NATO war crimes was undertaken because ‘it did not appear that it would result in indictments against any high level person or for that matter against low level persons who had committed particularly heinous acts…’ (Blewitt 2006: 149). The real explanation, however, arguably lies in the fact that the Hague Tribunal was never conceived as a court that would judge Western defendants and their crimes. As the late Robin Cook, speaking as British Foreign Secretary, once remarked, ‘this is not a court set up to bring to book the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom or Presidents of the United States’ (cited in Chandler 2002: 145). The Tribunal’s failure to investigate NATO war crimes, however, has led some Serbs to reach the conclusion that ICTY justice is selective justice.23 A female interviewee in Belgrade, for example, insisted that, ‘The Tribunal does not deal with every war crime. If it did, then Clinton and Blair would also have been put on trial for their war crimes against civilians in the FRY’.24 Despite the Tribunal’s efforts to improve its image within the former Yugoslavia (see below), its lacklustre response to NATO war crimes has seriously damaged its reputation among Serbs, even among those who support the ICTY in principle. A female Kosovo Serb interviewee who is

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currently studying Law, for example, maintained that, ‘The Hague Tribunal is not even-handed. It should be prosecuting NATO generals for so-called “collateral damage”, but it doesn’t because it is a political court’.25 Serbs’ perceptions of ICTY justice as biased, political and selective are extremely significant. They count because, to reiterate, justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done. Hence, it is not critically important whether Serbs’ negative opinions of the ICTY are justified. What matters is that the existence of such views has fundamental implications, particularly for the ICTY’s objective of restoring peace to the former Yugoslavia and facilitating reconciliation. As Kent argues, ‘If, somewhere along the way, the parties involved do not come to feel that legal justice has actually been done, the cycle of reprisals cannot be broken for good’ (Kent 1995). Peace and Reconciliation The ICTY, like the ICTR, was set up under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, as a means of maintaining international peace and security. Thus, according to Blewitt, the former ICTY deputy prosecutor, …the ICTY is essentially an instrument of peace: the criminal prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law26 is regarded as being central to the peace process in the former Yugoslavia. The same is true of the ICTR in Rwanda (Blewitt 2006: 146). It is by delivering justice that the ICTY claims that it can help to foster peace and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. For example, in a speech in Tallinn in October 2006, the then ICTY chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte argued that, ‘well-administered justice does contribute even more than religion to long-term peace of mind for the victims and their families, which is a necessary prerequisite for reconciliation’ (Del Ponte 2006). According to Teitel, however, ‘the project of reconciliation remains largely aspirational’ (Teitel 2005: 858). The problem is that in order for the Tribunal to contribute to peace and reconciliation in the region, ‘its decisions will have to be perceived as just and fair’ (Meernik 2003: 159).27 Many Serbs, however, do not view the Tribunal’s decisions in this way. Thus,

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while Del Ponte confidently asserts that, ‘there is no fundamental contradiction between peace and justice’ (cited in Barron 2007), the reality is that such a contradiction does exist if ‘justice’ is seen as injustice. To cite Johnstone, the Tribunal’s slogan ‘no peace without justice’ ‘may well be a formula for eternal war when justice on one side of the mountains is injustice on the other’ (Johnstone 2002: 96). Indeed, perceptions of injustice are a potentially serious impediment to peace in any post-conflict society. To take just one example, ‘The sense of injustice felt by different groups and individuals in Northern Ireland may, in the long run, prove the most serious obstacle to the achievement of peace’ (Smyth 2003: 147). While it is primarily the Serbs who contest ICTY justice, it is important to stress that the Tribunal has a more widespread image problem in the former Yugoslavia. Croatian nationalists, for example, have been able to exploit the symbols of Croatia’s Homeland War (1991–1995), ‘in order to challenge both the legitimacy of ICTY indictments against Croatian generals and the tribunal itself’ (Peskin and Boduszynski 2003: 1123);28 and Bosnian Muslims have accused the Tribunal of playing politics (Fink 2004). There also exists deep anger and resentment, particularly among Bosnian Muslims, that the ICTY has still not brought Mladić and Karadžić to justice. Del Ponte herself has acknowledged this; in her address to the UN Security Council on 13 June 2005, she noted that, ‘Despite all the progress made, it is obvious that the great expectations placed by the victims in the international community and in the ICTY have not been met and will not be realized until Karadžić and Mladić are in The Hague’ (Del Ponte 2005). It is also interesting to note that according to a transitional justice survey conducted by the UNDP in Bosnia in June 2005, only 23.3 per cent of the total 1,500 respondents said that the ICTY has done a good job and justified its existence. Of this 23.3 per cent, 24.0 per cent were Bosnian Muslims, 31.9 per cent Bosnian Croats and 18.8 per cent Bosnian Serbs (Priesner, O’Donogue and Dedić 2005), which further demonstrates that criticism of the Hague Tribunal is not confined to Serbs. More importantly, such negative perceptions of the ICTY ‘have sometimes actually served to heighten tensions and provoke rivalry between the different ethnic groups in the region’ (Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 64). A major reason for the Tribunal’s image problem in the region is that it is administering ‘remote justice’ (McDonald 2004: 569).

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Situated in the Netherlands, the Tribunal is geographically removed from the very people it is hoping to reconcile. Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, a former president of the ICTY,29 has underlined that, ‘before the Tribunal can be truly effective and achieve its mandate, the people in the region must share a consensus that the Court is legitimate. They must know, understand and appreciate the work of the Tribunal’ (McDonald 2004: 569). It is, however, very difficult for people in the region to follow and comprehend the complex workings of a Court that is located more than 900 miles from the Balkans.30 In order to address this problem the ICTY launched its Outreach Programme, with the initial purpose of increasing local awareness of the Tribunal’s activities through conferences, seminars, roundtables and other media events.31 More recently, the programme has concentrated on ‘transferring knowledge and good practices to local judiciaries, including the training and education of local legal professionals throughout the region, and it has continued to track developments and reforms in domestic criminal justice systems, especially in war crimes cases’ (Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 61). However, this Outreach Programme was only established in 1999, six years after the Tribunal’s creation, and ‘many are agreed that the delay in undertaking outreach work in the Balkans has been a major obstacle to the ICTY’s chances of contributing to reconciliation there’ (Institute for War and Peace Reporting 2006).32 In addition, the impact of the Outreach Programme has been minimal. Dimitrijević, for example, claims that it ‘appears to be available only to specialists, mostly jurists’ (Dimitrijević 2005: 365); and Rangelov and Theros similarly maintain that, ‘Despite attempts to strengthen outreach and pursue ethnic balance in the trials, the ICTY remains disconnected from its local constituencies’ (Rangelov and Theros 2007).33 For example, according to public opinion poll research in Serbia by SMMRI in April 2005, only 6 per cent of respondents said that they were very informed about the organization and workings of the ICTY, while 72 per cent said that they were not well informed (SMMRI 2005). Indeed, McDonald herself has acknowledged that, ‘there is still a pressing need to explain the work of the Tribunal…’ (McDonald 2004: 570). That the ICTY remains detached from the local population impedes any sense of local ownership. This, in turn, makes it more likely that the Tribunal’s work will be contested and hence more likely to divide than to reconcile the people of the former Yugoslavia.34

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More broadly, it can be argued that the retributive justice administered by international criminal courts has only a limited role to play in fostering peace and reconciliation. The judicial process is not only adversarial and ‘often highly divisive’ (NaraghiAnderlini 2005: 107).35 It may also add to the suffering of victims, who are made to ‘undergo gruelling cross-examination in the cold and hostile atmosphere of a courtroom’ which, in turn, can prevent much-needed closure (McGregor 2001: 36). Furthermore victims, whose needs are at best marginal to the trial process, are seldom able to fully tell their stories.36 It is interesting to note, for example, that during the second part of Milošević’s trial, which concentrated on the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, the Prosecution changed strategy and called fewer witnesses than it had in the first part of the trial, focused on the war in Kosovo. This meant that in the second part of the trial, ‘fewer victims had the opportunity to talk about their experiences’ (Gow and Zveržhanovski 2004: 909). When crimes are committed, particularly war crimes, it is not only the direct victims who are affected, but so too are whole communities and societies. Reconciliation processes, therefore, must involve as many people as possible. To cite Staub, ‘Effective reconciliation requires engaging with and changes in a whole range of actors in a society, from members of the population whose psychological orientation is the core to reconciliation, to national leaders who can shape policies, practices and institutions’ (Staub 2006: 873). The criminal justice process, however, is not an inclusive process. Rather, it is a process from which significant parts of society remain excluded, particularly when the trials are being conducted in another country, like the trials at the ICTY and ICTR. Thus, it is necessary to question ‘whether retributive justice is the best way to help communities cope with the wounds of the past and promote processes of healing as a foundation for the creation of some kind of shared future’ (Rigby 2001: 180). Justice can contribute to peace and reconciliation, as the ICTY claims, but ‘justice here should be conceived of in terms that go well beyond retribution’ (Biggar 2003: 312), in order to encompass restorative justice. The Potential of Restorative Justice The wars in the former Yugoslavia left a legacy of hatred, trauma, mistrust, anger, loss and disputed truths. The ICTY has an important role to play in addressing this legacy, but not an exclusive

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role. The retributive justice it administers should, it is argued, be complemented with restorative justice. It is restorative processes that perhaps have the greatest potential to foster peace and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. With its origins in the healing practices of aboriginal and First Nation people,37 the term ‘restorative justice’ can be found in a variety of contexts, involving both criminal issues (violations of criminal law) and civil matters (family welfare, child protection, disputes in the workplace). Yet as Daly notes, ‘Increasingly one finds the term associated with the resolution of broader political conflicts such as the reconstruction of post-apartheid South Africa…post-genocide Rwanda…and post-sectarian Northern Ireland’ (Daly 2002: 57). A particularly comprehensive definition of restorative justice is provided by Gilbert and Settles, according to whom, Restorative justice views crime as a harm to individuals, their neighbourhoods, the surrounding community and even the offender. Crimes produce injuries that must be repaired by those who caused the injury. In this sense, crimes are more than a violation of law and justice is more than punishment of the guilty. Restorative justice strives to promote healing through structured communication processes among victims, offenders, community representatives and government officials. It also strives to accomplish these goals in a manner that promotes peace and order for the community, vindication for the victim and recompense for the offender. Under this restorative perspective, justice is not based on punishment inflicted but the extent to which harms have been repaired and future harms prevented (Gilbert and Settles 2007: 7). From this definition, it is evident that there are some significant differences between restorative justice and the retributive justice delivered by international war crimes tribunals like the ICTY. For example, retributive justice views crime as a violation of the law and is primarily concerned with punishing those who transgress the law. In contrast, from a restorative perspective, crime is a violation of people and relationships. Restorative justice, therefore, does not entail punishment; rather, it ‘involves the victim, the offender and the community in a search for solutions which promote repair, reconciliation and reassurance’ (Zehr 1990: 181).

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These differences, however, do not mean that retributive justice and restorative justice are mutually exclusive or incompatible. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for example, was not a prosecutorial body, but the option was nevertheless left open to prosecute all acts for which amnesty had either not been sought or had been denied. In Argentina and Chad, evidence that came to light through the work of truth commissions, during the 1980s and 1990s respectively, was subsequently used in criminal prosecutions. In Rwanda, some 11,000 gacaca courts, set up to deal with some of the less serious crimes committed during the genocide, operate alongside the ICTR. Traditionally used for settling minor disputes in rural Rwanda, the gacaca process, which places heavy emphasis on truth-telling, operates at the grassroots level, with local communities resolving their differences in the pursuit of communal justice. Similarly in the former Yugoslavia, while there has been a strong emphasis on retributive justice, alternative transitional justice38 mechanisms have also been used, albeit in a very limited way – such as reparations, vetting and lustration and public apologies.39 Furthermore, the value of restorative justice has been recognized in some quarters, particularly within parts of the NGO sector. In 2003, for example, the Victimology Society of Serbia, led by Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović, launched a project entitled, ‘From Remembering the Past to a Positive Future’. According to Nikolić-Ristanović and Hanak, this project is ‘the only long-term and comprehensive truth and reconciliation project in Serbia. It is carefully planned and elaborated using different experiences from, for example, Northern Ireland, as well as the recent evaluation of South African and other truth and reconciliation commissions’ (Nikolić-Ristanović and Hanak 2005: 380). As part of the project, the Victimology Society invited Serbian citizens, regardless of their ethnic, religious or political orientation, to submit their opinions and ideas about how to deal with the past in such a way as to narrow existing divisions and thus promote peace both in Serbia and in the former Yugoslavia. Two years later, in 2005, it established a formalized civic initiative entitled ‘The Third Way’, aimed at promoting a primarily restorative approach to truth and reconciliation. As Nikolić-Ristanović and Hanak explain, “The Third Way” stands for the belief that all perpetrators, victims and crimes are important, not because they should

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be made equal or their numbers counted and compared, but because it is necessary to get the complete picture about all events during and after the conflict…“The Third Way” tries to deal with the past gradually, without further traumatizing the society. It implies an open discussion of the past and establishes the truth not only by the courts, but also in other ways (making known the names of all victims, research, public hearings, exhibitions, film festivals, campaigns, museums and education). This includes all social groups in the discussion – both victims and war veterans, regardless of their national, political or other membership (Nikolić-Ristanović and Hanak 2005: 383). Other NGOs, both in Serbia (for example, the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, Group 484 and the War Documentation Centre) and throughout the former Yugoslavia, are involved in vital restorative projects to facilitate reconciliation. However, there still needs to be more investment in restorative processes. In particular, this should involve, it is argued, the creation of a regional truth and reconciliation commission (TRC).40 South Africa’s TRC, which ran from 1996 to 1998, is probably the most well-known. While it was based on previous TRCs in Latin America, it had much greater powers, including the power to grant individual amnesties in exchange for full and public disclosure of crimes specifically committed to further political aims. Hearings were chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and religious leaders participated in the process, thus lending the South African TRC strong theological overtones. It is thus an interesting case-study for examining the relationship between religion and peace-building, a topic that is ‘theoretically expansive yet hardly explored’ (Carter and Smith 2004: 280).41 Truth commissions have also been used in many other transitional societies, including Argentina (1983), Chile (1990), Germany (1992), El Salvador (1992), Chad (1992) and Guatemala (1996). To this list must be added Serbia; on 29 March 2001, the country’s then president, Vojislav Koštunica, set up a TRC by decree. However, the Commission disbanded in 2003 without having issued any reports or findings and according to the UNDP, ‘In its design, mandate and composition, it was the antithesis of an effective truth-seeking mechanism’ (Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 112). For example, the TRC was launched without any public or parliamentary debate; its

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focus was on the causes of the war, rather than on war crimes and human rights abuses; and it was limited to citizens of Serbia and Montenegro, thus ‘begging the question of who was to be reconciled to whom’ (Cigar 2001: 78). The failings of Serbia’s TRC, however, do not mean that a TRC for the former Yugoslavia would not be effective. Crucial to the success of such a Commission would be whether or not people within the region supported it. As Yerkes emphasizes, it is the opinions and concerns of the local people that will ‘ultimately play an important role in confirming or denying the legitimacy’ of transitional justice processes (Yerkes 2004: 922). It is, therefore, significant that according to a survey by the UNDP in Bosnia in August 2005, 55.7 per cent of respondents – of which 56.7 per cent were Bosnian Muslims, 49.0 per cent were Bosnian Croats and 57.6 per cent were Bosnian Serbs – said that a TRC is needed and should be set up (Priesner, O’Donogue and Dedić 2005). Indeed, the idea of a TRC in Bosnia has been in discussion since 1997. It should also be noted that in 2003, the Igman Initiative, based in Novi Sad in Serbia, set up an expert group to prepare a ‘model of reconciliation’ for the former Yugoslavia, although this remains a work in progress. The principal advantage of a TRC is that it would be indigenous, not externally imposed. As a result, it could be expected to be more responsive to the needs and concerns of local people and thus more relevant to their everyday lives. This is essential because as Lederach maintains, reconciliation needs to create a ‘sense of participation, responsibility and ownership in the process across a broad spectrum of the population’ (Lederach 1998: 242). It is suggested, however, that the Commission should perhaps be called something other than a TRC, for example just a ‘reconciliation commission’. The concept of ‘truth’ is problematic and this is highlighted by the UNDP, which notes that, ‘In conversations with many people in the region, we were advised that “truth” is a suspect notion that has taken on political connotations and is considered a misleading and potentially manipulative concept’ (Aucoin and Babbitt 2005: 115). As the ICTY maintains that its work is contributing to reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia, it could be expected to deem a TRC unnecessary. Indeed, regarding suggestions for a TRC, the Tribunal’s former deputy prosecutor has commented, ‘The ICTY has recognised the interests underlying such proposals and has not excluded that, in time, it may be necessary to institute such a process.

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It is clear, however, that we have not reached this point in time yet’ (Blewitt 2006: 151). Yet given that the ICTY is due to complete all its work by 2011,42 it can be argued that the time is now ripe to establish a TRC for the former Yugoslavia.43 A major question is whether the Serbs themselves are ready for a TRC. While this is an under-researched area that requires further exploration,44 what can be argued, based on the interview data, is that the way in which Milošević is popularly perceived and remembered has important implications for how Serbs deal with the legacy of conflict in the Balkans. To this extent, it can be said that Milošević continues to cast his influence over Serbia. The ICTY has had little impact on Serbs’ perceptions of Milošević, only strengthening the belief among parts of the population that he was a victim. Thus, perhaps the real question is not whether Serbs are ready for a TRC, but whether a TRC could sufficiently change Serb views of Milošević in such a way that would free the country from the shadow of its former leader, thus facilitating the process of peace-building and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. This would be one of the challenges for any future TRC. It is not only because of how he is popularly perceived, however, that Serbia can be described as being in the shadow of Milošević. The final chapter will argue that after 5 October 2000, no fundamental break with the Milošević regime was made, such that to speak of ‘post-Milošević Serbia’ requires some qualification.

Chapter Seven Serbia After Milošević

Speaking at the end of 1998, a US State Department spokesperson declared that, ‘Milošević has been at the center of every crisis in the former Yugoslavia over the past decade. He is not simply part of the problem. He is the problem’ (Ramet 2002: 289). This perception of Milošević as the scourge of the region nourished the erroneous and naive belief among Western policy-makers that his removal from power was the simple answer. Following Milošević’s ouster, for example, President Clinton remarked that, ‘A black cloud has lifted from the Balkans’ (Berić 2002: 271). As Kesić notes, however, ‘the demonization of people such as Milošević1 and Saddam Hussein oversimplifies the problems they helped to cause…’ (Kesić 1995: 73). The tragedy that befell the former Yugoslavia was not caused by one man. Similarly, the Milošević regime did not depend only upon one man and the first part of this chapter will argue that there are considerable elements of continuity between Serbia today and Serbia under Milošević. The second part of the chapter will examine one of the major issues facing Serbia today – Kosovo. How the situation in Kosovo is resolved will have potentially very significant implications not only for Serbia’s future – and in particular for its EU membership aspirations – but also for the future stability of the region. Elements of Continuity in ‘Post-Milošević’ Serbia The Serbia of today is, in many important ways, a very different place from the Serbia of the 1990s. Most obviously, it is no longer involved in war, sanctions have been lifted, there is no hyper-inflation, the shops are full of food and goods and people are far more relaxed. Nevertheless, it can be argued that there are fundamental elements of continuity between present-day Serbia and Milošević’s Serbia. Four such elements, in particular, can be highlighted, namely continuity

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of structures and individuals, persistent widespread corruption, enduring control of the media and ongoing attacks on NGOs. Continuity of structures and individuals According to Jelica Minić from the Economics Institute in Belgrade, ‘There has been considerable progress in different fields since 2000, but there are too many of the old structures on the political scene and too many people from Milošević’s time. There was no real breaking with the past in 2000’.2 Echoing this, the cartoonist Predrag (Corax) Koraksić3 has emphasized that, ‘…in some ways Koštunica continues the Milošević regime. He didn’t break with that politics. For example, the military infrastructure – the police, the army – hasn’t changed and the mafia still has a lot of influence’.4 To claim that in Serbia today there are significant aspects of structural continuity with the previous regime is to highlight the lack of root-and-branch reform of key institutions, like the police and the judiciary. Begović, for example, maintains that, ‘The reform of the justice system has certainly been the greatest failure of transition in Serbia so far…It is odd how carelessly the authorities in Serbia have tackled the reform of the justice system in the last four years’ (Begović 2005a: 446). In 2001, a set of new laws on the organization of the judiciary was adopted.5 However, these laws ‘sought to reform the existing judicial system by maintaining the continuity of institutions and the same personnel’ (Hiber 2005: 258). For example, the new laws insisted on permanent tenure for judges, including those who held posts at that time, which meant that judges who had served under Milošević were able to retain their positions. According to Hiber, therefore, ‘It thus came about that, on the whole…the judge and prosecutor cadre inherited from the pre-transitional period has not essentially changed’ (Hiber 2005: 266). As one illustration, four of Serbia’s five Supreme Court judges were appointed before the overthrow of Milošević in 2000. A further similarity with the Milošević regime is that the judiciary continues to lack independence from the legislative and executive branches. As just one example, when an indictment against Marko Milošević – Slobodan Milošević’s son – for the crime of coercion was withdrawn in August 2005, suspicions were immediately aroused that the decision was politically motivated. These suspicions were reinforced when Velimir Ilić, at the time the Minister for Capital Investments (and the current Minister of Infrastructure), said that



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he had ‘advised and pleaded’ with the plaintiff to drop the charges against Marko (Andrić 2006: 30). As a second example, in 2005 it emerged that, ‘A number of candidates nominated unanimously by the High Judicial Council members’ to be court presidents ‘were not appointed by parliament, mostly because the ruling coalition refrained from voting for them’ (Petrović 2006: 376). Such political interference not only damages the image and credibility of the judiciary; in a survey by SMMRI in September 2005, 58 per cent of respondents said that judges in Serbia were mostly bad and dependent on politicians (Petrović 2006: 433) and a poll by TNS Medium Gallup in January 2006 found that 81 per cent of respondents had no trust in the courts (TNS Medium Gallup 2006a: 8). It also exacerbates the problem of organized crime. As highlighted by the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, ‘The fight against organized crime is not as fierce as it should be. Judicial institutions fighting organized crime have been exposed to political abuse and pressure…’ (Petrović 2006: 29). Thus, when CESID asked 1,488 respondents in April 2006 ‘who rules Serbia?’, the most frequently-given answer (22 per cent) was ‘criminals’ (CESID 2006). Such opinions, in turn, have had a negative impact on popular perceptions of the Serbian government. According to the same research by CESID, for example, 39 per cent of respondents said that they had no trust in the government and only 5 per cent said that they had a lot of trust in the government (CESID 2006).6 The Serbian public’s confidence and trust in the government have been further undermined due to the continued presence on Serbia’s political scene of people from the Milošević era who, thanks to Koštunica, continue to be very powerful today.7 According to Vladan Batić, the former Serbian Justice Minister, ‘Almost all of the most important posts in the nation are once again filled with Milošević’s cronies’ (Batić 2005: 18). For example, in Koštunica’s first government, which was formed in March 2004, the secretary of the Serbian legislature, Zoran Balinovac, was a former member of JUL; Goran Jovanović, an aide to the Minister of Justice, was the former chief of the SPS committee in Jagodina; and Zoran Stojković, the Minister of Justice, was a judge under Milošević. Thus, it can be argued that, ‘Serbia chose after the fall of Milošević in October 2000 not to clean the house’ (Bajraktari and Maly 2007). In sum, what occurred on 5 October 2000 was not a revolution; it was not the replacement of one system with another. It was the

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overthrow of a leader whose ouster was of greater symbolic than actual significance. One man did not constitute the Milošević regime and removing the man did not destroy the regime. The tree was felled, but its deep roots remained intact. Koštunica and his government have promised comprehensive reforms, but major obstacles exist. For example, immediately after the events of October 2000, serious rifts emerged within the ranks of the 18-party DOS coalition – particularly between Koštunica’s DSS and the late Đinđić’s DS – and this ‘proved to be difficult in terms of government operation’ (Mijatović 2005: 18). Subsequent governments, forced to form unwieldy coalitions, have similarly lacked unity. The existence of such political divisions has, in turn, impeded the development of a clear strategy for reform, not least vis-à-vis the judiciary. At the same time, it can be argued that there is a lack of political will to undertake fundamental reforms, in large part attributable to the fact that there are people from the Milošević era who continue to wield considerable power and influence today and whose interests would not be served by elemental systemic change. The presence of such individuals, moreover, has aggravated the problem of corruption, a second dimension of continuity with the Milošević regime. Persistent widespread corruption There was rampant corruption in Serbia during the 1990s,8 and it continues to be a serious problem several years after the fall of the Milošević regime. According to Verica Barać, the president of Serbia’s Anti-Corruption Council, Koštunica’s government openly encourages corruption, as a result of which Serbia has ‘not been witness to such a havoc of institutions, such intimidation of people and such manipulation of the media since the Milošević regime’ (Barać 2006). In a similar vein, Konstantinović maintains that, ‘… we have managed to become one of the most corrupted states in the world after the disintegration of Yugoslavia’, adding that, ‘… nothing has been done thus far to take on corruption head on, not least because of the lack of political will’ (Kostantinović 2005: 7). Adoption of the government’s National Anti-Corruption Strategy, for example, was substantially delayed and it was not until the end of 2005 that the draft version was finally presented to the public. A key explanation for the government’s lack of will to fight against corruption exposes the extent and seriousness of the problem. That is to say that there are people in power – or with links to those in power



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– who became very wealthy during the Milošević years and who thus have a vested interest in allowing corruption to flourish. Mijatović, for example, notes that after the overthrow of Milošević, Businessmen of the former regime lay low, waiting for the revolutionary uproar to subside and trying to preserve their dubiously acquired wealth…Unfortunately, that important opportunity for reforms without resistance from and influence of businessmen was utilized only partly and with the passage of time businessmen consolidated their positions, establishing firm ties with the politics and politicians in power (Mijatović 2005: 27). Milan Beko, for instance, who was Milošević’s Minister of the Economy, is now the owner of the mineral water company Knjaz Miloš, while Miroslav Mišković, the last Minister of the Economy in Communist Yugoslavia, is the current owner of Delta Bank and the supermarkets MaxiDiskont and Pekabeta. In 2006, Beko and Mišković were competing against each other to buy a supermarket chain and subsequently struck a deal in Koštunica’s office. One should also note the example of Cane Subotić, an ‘entrepreneur’ who became rich during the 1990s by smuggling cigarettes and weapons and who has been given free rein to continue his business activities today. A particularly interesting case is that of the businessman Bogoljub Karić. During the 1990s Karić, a close friend of Milošević and his wife, became extremely wealthy and he was also very successful during the period of transition. In addition to continuing his business activities, he became engaged in politics and stood as a candidate in the 2004 presidential elections in Serbia, coming third in the first round.9 In late 2005, however, the Serbian government decided to move against Karić and his business empire. Karić’s television station, BK TV, was taken off air and its broadcasting licence was revoked, on the grounds that it had, inter alia, violated broadcasting regulations during the 2004 presidential elections. His mobile phone company, Mobtel – the leading mobile phone operator in Serbia – was also targeted, due to alleged irregularities in its business practices and its operating licence was removed. Karić, who subsequently went into exile in Russia, was further accused of tax fraud. Yet why did it take the government so long to investigate Karić’s business affairs?

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Several years earlier, the government had passed a law on extraprofit tax that targeted businesses close to the Milošević regime. As Kosanović notes, however, ‘no further steps were taken to hold tycoons accountable until Karić founded the Strength of Serbia Movement, a political party whose populist rhetoric soon translated into high poll numbers’ (Kosanović 2006). Was this just a coincidence? Was it also a mere coincidence that the government started a media campaign against Karić and began investigating his business activities after the latter bribed deputies in the Serbian Assembly to transfer to his party? For these reasons, it is widely believed that the actions taken against Karić and his businesses were politically motivated. According to Professor Vojin Dimitrijević10 from the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, ‘The only reason for the government’s confrontation with Karić was the latter’s engagement in politics’.11 While there has been some progress in the fight against corruption (Begović 2005), it must be tackled more effectively,12 and the media has a crucial part to play in this process. As highlighted by Begović and Mijatović, ‘independent media play an important role in the forming of anti-corruption pressure on government officials and represent the best actor for developing awareness about the kinds, scope and harmful effects of corruption’ (Begović and Mijatović 2006: 210). The problem, however, is that there is still strong media control in Serbia and this is the third element of continuity with the Milošević regime. Continuing control of the media On 9 June 2006, the Centre for Cultural Decontamination – an NGO in Belgrade – organized an event to promote ‘Okupacija u 26 Meseci; Mart 2004–April 2006’ (‘26-Month Occupation; March 2004–April 2006’), a film and accompanying booklet extremely critical of Koštunica and his government. A major criticism advanced in the material is that, ‘Vlada Vojislava Koštunice odmah je iskazala neskrivenu nameru da medijsku scenu u Srbiji kontroliše u što je moguće većoj meri’ (‘The government of Vojislav Koštunica immediately expressed its unconcealed intention to control the media scene in Serbia as much as possible’) (Andrić 2006: 56). The following examples illustrate the problem and some of the consequences of persistent media control in Serbia. The first example surrounds the referendum in Montenegro. On 21 May 2006, voters were asked to decide whether they wanted



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Montenegro to remain as one half of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro (in existence since 2003), or to become an independent state. A respectable 86.4 per cent of the Montenegrin electorate went to the polls, of which 55.5 per cent said yes to independence and 44.5 per cent said no.13 Boris Tadić, Serbia’s President, officially recognized Montenegro’s independence on 23 May 2006. Prime Minister Koštunica, in contrast, who had always been strongly against Montenegro becoming independent,14 waited for official confirmation of the results. He also refused to congratulate the people of Montenegro for gaining their independence (B–92 2 June 2006) and criticized the EU for supporting Montenegro’s referendum (B–92 5 June 2006). If the manner in which Koštunica handled the situation was questionable, however, the way that some media in Serbia reported on the referendum was no less problematic. A report by the Institute for Social Sciences in Belgrade, based on a study of how four Serbian newspapers (Politika, Večernje Novosti, Blic and Kurir) covered the referendum in Montenegro, found that most of the articles related to it had negative connotations (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network 2006). This is similarly emphasized by the International Crisis Group (ICG), according to whom during the run-up to the referendum, the Belgrade tabloid press ‘carried sensational stories warning of Albanian and Croat plots to use Montenegro to dismantle the State Union and then to carve up Montenegro between them’ (ICG 2006a). Not only were such conspiracy theories reminiscent of the Milošević period,15 but so too was the way in which media control served to hamper objective reporting and debate on an issue of fundamental importance.16 There was a similar lack of sufficient debate regarding Serbia’s referendum on a new constitution, held on 28 and 29 October 2006, and this is a second example of enduring media control. Up until that point, Milošević’s constitution from 1990 had remained in force, despite a pledge made by Koštunica in March 2004 to give Serbia a new constitution within three months (Andrić 2006: 7). While that promise has now finally been fulfilled, both the new constitution itself and the procedure by which it was formally adopted have been heavily criticized. Gordana Suša from the Media Centre Press Council in Belgrade, for example, emphasizes that it was the media who led the ‘yes’ campaign, promoting the message that ‘the enemies of Serbia, Albanian separatists, Ustashas, gay people and those that can be bought were against the new constitution’. She further argues

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that this pro-constitution media campaign was financed by the Serbian government (B–92 6 November 2006), a claim echoed by the ICG (IGC 2006c). For its part, the European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission) maintains that ‘the lack of opportunity’ for public discussion of the new constitution ‘raises questions of the legitimacy of the text with respect to the general public’ (European Commission for Democracy through Law 2007). What is particularly noteworthy about the new Serbian constitution is that it substantially differs from Milošević’s constitution, which ‘in many respects was superior to the new one’ (ICG 2006c). For example, whereas the previous constitution defined Serbia as a civic state – that is to say, a state of all citizens – Article One of the new constitution defines Serbia as ‘a state of the Serbian people and all citizens who live in it’. According to the Venice Commission, ‘… this definition may be criticized for emphasizing the ethnic character of the state’, although it adds that, ‘no legal consequences should follow from it in practice’ (European Commission for Democracy through Law 2007). While it could be argued that Article One is no worse than similar provisions in, for example, the constitutions of the Baltic states – now members of the EU – the point is that it represents a step backwards in relation to Milošević’s constitution. In further contrast to the 1990 constitution, which recognized both Cyrillic and Latin as official alphabets, Article Ten of the new constitution states that, ‘The Serbian language and Cyrillic script shall be in official use in the Republic of Serbia’, notwithstanding that the Latin alphabet is used by Serbia’s many national minorities. Thus, the Venice Commission observes, It is striking that, compared to the 1990 constitution, there is a decreased protection of linguistic rights of minorities, as Article Eight of that constitution expressly provided that the Latin alphabet also “shall be officially used in the manner established by law” (European Commission for Democracy through Law 2007). As a third and final example of ongoing media control in Serbia, one can highlight the continuing threats against and attacks on journalists and independent media. Milošević tolerated independent media, like B–92, as long as they did not pose a threat to his regime.



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Today, however, according to Serwer, ‘Serbian media – even those that had a reputation for independence in the Milošević period – are being pressured to conform to government views’ (Serwer 2006). In August 2005, for example, the B–92 journalist Ana Veljković questioned Velimir Ilić about why charges against Milošević’s son, Marko, had been dropped. She was consequently insulted and threatened and Ilić’s media advisor, Petar Lazović, told Veljković that he would kill B–92’s editor-in-chief, Veran Matić. When Matić subsequently wrote to Koštunica, insisting that Ilić be made to resign, no action was taken. Later, in October 2005, B–92 received a bomb threat by telephone (it had received a similar threat just three months earlier). The police established that it was a hoax and said that it would be easy to identify the caller, but no information was ever released. In June 2005, the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper Danas, Grujica Spasović, received a death threat from a man who called the newspaper claiming to be part of Ratko Mladić’s personal security entourage. The man told editorial staff who took the call to relay the following message to Spasović: ‘He’s a dead man as of today. We’re going to kill him and cut off his head, arms and legs, because of the things he wrote and published about General Ratko Mladić the other day’ (Humanitarian Law Centre 2005). Danas asked the Serbian Interior Ministry for protection, but the latter failed to react. Indeed, according to the Media Sustainability Index, the Serbian state is ‘systematically ignoring crimes against journalists or media outlets’ (Media Sustainability Index 2006). One possible reason is that by allowing such threats to go unchecked and unpunished, the state can thus seek to exercise a form of control over Serbia’s independent media. Another plausible explanation is that there are people in power, or close to those in power, with links to the Milošević regime and who therefore have an interest in silencing, rather than protecting, critical and inquisitive voices like Danas and B–92. For this reason, it is not only journalists who have been threatened and attacked, but so too have prominent human rights NGOs and their leaders. Ongoing attacks on NGOs The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights claims that, ‘…2005 was marked by numerous threats and obstruction of work on disclosing war crimes which, according to witnesses and the Humanitarian Law

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Centre, mostly came from active and retired state security officers’ (Petrović 2006: 469). Those NGOs advocating an honest and frank coming to terms with the past have been most heavily targeted, in particular the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, the Humanitarian Law Centre (HLC) and the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights. The leaders of these NGOs – Sonja Biserko, Nataša Kandić and Biljana Kovaćević-Vučo respectively – have also been frequently attacked, both verbally and physically. Indeed, it can be argued that the campaign against NGOs and their front people, which began during the time of Milošević, ‘pojačana je u vremenu vlasti Vojislava Koštunice’ (‘has become stronger in the period of Vojislav Koštunica’s authority’) (Andrić 2006: 52). Some of the most vitriolic verbal attacks have come from the Serbian tabloids. On 6 July 2005, for example, Ogledalo wrote that Biserko is fully committed to ‘tirelessly maligning the people she most hates in all the world – the Serb people’ (HLC 2005); and on 8 September 2005, the newspaper Tabloid published a provocative article accusing Biserko, who is part Croatian, of being a spy. It also printed her home address (Human Rights Education Associates 2005). Such inflammatory claims are a clear incitement to violence and Biserko has been physically assaulted. She herself maintains that, Growing attacks, including physical attacks, on NGO representatives are a result…of the virulent media campaign against them, which has become more intense during the last few months and which does not differ in character from that waged under Milošević, when NGOs and their activists were treated as “foreign mercenaries working against the Serb people” (Biserko 2005). Attacks on NGOs and their leaders, however, have not only come from the Serbian media. Some politicians have also engaged in a smear campaign against the NGO sector. As one example, after several Serbian television stations broadcast a video on 2 June 2005, showing members of a Serb paramilitary group executing six Muslim men in Bosnia in 1995, the SRS, SPS and DSS accused various NGOs, as well as B–92 and Danas, of waging an anti-Serb campaign (HLC 2005). On 24 June 2005, Aleksandar Vučić from the SRS described Kandić as a ‘common bandit’ and proposed



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holding a ‘referendum on what Serbian citizens think of the antiSerbs’ (HLC 2006: 17). The fact that such hate speech is both used and tolerated in the Serbian Assembly is extremely disconcerting and lends further support to the argument that there has been no clear break with the previous regime. Significant elements of continuity remain and despite the high expectations – both domestic and international – that accompanied the fall of the Milošević regime, it is evident that Serbia’s difficulties did not end on 5 October 2000. Ironically, resolution of the very problem that enabled Milošević to rise to power – Kosovo – is now one of the major challenges facing the Serbian government. The Gordian Knot of Kosovo Kosovo has been described as ‘an ethnic cauldron in the heart of the former Yugoslavia’ (Armacost 2000: vii). To continue the metaphor,17 this cauldron boiled over at the end of the 1990s, precipitating intervention by NATO in March 1999. As there exists a substantial literature on NATO’s military intervention in the FRY (see, for example, Fromkin 1999; Daalder and O’Hanlon 2000; Campbell 2000; Judah 2000b; Leurdijk and Zandee 2001; Pettifer 2005), it is unnecessary to go into detail here. Since 10 June 1999 when the bombing ended, Kosovo has been an international protectorate,18 and negotiations are currently underway to determine its final status. Formal negotiations, known as the Vienna talks, began in February 2006, and in February 2007 the UN Special Envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, unveiled his plan for Kosovo’s supervised independence. However, due to strong opposition in the UN Security Council from Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally, this plan has now been discarded. A new round of talks over the future status of Kosovo began in August 2007, led by an international negotiating team of ambassadors from the US, Russia and EU – the so-called ‘Troika’. The Troika’s mission, in turn, has been mandated by the Contact Group (the US, UK, Russia, Germany, France and Italy). For the Albanians, who claim direct descent from the ancient Ilyrians whom they believe were the first settlers of the Balkan lands, Kosovo is of great significance. It is the place where the Prizren League was founded, in 1878, and represents the cradle of their struggle for independence. The Kosovar Albanian position with regards to Kosovo, in which they constitute 90 per cent of the population, is that nothing less than full independence will suffice. This is highlighted

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by the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED) which notes that, ‘Public opinion on the future status issue among Kosovo Albanians is relatively uncompromising – this group is overwhelmingly in favour of full independence for Kosovo and believes that other options are unacceptable’ (KIPRED 2006). According to a poll by SMMRI in June 2006, for example, 90 per cent of the 753 Kosovar Albanians who were surveyed said that Kosovo’s full independence within its present borders was ‘essential’ (KIPRED 2006). More recently, in a poll conducted by UBO Consulting in the second half of March 2007, 96 per cent of the 851 Kosovar Albanian respondents maintained that independence was the best solution for Kosovo (UNDP 2007). However, such views are in fundamental discordance with the Serbian position, in particular the position of the Serbian government. Kosovo and the Serbian government Serbia’s new constitution makes it legally impossible for the country to recognize an independent Kosovo without further constitutional amendment. As Koštunica has emphasized, ‘According to the Serbian constitution, Serbia’s internationally recognized borders are absolutely unchangeable and Serbia cannot be even an inch smaller than it is today’ (B–92 13 May 2007). For the Serbian government, which is insisting on respect for Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prospect of an independent Kosovo is abhorrent. In an address to the UN Security Council on 3 April 2007, Koštunica dismissed Ahtisaari’s proposal for Kosovo’s supervised independence as ‘an unlawful and illegitimate attempt to dismember our state’ (Koštunica 2007a). He also reiterated that Serbia was only prepared to countenance ‘substantial autonomy in the province of Kosovo and Metohija’ which, he explained, …means that the Albanians in the province would be able to decide upon their future, manage their own affairs and protect their interests, while at the same time Serbia would, in accordance with the UN Charter, preserve its sovereignty and territorial integrity (Koštunica 2007a).19 In his keynote address to parliament on 15 May 2007, Koštunica insisted that Kosovo would be ‘forever an integral and inalienable part’ of Serbia and stressed that ‘the Serbian government would



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reject any recognition of the province’s independence as null and void’ (Koštunica 2007b). In addition, he warned that ‘a possible recognition of the province’s independence can by no means be represented as an act of friendship towards Serbia, because that is an act of the harshest interference in another country’s internal affairs’ (Koštunica 2007b). In keeping with this, on 27 July 2007 the Serbian parliament adopted a resolution that obliges the government and other official bodies to react vigorously to any states that unilaterally recognize Kosovo’s independence (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network 2007). As any such diplomatic reprisals by Serbia would most likely be taken against its Balkan neighbours,20 rather than against powerful EU and Western countries, they would risk destabilizing the region and, in particular, undermining peacebuilding and trust-building processes. Two particular factors have helped to reinforce the Serbian government’s hard-line position on Kosovo, the first of which is the influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC). Koštunica is ‘a religious man of deep and decades-old conviction’ (De KrnjevićMišković 2001: 101) and he has chosen to involve the SPC in Kosovo negotiations. For example, the first meeting of the Serbian negotiating team, held on 6 December 2005 and organized at the request of Patriarch Pavle, the head of the SPC, was attended by members of the Kosovo and Metohija Committee of the SPC Holy Assembly of Bishops. The Church’s stance on Kosovo has been consistently uncompromising. To cite Magnusson, ‘If Kosovo is a highly emotional symbol to Serbs in general, it is of course even more so to the Church’ (Magnusson 1987: 26). The explanation lies in Serbia’s history. The medieval Serbian empire achieved its zenith during the fourteenth century, under Tsar Dušan, but by 1459 all Serbian lands had been overrun by the Ottomans. Serbia did not regain her independence until 1878. During the centuries of Ottoman rule the SPC, as the only surviving national institution, became the guardian of Serbian culture and ‘the main carrier of Serbian national identity’ (Anzulović 1999: 25). The beautiful Serbian churches and medieval monasteries21 that adorn the Kosovo landscape are a fundamental part of that culture and identity and, in the eyes of the Church, must be defended. Hence, its position on Kosovo is that the territory absolutely cannot be relinquished.

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Kosovo is also important to the Church for a second reason. Although the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 was not the decisive event in the decline of the medieval Serbian empire, the SPC has consistently ‘sustained and transmitted the myth of the medieval state lost in Kosovo’ (Popović-Obradović 2004). For the Church, therefore, Kosovo represents the key to the resurrection of the old state and the rebirth of Serbia’s pre-Ottoman golden epoch. More than that, it symbolizes Serb suffering and the martyrdom of Tsar Lazar, the Serbian hero of Kosovo who sacrificed himself on the battlefield for the sake of a heavenly kingdom and thus demonstrated that the Serbs are a ‘nebeski narod’ (‘heavenly people’).22 Unsurprisingly, the SPC was the first institution to announce, in November 2005, that an independent Kosovo would be tantamount to an occupation of part of Serbia’s territory. In the words of Patriarch Pavle, any ‘act of grabbing KiM [Kosovo and Metohija] from Serbia, however covert, would essentially have the character of an occupation’. In a similar vein, the Holy Assembly of Bishops has declared that in the event of an imposed settlement regarding Kosovo, which it warned would trigger renewed tensions in the region, the Serbian Assembly would have to ‘enunciate to the whole people that an illegitimate and illegal occupation of a part of our national territory has been carried out’ (Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia 2006: 6–8). The SPC’s maximalist views carry considerable weight. Koštunica’s close relationship with the Church23 makes it unlikely that the Serbian government will modify its position on Kosovo. What is more, the Serbian parliament’s adoption in April 2006 of a new Religion Law, which essentially legitimizes the SPC’s involvement in politics, makes it probable that the Church’s influence will only increase in the future.24 A second factor that has required the Serbian government to maintain a tough line on Kosovo is the power of the SRS. Although the Radicals are not in government, their current popularity25 means that they constitute a powerful force on Serbia’s political scene and this has been particularly demonstrated in debates on Kosovo. For example, the SRS, which like the SPC maintains that that the ‘cradle of Serbdom’ can never be forsaken, has made it extremely difficult for dissenting views on Kosovo to be expressed. In short,



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Those who dare to present views essentially contrary to Belgrade’s policy become the target of hate speech characteristic of the period of Milošević’s rule.26 Among the main bearers of hate speech are the SRS, the media and individuals who can influence public opinion (Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia 2006: 11). More importantly, the political threat posed by the SRS means that the Serbian government cannot risk being outmanoeuvred regarding Kosovo. Hence, one can expect it to stand firm on the issue. However, the SRS could also push the government towards a more belligerent position. For example, Koštunica has ruled out going to war over Kosovo, emphasizing that ‘Serbia so far has reached only for legal arguments’ and will continue to do so in the future (SETimes 2006).27 The deputy leader of the SRS, on the other hand, takes a very different view on this; Tomislav Nikolić has warned that, ‘Whenever a country is stripped of its territory, there is always a danger that war might break out’ (B–92 29 August 2007). It would seem, however, that there is little support among the Serbian public for going to war over Kosovo. The influence of the Radicals, who can be broadly described as anti-Western, is only likely to grow if Koštunica and his government continue to distance themselves from Europe and the West. There has been a recent flood of statements from the government heavily critical of NATO, which the DSS has accused of seeking to set up a military state in Kosovo. In August 2007, for example, Koštunica’s Minister of Energy and Mining, Aleksandar Popović, claimed that the Ahtisaari plan envisaged ‘an allegedly independent Kosovo where NATO had unlimited authority with no civilian supervision whatsoever’ (B–92 19 August 2007a). At the same time, Koštunica and his government have been orientating themselves more and more towards Serbia’s traditional ally, Russia. It has thus been argued that ‘the West should prepare for Serbia turning increasingly away from Europe and towards Russia’ (ICG 2007). In his keynote address to the Serbian parliament on 15 May 2007, for example, Koštunica underlined that, ‘Special attention will also be paid to improving the excellent relations with Russia’ (Koštunica 2007b). He added that since Serbia’s diplomatic priority was to resolve the issue of Kosovo ‘in a manner which will not jeopardize the territorial integrity of Serbia, emphasis must be

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laid on developing bilateral relations with the countries that have more or less shown solidarity with our stand’ (Koštunica 2007b). The Serbian government maintains that it is fully committed to the EU integration process. Speaking in August 2007, for example, the Serbian deputy Prime Minister, Božidar Đelić, declared that, ‘This government and its cabinet will bring our country to the doorstep of the European Union’ (B–92 30 August 2007); and in his address to the 17th Annual Convention of the Serbian Unity Congress in October 2007, Vuk Jeremić, Serbia’s Foreign Minister, maintained that EU membership was a ‘goal of essential importance’ and indeed ‘the Serbian government’s priority’ (B–92 28 October 2007). Nevertheless, Koštunica has repeatedly stated that retaining Kosovo is more important than Serbia becoming a member of the EU, underscoring that while membership of the EU requires meeting certain preconditions, ‘None of these preconditions include territorial concessions in favour of others. Therefore, Serbia cannot be asked to do anything of the kind’ (B–92 31 July 2006). It appears, however, that on the issue of Kosovo and EU membership, Koštunica is not wholly in tune with Serbian public opinion. Serbian public opinion The site of a famous battle in 1389, in which Serbian forces led by Prince Lazar Hrebljanović were defeated by the Ottoman troops of Sultan Murad I, Kosovo is the ‘Serbian Jerusalem’ (Pappas 2005: 198). According to the Serbian poet Matija Bećković, for example, ‘Kosovo is Serbia and that fact does not depend on Albanian natality or Serbian mortality. There is so much Serbian blood and so many Serbian shrines there that it will still be Serbian land even if not a single Serb remains there’ (cited in Čolović 2002: 27). Despite its symbolic and emotional significance, however, it can be argued that, ‘Kosovo is not on the list of top concerns for most Serbs who are far more worried about their livelihoods, their pensions and their hopes for a European future’ (Serwer 2006). Regarding Serbian public opinion on Kosovo, there are four important points to note. The first is that the people of Serbia would appear to be far more open to compromise on the issue than the Serbian government. According to a survey by SMMRI in May 2006, 60 per cent of Serbs in Serbia said it was essential for a future status agreement that Kosovo remains part of Serbia as a province with wide autonomy. However, the survey also highlighted ‘some



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flexibility in Serb public opinion on the status question’ (KIPRED 2006). For example, 61.9 per cent of Serbs from Serbia said that they were open to the Kosovar Albanians’ preferred future status outcome, that is to say some form of independence (KIPRED 2006).28 Thus, one of the conclusions drawn from the research was that, Opinions among Serbs in Serbia appear to have undergone some changes over the past year. In the CDRSEE [Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe] Peace Poll from August–September 2005, it was reported that 87 per cent of Serbs in Serbia found full independence for Kosovo “unacceptable” and 71 per cent found unacceptable “independence after a fixed period of adjustment”. The corresponding figures in our survey are 74 per cent and 50 per cent (KIPRED 2006). The second point is that while many Serbs profess a deep emotional attachment to Kosovo, this does not necessarily mean that they are ready to defend it or to make major sacrifices to keep this sacred territory.29 According to a poll by CESID in June 2007, 55 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that Serbia’s national interests are endangered in every way, yet only 26 per cent agreed that, ‘We should always be ready to defend our national interests’ (52 per cent did not agree) (CESID 2007: 16). In the same poll, 48 per cent of respondents endorsed the statement that, ‘Keeping Kosovo in Serbia is more important than joining the EU’. Nevertheless, only 24 per cent were ready to make long-term material sacrifices and to endure a fall of living standards for the sake of Kosovo (51 per cent were not) and only 12 per cent of respondents agreed that war should be fought to save Kosovo if necessary (70 per cent disagreed) (CESID 2007: 21).30 The Serbs are clearly a war-weary people and for this reason the risk of further conflict erupting over Kosovo can be assessed as very small. The third point, which lends support to the above claim, is that in contrast to Koštunica, it seems that the Serbian people would rather give up Kosovo than relinquish the opportunity of becoming a future member of the EU. In a survey by the Government of Serbia EU Integration Office in June 2007, for example, in which respondents were asked how Serbia should respond if Europe recognized Kosovo unilaterally, 71 per cent said that Serbia should continue

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the diplomatic fight for Kosovo without terminating relations with the EU (only 29 per cent said that relations with the EU should be terminated) (Government of Serbia EU Integration Office 2007). According to the same poll, 69.3 per cent of respondents said that they would vote in favour of Serbia’s integration with the EU if a referendum on the issue were held tomorrow; and in a poll by CESID, also in June 2007, only 29 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement, ‘EU membership will bring us more harm than good’ (47 per cent disagreed) (CESID 2007: 17).31 The final point to make is that whatever the Serbian government’s position on Kosovo, there is a strong feeling among Serbs that the fate of Kosovo is being decided outside the region,32 and this is highlighted by the aforementioned poll by the Government of Serbia EU Integration Office. Asked where the final status of Kosovo is really being decided, only 15 per cent of respondents answered ‘in Belgrade and Priština’. In contrast, 39 per cent of respondents said that the issue was being decided in the EU, 34 per cent answered ‘within NATO’ and 27 per cent said ‘at the UN’ (Government of Serbia EU Integration Office 2007). According to Montgomery, moreover, the issue of Kosovo ‘is now being seen as a concrete example of how the international community ignores international law to suit its own purposes and demonstrates its prejudice against Serbia and its overall hypocrisy’ (Montgomery 2007). This is consistent with the interview data, particularly from the second round of interviews, in which interviewees complained of excessive Western interference in Serbia’s internal affairs and maintained that the country was not being treated fairly. If such feelings are exploited, for example by the Radicals, this could lead to an upsurge in anti-Western sentiment and cause public opinion towards Kosovo to harden. As previously noted, however, the likelihood of renewed armed conflict over Kosovo appears small; there is a growing realization and grudging acceptance that the loss of Kosovo may be the price that Serbia has to pay in order to join the EU. A far greater danger is that if Kosovo declares independence,33 this could destabilize the whole region. Bordering eastern Kosovo, the Preševo Valley area in South Serbia – home of the largest ethnic Albanian community in Serbia outside of Kosovo – would be particularly susceptible to violence. An armed insurgency in 2000–2001, led by the Liberation Army of Preševo, Bujanovac and



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Medveđa (UCPMB) with the aim of ‘liberating’ the valley from Serbia,34 has already highlighted the area’s volatility. This is further exacerbated by the fact that it is one of the poorest parts of Serbia and awash with weapons from previous conflicts. According to Lazić, ‘the town of Bujanovac and the surrounding villages remain one of the “hottest” parts of Serbia in terms of ethnic tension…’ (Lazić 2006). Constituting an ethnic majority in the municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa, ‘Many Albanians call this area Eastern Kosovo and believe it should be liberated at all costs’ (Nikolić and Filipović 2000). Were Kosovo to become independent, this would simply fuel ethnic Albanian demands for the secession of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa and their annexation to Kosovo.35 Thus, the ICG ‘warns of possible conflict between ethnic Serbs and Albanians as a side-effect of a final decision on Kosovo’ (ICG 2006b). Conflict could also arise in the Sandžak, an area of Serbia in which Muslims constitute the majority and Serbs the minority. If Kosovo gains independence, Muslims of the Sandžak would be likely to step up their calls for territorial autonomy and this, in turn, would likely lead to a heightening of tensions in the area. A recent split within the Muslim community itself, provoked by the dismissal of Muamar Zukorić as chief mufti and his replacement with Adem Zilkić, has further highlighted the Sandžak’s sensitivity. Combined with the fact that members of the radical Islamic Wahhabi movement have been organizing in the area, ‘All of this makes Sandžak currently the most volatile region in Serbia’ (B–92 11 October 2007). Due to its proximity to Kosovo and significant ethnic Albanian minority (approximately 22 per cent of the population), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) would also be very vulnerable. An Albanian insurgency in 2001 by the National Liberation Army, an offshoot of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), clearly highlighted the dangers of ‘spillover’ from events in Kosovo. Although Macedonia has been peaceful since the signing of the Ohrid Agreement on 13 August 2001,36 the country remains highly sensitive and if Kosovo gains independence, this could radicalize Macedonia’s Albanians who might push for a loose confederation among themselves. Some analysts are also concerned that extremist groups from Kosovo could cross the border into Macedonia, as they did in 2001, and set up bases in border areas populated by Albanians (Causidis 2007).

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There could also be ‘spillover’ effects in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where inter-ethnic relations are becoming increasingly strained. For example, ‘Serb secessionists in Republika Srpska could align with Serbia proper;37 Croats in western Hercegovina could claim sovereign Croatia on their territory…’ (Liotta 2003: 104). It is thus somewhat naive and unrealistic to claim, as the US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has done, that an independent Kosovo is ‘the only solution that is potentially stabilizing for the Balkans rather than destabilizing’ (B–92 25 September 2007). The crucial point is that in the Balkans everything is inter-linked,38 a reality that has not always been sufficiently recognized in the past, and short-sighted policies that focus on only one problem or one area at a time are both fundamentally flawed and highly dangerous. The example of the Dayton Accords, signed in November 1995, highlights this. The Dayton Accords formally ended the war in Bosnia, but served to exacerbate tensions in another part of the former Yugoslavia – Kosovo. Many Kosovar Albanians believed that with the end of the war in Bosnia in 1995, the international community would turn its attention to their plight. When the Dayton Accords failed to make any mention of Kosovo, however, this had the effect of radicalizing the Kosovar Albanians and undermining the strategy of peaceful resistance advocated by their then leader, the late Ibrahim Rugova. Just two years later, in the winter of 1997–98, the KLA announced the start of the battle for Kosovo’s unification with Albania.39 It is interesting to note that as late as 1998, Washington viewed the KLA as a terrorist organization. On 23 February 1998, for example, Robert Gelbard, the special US representative for the former Yugoslavia, claimed that the KLA was ‘a terrorist group beyond any doubt’ (cited in Johnstone 2002: 236). By the following year, however, the US was working closely with and supporting the KLA. Today, there is strong international backing, particularly within the US, for the Kosovar Albanians’ demand for an independent Kosovo and ‘men who, were they Serbs, would be hauled before a war crimes tribunal are now hailed as heroes’ (Jenkins 2007).40 It is to be hoped, however, that the strength of public opinion in Kosovo will not sway the international community to proceed with a solution which, in view of the precedent it would set, the impact it would have on Kosovo’s remaining Serbs and the possible destabilizing effects it would have in the region, would surely create more problems than it would actually resolve.



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Kosovo came to the world’s attention at the end of the 1990s, when the media began to show pictures and footage of ethnicallycleansed Kosovar Albanians huddled in make-shift refugee camps in Macedonia and Montenegro. Such scenes, in turn, prompted NATO’s ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Kosovo in 1999, the consequences of which – such as reverse ethnic cleansing, so-called ‘collateral damage’ and environmental harm – were anything but humanitarian. However, problems in Kosovo did not only begin during the 1990s. Poverty and high unemployment had long blighted the province and inter-ethnic tensions and mistrust existed before Milošević came to power. This is evidenced by such incidents as the 1981 Albanian demonstrations, which included demands for Kosovo to become a republic; the 1985 ‘impaling’ of Đorđe Martinović, a Kosovo Serb peasant who claimed that two Albanians had sodomized him with a bottle; and the 1987 Paraćin massacre, when a disturbed Albanian soldier opened fire in his barracks in what was portrayed in Serbia as an ethnically-motivated shooting, even though the victims were both Serbs and Albanians alike (Mertus 1999). Thus, writing in 1987, Magnusson observed that, ‘Relations between the Albanian majority and the Serbian-Montenegrin minority are characterized by coldness and distrust’ (Magnusson 1987: 7). Long before Kosovo made international headlines, moreover, it was a major constitutional issue. Since 1974, the Serbian autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina had enjoyed considerable powers and were equal to the Yugoslav republics in everything but name, which ‘considerably weakened the position of Serbia both within its own boundaries and in negotiations at the federal level (Crnobrnja 1996: 94). Milošević sought to address this. However, by revoking Kosovo’s autonomy and, later, by sending troops into Kosovo to crush the KLA, he only exacerbated the situation in the province, thus feeding Kosovar Albanian grievances. Yet it was also on the back of Kosovo that Milošević rode to power, with his promise to protect the Kosovo Serbs. That today the very problem that brought Milošević to prominence and is such a major part of his legacy is now the most pressing issue facing Serbia, the resolution of which will have a significant impact not only on its future but also, undoubtedly, on the future of the region as a whole, is the ultimate example of how Serbia – and indeed the former Yugoslavia – remain in Sloba’s shadow.

Conclusion

This book began with four vignettes. It will end with a final one. On 28 June 2004, the Serbian NGO Udruženja Sloboda (the Freedom Association) organized a rally in the centre of Belgrade to commemorate the Battle of Kosovo. A large crowd of Milošević supporters, holding pictures of the former Serbian leader and waving SPS flags, gathered in Trg Republike (Square of the Republic), in front of a large platform that had been erected for the occasion. One by one, prominent SPS figures stood up to speak. Halfway through the rally, the wide screen behind the platform began to flicker and the image of Milošević suddenly appeared. It was 28 June 1989 and Milošević was delivering his now famous Gazimestan speech. His commanding voice echoed around the Square. Hearing him and watching the crowd, feeling the latter’s excitement and emotion, it was like being transported back in time. That was the closest that this author ever came to meeting Milošević. His sudden death put an end to any hope of ever being able to actually interview him, which in part only reinforced a sense of regret that this research had not been started several years earlier when Milošević was still in power. Yet as the fieldwork progressed, there was also a growing realization that in many ways, it was not begun too late. Certainly, the flood of books and articles that were once written about Milošević has now largely dried up and become a trickle. What this research has shown, however, by exploring and analyzing Serb perceptions of Milošević and their broader relevance, is that despite the political downfall and subsequent death of the former Serbian leader, in important ways his influence lives on. The implications of how he is viewed by Serbs suggest that he will indirectly affect the way that Serbia deals with the legacy of conflict in the Balkans and, thus, the progress of peace-building and reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. Hence, Milošević is not just a major part of Serbia’s past, but also a part of its present and future. This work, therefore, is not simply another book about Milošević that holds him most responsible for the break-up of Yugoslavia and the ensuing wars.



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Rather, by offering a novel perspective through the use of a bottomup approach, it attributes to Milošević a very different significance, a long-term significance that demonstrates why he remains important after his death. Serbia itself has also attracted less and less attention since 5 October 2000. It is as if the country’s importance declined on the day that Milošević was overthrown and as if its problems disappeared when the Milošević regime crumbled. However, there is no justification for complacency or inattentiveness vis-à-vis the most pivotal state in the Balkans. Serbia’s difficulties, including corruption and organized crime, did not end with the fall of Milošević and many challenges still lie ahead, not least resolving the thorny issue of Kosovo. However, while Serbs may have been portrayed by some during the 1990s as uniquely predisposed to violence,1 there is nothing unique about many of the problems and hurdles that Serbia currently faces. Transitional justice, coming to terms with the past, re-building relations with former enemies – these are some of the tasks that confront all post-conflict societies. Serbia, therefore, as a case-study of how societies deal with the aftermath of armed conflict, should be of interest not only to Balkan specialists but also to a much broader and diverse audience. One of the very specific challenges now confronting Serbia, however, is to address its current identity crisis. While Meštrović argues that ‘the people in what used to be Yugoslavia are caught in an identity crisis as to whether they are part of Western or Eastern civilization’ (Meštrović 1993: 29), this is particularly pertinent visà-vis the Serbs. According to a poll by the Government of Serbia EU Integration Office in June 2007, 44.7 per cent of respondents said that they considered themselves above all as citizens of Serbia and only 8.4 per cent said that they felt most like citizens of Europe (Government of Serbia European Integration Office 2007). Yet asked if they personally felt like citizens of Europe, 42.1 per cent of respondents answered ‘yes’ and 32.3 per cent said ‘no’ (Government of Serbia European Integration Office 2007). Serbs thus appear somewhat confused about their identity. Indeed, according to Emmert, ‘The crisis that faces Serbia today is acute and reflects a long history of conflict and ambiguity about its place in Europe’ (Emmert 2003: 177). Popular attitudes toward EU membership, opinions on Kosovo, the strength of the SRS, mistrust of the West (particularly NATO),

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events in Belgrade on the day of Milošević’s funeral and the existence of so-called ‘Second Serbia’ are all further indicators of the lack of consensus regarding Serbia’s identity. Even Serbia’s Prime Minister and President appear to have very different views on this; while Koštunica is a traditionalist and a nationalist, Boris Tadić is a modernizer and heavily pro-Europe. Whether and how Serbia resolves the complex issues surrounding its identity will fundamentally influence not only its future, but also the way in which it deals with the past and with Milošević’s legacy. Just as Serbia has been accorded less prominence in recent years, so too has the wider region. To cite Joseph, today the Balkans has ‘mostly sunk into obscurity’ (Joseph 2005: 111). Nevertheless, the former Yugoslavia remains susceptible to renewed instability, particularly if Kosovo gains independence.2 This is not to endorse essentialist notions about the Balkans as a highly explosive region inherently prone to violence.3 Nor is to claim that the prospects for the future are hopeless; they are not. The key point is simply that ‘extraordinary challenges lie ahead’ (Liotta 2003: 103). Thus, it is essential that the Balkans are not overlooked or marginalized. In the words of Lee, ‘To lay the foundations for peace and stability in southeastern Europe within the next decade, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States need to reverse their inattentiveness toward the region’ (Lee 2006: 11). Academics, it is suggested, should lead by example and what this work has aimed to demonstrate is the importance of renewed engagement with and continued research on both the region and the state that most holds the key to its stability, Serbia.

Afterword new developments and kosovo’s independence

Since this work was completed at the end of 2007, major developments have occurred in Serbia and Kosovo that powerfully demonstrate why the former Yugoslavia remains an area of critical importance. This book would not be whole, therefore, without a discussion of these recent events and their significance. On 3 February 2008, the second round of Serbia’s presidential elections pitted Boris Tadić, the incumbent President of Serbia and the leader of the DS, against the deputy leader of the SRS, Tomislav Nikolić. As widely predicted, the final result was extremely close; Tadić narrowly won the election with 50.5 per cent of the vote as against Nikolić’s 47.9 per cent. Like the parliamentary elections held on 21 January 2007, in which the SRS gained 28.7 per cent of the vote and the DS secured 22.9 per cent, the outcome of these presidential elections underscored an elementary divide in Serbia with regards to its future. Serbia’s voters were choosing between a proEuropean candidate and a nationalist candidate, thus epitomizing the fundamental choices that the country must now make about the direction in which it is going and in particular its relationship with the EU – does Serbia’s future lie in Europe or in isolationism and closer ties with Russia? That public opinion is very much divided on these key issues highlights the country’s identity crisis, the resolution of which will decide not only where Serbia is heading but also, and perhaps more importantly, whether it finally makes a decisive break with the Milošević period. The fact that there is such strong support for Nikolić and the Radicals, moreover, further demonstrates that post-Milošević Serbia has been a great disappointment for many Serbs, particularly in economic terms. The widespread perception that there has been little, if any, improvement in living standards has caused a significant part

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of the electorate to turn to a political party whose pledges are aimed specifically at the so-called ‘losers of transition’. Support for the SRS can be expected to further increase following recent developments in Kosovo. On 17 February 2008, after numerous previous pledges to do so, Kosovo finally declared its independence, although in reality it will continue to be entirely dependent on others, in particular Serbia and the EU. Over 30 countries to date, including the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Albania, Japan and Bulgaria have now recognized Kosovo’s independence, while others have refused to do so, most notably Russia, China, Spain, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Serbia, which has just been deprived of 15 per cent of its territory, has vowed never to recognize Kosovo. President Tadić has branded it an ‘outlaw state’, and Serbia’s Foreign Minister, Vuk Jeremić, has described Kosovo’s declaration of independence as unilateral, illegal and illegitimate. Jeremić has also called upon all those countries that have recognized Serbia’s former province to re-examine their decisions. The Serbian people have also expressed their opposition to Kosovo’s independence, through both peaceful protests and violence. On 21 February, the US embassy in Belgrade was set on fire, and the British and Croatian embassies were attacked. The inevitable backlash has been far more serious in Kosovo, although to date this has essentially been confined to Kosovska Mitrovica in the north. Trouble began in Mitrovica on 17 March after UNMIK police tried to regain control of a court building, taken over by Kosovo Serb protesters three days earlier, and arrested 53 Serbs inside. In the ensuing violence, nearly 200 people – both protesters and internationals – were injured and one Ukranian UNMIK policeman was fatally wounded. While it is impossible at this stage to know precisely how events will develop and whether, as Russia fears, the violence may escalate,1 the most likely scenario is that a stalemate will set in. That is to say that Kosovo Serbs will persist in rejecting co-operation with Kosovo’s institutions and EU missions, the River Ibar will continue to be the dividing line that effectively partitions Kosovo between Serb-populated northern Mitrovica and the rest of the former Serb province and ongoing incidents of sporadic violence can be anticipated. Little is also likely to change for the approximately 70,000 Kosovo Serbs living in enclaves such as Gračanica, Strpče and Osojane. While some may decide to relocate to Mitrovica or Serbia itself, many will continue

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to live as before, with little freedom of movement or security. Thus, in the short term at least, Kosovo’s declaration of independence is unlikely to radically change the situation on the ground. Most of all it will not, as some US officials have claimed, facilitate peace and reconciliation in Kosovo. To expect that is extremely naive and fails to appreciate the depth of hatred, fear and mistrust that exists between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. Looking at the regional picture, Kosovo’s independence has the potential to destabilize the former Yugoslavia. Firstly, it is likely to encourage further secessionist claims. As predicted in chapter seven, for example, ethnic Albanians in Macedonia are now demanding greater autonomy, and there have been calls from inside Republika Srpska for it to declare its own independence from Bosnia. Branislav Dukić, for example, chairman of the Serb Movement of Independent Associations, has announced, ‘We shall request independence for the Serb republic as well. If Kosovo’s illegal parliament can proclaim independence, the Bosnian Serb parliament should immediately proclaim independence for Republika Srpska without calling for a referendum’ (Alic 2008). It can also be anticipated that developments in Kosovo will strengthen secessionist elements in Vojvodina, with its ethnic Hungarian majority, in the north of Serbia and it is noteworthy that Nenad Čanak, the leader of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV), was quick to congratulate Kosovo on its independence. Secondly, the relationship between Serbia and those countries in the former Yugoslavia which have recognized Kosovo’s independence risks becoming increasingly strained. This will be a definite step backwards and will undermine some of the progress that has already been made, particularly between Serbia and Croatia, in re-building the foundations for co-operation and trust. The significance of Kosovo’s independence, however, extends far beyond the Balkans. Paradoxically, the fact that Western officials have been at such pains to emphasize that Kosovo is a sui generis case and does not establish any precedent2 simply buttresses Russia’s argument that it clearly does set a precedent. While Kosovo is objectively unique in terms of its particular history and circumstances, its independence will send a positive message to other separatist movements around the world, from the Basque region in Spain to the Caucasus and from Kurdistan to Sri Lanka, providing them with a concrete case upon which they can draw in support of their own claims to independence. For example, according to

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the deputy Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, whose 1992 declaration of independence from Georgia has never been recognized, ‘We see Kosovo exactly as a precedent, not only for Abkhazia but for many other unrecognised countries’ (Wagstyl 2008). The concern that it sets an unwelcome precedent is precisely the reason why countries like Spain and Indonesia, which face their own separatist challenges, have not recognized Kosovo’s declaration of independence. Kosovo’s independence also provides yet another illustration of flagrant inconsistencies and double standards in international politics. Why is it, for example, that while the US supports self-determination in Kosovo, it advocates territorial integrity in Transdniestria, a separatist region in Moldova which declared independence in 1990? Why have so many Western powers been ready to support and recognize the independence of Kosovo but not of Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Transdniestria? Why is it that the commitment the international community has shown to resolving the issue of Kosovo has been noticeably absent when it comes to determining the legal status of Western Sahara? Why is it that when repression and human rights violations occur in Tibet and Kurdistan they are largely overlooked while in contrast they provoked international moral outrage when committed in Kosovo? Such blatant anomalies and injustices will always exist as long as international politics is dictated by the interests of the most powerful states in the world. Russia itself has not been consistent in its behaviour. While it has refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence on the grounds that this would establish a dangerous precedent, it has at the same time threatened to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on the basis of the Kosovo precedent. Such recognition would increase tensions between Russia and Georgia and thereby heighten Russia’s opposition to its neighbour joining NATO, which in turn would place a further strain on Moscow’s relationship with the Western alliance. While Kosovo’s declaration of independence thus has obvious regional and global significance, one of its most immediate and direct consequences occurred within Serbia itself. On 8 March, Prime Minister Koštunica resigned and his ten-month old government, a coalition between the DSS and the DS, collapsed due to irreconcilable differences over Kosovo and EU membership. For Koštunica, who has always maintained that the two issues are inter-linked, Serbia should not work towards joining the EU until the latter recognizes

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that Kosovo is part of Serbia. President Tadić, however, takes a very different view. His position is that the two issues are separate, that Serbia should therefore continue to develop closer ties with the EU and that it is only by joining the EU that Serbia will be able to defend its right to Kosovo. The death knell for Koštunica’s government came when pro-European forces, led by Tadić, voted down a resolution that would have halted Serbian efforts to join the EU until Brussels ends its support for Kosovo’s independence. New parliamentary elections will thus be held in Serbia on 11 May 2008, just 14 months after the last such elections took place, and once again the result can be expected to be extremely close, with fewer than ten percentage points separating the SRS from the DS. Notwithstanding protests against Kosovo’s independence, many Serbs are desperate for Serbia to move forwards and believe their country’s future lies in the EU. For this reason, it is likely that the DS, which will enter the elections on a joint ticket with G17 Plus, the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), the Sandžak Democratic Party (SDP) and the LSV, will secure a narrow victory over the Radicals. However, while the elections will ostensibly centre on two key issues, Kosovo and EU membership, they will primarily determine Serbia’s position vis-à-vis the latter. Regardless of who wins the forthcoming elections and who becomes the country’s next prime minister, Serbia can be expected to persist in resolutely maintaining that ‘Kosovo je Srbija’.

NOTES

Introduction 1 Bennett, for example, interviewed ‘as many key figures as possible throughout the former Yugoslavia’ (Bennett 1995: x); and LeBor’s interviewees included Mira Marković (Milošević’s wife), Borislav Milošević (Milošević’s brother) and Dušan Mitević (the former head of Radio Television Serbia) (LeBor 2002). 2 According to Lederach, peace-building is ‘a comprehensive concept that encompasses, generates and sustains the full array of processes, approaches and stages needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships. The term thus involves a wide range of activities and functions that both precede and follow formal peace accords’ (Lederach 1997: 20). 3 There is, however, a substantial general literature on collective denial and collective guilt (see, for example, Cohen 2001b; Jokić 2001; Bartov 2002; Fletcher 2002; Shale et al. 2003; Arendt 2003; Tollefsen 2006). 4 According to Staub, ‘Reconciliation may be defined as mutual acceptance by groups of each other. The essence of reconciliation is a changed psychological orientation toward the other. Reconciliation means that victims and perpetrators, or members of hostile groups, do not see the past as defining the future, as simply a continuation of the past. It means that they come to see the humanity of one another, accept each other and see the possibility of a constructive relationship’ (Staub 2006: 868). 5 For example, collective guilt, or more specifically Hutu collective guilt, is a very topical issue in post-genocide Rwanda. To cite Eltringham, who categorically rejects the idea of collective guilt, ‘…certain members of the current political class in Rwanda appear to globalize guilt according to ethnic identity’ (Eltringham 2004: 69). The relationship between retributive justice and reconciliation is also very relevant in the Rwandan context. Whether or not the ICTR can contribute to building peace among Hutus and Tutsis is heavily debated (see, for example, Drumbl 2000; Akhavan 2001; Kamatali 2003; Nsanzuwera 2005). 6 One book that does look at Serbia after Milošević is Ramet and Pavlaković (2005). 7 http://www.un.org/icty/cases-e/factsheets/achieve-e.htm



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Chapter One 1 Liberalism has become increasingly influential in post-Cold War international relations and one of the consequences is that explanations of war now focus less on structural factors than on ‘rogue states’ and ‘criminal leaders’. As Duffield argues, ‘The condemnation of all violent conflict by liberal peace means that the leaders of violent conflicts are automatically problematized. By their own actions, they risk placing themselves beyond the limits of cooperation and partnership. This is regardless of whether they are guilty of war crimes, as many are, or defending themselves from dispossession or exploitation, which some may be’ (Duffield 2001: 129). Another important development in international relations has been the gradual erosion of the principle of sovereign immunity, according to which a head of State cannot be held criminally accountable for crimes committed while in office. According to Jones and Powles, it was at the end of the 1990s that ‘…impunity was first seriously called into question – by the Pinochet case, the Rome Treaty for the ICC [International Criminal Court], the Lockerbie proceedings and the use of force to stop atrocities in Kosovo and East Timor’ (Jones and Powles 2003: xx). This erosion of sovereign immunity can further be seen in the fact that the Charters of both the ICTY and the ICTR explicitly reject the principle of sovereign immunity. Hence, both Milošević and Jean Kambanda, the former Prime Minister of Rwanda, were made to stand trial. In September 1998, the ICTR sentenced Kambanda to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity. 2 The image of Milošević as a criminal leader remains intact and appears not to have been affected by his death. For this reason, even though Milošević is no longer alive, the present tense is used in this part of the chapter. 3 Zimmermann maintains that, ‘Nationalism was the arrow that killed Yugoslavia. Milošević was the principal bowman’ (Zimmermann 1996: 212). It is widely believed, however, that Milošević was never a genuine nationalist. Bennett, for example, argues that, ‘Though he [Milošević] has played the Serb national card, he is not and never has been a Serb nationalist’ (Bennett 1995: 247); and Cohen claims that, ‘In practice, Serbian nationalism per se meant very little to Milošević’ (Cohen 2001a: 151). 4 In its Programme Declaration of 3 March 1991, for example, the SRS maintained that all of the following were Serbian lands – the Serbian federal unit, Serb Macedonia, Serb Montenegro, Serb Hercegovina, Serb Dubrovnik, Serb Dalmatia, Serb Lika, Serb Kordun, Serb Banija, Serb Slavonia and Serb Baranja (http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/ reports/srpclean1.htm).

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5 In his speeches, the only type of expansion that Milošević talked about was economic expansion, not territorial expansion. In Drmno, for example, in July 1988, he maintained that Serbia ‘must mobilize for her economic expansion’ (Milošević 1990: 201). 6 LeBor discusses the existence of a plan called RAM which, according to him, ‘detailed the geographical outline of the future Greater Serbia and how it would include large swaths of Croatia and Bosnia inhabited by Serbs’ (LeBor 2002: 143). He also admits, however, that ‘…no copy of the RAM plan has yet been produced as evidence…’ (LeBor 2002: 351). 7 In 1844, for example, Ilija Garašanin wrote his Načertanije (Outline), which declared that ‘the unification of Serbia with all the other subject peoples must be considered a fundamental law of the State’ (Stavrianos 1965: 255). Judah refers to the Načertanije as ‘a blueprint for a Greater Serbia’ (Judah 2000a: 56), while Grmek, Gjidara and Šimac describe it as ‘un programme cohérent et ambitieux d’expansion territoriale’ (‘a coherent and ambitious programme for territorial expansion’) (Grmek, Gjidara and Šimac 1993: 17). Later, in 1941, Stevan Moljević wrote his text ‘Homogeneous Serbia’, in which he argued that the primary and fundamental duty of the Serbs was to create a homogeneous Serbia that would encompass all areas where there were Serbs living (Grmek, Gjidara and Šimac 1993: 191). The territory that Moljević was thus claiming was vast and included, inter alia, all of eastern Hercegovina, the northern part of Albania, the northern part of Dalmatia and the Serbian parts of Lika, Kordun and Banija. 8 Some Western authors make similar arguments (see, for example, Thompson 1992; Gordy 1999). 9 According to the Belgrade military expert Miloš Vasić, paramilitary groups ‘consisted on average of 80 per cent common criminals and 20 per cent fanatical nationalists’ (Vasić 1996: 134). For his part, Mueller argues that, ‘…nationalism was not so much the impelling force as simply the characteristic around which the marauders happened to have arrayed themselves’ (Mueller 2000: 43). 10 In his trial in The Hague, Milošević’s appetite for power was similarly depicted as criminal. In her opening statement on 12 February 2002, for example, chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte told the Tribunal, ‘… Milošević did nothing but pursue his ambition at the price of unspeakable suffering inflicted on those who opposed him or represented a threat for his personal strategy of power. Everything, Your Honours, everything with the accused Milošević was an instrument in the service of his quest for power’ (Del Ponte 2002). 11 According to Cashman, ‘Narcissism is a highly complex personality construct made up of several factors, including a disposition to exploit and manipulate others, a reveling in leadership and authority roles,



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attitudes of self-importance, superiority and grandiosity, egotism, a lack of empathy for others, physical vanity and a hypersensitivity to the evaluation of others’ (Cashman 1993: 41). 12 Various authors emphasize Mira’s influence and significance. Scharf and Schabas, for example, argue that, ‘One cannot decipher Milošević without also focusing on his lifetime partner, Mira Marković’ (Scharf and Schabas 2002: 6); and Cohen notes that, ‘The extremely close bond between Mira and Slobodan suggests that her role must be carefully considered when assessing the strengths and deficiencies of Milošević’s political behavior’ (Cohen 2001a: 112). Nevertheless, Mira has been somewhat overlooked in the literature and her role has not been explored in any depth. Her squeaky voice, the trademark plastic flower she wore in her hair and her firm Marxist views have made her more the object of caricature than of serious analysis. 13 Conversely, Koraksić made Milošević appear very small vis-à-vis Western leaders and diplomats, such as President Clinton and Richard Holbrooke. This was to make the point that despite his feelings of selfimportance, the Serbian leader was in fact a very insignificant actor on the international stage (Koraksić 2001). 14 On 17 March 1990, Tudjman publicly declared, ‘Thank God my wife is not a Jew or a Serb’ (cited in Gallagher 2001: 266); in April 1994, his government demanded that all ‘non-white’ UN troops be removed from Croatia, claiming that only ‘First-World troops’ were sufficiently sensitized to Croatia’s problems (Parenti 2000: 45); and according to Ivan Zvonimir Čičak, the former president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, Tudjman frequently referred to the Muslims as ‘dirty, stinking Asians’ (cited in Udovički and Štitkovac 2000: 212). 15 For this reason, the Hague Tribunal’s initial indictment against Milošević was confined to allegations about crimes in Kosovo and made no mention of crimes committed in Bosnia. To cite Bissett, ‘It would not do to have the man Madeleine Albright hailed as “a man of peace” at the time of the Dayton Accords indicted for crimes in Bosnia after he had played such a pivotal role in bringing about an end to the bloodshed there’ (Bissett 2001). 16 While Liberalism strongly influenced British and US foreign policy towards the former Yugoslavia, particularly the decision to intervene in Kosovo in 1999, it is interesting to note that during the early 1990s, when the dominant mood among policy-makers was against intervention, it was not so much Milošević who was regarded as the problem but the region itself. As Mazower argues, ‘Those who opposed Western intervention in the Balkans tended to blame Milošević less than long-run cultural determinants of behaviour in the region’

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(Mazower 2000: 128). Speaking on 28 March 1993, for example, the then US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, said, ‘Let me put that situation in Bosnia in just a little broader framework. It’s really a tragic problem. The hatred between all three groups – the Bosnians and the Serbs and the Croats – is almost unbelievable. It’s almost terrifying and it’s centuries old. That really is a problem from hell’ (cited in Cohen 1998: 243). According to Tucker, there are two ways of approaching leadership. The first is to treat it as ‘an interactional process, a relation between leaders and followers’. The second way is to approach leadership as ‘a kind of activity that leaders seek to perform in their capacity as leaders’ (Tucker 1981: 24). In short, ‘The liberal view is that not democracies but authoritarian states launch mass killing’ (Mann 2001: 70). By definition, therefore, non-democratic regimes – and by extension their leaders – represent a potential threat to liberal peace and may thus be deemed criminal. There have been calls for those who launched the war in Iraq to be put on trial for war crimes. On 28 March 2003, for example, in a letter printed in The Guardian, the Labour MP Tam Dalyell argued that, ‘…since Blair is going ahead with his support for a US attack without unambiguous UN authorization, he should be branded as a war criminal and sent to The Hague’ (Dalyell 2003). However, while democratic leaders may be viewed by their critics as criminal leaders, the realities of international politics make it extremely improbable that democratic leaders who launch illegitimate wars will be put on trial. In June 2003, for example, Belgium indicted Bush, Blair and others for war crimes committed during the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan. However, when Donald Rumsfield threatened to move NATO out of Brussels, Belgium capitulated and its Court of Cassation asked for the indictments to be dismissed (Cohn 2003). Thus, it seems that the erosion of the principle of sovereign immunity is a very uneven process. To cite Chandler, ‘while for some states sovereignty is being limited, for others it is increasingly free from traditional international constraints’ (Chandler 2002: 121). Since the overthrow of Milošević, however, some Serbian academics have engaged in important bottom-up research that addresses different aspects of the regime. In late 2001 and early 2002, for example, a team led by Zagorka Golubović, Ivana Spasić and Đorđe Pavićević from the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade conducted 303 in-depth interviews with ordinary citizens in 19 Serbian cities and towns, as part of a project entitled Politika i Svakodnevni Život; Srbija, 1999–2002 (Politics and Everyday Life; Serbia, 1999–2002) (Golubović, Spasić and Pavićević 2003). Two respected Belgrade journalists, Dragan



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Bujošević and Ivan Radovanović, have written a book about the fall of Milošević, based on conversations with 60 people who were in Belgrade on 5 October 2000 (Bujošević and Radovanović 2003); and staff at the War Documentation Centre, an NGO in Belgrade, have produced two books – Ratovanja (Warfare) and Sudbine Civila (The Fate of Civilians) – consisting of interviews with ordinary people about the wars in the former Yugoslavia (Gojković, Bašić and Delić 2003, 2004). 21 Nevertheless, a number of scholars working on Serbia and the former Yugoslavia have recognized the value of and engaged in bottom-up research. An early example of micro-level research in the field is Joel Halpern and Barbara Kerensky Halpern’s ethnographical study of a Serbian village, Orašac, during the 1970s (Halpern and Kerensky Halpern 1972). More recently, Tone Bringa followed a Muslim community in Bosnia over a period of six years, describing her book as being ‘concerned with the voices behind the headlines, the lived lives behind the images of endless rows of refugees and war victims deprived of past and future…’ (Bringa 1995: 5). For his part, Mart Bax, who has spent more than a decade conducting research in Medjugorje, a peasant village in the southwest of Hercegovina, maintains that, ‘…for a better comprehension of the present-day problems in Bosnia Hercegovina, attention should be more intensely and systematically devoted to processes and developments on the lower levels of social integration’ (Bax 1995: xix). 22 Bottom-up research on the Third Reich began in the mid-1970s, with the birth in Germany of Alltagsgeschichte (the history of everyday life). 23 In the aftermath of World War Two, studies of the Stalin era, for example, developed around the totalitarian model. Exemplified by Merle Fainsod’s case study of Smolensk province, this approach focused on the issue of state control and its extension over more and more areas of thought and action. Thus, for Fainsod, ‘…Stalinism spelled the development of a full-blown totalitarian regime in which all the lines of control ultimately converged in the hands of the supreme dictator’ (Fainsod 1958: 12). 24 To take two examples, Fitzpatrick argues that, ‘No political regime, including Stalin’s, functions in a social vacuum. There were social pressures and constituencies influencing Stalinist policy formation… More importantly, there were social constraints, social responses and informal processes of negotiation between the regime and social groups that had a very significant impact on policy implementation – that is, on Stalin’s “revolution from above” in practice’ (Fitzpatrick 1986: 372). For his part, Peukert emphasizes that, ‘Active consent – popular approval of Nazi policies – was conditional upon the regime’s ability,

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by invoking a constant supply of genuine or ostensible achievements, to meet people’s basic everyday needs for security, progress and a sense of meaning and purpose in life’ (Peukert 1987: 76). 25 Browning insists that as a methodology, ‘“the history of everyday life” is neutral. It becomes an evasion, an attempt to “normalize” the Third Reich only if it fails to confront the degree to which the criminal policies of the regime inescapably permeated everyday existence under the Nazis’ (Browning 1992: xix). 26 As one illustration, some Western politicians were very quick to reach the conclusion that Milošević and his regime were culpable of genocide in Kosovo. Speaking in March 1999, for example, the then British Defence Secretary, George Robertson, stressed that it was imperative to intervene in Kosovo, in order to stop ‘a regime which is bent on genocide’, while President Clinton referred to ‘deliberate, systematic efforts at…genocide’ in Kosovo (cited in Edwards 2004). Use of the word ‘genocide’ also frequently appeared in Western media. For example, ‘A Nexis database search showed that in the two years 1998–1999, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and Time used the term “genocide” 220 times to describe the actions of Serbia in Kosovo’ (Edwards 2004). 27 Milošević’s trial was the longest criminal trial in history, lasting four years. As noted by Laughland, ‘Its duration contrasts with the Nuremberg trial of 20 leading Nazis, which lasted just ten months from 20 November 1945 to 30 September 1946’ (Laughland 2007: 2). 28 According to Ivanisević, ‘Many Western observers expected the tribunal to rapidly confirm the accepted wisdom that Milošević was responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and even genocide in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Yet they failed to appreciate the important difference between determining political responsibility in the realm of public opinion and establishing criminal responsibility in a court of law’ (Ivanisević 2004). 29 Unlike refugees, IDPs have not crossed any international borders. For example, Kosovo Serbs who have been forced to leave their homes in Priština and move to Kosovska Mitrovica, in the north of Kosovo, are IDPs. 30 Miomir Ilić is the president of the SPS in Požarevac. 31 Silber and Little contend that, ‘Milošević attained almost divine status among the Serbs. No one anticipated the adoration which he would command. Suddenly he was everywhere’ (Silber and Little 1996: 60); and Cohen argues that, ‘As a people, the Serbs cannot escape responsibility: they massively backed Milošević’s nationalist upheaval and they voted him into office in the first “free” elections of December 1990’ (Cohen 1998: 194). Some authors, however, have very different



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views on the extent of Milošević’s support. According to Gordy, there was no real popular support for Milošević. He maintains that the base of support for the regime ‘seems to be made of those conformist groups [like pensioners] who simply like regimes. The same people supported the previous regime and will likely support the next one when it comes’ (Gordy 1999: 9). Merrill, moreover, claims that Milošević was ‘reviled by countless Serbs’ (Merrill 1999: 170). 32 There is some overlap between these categories. In 1991, for example, Jelica Minić helped to set up an NGO, the European Movement and in 2000 she joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and Slobodanka Ast is a journalist for the weekly Vreme, but is also involved with the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, an NGO. 33 Housewives were always strong supporters of the Milošević regime. In November 1993, for example, 51 per cent of housewives backed Milošević’s political party, the SPS (Branković 1995a: 88). 34 In November 1990, only 15 per cent of students supported the SPS and this had fallen to just 5 per cent in November 1993 (Branković 1995a: 87). For pensioners, in contrast, the corresponding percentages were 68 and 52 per cent respectively (Branković 1995a: 88). 35 The fact that so many of the interviewees spoke English might be seen by some as creating a significant bias within the interview sample. However, in response to the argument that more non-English speaking interviewees should have been included in the sample, the following three points should be made. First, the majority of the interviews took place in Belgrade, chosen as a main base for practical reasons, and many people in Belgrade speak excellent English, particularly young people. Second, the use of a snowball sampling strategy tended to produce interviewees who spoke English. If the first interviewee had some knowledge of English, it was quite likely that he/she would know other people who spoke English. Finally, the author’s main priority during the interviews was to gain the interviewees’ trust, in order that they would feel comfortable and be able to speak openly. In those cases where the interviewees spoke English, this desired trust was usually established. However, in those instances where it was necessary to rely upon a third person to translate (in the early stages of the interviews), the possibility of developing any kind of rapport between author and interviewee was significantly lessened. In such cases, the primary interaction was between the interviewee and the translator. In short, when author and interviewee were able to directly communicate without the aid of a third party, this created more suitable interview conditions than when a translator was involved. 36 To cite Jennifer Mason, ‘The key issue for qualitative sampling is therefore how to focus, strategically and meaningfully, rather than how to represent’ (Mason 2002: 136).

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Chapter Two 1 However, some very valuable research on everyday life in Serbia during the 1990s has been conducted by academics at the Institute for Sociological Research, the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory and the Faculty of Philosophy, all of which are in Belgrade. This chapter draws heavily upon that research, most of which exists only in Serbian. The archives of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting are also a very useful source of data, although they only date back to 1999. 2 Serbia has a significant national minority population. According to the 1991 census, for example, national minority communities accounted for 29.38 per cent of the population of Serbia (Federal Ministry of National and Ethnic Communities 2001: 6). Although many national minority groups, in particular the Kosovar Albanians, faced very particular problems during the 1990s, such as discrimination and intolerance, this chapter will focus on generic problems that affected Serbs and national minorities alike. For a discussion of some of the difficulties that specifically confronted national minorities during the 1990s, see Clark (2007). 3 In 1999, as a result of the NATO bombing and reverse ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, about 230,000 Serbs from the province came to Serbia. At the end of 1999, Serbia had almost 1 million refugees and IDPs, making it the country with the highest number of refugees in Europe (Nikolić-Ristanović 2002: 12). 4 According to one survey, the consequences of the war were directly felt by every fourth household in Belgrade until 1994 (Blagojević 2002: 186). 5 An interviewee in Belgrade described how, after breaking his ankle in 1994 while staying with relatives in Ljubovija, in western Serbia, his uncle had to drive him – in the middle of war – across the river Drina to the nearby town of Bratunac, in Republika Srpska. Ljubovija’s nearest hospital had no film to X-ray the broken ankle. 6 In 1971, Yugoslavia owed $4 billion. This rose to $6.6 billion in 1975, to $11 billion in 1978 and reached $20.5 billion by 1983 (Benson 2001: 133). 7 Some authors maintain that the problems caused by these IMF austerity policies in Yugoslavia were a fundamental factor in the country’s disintegration. Hudson, for example, argues that, ‘…it was primarily the disastrous economic problems caused by the IMF economic policies imposed on Yugoslavia in the 1980s which provoked the crisis that eventually resulted in the break-up of the federal republic’ (Hudson 2003: 2). In a similar vein, Chussudovsky contends that, ‘Macroeconomic restructuring applied in Yugoslavia under the neoliberal policy agenda has unequivocally contributed to the destruction of an entire country’ (Chussudovsky 1999: 29).



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8 On 16 November 1992, the United Nations imposed a naval blockade of Serbia and Montenegro, in order to enforce fuel sanctions. On 26 April 1993, sanctions were further extended, in order to freeze Yugoslav assets abroad and to prevent the transhipment of goods through the FRY. 9 When sanctions were first introduced, 5,000 dinars had a value of $550. Three weeks later, their value had dropped to $2.70 (Bookman 1994: 117). 10 Sanctions, for example, took a huge toll on Zastava, the manufacturer of Yugoslavia’s most iconic car – the Yugo. During the 1980s Zastava, which is based in the central Serbian city of Kragujevac, exported the Yugo to 72 countries around the world. However, as a result of war and sanctions, Zastava lost its export markets both in the former Yugoslavia and abroad. Hence, production crashed from a peak of 200,000 cars per year in 1989 to just 14,000 in 1998 (Slatina 1999). 11 Prices would often increase several times during one day. For example, the price of a meal in a restaurant could rise between the time of ordering to the time of paying the bill. Recently hit by its own hyper-inflation, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has experienced similarly dramatic and rapid price increases. Hence, ‘Golfers pay for drinks before they set off on their round, because the price will have gone up by the time they have finished the 18th hole’ (Meldrum 2007). 12 At the same time, stores were often empty or half empty and there was a shortage of basic essentials such as flour, oil, sugar and milk. 13 According to Lalić, when Milošević came to power a monthly salary in Yugoslavia was more than DM 1,000. When Milošević fell from power, however, this had fallen to around DM 80 (Lalić 2001: 27). 14 Zastava, for example, had already had to put most of its workforce on forced vacation. After being struck by NATO bombs in April 1999, however, its remaining employees also lost their jobs. Zastava was targeted by NATO because, in addition to manufacturing and exporting the Yugo, it manufactured and exported weapons and was the main supplier to the JNA. 15 Depleted uranium was also used in Iraq and there have been many reports from southern Iraq of still births, birth defects and leukaemia in children born since 1991. 16 There was a serious shortage of fuel due to international sanctions and the NATO bombing. 17 Dafiment Bank, which was effectively a pyramid scheme, was set up in 1992 by the financier Dafina Milanović, with the help of the authorities. It offered very attractive rates of interest (11 to 15 per cent for hard currency accounts and 75 to 195 per cent for dinar currency accounts) and tens of thousands of people – not just pensioners – queued up to invest their money. The Serbian government then used

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the deposits to finance the war in Bosnia and aid the Bosnian Serbs. When Dafiment Bank collapsed in 1993, it owed hundreds of millions of Deutschemarks (Vasović 2000a). It has been suggested that while young and middle-aged men were more likely to express their aggression through war, old people were more likely to display ‘extensive auto-aggression’ (Petrović et al. 2001: 186). This is not to say that suicide was confined to the elderly, or to men, but it would seem that there are no official statistics on suicide rates among the Serbian population during the 1990s. For example, according to a poll by the news-magazine NIN on 10 March 1999, just two weeks before the start of the NATO bombing, 78 per cent of the population did not believe that there would be airstrikes (Luković 1999). Writing during the NATO bombing, the BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson noted, ‘The majority of people in this country feel like prisoners at present, hideously vulnerable to an outside force which can strike them at any time it chooses, according to a logic they cannot understand’ (Simpson 1999). Every family in Serbia has its saint. ‘Slava’, or Saint’s Day, is an occasion for Serbian families to come together to pay respect to their particular saint. A key part of the Slava is eating Slava cake (Slavski kolač). Since there are 12 different Serbian saints, Slavas occur throughout the year.

Chapter Three 1 Asked who bears greatest responsibility for the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the interviewees most frequently answered ‘political elites in the former Yugoslavia’ and/or ‘the international community’, especially Germany. An ally of Croatia during the Second World War, Germany strongly pushed for the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, which declared their independence in June 1991. On 24 August 1991, the German Ministry issued a statement saying that if the bloodshed continued unabated, Bonn would ‘seriously re-examine’ the question of extending recognition to Slovenia and Croatia within their existing frontiers (Tanner 2001: 254). On 15 January 1992, the EC recognized Slovenia and Croatia as independent states. 2 Interviewee MA, Kragujevac, 10 August 2004. 3 Interviewee RP, Kikinda, 22 July 2004. 4 Interviewee G, Belgrade, 19 July 2004. 5 In a speech given in Belgrade on 7 July 1995, for example, Milošević boasted that Serbia had succeeded in creating ‘najmoderniju i najlepšu podzemnu železničku stanicu u Evropi’ (‘the most modern and most beautiful underground railway station in Europe’) (Milošević 2001: 85); and during the opening of a satellite station near the village of



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Ivanica on 7 July 1996, he declared to the assembled crowd that the satellite signified Serbia’s ‘continuing rapid development and movement forward in terms of our connections with the surrounding countries and the outside world’ (cited in Thomas 1999: 225). 6 Dr Oskar Kovać was a member of the Federal Government of Yugoslavia from 1986–1989 and a member of Milošević’s commission for economic reform, established at the beginning of the 1990s. Kovać was also deputy Prime Minister in Milan Panić’s government, in 1992. 7 Interview, Belgrade, 7 May 2007. 8 Professor Kosta Mihailović was a member of Milošević’s commission for economic reform, set up at the start of the 1990s, and one of the authors of the infamous 1986 ‘Memorandum’ of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. 9 Interview, Belgrade, 15 July 2004. 10 It should be noted, however, that at the height of the economic crisis in 1993–1994, many people did not hold Milošević responsible for their plight. To cite Thomas, by the winter of 1993/1994, ‘the relationship between the town and countryside had broken down…On both sides of this rural/urban divide, there were many who did not blame the government or the President for this crisis. In the towns, food shortages were blamed by some on the laziness or vindictiveness of the peasantry. In the rural areas, blame for the lack of basic materials such as petrol and fertilizer was often aimed at a general class of urban bureaucrats who were held responsible for exploiting the peasantry, rather than specifically at the government’ (Thomas 1999: 166). 11 Interviewee NS, New Belgrade, 12 May 2004. 12 Goran Svilanović became Foreign Minister of Serbia in November 2000 and remained in this post until April 2004 (his successor was Vuk Drašković). At the time of the interview, Svilanović was president of the Civic Alliance Party (Građanski Savez). 13 Interview, Belgrade, 3 June 2004. 14 Branka Prpa is the director of the Historical Archives in Belgrade. She is the widow of the late Slavko Ćuruvija, a journalist and prominent critic of the Milošević regime who was gunned down on his doorstep on 11 April 1999. 15 Interview, New Belgrade, 28 July 2004. 16 Interviewee V, Čačak, 8 July 2004. 17 Interviewee SP, Belgrade, 28 May 2004. 18 Whereas it proved very easy to meet young people to interview, it was much more difficult to meet pensioners. The latter generally spend far more time at home and because most of them do not speak English, they are more wary of foreigners and less approachable. 19 Interviewee LC, Belgrade, 9 May 2004.

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20 At the time of interview, Janko Baljak was working at B–92 as a documentary producer and teaching film studies at Belgrade University. 21 Interview, Belgrade, 30 June 2004. 22 In April 1987, Serbian President Ivan Stambolić sent Milošević, his protégé, to Kosovo in order to try and defuse the growing tensions in the province between Serbs and Albanians. Upon his arrival, Milošević witnessed the spectacle of angry and aggrieved Serbs demonstrating not only against the Albanians, but also against the Communist state. They demanded protection and Milošević responded. 23 Interviewee ZT, Kosovska Mitrovica, 20 August 2004. 24 While the author was sitting outside a café in Belgrade in the summer of 2004, President Tadić and four of his bodyguards sat down at the table opposite and ordered coffee. 25 In an article in December 1993, entitled ‘Veterans of Yugoslav Wars; Hungry and Forgotten’, the Belgrade journalist Miloš Vasić wrote, ‘Help must be provided to the hungry and the forgotten, the invalids now denounced by those whose propaganda has so wholeheartedly pushed them into the war in which their country never took part. Orphans must be fed and raised, widows employed. Assistance must be provided to the veterans…to heal their inner wounds caused by this ugly and bloody war, so that they can find inner peace with which they’ll go on living the best they can manage. This will prove to be an impossible task if this State, such as it is, continues to ignore them’ (Vasić 1993). 26 Professor Ljubinka Trgovćević was a member of the Serbian parliament from 1984 until 1986 and a member of the Serbian Presidency under Ivan Stambolić. At the time of the interview, she was vice-dean of the Political Science Faculty in Belgrade. 27 Some Western commentators who met Milošević have also highlighted his exceptional coldness. According to Zimmermann, for example, ‘Despite his undeniable charm, I found him a man of extraordinary coldness…I never saw him moved by an individual case of human suffering. Nor did I ever hear him say a charitable or generous word about an individual human being, not even a Serb’ (Zimmermann 1996: 24). For his part the journalist Misha Glenny, who interviewed Milošević in the summer of 1991, recalls, ‘The most abiding feature… was the complete absence of anything resembling feeling or humanity in his attitude’ (Glenny 1993: 126). 28 Interview, Belgrade, 19 July 2004. 29 Interviewee ZG, Belgrade, 21 June 2004. 30 Aleksandar Nenadović was a journalist. He worked at Politika for 39 years and rose to become the editor-in-chief, but was expelled by the Communists. Aleksandar sadly passed away in 2006.



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31 Interview, Belgrade, 21 May 2004. 32 The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution had granted Kosovo and Vojvodina very extensive autonomy. For example, laws approved in Serbia had to be confirmed in the provincial parliaments, but legislation passed in the latter did not go to the Serbian parliament for approval (a parallel can be drawn here with the so-called ‘West Lothian Question’). In the judicial system, the court of appeal beyond the Supreme Court of Kosovo (or Vojvodina) was not the Supreme Court of Serbia, but that of the Yugoslav Federation. Thus, the provinces could block Serbia’s passage of laws for the entire territory, yet Serbia could not block the laws of its own autonomous provinces, even though they were nominally part of the Serbian republic. In short, Serbia’s position under the 1974 Constitution meant that ‘40 per cent of the population who were of non-Serbian nationality made decisions about “narrower Serbia”’ (that is to say, Serbia without the autonomous provinces) (Pešić 2000: 31). 33 Anxious to get sanctions lifted, Milošević’s patience was severely tested when, in July 1994, the Bosnian Serb Assembly rejected the Contact Group peace plan. Milošević responded, on 4 August 1994, by imposing his own sanctions on Republika Srpska. 34 Under the new University Law, two of the interviewees – Professor Srbijanka Turajlić, an electrical engineer, and Professor Ranko Bugarski, a philologist – lost their jobs at Belgrade University. 35 Interviewee MM, Belgrade, 9 June 2004. 36 Interviewee VC, Novi Sad, 3 July 2004. 37 Interviewee MA, Kragujevac, 10 August 2004. 38 Interviewee RJ, Belgrade, 13 May 2004. 39 The interviewee is referring to Milošević’s visit to Kosovo Polje in April 1987 and his promise to the Kosovo Serbs that, ‘Niko ne sme da vas bije!’ (‘Nobody should dare to beat you’!). With these six words, Milošević’s rise to the summit of political power was set in motion. 40 Interviewee A, Novi Sad, 3 July 2004. 41 Professor Svetozar Stojanović teaches at Belgrade University, in the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory. From 15 June 1992 until the end of May 1993, he was a special advisor to President Ćosić and Prime Minister Panić and that is how he came to know Milošević. Professor Stojanović is president of the Serbian-American Centre, an NGO whose objective is to improve relations between Serbia and the US. 42 Interview, Belgrade, 29 June 2004. 43 Interviewee NM, Kosovska Mitrovica, 20 August 2004. 44 Interviewee SZ, Belgrade, 3 May 2004. 45 Professor Mihailo Pantić teaches at the Philological Faculty in Belgrade. He is also a writer, vice-president of the PEN (Prose Writers, Essayists

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and Novelists) Centre and the former president of the Serbian Writers Association (after 5 October 2000, writers who had opposed Milošević created a new writers association, SKD. This was distinct from the original Serbian Writers Association, which had supported Milošević). 46 Interview, Belgrade, 22 June 2004. 47 Vladimir Milić works at TV Mreza, a television production company in Belgrade. 48 Beset with difficulties following the end of communism and the breakup of the USSR, Russia did not make any serious effort to come to Serbia’s assistance until 1999, during the NATO bombing of the FRY. 49 Interview, Belgrade 23 May 2004. 50 Interview, Belgrade, 29 June 2004. 51 http://www.domovina.net 52 The trial of General Yamashita Tomoyuki, before the International Military Tribunal in Tokyo, established the principle that high political officials and military commanders have a positive responsibility to ensure that they know about acts being committed under their command, as well as to prevent and punish violations of international humanitarian law – even in cases where conditions were such as to prevent them from actually knowing about these violations. Yamashita was sentenced to death for atrocities that troops under his command had committed in the Philippines in 1944. According to Buruma, however, Yamashita’s trial was rigged; ‘General MacArthur wanted his revenge for having lost the Philippines, so he speeded up the trial and decided to have Yamashita hanged, even before two dissenting opinions had arrived from the Supreme Court. The dissenting judges called it a “judicial lynching without due process of law”’ (Buruma 1995: 170). 53 Interviewee AB, Belgrade, 12 August 2004. 54 Aleksa Djilas is the son of the famous Yugoslav dissident, Milovan Djilas. 55 Interview, Belgrade, 21 May 2004. 56 During the 1990s, Milorad Vučelić was the director of RTS, the mouthpiece of the Milošević regime, although he omitted to mention this during the interview. Vučelić is vice-president of the SPS and was a close friend of Milošević. 57 Interview, Belgrade, 5 June 2004. 58 Živadin Jovanović worked as a diplomat from 1964 until 2000. In 1993, he became a member of the SPS and in 1996 he became a member of the party’s main board. From January 1998 until November 2000, he was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs. He is now retired. 59 According to Professor Marković, for example, ‘JUL did not represent a real Left. Its members were just thieves and profiteers, so they could not be in an alliance with the SPS’ (Interview, Belgrade, 11 June 2004).



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When he suggested that JUL was not a credible party, Mira replied that he was a ‘decrepit academician and infantile Socialist’ (cited in Djukić 2001: 84). 60 Professor Mihailo Marković served on Milošević’s committee for political reform, created in 1989. Between 1990 and 1992, Mihailović was the vice-president of the SPS. From 1992 until 1995, he was a member of the SPS main committee. He left the party in 1995. He is also an academic and a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He writes mainly philosophical texts and is a committed socialist in his political beliefs. He used to teach Milošević’s wife. 61 Interview, Belgrade, 11 June 2004. 62 Interviewee DZ, Kragujevac, 10 August 2004. 63 Interview, Belgrade, 29 June 2004. 64 Interviewee RB, Belgrade, 10 May 2004. 65 Interviewee PK, Belgrade, 10 May 2004. 66 Interviewee SC, Belgrade, 16 July 2004. 67 Historically, the SPC has played a major role in fostering the image of Serbs as victims. Father Nikolaj Velimirović, for example, one of the most influential Serbian Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, once claimed that ‘Since the ancient people of Israel, I see no other people in the world’s history with a more tragical fate than that of the Serbian people’ (Velimirović 1916: 75). 68 Interview, Belgrade, 21 May 2004. 69 Interview, Belgrade, 11 June 2004. 70 Interview, Belgrade, 29 June 2004. 71 Interview, Belgrade, 5 June 2004. 72 Koštunica and other opposition leaders refused to participate in run-off elections and instead called for a series of protest meetings throughout Serbia. 73 Interviewee NM, Kosovska Mitrovica, 20 August 2004. 74 Interviewee ZT, Kosovska Mitrovica, 20 August 2004. 75 Interviewee AD, Gračanica, 22 August 2004. 76 Interviewee IG, Belgrade, 25 May 2004. 77 Interviewee MM, Belgrade, 9 June 2004. 78 Some Western authors have also expressed such views. According to Hudson, for example, the US and the EU used the Yugoslav presidential elections, in September 2000, ‘finally to achieve what they had been trying to do for over a decade and had failed to do through bombing – to satisfy their own economic and strategic goals in the post-Soviet period’; these included ‘the removal of a government in Belgrade which had not only a socialist economic orientation, but also a strategic orientation away from NATO and towards Russia’ (Hudson 2003: 138). For his part, Chomsky claims that, ‘Serbia was an annoyance,

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an unwelcome impediment to Washington’s efforts to complete its substantial takeover of Europe’ (Chomsky 1999: 137). 79 Interviewee SC, Belgrade, 16 July 2004. 80 Certain Western commentators, mainly on the political Left, have made similar arguments. Parenti, for example, claims that, ‘At first, the West viewed the ex-banker as a Serbian nationalist who might be useful to them. As late as 1995, the Clinton administration accepted Milošević as a negotiating partner and guarantor of the Dayton Accords in Bosnia, even praising him for the many concessions he made. Only later, when they saw him as an obstacle rather than a tool, did US policy makers begin to depict him as having been all along the demon who “started all four wars”’ (Parenti 2000: 177). 81 Interviewee RJ, Belgrade, 13 May 2004. 82 Interviewee DB, Belgrade, 6 July 2004. 83 According to LeBor, however, ‘Officials at the ICTY confirm that had Tudjman lived, he would have been indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity’ (LeBor 2002: 254). 84 In some Western media, however, this epithet was coined much earlier. On 15 April 1992, for example, an article appeared in The New York Times with the headline ‘Stop the Butcher of the Balkans’ (New York Times 1992). Chapter Four 1 The current Serbian government has very ambitious economic goals. In his keynote address to the Serbian parliament on 15 May 2007, for example, Prime Minister Koštunica declared, ‘The government’s plan is that by 2010, the annual employment rate grows continuously and that 70 per cent of the unemployed are included in various active measures of employment. Through transition centres, the government will enable workers to get re-qualified and keep their jobs, or to find new jobs’. He continued, ‘The government’s aim is to achieve 80 per cent of the GDP of new EU member states by 2012, to increase the annual growth of exports to 17 per cent and to pull in between $3 billion and $5 billion in investments per year’ (Koštunica 2007b). 2 Milošević sold off part of the ownership of various profitable Stateowned companies – like PTT (Post Office and Telecommunications) – to foreign companies. The money that he made was then invested in health funds, pension funds and so on. 3 Interviewee IZ, Belgrade, 13 May 2006. 4 Ljubica Marković is the director of the news-agency BETA. She used to work for the State news-agency Tanjug, until 1992 when it became ‘unbearable’. She is the half sister of Mira Marković, Milošević’s wife. 5 Interview, Belgrade, 22 June 2006.



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6 Website of the SRS, http://www.srs.co.yu 7 Zoran Đinđić, Serbia’s former Prime Minister, was assassinated on 13 March 2003 as he was going to work. Fondly remembered by many people in Serbia, his death is widely seen as a huge loss for the country. 8 Interviewee DN, Belgrade, 11 May 2006. 9 Milan Nikolić is a sociologist and the director of the Centre for Policy Analysis in Belgrade. He was a policy advisor to the Serbian opposition in the run-up to the September 2000 elections, in which Milošević was defeated by Koštunica. 10 Interview, Belgrade, 1 June 2006. 11 Drinka Gojković is the director of the War Documentation Centre, an NGO which was set up in 1991. She works on oral history of the wars in the former Yugoslavia. 12 Interview, Belgrade, 5 July 2006. 13 In a more recent survey by CESID in June 2007, only 22 per cent of the 1,677 respondents trusted Koštunica (47 per cent did not trust him), just 21 per cent had trust in the government (46 per cent did not) and a mere 18 per cent trusted Serbia’s National Assembly (48 per cent did not) (CESID 2007: 26). While the percentages of mistrust are lower in the 2007 survey than they were in the 2005 survey, one reason for this is that whereas in the earlier survey respondents were simply asked whether or not they trusted these institutions, the respondents in 2007 were given a third option of saying that they neither trusted nor mistrusted them. 14 http://www.cesid.org/rezultati/sr_jan_2007/index.jsp 15 Miljenko Dereta is a film and television director by profession, but today he is the executive director of the Civic Initiative, a leading NGO in Serbia. 16 Interview, Belgrade, 4 July 2006. 17 Interviewee BM, Belgrade, 26 May 2006. 18 Interviewee A, Novi Sad, 8 July 2006. 19 According to Morgan, ‘Foreign media cast the Serbs as the Nazis of the New World Order…’ (Morgan 1997: 128); and Emmert claims that ‘the conflict in Kosovo enabled Serbia to emerge more clearly as a challenger to Iraq for the position of the Western world’s most demonic nation’ (Emmert 2003: 160). 20 Interviewee NS, Belgrade, 16 May 2006. 21 Interviewee AB, Belgrade, 16 June 2006. 22 Interviewee IG, Belgrade, 28 May 2006. 23 Milošević, however, sought to demonstrate that he himself was not, in fact, the real problem. Thus, in his Address to the Nation on 2 October 2000, just three days before his regime was overthrown, he declared,

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‘It should be clear to all, after the past ten years, that NATO isn’t attacking Serbia because of Milošević; it is attacking Milošević because of Serbia’ (Milošević 2000b). 24 Interviewee S, Belgrade, 26 May 2006. 25 Interview, New Belgrade, 5 June 2006. 26 Del Ponte was the ICTY Prosecutor from 15 September 1999 until 1 January 2008. Her successor is Serge Brammertz. 27 In February 2006, for example, it was revealed that during the period when he was head of the military security services, General Aco Tomić, a former close ally of Koštunica, was one of the main people hiding Mladić (Andrić 2006: 42). It should also be noted that Koštunica is very tolerant of the activities of the ‘Committee for the Defence of Karadžić and Mladić’, based at the University of Belgrade Law Faculty. The Committee is headed by the lawyer Kosta Čavoški, with whom Koštunica once co-authored a book, Party Pluralism or Monism (1983). 28 Political in-fighting within the SPS leadership started immediately after Milošević’s death. On 17 March 2006, the newspaper Glas published a story with the headline ‘Počinje borba za novog kalifa’ (‘The struggle begins for a new Caliphate’) (Glas 2006: 3). 29 Interviewee G, Belgrade, 29 May 2006. 30 Slobodanka Ast is a journalist for the independent news-magazine Vreme. 31 Interview, Belgrade, 24 May 2006. 32 Milošević’s son Marko, for example, told the Serbian tabloid Press, ‘Pobogu, pa ovo nije sahrana. Ovo je politički miting!’ (‘By God, this is not a burial. This is a political meeting!’) (Press 2006b: 2); and Milošević’s daughter Marija claimed that, ‘Većina tih što su se slikali uz očev kovčeg samo su tamo skupljali političke poene…To su obični politički profiteri!’ (‘The majority of those pictured next to my father’s coffin were just there to win political points…They were simple political profiteers!’) (Press 2006b: 2). Marija Milošević was particularly scathing of the SPS vice-president Milorad Vučelić, claiming that it was he who had most betrayed her father after 5 October 2000 (Press 2006c: 2). 33 Interview, Požarevac, 30 May 2006. 34 As Milošević’s coffin was lowered into the ground, the Russian general Leonid Ivašov placed on the coffin a red heart from Mira. On the heart were written the words, ‘Volim te ovoliko’ (‘I love you so much’). 35 Interviewee SU, Kikinda, 29 June 2006. 36 Interviewee ZG, Belgrade, 2 June 2006. 37 Milošević and Mira apparently shared their first kiss under this lime tree. 38 Interviewee MV, Belgrade, 9 May 2006. 39 Interview, Belgrade, 24 May 2006.



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40 Milošević himself had alleged that somebody at the Tribunal was trying to kill him. On the day of his death, one of his legal assistants released a letter that Milošević had written to the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. In this letter, dated 8 March 2006, Milošević claimed that someone at the ICTY was taking ‘active, wilful steps to destroy my health’ (Laughland 2007: 2000). 41 Interviewee AB, Belgrade, 16 June 2006. 42 Interviewee MM, Belgrade, 15 May 2006. 43 Interviewee S, Belgrade, 26 May 2006. 44 Filip David is a professor of dramaturgy in the Faculty of Dramatic Arts at the University of Belgrade. 45 Interview, Belgrade, 3 July 2006. 46 Interviewee LC, Belgrade, 1 June 2006. 47 Interviewee ALD, interview conducted by email, 4 July 2006. 48 Sometimes, however, collective amnesia does not serve a specific purpose. It is simply more convenient to forget than it is to remember. Cramer, for example, notes that, ‘Ethnic cleansing was one of the horrors of the post-Cold War period, though many forgot that virtually every contemporary democracy was built on its own ethnic cleansing or national consolidation exercise, including Anglo-Saxon violence against the Celts and settler North American expulsion of and violence against Amerindians’ (Cramer 2006: 99). 49 This term is borrowed from Parin (1994: 37). 50 According to Singleton, ‘The physical and psychological torments which the Yugoslavs endured in their struggle for survival [during World War Two] have left deep scars which will take generations to heal’ (Singleton 1985: x). 51 Afraid that any discussion about the war might destabilize the new Yugoslavia, Tito ensured that the subject was simply swept under the carpet. He created the slogan ‘bratstvo i jedinstvo’ (‘brotherhood and unity’) in order to forge a sense of oneness and harmony among the divided population and everyone had to declare themselves as ‘Yugoslavs’. According to Miller, however, ‘despite the contrived hiatus of the Tito years, that war [World War Two] never really ended… because it never had the chance to be confronted from anything but a narrow ideological perspective’ (Miller 2006: 323). 52 Interviewee G, Belgrade, 29 May 2006. 53 Interviewee RJ, Belgrade, 13 May 2006. 54 Interviewee AS, Novi Sad, 8 July 2006. 55 Interview, New Belgrade, 5 June 2006. 56 Bieber notes that the term ‘other Serbia’ ‘has been used to describe a group of NGOs and intellectual circles that sought to formulate a nonnationalist alternative to the regime and courageously oppose the war’ (Bieber 2003: 83).

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57 Interviewee G, Belgrade, 29 May 2006. 58 Interview, New Belgrade, 5 June 2006. 59 For example, Nordland’s claim, made at the height of the NATO bombing, that, ‘The Serbs are Europe’s outsiders, seasoned haters raised on self-pity’ (cited in Johnstone 2000); Dent’s argument that, ‘The Serbs are obsessed by the memory of the 600 years of Ottoman rule’ (Dent 2001: 129); or Ramet’s contention that, ‘xenophobic nationalism is a vital part of Serbian culture today’ (Ramet 2007: 42). Chapter Five 1 Between 1915 and 1917, more than 1 million Armenians perished at the hands of the Young Turk regime. According to Smith, Markusen and Lifton, ‘denial of the Armenian genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present’ (Smith, Markusen and Lifton 1995: 3). Thus, it can be argued that, ‘Few denials have been sustained with such determination over such a long period’ (Cohen 2001b: 135). 2 Since Holocaust deniers are not confined to one particular country but can be found throughout the world, it is perhaps more accurate to describe this case of denial not as collective denial, but rather as ‘transnational denial’. According to Shermer and Grobman, ‘the first person to deny the Holocaust may have been a Scotsman named Alexander Ratcliffe, the leader of the Scottish and later British Protestant League’ who claimed, in late 1945 and again in 1946, that the Holocaust was a Jewish invention (Shermer and Grobman 2000: 41). However, the first influential Holocaust denier was Paul Rassinier, a Frenchman and socialist who, in his book entitled Debunking the Genocide Myth: A Study of the Nazi Concentration Camps and the Alleged Extermination of European Jewry (1978), estimated that approximately 1.5 million Jews died during the Holocaust (Shermer and Grobman 2000: 41). The actual figure was about 6 million. 3 On 13 December 1937, the Japanese army overran the Chinese city of Nanking. In the weeks that followed, between 260,000 and 350,000 Chinese non-combatants were killed by Japanese soldiers and between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese woman were raped. According to Chang, ‘Sixty years later, the Japanese as a nation are still trying to bury the victims of Nanking, not under the soil, as in 1937, but into historical oblivion’ (Chang 1997: 219–220). 4 For example, Turkey’s position vis-à-vis the Armenian genocide ‘has ranged from complete rejections that anything happened to Armenians in the [Ottoman] Empire and claims that both Armenians and Turks killed each other due to an unfortunate ethnic-based civil war, to claims that Armenians were in general revolt and the government had



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to defend itself against them, resulting in some deaths – and even to the patently absurd and logically impossible assertion that, far short of being victims themselves, the Armenians actually perpetrated a genocide on 2.5 million “Muslims”’ (Theriault 2001: 242). To take another example, ‘The denial of atrocities on the part of the Japanese government has resulted in historical interpretations of the Rape of Nanking ranging from declarations that it involved only the isolated acts of a few out-of-control soldiers [interpretative denial] to flat-out denial that it ever happened [literal denial]’ (Shermer and Grobman 2000: 233). 5 By invoking ‘the morally and politically significant term genocide’ (Lippman 2007: 195), the international community would thus become obliged – under the 1948 Genocide Convention – to intervene in Darfur. Thus far, however, it has demonstrated a distinct lack of will to do so. 6 Vukovar’s fate perhaps could have been very different had the Croatian government invested more in defending it. Gow, for example, claims that, ‘Vukovar could probably have held out indefinitely had there been a commitment to its defence, but the political will was absent’ (Gow 2003: 240). This political will was lacking, according to Gow, because defending Vukovar would have gone against the grain of Croatia’s ‘victim strategy’. This strategy was designed to force international recognition of Croatia’s independence and ‘the more Croatian towns were attacked, the more likely it became that international support for Croatia would grow’ (Gow 2003: 239). Tudjman also refused to allow Vukovar to be evacuated. Children that had been evacuated were returned to Vukovar two days before the start of fighting, which is contrary to Article 17 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). Hence, it can be argued that Tudjman was equally, if not more ruthless than Milošević. A similar claim, moreover, might be made vis-à-vis Alija Izetbegović, the late President of Bosnia. For example, according to Richard Holbrooke, the former US Special Envoy to the Balkans, Izetbegović ‘showed no appreciation that the long siege of his capital was over. He would prefer to let the people of Sarajevo live under Serb guns for a while longer if it meant that the NATO bombing would continue’ (Holbrooke 1999: 155). It is very striking, however, how Tudjman and Izetbegović’s crimes and misdeeds have typically been overlooked or whitewashed. 7 Regarding Germany, Bartov argues that, ‘On the one hand, since the 1960s tremendous progress has been made in uncovering the darker aspects of the Wehrmacht’s history; on the other hand, this accumulation of knowledge has been accompanied by strong reactions, both public and scholarly, against the obvious implications of such

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11

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findings’ (Bartov 2002: 44). This is a good example of implicatory denial. According to Aaron, ‘In the recent past, probably no other national group has been the subject of as much pejorative ascription as “the Serbs”’ (Aaron 2005: 117). For example, the human rights activists Nataša Kandić, Sonja Biserko and Biljana Kovaćević-Vučo. Serbs particularly suffered during the Second World War. Research conducted independently by a Serb historian, Bogoljub Kocović, and a Croat, Vladimir Šerajavić, indicates that during the war, between 295,000 and 334,000 Serbs died on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), an Axis puppet state headed by the Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić (Cohen 1998: 37). According to Miller, ‘The unfinished construction of an accepted historical memory of the Second World War in the former Yugoslavia is crucial to understanding the formation of memory about the recent conflict in a divided Bosnia today. For the more that Bosnian Muslims draw attention to Srebrenica, the louder Bosnian Serbs shout about Jasenovac and other Ustaša concentration camps…’ (Miller 2006: 317). Ante Gotovina was a Croatian general indicted by the ICTY in 2001 for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Operation ‘Storm’, in August 1995. Following his arrest in Spain on December 2005, several major rallies were held in Croatia in support of Gotovina. The largest of these, in Split on 11 December 2005, is estimated to have drawn a crowd of some 50,000 people. In opinion polls conducted shortly after Gotovina’s arrest, over 53 per cent of respondents said that his arrest was bad for the country (only 23 per cent assessed it as good); almost 64 per cent said that Gotovina was not guilty of the crimes for which he stood accused; and 41 per cent expressed the view that he would not receive a fair trial in The Hague (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 2005). His trial at the ICTY began on 11 March 2008. According to Cruvellier and Valiñas, ‘there is ongoing systemic denial [in Croatia] of any wrongdoing on the part of the Croatian army and its role in the ethnic cleansing of Serb civilians’ (Cruvellier and Valiñas 2006). The best-known psychological theory of denial comes from psychoanalysis; ‘Denial is understood as an unconscious defence mechanism for coping with guilt, anxiety and other disturbing emotions aroused by reality. The psyche blocks off information that is literally unthinkable or unbearable’ (Cohen 2001b: 5). Interview, Belgrade, 5 July 2006. Staub and his associates have developed and used such an approach in Rwanda, bringing people together – in the form of small groups – to



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discuss and to share their experiences. Staub explains, ‘To promote healing, in small groups…we provided information about the impact of traumatizing events on people. The purpose of this was to help people understand changes in themselves and in others around them as natural, normal consequences of extreme, and in their case horrendous events. In small groups, people also engaged with their experiences during the genocide, with empathic support from others’ (Staub 2006: 874). 16 Roosevelt, for example, during the latter stages of the Second World War, stated, ‘We have got to be tough with Germany and I mean the German people, not just the Nazis. You either have to castrate the German people or you have got to treat them in such a manner so that they can’t just go on reproducing people who want to continue the way they have in the past’ (cited in O’Donnell 2005: 641). 17 In a Memorial Day address during the NATO bombing, for example, President Clinton claimed that Milošević’s government, ‘like that of Nazi Germany rose to power in part by getting people to look down on people of a given race and ethnicity and to believe they had…no right to live’ (cited in Johnstone 2000). 18 This is a reference to Goldhagen’s controversial book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners; Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1997). 19 In Eichmann in Jerusalem, Arendt is critical of what she calls ‘escape from the area of ascertainable facts and personal responsibility’, as exemplified by ‘the constructs that “explain” everything by obscuring all details’. One such construct, she argues, is ‘the collective guilt of the German people…’ (Arendt 1994: 297). 20 One possible explanation is that the speeches are not readily accessible. Milošević’s main speeches are contained in two particular books. The first of these, Godine Raspleta (Years of Solution), was published in 1989. It was also published in French in 1990, under the title Les Années Décisives, and it was the French version that was used for this research (quotations taken from this book, however, will be given in English, not in French). The second book, Od Gazimestana do Ševeningena (From Gazimestan to Scheveningen), published in 2001, is a collection of Milošević’s main speeches from 1989 to 2000. Some of Milošević’s speeches are available in English, however. The Kosovo Conflict; A Diplomatic History Through Documents (2000), a book edited by Auerswald and Auerswald, and the website www.slobodanmilosevic.org are two examples. 21 Two other speeches are frequently mentioned, namely Milošević’s address to Serbs in Kosovo Polje on 24 April 1987 and his speech to a private meeting of Serbia’s municipal leaders on 16 March 1991. However, only one sentence from each speech is typically cited.

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Milošević’s promise to the Kosovo Serbs that ‘Nobody should dare to beat you’ has received much attention, as has his claim that, ‘…ako ne umemo dobro da radimo i privređujemo, bar ćemo znati dobro da se tučemo (‘…if we don’t know how to work well and to do business, at least we know how to fight well’) (Milošević 1991: 41). Such selective quoting means that both speeches have been heavily misrepresented in the literature. 22 For alternative interpretations of this part of the speech, see Gil-White (2002) and Johnstone (2002). 23 It should be noted that Milošević habitually used the word ‘battle’ in his speeches in a non-military sense. In February 1986, for example, at the 28th session of the Municipal Committee of the League of Communists of Belgrade, he spoke about ‘…this battle for a new approach to the economy…’ (Milošević 1990: 73). In July 1988, at Drmno, he maintained that Serbs must mobilize for progress and announced that, ‘If today we must declare and carry out war, then let it be a war against inertia, indifference and disunity’ (Milošević 1990: 202). Much later, at the Fourth SPS Congress in February 2000, he claimed that the country was ‘fighting a battle for freedom and independence’ (Milošević 2000a). 24 For example, according to research by the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade in November 1990, 68 per cent of pensioners, 51 per cent of farmers and 48 per cent of housewives supported the SPS. In contrast, only 2.5 per cent of pensioners, 2 per cent of farmers and 4 per cent of housewives voted for the DS; and just 2.5 per cent of pensioners, 12 per cent of farmers and 11 per cent of housewives voted for the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) (Branković 1995a: 87–88). 25 Gompert, for example, argues that, ‘Milošević injected into the Serbs the venom of ethnic hatred that had been absent in modern Yugoslavia’ (Gompert 1996: 143); and Zimmermann refers to ‘the ethnic hatred sown by Milošević and his ilk…’ (Zimmermann 1996: 41). 26 According to Lalić, ‘U jednom se svi slažu: Slobodan Milošević nikada ne bi postao one što jeste da iza sebe nije imao “Politika” i RTS, koji ga godinama bezrezervno podržavaju’ (‘On one thing everybody agrees: Slobodan Milošević would never have become what he was had he not had behind him “Politika” and RTS, which for years unreservedly supported him’) (Lalić 2001: 129). 27 Wanting to be perceived in the West as a liberal, Milošević tolerated some independent media, but only as long as they posed no threat to him and his regime. In March 1991, for example, during widespread anti-regime demonstrations, Milošević took the decision to close down the independent Radio B–92. It was similarly closed down for two days at the beginning of December 1996, again during large-scale protests



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against the regime, and during the NATO bombing it was completely taken over by the regime. Radio B–92 allowed people to learn what was really happening, but only those living in Belgrade were able to pick up its signal. In many parts of Serbia, there was no independent media at all. 28 Interviewee G, Belgrade, 19 July 2004. 29 ‘Otpor’ (‘Resistance’) was created by students from the Philosophy Faculty in Belgrade. It had some 70,000 members and about 80 offices throughout Serbia. With its very simple and direct message, ‘Gotov je!’ (‘He’s finished!’), Otpor played a key role in bringing about the downfall of the Milošević regime. Although it was created in late October 1998, it did not receive any significant support from the West until 2000. 30 Jelica Minić works at the Economics Institute in Belgrade. In 1991, she helped to set up the European Movement, an NGO, and this is how she became involved in the fight against Milošević. In 2000, she led a campaign, financed by the German Marshall Fund, to oust the Serbian leader. 31 Interview, Belgrade, 19 June 2006. 32 One of the interviewees, for example, the writer Filip David, recalled how, ‘A few days after the assassination of Slavko Ćuruvija on 11 April 1999, an article appeared in Politika. It said that I, together with Biljana Srbranović and Vojin Dimitrijević were traitors who had called for the bombing of Belgrade. Ćuruvija had written an article calling for the bombing of Belgrade and shortly afterwards he was murdered. Biljana and Vojin left Belgrade, but I stayed. I was threatened in the street and by phone and I received no protection. There were lists, drawn up by the secret services, of people to be liquidated. Despite everything, though, I didn’t want to leave. I felt I had to stay and to say what I thought’ (Interview, Belgrade, 3 July 2006). 33 The irony is that the NATO bombing actually accelerated this process of ethnic cleansing. For example, whereas some 200,000 Kosovar Albanians had left Kosovo prior to NATO’s intervention, once the bombing started some 850,000 Kosovar Albanians fled the province, mainly into neighbouring Macedonia. 34 Thus, in order to be considered as a victim, ‘One of the criteria of qualification seems to be that the suffering must be “undeserved” (according to dominant values)’ (Smyth 2003: 142). Evidently, the Serbs have not met this criterion. 35 Even Fletcher, a prominent advocate of collective guilt, is forced to acknowledge that, ‘To ascribe irreducible, associative national guilt to the Germans is to repeat the intellectual indecency of anti-Semitism’ (Fletcher 2002: 1533).

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36 The ‘otherness’ of the Balkans has long been a theme in some Western literature. To cite Allcock, ‘The Balkan countries have for a long time served as a symbol of otherness against which it is possible to measure European normality’ (Allcock 2000: 13). Burgess, for example, argues that, ‘…a strong case can be made for suggesting that the Serbs are understood to be only the most uncivilised of a generally uncivilised lot – a sort of ideal type of East European backwardness’ (Burgess 1997: 45). 37 At the start of Milošević’s trial in The Hague on 12 February 2002, the chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte emphasized that, ‘The accused in this case, as in all cases before the Tribunal, is charged as an individual. He is prosecuted on the basis of his individual criminal responsibility. No state or organization is on trial here today. The indictments do not accuse an entire people of being collectively guilty of the crimes, even the crime of genocide…Collective guilt forms no part of the Prosecution case’ (Del Ponte 2002). 38 During the Nuremberg trials, for example, Hartley Shawcross, the chief British prosecutor, underlined that, ‘The entire law relating to war crimes…is based upon the principle of individual responsibility’ (Marrus 1997: 87); and Joseph Keenan, chief prosecutor at the Tokyo International Military Tribunal, declared in his opening statement, ‘We must reach the conclusion that the Japanese people themselves were utterly within the power and forces of these accused and to such an extent were its victims’ (Futamura 2006: 473). 39 Miller, for example, highlights ‘the state of a divided memory’ in Bosnia, ‘in which each group’s legitimate victimization blinds and desensitizes them to that of their countrymen, who they themselves may have had a hand in victimizing’ (Miller 2006: 323). 40 On 16 March 1968, during the war in Vietnam, as many as 500 unarmed women, children and elderly Vietnamese were massacred by US soldiers in the hamlet of My Lai. Lieutenant Calley was found guilty of this mass crime. However, he tried to argue that, ‘The guilt… we all as American citizens share it’ (French 1998: 1). 41 Although Jaspers speaks of metaphysical ‘guilt’, guilt is a legal concept that refers to ‘a specific status defined by an act of a judicial institution’ (Gordy 2003a: 6). What Jaspers is discussing is states of feeling and self-assessment. Thus, as Gordy suggests, it is more appropriate to speak of ‘metaphysical responsibility’. 42 Gowan rightly points out that the West’s role in the disintegration of Yugoslavia ‘has largely been overlooked in Western literature’ (Gowan 1999: 18).



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Chapter Six 1 http://www.un.org/icty/cases-e/factsheets/achieve-e.htm 2 For example, according to the Croatian writer Branka Magaš, ‘It is now clear beyond any doubt that the war taking place in Yugoslavia is not an ethnic war but a war of territorial expansion’ (Magaš 1993: 324); and Croatia’s President, Stjepan Mesić, maintains that, ‘…the war started not because of confessional or national differences, but as a result of Milošević’s policy [to create a Greater Serbia]’ (Mesić 2005: 8). 3 According to Professor Svetozar Stojanović, for example, ‘Simply by definition, they were civil wars, because what are civil wars? Civil wars are wars among citizens of one country. So when the wars broke out, they didn’t break out between existing independent states, but between different parts and citizens of one country. When the West recognized the independence of the republics, this did change the character of the wars, but only on paper. It is really cynical to say that since you recognize something, this changes the character of the war. Simply by proclaiming that something is a reality doesn’t mean that there is a new reality’ (Interview, Belgrade, 29 June 2004). 4 This is illustrative of what Todorov calls ‘the usurpation of the narrative of heroism by the narrative of victimhood in the late twentieth century’ (cited in Bartov, Grossman and Nolan 2002: xxiii). 5 Milošević himself encouraged this belief. For example, in his Introductory Statement to the Hague Tribunal on 13 February 2002, he claimed that, ‘Over the past two days all the prosecutors that we have heard have uttered one particular sentence – that they were just trying an individual…But in all the indictments they accuse the whole nation, beginning with the Serbian intelligentsia and the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences’ (Milošević 2002a: 136). 6 According to Cabrera, ‘There must be the social awareness that in a war situation, everyone is a loser (a victim), even those who never heard a gunshot, as well as those that planned and executed it’ (Cabrera 1998: 29). 7 http://www.un.org/icty/cases-e/factsheets/generalinfo-e.htm 8 Milošević was indicted by the ICTY on 27 May 1999 and extradited to The Hague on 28 June 2001. 9 A female refugee from Bosnia, for example, maintained that, ‘If there was something to judge Milošević for, it was the Serbian people who should have judged him, because he brought the country into war, he created an economic disaster and he made Serbian people poor’ (Interviewee B, Belgrade, 26 May 2006). 10 In February 2001, the Agency for Applied Sociological and Political Research (‘Argument’) in Belgrade asked 910 adult citizens of Serbia

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the question, ‘What is Milošević guilty of and what should he be tried for?’ The four most popular answers given were: stealing the votes in the 2000 election (59 per cent); abuse of office and power for personal and family benefit (56 per cent); using unfair and unjust electoral rules and procedures (47 per cent); and causing an increase in crime, corruption and bribery in Serbia (46 per cent) (Gredelj 2001: 253). It should be noted that the charges brought against Milošević by the Serbian authorities, following his arrest in April 2001, themselves referred only to his alleged misdeeds in Serbia, namely financial violations related to embezzlement and abuse of office. 11 Antonio Cassese was president of the ICTY from 1993 until 1997. 12 Similarly stressing the importance of the ICTR’s image, Moghalu maintains that, ‘The perception of the tribunal by the global public and other constituencies is important to its ultimate success or failure. The phenomenon of impunity cannot be effectively tackled if the world, including potential perpetrators of crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes either does not know what the ICTR is doing or does not have a positive perception of its work’ (Moghalu 2002: 42). 13 Interviewee V, Čačak, 8 July 2004. 14 Interviewee SU, Kikinda, 29 June 2006. 15 About 70 per cent of those indicted by the ICTY have been Serbs. 16 This idea that Serbs have an image of themselves as eternal victims is heavily emphasized in Western literature on the former Yugoslavia. Rezun, for example, claims that Milošević ‘pandered to national feelings of self-pity’ (Rezun 1995: 127); and Clark contends that, ‘Prince Lazar [the Serbian prince slain during the Battle of Kosovo] is the key to understanding the Serbs’ deep conviction that, however many wars they initiated, they remain a nation of victims and martyrs’ (Clark 2000: 70). 17 Blewitt was the ICTY deputy prosecutor from February 1994 until August 2004. 18 UN Security Council Resolution 827, 25 May 1993. 19 Similarly, the charge of ‘victor’s justice’ was made vis-à-vis the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. As Woetzel notes, ‘… the fact that the Allies conducted the trial and that Allied judges served on the tribunal has led to the political criticism that it was a trial of the vanquished by the victors and therefore an act of political policy rather than a judicial proceeding’ (Woetzel 1962: xi). More recently, allegations of victor’s justice have also been made, but for very different reasons, about the ICTR. Reydams, for example, claims that, ‘The conspicuous failure by the ICTR to prosecute serious violations of international humanitarian law committed during the armed conflict in 1994 by the victorious Tutsi-dominated Rwandese Patriotic Front



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(RPF) constitutes a regrettable return to the Nuremberg paradigm of international criminal justice. That paradigm stands for victor’s justice…’ (Reydams 2005: 977). 20 Interviewee MM, Belgrade, 15 May 2006. 21 Vladislav Jovanović became Foreign Minister of Serbia in August 1991 and in April 1992 he took up the position of Foreign Minister of the FRY. He later became the FRY’s representative at the United Nations in New York. 22 Interview, Belgrade, 12 June 2006. 23 Similarly, a frequent criticism of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals was that ‘the case-specific Allied bombings were ignored’ (Rae 2003: 164). For example, at Nuremberg, ‘The tu quoque principle was expressly forbidden in any discussion of war crimes: the bombing of Dresden, say, or the expulsion of German-speaking civilians from their homes in Eastern and Central Europe in 1945 was deemed to be irrelevant to the trial’ (Buruma 1995: 143). 24 Interviewee SNP, Belgrade, 26 May 2006. 25 Interviewee ALD, Gračanica, interviewed by email, 4 July 2006. 26 The phrase ‘prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of humanitarian law’ is used in the ICTY’s Statute and for Chandler, it highlights the Tribunal’s ‘implicit rejection of “innocence until proven guilty”…’ (Chandler 2002: 142). Similarly, Johnstone contends that Tribunal indictments are ‘the equivalent of conviction in the court of public opinion, with guilt taken for granted…’ (Johnstone 2002: 97). 27 In a similar vein, Barria and Roper emphasize that, ‘Fundamentally, national reconciliation can only occur in an environment in which both sides feel that justice is being achieved’ (Barria and Rioper 2005: 363). 28 In Croatia, according to Cruvellier and Valiñas, ‘Prosecution of war crimes suspects, particularly in relation to crimes committed against Croatian Serbs, is fraught with deficiencies and has met strong resistance from leading political parties and the population at large. Public perceptions of the ICTY are less than flattering…’ (Cruvellier and Valiñas 2006). 29 McDonald was president of the ICTY between November 1997 and November 1999. 30 Based in Arusha in Tanzania, the ICTR is also located outside the territory in which the crimes that it is prosecuting were committed. The Rwandan government strongly objected to this, which is one of the reasons why Rwanda ultimately voted against UN Security Council Resolution 955 (1994) authorizing the creation of the ICTR. 31 According to the Tribunal’s website, ‘The ICTY Outreach Programme was established to communicate the activities and accomplishments of

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the Tribunal to the communities it serves in the states and territories that emerged from the former Yugoslavia’ (http://www.un.org/icty/ bhs/outreach/outreach_info.htm). 32 The ICTR created its own Outreach Programme in 1998. Despite this, however, the largest part of the Rwandan population ‘has little or no knowledge of the ICTR. The main sentiment in Rwanda may well be massive ignorance: ordinary people know or understand next to nothing about the tribunal’s work, proceedings, or results’ (Uvin and Mironko 2003: 221). Thus, according to Peskin, ‘At the very least, the Tribunal’s goal of reconciliation depends on bridging the geographical chasm to make the complex courtroom process transparent and comprehensible to everyday Rwandans’ (Peskin 2005: 951). Furthermore, ‘It may well be that in deciding to pursue retribution for the 1994 genocide solely through the instrument of this narrowly legalistic structure, the UN has overlooked an opportunity to help Rwandans achieve a broader, more inclusive sense of justice’ (Vokes 2002: 2). 33 A female interviewee in Belgrade, a former member of ‘Otpor’, similarly insisted that, ‘The Hague Tribunal hasn’t really invested a lot of effort in reaching out to the Serbian community. If I were a consultant at the Tribunal, I would have targeted a lot of the people very early on – people like lawyers, the judicial community and students of law. Starting with them, I would have really explained what was happening, but the ICTY didn’t do that’ (Interviewee MJ, Belgrade, 9 June 2006). 34 Whilst there is little evidence that the Tribunal has fostered reconciliation between the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, the irony is that it has apparently achieved a level of reconciliation between the prisoners in its detention unit in Scheveningen. Here, ‘…Serbs and Croats and Bosnians, who for years fought each other, live happily together’ (Drakulić 2004: 179). Thus, according to Drakulić, the paradox of Scheveningen is that, ‘…at the end of the day, it very much looks like Yugoslavia in miniature. The Yugoslavia of “brotherhood and unity” doesn’t exist any longer except in this very prison’ (Drakulić 2004: 181). 35 Similarly Ayindo, writing on the ICTR, argues that, ‘[I]nstead of salvaging the weak links of relationships to bolster reconciliation, the [retributive] court process heightens adversity’ (cited in Villa-Vicencio 2003: 239). 36 According to Niebur Eisnaugle, however, ‘Often, healing and forgiveness cannot occur for a victim until they are able to both tell their story and hear the offender’s story and ask questions about the offence’ (Niebur Eisnaugle 2003: 236). 37 ‘In First Nation and Native American justice, healing, along with reintegrating individuals into their community, is paramount. Native



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justice involves bringing together victims, offenders and their supporters to resolve a problem. This parallels the philosophy and practice of the restorative justice movement’ (Mirsky 2004). 38 In his August 2004 report on the Rule of Law and Transitional Justice, Kofi Annan, the then UN Secretary General, noted that, ‘The notion of transitional justice comprises…the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. They may include judicial and nonjudicial mechanisms with differing levels of international involvement (or none at all) and individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof’ (cited in Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 41). 39 In September 2003, for example, Croatian President Stjepan Mesić and the then President of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marović, exchanged official apologies. 40 According to Tepperman, the rise of truth commissions is perhaps ‘the greatest recent innovation in post-transition justice’ (Tepperman 2002: 128). 41 Other examples of religious peace-building include the churchsponsored ‘Project for the Recovery of Historical Memory’ in Guatemala; the mediation efforts by the Catholic Church in Chile; the work of the Community of Sant’Egidio in Mozambique; and the efforts of the Catholic and Protestant churches to promote healing in Northern Ireland. As Longman argues, however, religion can often play a contradictory role. In Rwanda, for example, while Christian churches have organized reconciliation projects, ‘During the genocide, some clergy and many other church employees and lay leaders within the churches took important roles in organizing the genocide in communities throughout the country’ (Longman 1998: 58). In the former Yugoslavia itself, religion was undoubtedly a factor in fuelling the conflict (see, for example, Shenk 1993; Ramet 2002). What remains heavily under-researched, however, is whether religion can now also aid the process of inter-ethnic reconciliation. 42 The ICTY’s Completion Strategy is set out in UN Security Council Resolution 1503 of 28 August 2003. This states that the Tribunal will complete all first degree trials by the end of 2008 and all appeals procedures by the end of 2010 (this has since been amended to 2011). All outstanding cases will then be transferred to national tribunals, a process that is already well under way. The problem, however, is that ‘the courts in the former Yugoslavia – including the war crimes chamber of the State Court of BiH – are not yet in a position to assume responsibility for trying large numbers of cases, as the leaders of the ICTY acknowledge’ (Mundis 2005: 158).

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43 The limitations of retributive justice in facilitating reconciliation have led some to argue that a TRC is also needed in Rwanda to complement the work of the ICTR (See, for example, Sarkin 1999; Drumbl 2000). 44 A recent initiative of the Belgrade Circle, an NGO, has been to invite experts on truth commissions to come to Belgrade to speak publicly about their experiences of truth seeking. These experts have included Alex Boraine, a former member of the TRC in South Africa, and Jose Zalaquett, a former member of the TRC in Chile. Chapter Seven 1 Western vilification of Milošević was strongest during and in the aftermath of the war in Kosovo. Speaking during the NATO bombing campaign, for example, Lady Margaret Thatcher declared, ‘We are not dealing with some minor thug whose local brutalities may offend our sensibilities from time to time. Milošević’s regime and the genocidal ideology that sustains it represent something altogether different – a truly monstrous evil…’ (Williams and Scharf 2002: 205). During the same period, President Clinton spoke of ‘…the Milošević vision – rooted as it is in hatred and violence…’ (Auerswald and Auerswald 2000: 855) and in February 2000, the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described Milošević as a man ‘who decides that if you are not of his ethnic group, you don’t have a right to exist’ (Parenti 2000: 187). 2 Interview, Belgrade, 19 June 2006. 3 Predrag Koraksić has been a professional cartoonist since 1950 and his satirical cartoons (known as ‘Corax’) are extremely popular in Serbia. He worked for the Serbian newspaper Večernje Novosti for 25 years, but was sacked in 1993 after a three-year court process against him. Due to his critical portrayals of Milošević and Mira, Koraksić was under constant pressure from the regime during the 1990s. He is now retired, but still does some work for the Serbian newspaper Danas. 4 Interview, New Belgrade, 14 June 2006. 5 Interestingly, these laws were drawn up by Koštunica’s political party, the DSS. At the time, in 2001, the DSS was not in government and its proposals were opposed by the Ministry of Justice, but they were adopted nevertheless. According to Begović, ‘It was claimed at the time (and has never been convincingly rebutted) that this manner of legislative operation was the result of a political trade: we will vote for your law on labour if you support our laws concerning the system of justice. So the laws were passed without any properly thought-out, even less publicly debated, concept for the reform of the administration of justice’ (Begović 2005a: 447). 6 It should be noted that this poll was conducted before the formation of the new Serbian government on 15 May 2007.



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7 In an interview in 2003 the Serbian Vice-President at the time, Nebojša Ćović, himself acknowledged fundamental elements of continuity with the previous regime and admitted, ‘We made a mistake not to replace most prominent persons from the police, secret police, army secret police and army general headquarters. They continued to knit their net and after some time we came to the stage “where everything is the same, only he [Milošević] is missing”’ (cited in Pribićević 2004: 109–110). Koštunica, however, has said that the sudden removal of key security figures ‘runs counter to State interests since it inevitably leads to destabilization’ (cited in Liotta 2003: 99). 8 Begović and Mijatović describe Serbia under Milošević as ‘a cleptocratic state in which institutions of the system, or their functioning, were adapted for the basic goal – maximizing the personal wealth of the ruler’ (Begović and Mijatović 2006: 149). 9 In the first round of the 2004 presidential elections, Karić won 18.23 per cent of the vote. Tomislav Nikolić (SRS) received 30.60 per cent of the vote and Boris Tadić (DS) gained 27.37 per cent (Franklin 2004). 10 Vojin Dimitrijević is a professor of International Law and the head of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, an NGO. 11 Interview, Belgrade, 27 June 2006. 12 In a recent keynote address to the Serbian parliament on 15 May 2007, Koštunica identified the fight against crime and corruption as one of his government’s five key policy areas. He emphasized that, ‘… not a single individual in our country has or should have tolerance for the corruption which is still present in all parts of society…That is why the Serbian government must deal an even harder, stronger and more systematic blow to corruption and crime wherever they crop up’ (Koštunica 2007b). 13 Pre-referendum public opinion polls had suggested the result would be even closer. According to a poll of Montenegrin public opinion by Marten Board International in April 2006, 36.1 per cent of respondents said that they would definitely vote for independence, while 34.0 per cent said that they would definitely vote against it (Marten Board International 2006b). 14 In his first major speech as Prime Minister, for example, Koštunica declared that his government would ‘do everything within its powers to give a practical meaning to and to functionally strengthen the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro’ (Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty 2004); and in May 2006 he told the German newspaper Handelsblatt, ‘I am strongly convinced that the vote will be in favour of maintaining the Serbia-Montenegro Union’ (Fitzpatrick 2006). 15 In her diary entry for 24 January 1993, for example, Milošević’s wife claimed that the war in the former Yugoslavia was the result of a collaboration of foreign and internal interests (Marković 1998: 20).

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16 This is not to say, however, that there was no objective reporting. Independent media such as B–92, the newspaper Danas and the newsmagazine Vreme all covered Montenegro’s referendum in a balanced way. 17 The former Yugoslavia as a whole has often been described in similar terms. According to Nakarada, for example, ‘…history has assigned to Yugoslavia the role of European time-bomb’ (Nakarada 1991: 373) and Colonel Bob Stewart has claimed that since the death of President Tito in 1980, the Yugoslav ‘powder keg has been waiting to explode again’ (Stewart 1994: 6). Such arguments, however, suggest that violence in the former Yugoslavia was inevitable and in this way they side-step the whole issue of agency and responsibility. They also discourage in-depth analysis of recent events in the former Yugoslavia, because if something was inevitable, the importance of trying to understand why it happened is diminished. A comment by the then British Prime Minister, John Major, in 1993 illustrates this. His claim that ‘the conflict in Bosnia was a product of impersonal and inevitable forces beyond anyone’s control’ (cited in Mazower 2000: 128) not only suggests that there was little anyone could do to stop the conflict, but also that the causes of the fighting were beyond comprehension. 18 UN Security Council resolution 1244 provides for international civilian and military administration in Kosovo. This administration rests on four pillars; the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is charged with the entire civilian administration, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is tasked with organizing elections and building democratic institutions, the EU is in charge of reconstruction and development and UNMIK police and the Department of Judicial Affairs deal with security and legal issues. 19 In addition, the Serbian government has considered the option of partitioning Kosovo, but there is little support for this. For example, ‘many fear that talk of partition could spark Albanian attacks on the Serb enclaves scattered across Kosovo, in areas that would lie south of any new boundary line’ (Vasović 2007). There are also concerns that partitioning Kosovo could create new unrest in the Preševo Valley in South Serbia. Furthermore, the idea of dividing Kosovo enjoys little support within Kosovo itself. According to a survey by UBO Consulting, conducted during the second half of March 2007, only 0.4 per cent of Kosovar Albanians and 1.0 per cent of Kosovo Serbs feel that partition would be the best solution for Kosovo (UNDP 2007). 20 The Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, for example, has said that Croatia will support any decision taken by the EU and the international community regarding Kosovo. For his part, the President of Slovenia, Janez Drnovšek, has openly stated that the solution to the problem of



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Kosovo is independence (Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia 2006: 14). 21 Serbs refer to Kosovo as ‘Kosovo and Metohija’. The word ‘Metohija’ means ‘the land of (Eastern Orthodox) monasteries’ and there are some 1,000 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries in Kosovo. The Patriarchate of the SPC is also located in Kosovo, in Peć (‘Peja’ in Albanian). 22 According to the late Archimandrate Justin Popović, the Serbian people ‘have in all fateful moments of their history always preferred the heavenly to the earthly, the immortal to the mortal, the eternal to the transitory’ (cited in Anzulović 1999: 13). 23 Koštunica’s wife is the niece of Amfilohije Radović, the fiery head of the SPC in Montenegro. 24 This new Religion Law has been heavily criticized. Serwer, for example, claims that the law ‘is a step backwards’ (Serwer 2006). Even the Serbian President, Boris Tadić, has said that the law contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights (Djenović 2006). 25 Tomislav Nikolić, the deputy leader of the SRS, is the second mostpopular politician in Serbia today, after Serbian President Boris Tadić (CESID 2007: 7). The leader of the SRS, Vojislav Šešelj, is currently on trial in The Hague. 26 For example Čedomir Jovanović, whose Serbian Liberal-Democratic Party favours an independent Kosovo, has been frequently denounced as a traitor; and when Goran Svilanović, Serbia’s former Foreign Minister, expressed the view that Kosovo ought to become an independent state, the SRS filed a criminal complaint against him, accusing him of endangering Serbia’s territorial integrity (Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia 2006: 11). 27 However, Koštunica’s government has called for Serbian troops to return to the area. On 19 August 2007, for example, Dušan Proroković, a DSS secretary within the Ministry for Kosovo, said that, ‘If KFOR [Kosovo Force] is unable to fulfil its mandate, protect non-Albanian residents in the province and stop ethnic cleansing and violence, our security forces should be entrusted with the task’ (B–92 19 August 2007b). Two days earlier, Aleksandar Simić, an advisor to Koštunica, declared that it was time for a number of Serbian troops to return to Kosovo, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (B–92 17 August 2007). 28 Not all Serbs, however, feel this way. Only 34.3 per cent of Kosovo Serb respondents and 39.5 per cent of Kosovo IDPs were prepared to at least tolerate the Kosovar Albanians’ preferred outcome of independence (KIPRED 2006). 29 As we might expect, however, there are important differences between, on the one hand, Serbs from Serbia and, on the other hand, Kosovo

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Serbs. Research by SMMRI in May 2006, for example, has shown that, ‘Serbs in Serbia differ considerably from Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Serb IDPs by having a much less intense behavioural readiness to either protest or support a Kosovo future status agreement’. For example, ‘While 50 per cent of Serbs in Serbia would protest an unfair agreement and 60 per cent would support a fair agreement along with others in their ethnic group (substantial percentages), the corresponding percentages for Kosovo Serb IDPs and Kosovo Serbs are considerably higher at 80–85 per cent’ (KIPRED 2006). 30 Even during the war in Kosovo in 1999, many Serbs were unwilling to fight. A poll taken by the independent newspaper Nedeljeni Telegraf on 11 March 1998, for example, showed that more than 70 per cent of those asked were against sending a close relative to fight in Kosovo (Liotta 1999: 32). 31 Serbs’ reasons for supporting the EU are primarily socio-economic. In a poll by the Government of Serbia EU Integration Office in June 2007, for example, the respondents were asked what the EU personally means to them. The top three answers were ‘the road to a better future for young people’ (54 per cent), ‘more employment opportunities’ (45 per cent) and ‘the possibility to travel freely throughout Europe’ (44 per cent) (Government of Serbia EU Integration Office 2007). 32 Chandler similarly maintains that, ‘The government in Belgrade has little say over Kosovo’s future…’ (Chandler 2006). 33 While Kosovar Albanians are intent on Kosovo becoming independent, the reality is that the province is economically very dependent on Serbia. According to David Webb, a former diplomat with first-hand knowledge of the situation, ‘Seventy per cent of Kosovo’s trade still goes to Serbia; in other words, it is still dependent on Serbia’ (cited in Tisdall 2007b). In short, Kosovo is not sufficiently developed in socioeconomic terms to become a viable independent state. 34 Between March and May 2001, the international community brokered a peace agreement – known as the Končulj Agreement – between Serbs and Albanians in the Preševo Valley. This led to the disbanding of the UCPMB. 35 On 14 January 2005, Albanian deputies in Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa adopted a ‘Political Platform for the Region’, which calls for special ties to be established between the Preševo Valley and Kosovo. 36 As part of the Ohrid Agreement, the Macedonian parliament adopted a new constitution, enshrining 15 new articles designed to give the country’s ethnic Albanians greater rights, including recognition of Albanian as an official language and increased representation of Albanians (and other ethnic minorities) in public and state institutions.



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37 The Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has himself warned that, ‘Should it happen that certain states acknowledge Kosovo’s independence, this will – if not right away then in time – create various consequences, one of them being that everybody will have an equal right to demand independence’ (B–92 23 September 2007). 38 Wolff similarly emphasizes that, ‘The conflicts in the Balkans – Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro – are inseparably linked’ (Wolff 2006: 13). 39 In 1997, Albania imploded. Army and police depots were raided and weapons such as Kalashnikovs and hand grenades became readily available. Thus the KLA (UČK in Albanian), which had been formed in 1993, now had the one thing that it needed most – weapons. 40 Hashim Thaçi, for example, a former KLA fighter, is now the Prime Minister of Kosovo. Conclusion 1 According to Djukić, ‘Serbs and only Serbs were cast as a murderous horde overcome by madness and destructive hatred’ (Djukić 2002: 46). 2 This point was recently made by Hans-Jochen Witthauer, commander of EU troops in Bosnia. Emphasizing that, ‘The resolution of Kosovo’s status creates problems that have an impact on the entire region’, he maintained that, ‘The entire western Balkans is still a fragile and unstable region. Ethnic tensions are powerful. The international community should pay special attention’ (cited in Tisdall 2007a). 3 Allcock notes that, ‘Along with the themes of fragmentation and confusion, violence has become a component of the definition of the term “Balkan”’ (Allcock 2000: 381); and Mazower argues that, ‘From the start the Balkans was more than a geographical concept. The term, unlike its predecessors, was loaded with negative connotations – of violence, savagery, primitivism – to an extent for which it is hard to find a parallel’ (Mazower 2000: 4). Books such as Robert Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts (1994), which reportedly had a great influence on President Clinton, only served to reinforce such stereotypes about the region. Particularly emphasizing the leitmotif of so-called ‘ancient Balkan hatreds’, Kaplan maintains that, ‘Twentieth-century history came from the Balkans. Here men have been isolated by poverty and ethnic rivalry, dooming them to hate. Here politics have been reduced to a level of near anarchy that from time to time in history has flowed up the Danube into Central Europe. Nazism, for instance, can claim Balkan origins’ (Kaplan 1994: xxiii).

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Afterword 1 According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘It is impossible not to be aware that the decisions by the Kosovo leadership create the risk of an escalation of tension and inter-ethnic violence in the province and of new conflict in the Balkans’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 2008). 2 In a written ministerial statement of 19 February 2008, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband noted, ‘EU ministers were clear in their view that Kosovo constituted a sui generis case which did not set any precedent’ (Miliband 2008).

Appendix List of Interviewees

2004 Interviews (i) Interviews with ‘ordinary’ people Interview with SZ (male), Belgrade, 3 May 2004. Interview with LC (female), Belgrade, 9 May 2004. Interview with SM (male), RB (female) and PK (male), Belgrade, 10 May 2004. Interview with NS (male), New Belgrade, 12 May 2004. Interview with RJ (male), Belgrade, 13 May 2004. Interview with MV (female), Belgrade, 16 May 2004. Interview with S (female), Belgrade, 17 May 2004. Interview with B (female), Belgrade, 18 May 2004. Interview with IG (male), Belgrade, 25 May 2004. Interview with SNP (female), Belgrade, 26 May 2004. Interview with SP (male), Belgrade, 28 May 2004. Interview with MM (female), New Belgrade, 9 June 2004. Interview with BM (male), Požarevac, 15 June 2004. Interview with J (female), Požarevac, 15 June 2004. Interview with IZ (male), Belgrade, 21 June 2004. Interview with ZG (male), Belgrade, 21 June 2004. Interview with MJ (female), Belgrade, 29 June 2004. Interview with DN (female), Belgrade, 1 July 2004. Interview with A (male), Novi Sad, 3 July 2004. Interview with AS (male), Novi Sad, 3 July 2003. Interview with VC (male), Novi Sad, 3 July 2003. Interview with DB (male), Belgrade, 6 July 2004. Interview with IB (male), Čačak, 8 July 2004. Interview with V (male), Čačak, 8 July 2004. Interview with VS (female), Čačak, 9 July 2004.

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Interview with L (male), Čačak, 9 July 2004. Interview with SC (male), Belgrade, 16 July 2004. Interview with G (female), Belgrade, 19 July 2004. Interview with D (female), Kikinda, 21 July 2004. Interview with SU (female), Kikinda, 22 July 2004. Interview with RP (male), Kikinda, 22 July 2004. Interview with DNO (male), Belgrade, 6 August 2004. Interview with ZM (male), Kragujevac, 10 August 2004. Interview with DZ (male), Kragujevac, 10 August 2004. Interview with MA (male), Kragujevac, 10 August 2004. Interview with AB (male), Belgrade, 12 August 2004. Interview with IDP (male), Kosovska Mitrovica, 19 August 2004. Interview with MV (female), Kosovska Mitrovica, 19 August 2004. Interview with SK (female), Kosovska Mitrovica, 19 August 2004. Interview with ZT (male), Kosovska Mitrovica, 20 August 2004. Interview with NM (female), Kosovska Mitrovica, 20 August 2004. Interview with RN (male), Kosovska Mitrovica, 20 August 2004. Interview with ALD (female), Gračanica, 22 August 2004. Interview with SM (female), Novi Pazar, 25 August 2004. Interview with GM (male), Novi Sad, 7 September 2004. Interview with SC (male), Niš, 14 September 2004. Interview with VU (male), Niš, 14 September 2004. (ii) Interviews with elites Interview with Dr Oskar Kovać, Belgrade, 7 May 2004. Interview with Živadin Jovanović, Belgrade, 17 May 2004. Interview with Aleksa Djilas, Belgrade, 20 May 2004. Interview with Aleksandar Nenadović, Belgrade, 21 May 2004. Interview with Vlada Milić, Belgrade, 23 May 2004. Interview with Vladislav Jovanović, Belgrade, 24 May 2004. Interview with Professor Vojin Dimitrijević, Belgrade, 26 May 2004. Interview with Nikola Lazić, Belgrade, 28 May 2004. Interview with Goran Svilanović, Belgrade, 3 June 2004. Interview with Milorad Vučelić, Belgrade, 5 June 2004. Interview with Professor Mihailo Marković, Belgrade, 11 June 2004. Interview with Saša Mirković, New Belgrade, 14 June 2004. Interview with Professor Mihailo Pantić, Belgrade, 22 June 2004. Interview with Professor Svetozar Stojanović, Belgrade, 29 June 2004. Interview with Janko Baljak, Belgrade, 30 June 2004.



Appendix: List of Interviewees

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Interview with Professor Kosta Mihailović, Belgrade, 15 July 2004. Interview with Professor Ljubinka Trgovćević, Belgrade, 19 July 2004. Interview with Dr Branka Prpa, New Belgrade, 28 July 2004. 2006 Interviews (i) Interviews with ‘ordinary’ people Interview with MV (female), Belgrade, 9 May 2006. Interview with DN (female), Belgrade, 11 May 2006. Interview with IZ (male), Belgrade, 13 May 2006. Interview with RJ (male), Belgrade, 13 May 2006. Interview with MM (female), Belgrade, 15 May 2006. Interview with NS (male), Belgrade, 16 May 2006. Interview with DNO (male), Belgrade, 21 May 2006. Interview with B (female), Belgrade, 26 May 2006. Interview with S (female), Belgrade, 26 May 2006. Interview with IG (male), Belgrade, 28 May 2006. Interview with G (female), Belgrade, 29 May 2006. Interview with LC (female), Belgrade, 1 June 2006. Interview with ZG (male), Belgrade, 2 June 2006. Interview with SP (male), Belgrade, 8 June 2006. Interview with MJ (female), Belgrade, 9 June 2006. Interview with SC (male), Belgrade, 15 June 2006. Interview with AB (male), Belgrade, 16 June 2006. Interview with SU (female), Kikinda, 29 June 2006. Interview with D (female), Kikinda, 30 June 2006. Interview with RP (male), Kikinda, 30 June 2006. Interview with ALD (female), by email, 4 July 2006. Interview with A (male), Novi Sad, 8 July 2006. Interview with VC (male), Novi Sad, 8 July 2006. Interview with AS (male), Novi Sad, 8 July 2006. (ii) Interviews with elites Interview with Professor Mihailo Marković, Belgrade, 12 May 2006. Interview with Živadin Jovanović, Belgrade, 23 May 2006. Interview with Slobodanka Ast, Belgrade, 24 May 2006. Interview with Miomir Ilić, Požarevac, 30 May 2006. Interview with Milan Nikolić, Belgrade, 1 June 2006. Interview with Dr Branka Prpa, New Belgrade, 5 June 2006.

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Interview with Vladislav Jovanović, Belgrade, 12 June 2006. Interview with Predrag (Corax) Koraksić, New Belgrade, 14 June 2006. Interview with Jelica Minić, Belgrade, 19 June 2006. Interview with Drinka Gojković, Belgrade, 5 July 2006. Interview with Professor Ranko Bugarski, Belgrade, 20 June 2006. Interview with Professor Srbijanka Turaljić, Belgrade, 21 June 2006. Interview with Ljubica Marković, Belgrade, 22 June 2006. Interview with Professor Vojin Dimitrijević, Belgrade, 27 June 2006. Interview with Filip David, Belgrade, 3 July 2006. Interview with Duška Anastasijević, Belgrade, 3 July 2006. Interview with Miljenko Dereta, Belgrade, 6 July 2006.

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INDEX

Abkhazia, 144 Ahtisaari, Martti, 127–128, 131 Albright, Madeleine, 17 Amnesia, 76–77, 81, 83 Annan, Kofi, 96 Arendt, Hannah, 7, 89, 95–98 Arkan (Željko Raznjatović), 13, 32, 35 Babić, Milan, 74 Bećković, Matija, 132 Beneš, Edvard, 93 Benn, Tony, 61 Biserko, Sonja, 77–78, 126 Blair, Tony, 17, 107 Blewitt, Graham, 105, 107–108, 116 Bosnia-Hercegovina and the ICTY, 109 and Kosovo, 136, 143 siege of Sarajevo, 85 truth and reconciliation commission, 115 war in, 28, 61, 83 See also International Court of Justice; Srebrenica Bottom-up approach, 2, 5, 9, 20–21 Bush, George, 19 Čanak, Nenad, 143 Cassese, Antonio, 103 Čelebići, 85

Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CESID), 26, 66–69, 119, 133–134 Churchill, Winston, 13 Clinton, Bill, 17, 107, 117 Cohen Stanley, 6, 84. See also Denial Collective guilt Arendt, 89 and collective responsibility, 96 dangers of, 94 and Germany, 22, 88, 93–95 the ICTY, 95 and reconciliation, 7, 95–96 See also Serbian collective guilt Collective innocence, 96 Collective responsibility, 7, 96–98. See also Serbian collective responsibility Contact thesis, 88 Cook, Robin, 17, 107 Corax (Predrag Koraksić), 16, 118 Ćosić, Dobrica, 58 Criminal leaders, 10, 14, 16–17, 19 Croatia declaration of independence, 50 and denial, 87 and the ICTY, 105, 109



Index

Croatia, continued and Kosovo independence, 143 war in, 28 See also Operation Storm; Tudjman Dayton Peace Accords, 17, 62, 136 De Gaulle, Charles, 76 Đelić, Božidar, 132 Del Ponte, Carla, 70, 108–109 Denial as a coping mechanism, 87–88 historical examples of, 82, 85 implicatory, 84–85 interpretative, 6, 84–85, 87 literal, 84 and reconciliation, 87–88 See also Serbian collective denial Đinđić, Zoran, 67, 120 Dokmanović, Slavko, 74 Douste-Blazy, Philippe, 64 Drašković, Vuk, 21 Dukić, Branislav, 143 Eagleburger, Lawrence, 61 European Commission for Democracy Through Law, 124 European Union Association and Stabilization talks, 70 and the Serbian government, 132, 144–145 and Serbian public opinion, 69, 133–134, 139, 145

231

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), 7, 135, 143 Franco, Francisco, 76 Gacaca, 113 Galbraith, Peter, 93 Gazimestan, 79, 90–91, 138 Gelbard, Robert, 136 Genocide, 70, 85 Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah, 89–90 Gotovina, Ante, 104. See also Operation Storm ‘Greater Serbia’, 10–12, 100 Grey economy, 30, 33 Hague Tribunal. See International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Hate speech, 127, 131 Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, 88, 126 Hitler, Adolf, 2, 9, 16–17, 20, 89, 92 Holbrooke, Richard, 22 Humanitarian Law Centre, 88, 126 Hussein, Saddam, 14, 19–20 Ilić, Velimir, 118, 125 International Court of Justice (ICJ), 70, 85, 95 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and collective guilt, 95 creation of, 106, 108 establishing a historical record, 99–100

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ICTY, continued image problem of, 109 and Serb perceptions of Milošević, 3, 7, 20, 62, 99–108 and justice, 7, 20, 99, 103–108 and Karadžić and Mladić, 70–71, 109 and Milošević’s death, 71, 74 and NATO war crimes, 107 and Outreach Programme, 110 and reconciliation, 4, 7, 20, 74, 95, 99, 108–111, 115 and ‘remote justice’, 109–110 and truth, 100–102 Western criticisms of, 105–106 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), 105, 108, 111, 113. See also Rwanda Interviewees, 23–25 Iran-Iraq War, 19 Izetbegović, Alija, 104 Jaspers, Karl, 7, 96–97 Jeremić, Vuk, 132, 142 Jović, Borisav, 49, 56 Justice as a contested concept, 103–109 must be seen to be done, 104, 108 restorative, 7, 99, 102, 111–113 retributive, 4, 7, 99, 102, 111–113

Kandić, Nataša, 100, 126 Karadžić, Radovan, 54, 71, 109 Karić, Bogoljub, 121–122 Kirk McDonald, Gabrielle, 110 Kosovo battle of, 90, 130, 132, 138 before Milošević, 137 constitutional status of, 50, 137 declaration of independence, 142–145 expulsion of Serbs from, 94 and Kosovar Albanians, 127–128 Kosovska Mitrovica, 142 negotiations on final status, 127 possible consequences of independence, 7, 117, 134–136, 143 as a precedent, 143–144 and the Serbian government, 128–129, 131 and the Serbian Orthodox Church, 129–130 and Serbian public opinion, 132–134 US position on, 136 Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), 135–137 Koštunica, Vojislav and corruption, 120 criticisms of, 67 defeats Milošević, 58 and economic situation in Serbia, 67 and EU membership, 132 lack of popular trust in, 68, 71 and NATO, 131



Index

Koštunica, Vojislav, continued position on Kosovo, 128–129, 131–132, 144 and referendum in Montenegro, 123 relationship with the Serbian Orthodox Church, 129–130 resignation of, 144 and Russia, 131 and Serbian media, 125 and truth and reconciliation commission, 114 Kovaćević, Milan, 74 Kravica, 86 Kurdistan, 143–144 Lajćak, Miroslav, 103 Leadership, 18–19 Ljajić, Rasim, 70 Macedonia. See Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Marković, Mihailo, 24, 56, 58 Marković, Mira influence on Milošević, 56–57, 73 and Milošević’s funeral, 72–73 relationship with the Socialist Party of Serbia, 56, 72 unpopularity of, 57, 73 See also Yugoslav United Left Martić, Milan, 107 Metaphysical guilt, 97 Milošević, Marko, 118–119 Milošević, Slobodan as a ‘bad’ leader, 5–6, 44–57, 62, 64, 67–68, 71, 99, 101, 103

233

continued influence of, 3, 5, 7, 23, 75, 78, 81, 116, 138 as a criminal leader, 3, 5, 9–18, 22–23, 44, 60, 100, 103 death of, 1, 6, 22, 24, 64, 71–76, 78–81, 100, 138 as a divisive leader, 79–80 and economic ‘crimes’, 45, 64, 68 funeral of, 72–73, 80–81 and ‘Greater Serbia’, 10–11, 100 and Kosovo Serbs, 1, 48, 137 and nationalism, 10, 12 and neglect of PR, 54–55, 68 overthrow of, 4, 119–120 as power-hungry, 6, 14, 48, 50–51, 67–68 as a pragmatist, 12, 50–51 and public appearances, 49 reactions evoked by, 1, 75–76, 79–80, 138 relationship with Mira, 6, 15 responsibility for the death of Yugoslavia, 3, 10–13, 45, 104 speeches of, 11, 45–46, 49, 55, 59, 79, 90–91, 138 as a threat to liberal peace, 3, 10–11, 17 trial in The Hague, 22, 54, 61, 103, 111 as a victim, 6, 44, 58–62, 71–74, 81, 99–100, 103, 116 as a weak leader, 13–14, 51, 55 Western literature on, 1–2, 138

234

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Milošević, Slobodan, continued Western portrayals of, 3, 5, 9–18, 23, 44, 100, 103 See also Milošević regime; Socialist Party of Serbia Milošević regime ‘brain drain’, 39 1990 constitution, 50, 124 and corruption, 120 and domestic violence, 35–36 economic crisis, 5, 28–33, 45–46 everyday life under, 5, 21, 27–28, 32–38 hyper-inflation, 30–31, 45, 66 the media, 92 migration and emigration from, 38–40 nature of, 51 pensioners, 36, 40, 48 poverty, 31–32 prevalence of crime, 34 return to religion, 41–42 support for, 21, 25, 36, 40, 48, 51, 89–91, 93 young people, 35–36, 38 Mladić, Ratko, 70–71, 109, 125 Montenegro, 122–123 NATO bombing campaign economic damage caused by, 30, 46 as ‘humanitarian intervention’, 37, 137 and public health in Serbia, 36–37 Serb reactions to, 40–42 war crimes committed during, 107

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 76 Nikolić, Tomislav, 131, 141. See also Serbian Radical Party Nuremberg, 106 Operation ‘Storm’, 49, 84, 93, 104. Paramilitaries, 13 Patriarch Pavle, 129–130 Popović, Aleksandar, 131 Preševo Valley, 7, 134–135 Qualitative research, 26 Račan, Ivica, 100 Radio Television Serbia (RTS), 42, 92, 107 Rape, 35 Reconciliation definition of, 4 and denial, 87–88 and justice, 4, 7, 108–109, 111–112 and Milošević’s death, 78 and NGOs, 113–114 requirements for, 111 and victimhood, 102 Refugees, 28 Remote justice, 109 Renan, Ernest, 76 Restorative justice. See Justice Retributive justice. See Justice Rice, Condoleeza 136 Ruder Finn Global Affairs, 55 Rugova, Ibrahim, 136 Russia, 53, 74, 121, 127, 131, 141–4 Rwanda, 4, 77, 102, 108, 113



Index

Sandžak, 135 Serbia attacks on NGOs, 125–126 and corruption, 120, 122 current challenges, 4, 127, 139 as a divided society, 80–81 failure to arrest Mladić, 70 fall of government, 144 identity crisis, 139–141 importance of renewed engagement with, 8, 140 judiciary, 118–120 and Kosovo, 128–137, 142, 145 media in, 13, 122–126 in Milošević’s shadow, 3–4, 78, 116, 137 neglect of, 4, 8, 139 new constitution, 123–124, 128 post-Milošević, 4, 7, 64–67, 117–127, 139, 141–142, 144–145 ‘Second Serbia’, 25, 93, 140 and Srebrenica, 70, 85 truth and reconciliation commission, 114 See also Serbs Serbian collective denial, 3, 6, 22, 77–78, 82–87, 98 Serbian collective guilt, 3, 7, 22, 79, 82, 88–96, 98 Serbian collective responsibility, 96–97 Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), 41, 58, 129–130 Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and ‘Greater Serbia’, 11 and Kosovo, 130–131

235

pledges by, 66 popularity of, 4, 66, 68–69, 141 rhetoric of, 69 and voter abstention, 68 See also Šešelj Serbs assumptions about, 2–3, 44 attitudes towards the West, 69, 71, 134 comparisons with the Germans, 17, 22, 89 desire to forget Milošević, 76–77, 79, 81 disappointment and pessimism among, 65–66, 71, 141 and the ICTY, 47, 74, 103–108 lack of trust among, 68, 71, 119 and Milošević’s death, 64, 71–76, 78–80 Milošević’s trial, 47, 61, 103 neglect of, 2–3, 20, 44, 86 opinions on EU membership, 69, 133, 139 perceptions of Milošević, 1–3, 5, 9, 19, 20, 23, 27, 44–62, 64, 67–68, 71–75, 86, 100 representations of, 18, 44, 69, 139 self-perception as victims, 45, 47, 57–58, 78–79, 81–82, 86, 101–102, 105 significance of their views, 20, 62, 99–108, 116, 138 wars in the former Yugoslavia, 82–83, 86, 100 Šešelj, Vojislav, 11, 13

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Serbia in the Shadow of Milošević

Silajdžić, Haris, 55 Slovenia, 50 Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and Milošević’s death, 71–72 policies of, 31, 46–47 support for, 36, 40, 48, 72, 90 South Africa, 113–114. See also Truth and reconciliation commissions South Ossetia, 144 Spain, 143–144 Srebrenica, 70, 85, 95 Stalin, Josef, 2, 16, 20 Strategic Marketing and Research Institute (SMMRI), 26, 83–84, 92, 104–105, 110, 119, 128, 132–133 Tadić, Boris, 123, 140–2, 144–145 Thatcher, Margaret, 13, 19 Tibet, 144 Tito, Josip Broz, 35, 66–67 TNS Medium Gallup, 12, 26, 65–66, 68, 72, 92, 119 Top-down approaches, 2, 5, 20–21 Transdniestria, 144 Truth as a contested concept, 101 and criminal trials, 100 exchanging truths, 102 and the ICTY, 102–102 as suspect, 115 Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs), 113–116 Tsar Lazar, 130, 132

Tudjman, Franjo, 16, 18, 62, 104 Tutu, Desmond, 114 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 26, 87, 109, 115, 128 UN sanctions against Serbia, 29–30, 32, 46, 50 Victimology Society of Serbia, 35–36, 86, 88, 113 Victims and the trial process, 111 Victor’s justice, 106 Vienna talks, 127 Vojvodina, 50, 137, 143 Vučelić, Milorad, 55–56, 59, 72 Vučić, Aleksandar, 126 Vukovar, 83, 85 Yugoslav Army (JNA), 42–43, 83, 85 Yugoslavia foreign debt, 29 inflation, 29 and the Second World War, 76–77, 87 Yugoslav United Left (JUL), 56, 58, 72, 90, 119 Zimmermann, Warren, 62