Ok, let’s start by you, dear reader, throwing out all of your preconceptions about Serbia – preconceptions undoubtedly fostered by a drumbeat of negative news reports from the 1990s depicting the Serbs as grim genocidaires…
A news vacuum in regard to Serbia since that time has, unfortunately, done little to alter that bloodthirsty impression forged during the various Balkan conflicts.
The reality: Serbia bears little resemblance to the image we have been presented with by popular media…
Lest any of you think I am too pro-Serbian and am walking around wearing Serb goggles, please review my Bosnia posting here.
Some of you just like to look at pretty pictures and others of you like a bit more depth. So, if you’re looking for depth and detail please read the breakdown given at the end of the photographs. If you just want pictures, proceed as normal and skip the text at the bottom…
Crossing into Serbia from Kosovo (below). Serbia considers Kosovo a part of its territory (a claim not without merit) and so if you wish to enter Serbia via Kosovo, you must have a Serbian entry stamp. This is obtained by accessing Serbia at a different time from some other country such as Bosnia-Herzegovina or Montenegro. If you don’t have this Serbian entry stamp, you will be turned back at the border of Kosovo. And don’t try running the border – those soldiers in the background are well-armed and well-trained.
Especially if you enter Serbia from Kosovo, as mentioned above, you will notice an immediate improvement in things – you will encounter quality roads that will have signs, the countryside will be clean, the people will be more friendly… It is a huge transition.
This is a typical country home in Serbia:
Much of the southern region of Serbia is devoted to agriculture and so you will drive past many fields and farms (30% of the total labor force in Serbia is involved in agriculture). And, as an interesting “oh by the way,” did you know that Serbia grows about one-third of the world’s raspberries and is the world’s leading frozen fruit exporter?
This structure is used for drying hay…
To fuel sturdy horses such as this one that was just hanging out alongside the road:
If you need more than a horse to haul your hay, you can use a tractor like this:
And if you need more than a tractor to haul your hay, you can use a converted military truck like this one:
There is more apparent prosperity in Serbia than many of the other Balkan states. With a GDP per capita (PPP) of only $10,800 Serbs somehow make the most of their modest wealth with respectable homes and well-maintained automobiles.
An old Serbian Orthodox church and cemetery in the countryside:
Entering a typical Serbian village:
I snapped this picture of these apartment blocks below at a gas station in a larger town. My intention was to show what some of the larger towns look like. But, my main point is about the petrol station and the Serbian people in general…
We filled up our tank at the before-mentioned petrol station and, unbeknownst to us, because we purchased a certain amount of fuel, we were automatically eligible to receive a free container of window-washing fluid for our car. The gas station employees struggled to communicate this to us, but we don’t speak Serbian and they didn’t speak English. However, they were so concerned about us getting our free window-washing fluid that they tracked down someone that spoke English to explain the situation to us. And they insisted that we take our free bottle even after we politely declined (we were driving a rental car and so didn’t really need it).
Such a thing might not impress you, dear reader, but having just come from Kosovo where we were ripped off at every opportunity, such honest behavior was more than a little refreshing and is reflective of the general nature of the Serbs we encountered.
Did I mention that the Serbian roads were great?
I told you the roads were great:
Ok, here is my effort at an unbiased breakdown of the last century of complicated Serbian history:
World War I
On 28 June 1914 the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Gavrilo Princip (more on that in my Sarajevo post) led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on the Kingdom of Serbia. In defense of its ally Serbia, Russia started to mobilize its troops, which resulted in Austria-Hungary’s ally Germany declaring war on Russia. The retaliation by Austria-Hungary against Serbia activated a series of military alliances that set off a chain reaction of declarations of war across the continent, leading to the outbreak of World War I within a month.
The Serbian Army won several major victories against Austria-Hungary at the beginning of World War I, such as the Battle of Cer and Battle of Kolubara – marking the first Allied victories against the Central Powers in World War I. Despite initial success though, Serbia was eventually overpowered by the joint forces of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria in 1915. Most of its army went into exile to Greece and Corfu where they recovered, regrouped and returned to the Macedonian front to lead a final breakthrough through enemy lines on 15 September 1918, freeing Serbia again and defeating the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bulgaria. Serbia (with its major campaign) was a major Balkan Entente Power which contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the Balkans in November 1918, especially by enforcing Bulgaria’s capitulation with the aid of France.
World War II
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was in a precarious position in World War II. Fearing an invasion by Germany, the Yugoslav Regent, Prince Paul, signed the Tripartite Pact with the Axis powers on 25 March 1941, triggering demonstrations in Belgrade. On March 27, Prince Paul was overthrown by a military coup d’état and replaced by King Peter II. General Dušan Simović became Peter’s Prime Minister and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia withdrew its support for the Axis.
In response Adolf Hitler launched the invasion of Yugoslavia on 6 April. By 17 April, unconditional surrender was signed in Belgrade. After the invasion, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was dissolved and, with Yugoslavia partitioned, Serbia became part of the Military Administration of Serbia, under a joint German-Serb government led by Milan Nedić.
The ultranationalist and fascist Croatian Ustaše sought to purge the Independent State of Croatia of Serbs, Jews, and Roma who were subjected to large-scale persecution and genocide, most notoriously at the Jasenovac concentration camp. Such were the excesses of the Ustaše that even some Nazis balked at the zeal with which their Ustaše compatriots went about their murderous handiwork. After the war, official Yugoslav sources estimated over 700,000 victims of genocide, mostly Serbs. The events had a profound impact on Serbian society and relations between Croats and Serbs (a factor in the 1990s conflict).
The lust for genocide displayed by the Ustaše, and the presence of a ruthless German occupation force, prompted Serbian resistance on a large scale. Two very different resistance groups emerged. One of these groups were the royalist Chetniks commanded by Draža Mihailović who were anti-communist. The other resistance group – the Partisans – were pro-communist and were commanded by Josip Broz Tito.
As if Nazi occupation and genocide were not enough, Serbia was the scene of a civil war from 1941 to 1945 between the two resistance groups as they battled over ideology and strategy. Against these forces were arrayed Nedić’s units of the Serbian Volunteer Corps and the Serbian State Guard. By the beginning of 1944, the Partisans became the leading force in Bosnia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Herzegovina. In Serbia however, especially in rural areas, the population remained loyal to Draza Mihajlovic. However, the joint Soviet and Bulgarian “liberation” in 1944 swung in favor of the communist Partisans, who were then established as the ruling elite until the 1990s.
The 1990s And Beyond
Slobodan Milošević rose to power in Serbia in 1989 in the League of Communists of Serbia through a serious of coups against incumbent governing members. As the Soviet Union disintegrated, fears of Serbian domination by the communist leadership of the other republics of Yugoslavia eventually resulted in the secession of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia along ethnic lines.
The period of political turmoil and conflict marked a rise in ethnic tensions between Serbs and other ethnicities of the former Communist Yugoslavia as territorial claims of the different ethnic factions often crossed into each others’ claimed territories. Serbs in Serbia feared that the nationalist and separatist government of Croatia was led by Ustase sympathizers who would oppress Serbs living in Croatia. This view of the Croatian government was promoted by Milošević, who also accused the separatist government of Bosnia and Herzegovina of being led by Islamic fundamentalists. The governments of Croatia and Bosnia in turn accused the Serbian government of attempting to create a Greater Serbia. These views led to a heightening of xenophobia between the peoples during the wars.
In response to accusations that the Yugoslav government was financially and militarily supporting the Serb military forces in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Croatia, sanctions were imposed by the United Nations which led to political isolation, economic decline and hardship, and serious hyperinflation of the currency in Yugoslavia.
In 1992, the governments of Serbia and Montenegro agreed to the creation of a new Yugoslav federation called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which abandoned the predecessor SFRY’s official endorsement of communism, and instead endorsed democracy.
Also in 1992, Yugoslavia was ousted from the UN, but Serbia continued its – ultimately unsuccessful – campaign in Bosnia until signing the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995. Milošević represented the Bosnian Serbs at the Dayton peace agreement in 1995, signing the agreement which ended the Bosnian War and internally partitioned Bosnia & Herzegovina largely along ethnic lines into a Serb republic and a Bosniak-Croat federation.
Milošević kept tight control over Serbia and eventually became president of the FRY in 1997. In 1998, an ethnic Albanian insurgency in the formerly autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo provoked a Serbian counterinsurgency campaign that became known as the Kosovo War. The Milošević government’s rejection of a proposed international settlement (and an overly eager West wanting to act early this time around following the collective dithering in Bosnia and utter failure to stem the Rwandan genocide of 1994) led to NATO’s bombing of Serbia in the spring of 1999 and to the eventual withdrawal of Serbian military and police forces from Kosovo in June 1999.
In September 2000, opposition parties claimed that Milošević committed fraud in routine federal elections. Street protests and rallies throughout Serbia eventually forced Milošević to concede and hand over power to the recently formed Democratic Opposition of Serbia ( Demokratska opozicija Srbije, or DOS). The DOS was a broad coalition of anti-Milošević parties. On 5 October, the fall of Milošević led to the end of the international isolation Serbia suffered during the Milošević years.
Serbia’s political climate following the fall of Milošević remained tense. In 2003, the prime minister Zoran Đinđić was assassinated as result of a plot originating from circles of organized crime and former security forces. Nationalist and EU-oriented political forces in Serbia have remained sharply divided on the political course of Serbia in regards to its relations with the European Union and the West. However, the tensions between those political poles is gradually easing, as the issues of Kosovo independence, economical crisis and aspiration towards accession to the European Union force the parties to find more common ground.
Milošević was sent to the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague on accusations of sponsoring war crimes and crimes against humanity during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo where he was held on trial until his death in 2006.
In May 2006, Montenegro invoked its right to secede from the federation and – following a barely successful referendum – it declared itself an independent nation on 3 June 2006. Two days later, Serbia declared that it was the successor state to the union of Serbia and Montenegro. A new Serbian constitution was approved in October 2006 and adopted the following month, leading the National Assembly of Serbia to declare the “Republic of Serbia” to be the legal successor to the “State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.”
I completely agree with you. I really didn’t like Kosovo, but I loved Serbia. Serbs are really honest, friendly and hard-workers people. Albanians (people from Kosovo) are dishonest, careless of your point of views, exploiters and really greedy. Serbia is a very well run country considering the low amount of money they have. Kosovo is just a dumping site, dirty and full of rubbish everywhere, even though we, the UN, pour a lot of money in the country. Awesome post and completely true.
A really good piece of serbian propaganda.
“official Yugoslav sources estimated over 700,000 victims of genocide, mostly Serbs. ”
This is never the official number. The correct number of killed Serbs is today:
betwenn 30 000 and 60 000. 60 thousand.
not more.
You “forgot” to explain that Cetniks comitted genocide and ethnic cleansing on non-serbian civilan population.
You are even a bigger liar than Albanian and gipsies together.
Thank you for your comments, Kate. Your email address would seem to betray your bias though – as well as the inherent racism in your comment about Albanians and gypsies… I liked Bosnia too, but I try to stay objective. Pray tell, what motive do I have to lie? I have no stake in this conflict.
Yes, the Cetniks did commit genocide on more than just the Serbs. However, as I was discussing Serbia in this post, I focused on the Serbian angle.
you forgot to mention it was in self defence! And its not genocide if they are the ones who started it by killing you in the fist place!!!!ви прљави хрватски
I am sure you have serbian roots.
You can pretend what you like.
But you arguments are serbian propaganda. No one who is not connect to the Balkans do not know about this.
Yes thats right I am a racist. I do not like anyone who is a Muslim in the Balkan. Gipsies, Bosniaks, Sandjaklije and Albanians. And I am not going to excuse me for this.
I have my reasons. Everyone who collaborated with Ottomans is it not worth to live in Europe.
And Hercegbosna is a legitimate aim for Croats in Bosnia.
Yours faithfully
Kate
I think the bummer part of Milošević’s turn driving Yugoslavia is when he realized that being really nationalistic and promoting Serbs first was really giving him a lot of power. Then parts of the country that were under Yugoslavia decided it wasn’t such a great deal. Especially after the Serb forces came to kill a lot of them. In Priština, the Serb army pulled everyone from their homes, and destroyed all their passports and paperwork. Its a big city. It was a lot of people. The soldiers were not polite. How could a part of the federation thats treated like this NOT break off? I thought people were plenty friendly in Kosovo, the capitol is sure dirty but its mild lawlessness was really comfortable.
Kate, you are advertising yourself as a typical Balkan bigot.
I am an Irish South African but I frequently get accused of being a Serb or a Croat or an Albanian depending on who I am writing positively about.
Justin’s post are very well thought out and balanced.
Just accept that not everyone is, like you, motivated by ethnic affiliation or hatred.
From the New York Times…
October 21, 2010
Protectors in Serbia Hinder Pursuit of War Crimes Suspect
By DAN BILEFSKY and DOREEN CARVAJAL
BELGRADE — After 15 years on the run — sometimes in plain sight at soccer matches and weddings and sometimes deep in the fabric of this secretive city — Europe’s most wanted war-crimes suspect, Ratko Mladic, is being hidden by no more than a handful of loyalists, most probably in a neighborhood of Communist-era housing towers, according to investigators and some of his past associates.
The diminished circumstances of the former Bosnian Serb general, who once was protected by scores of allies and Serbian government officials, make him ripe for capture, according to these people. But a softening by several European countries on whether his arrest should be a prerequisite for Serbia’s admission to the European Union is raising questions about whether he will ever face justice.
These developments make this a seminal moment not only in the search for Mr. Mladic but also in Europe’s often agonized deliberations over how much to encourage the manhunt in the face of deeply conflicting priorities. In the name of unity and stability, should Europe put a premium on rehabilitating a battered country that became a pariah state in the Balkan wars of the 1990’s?
Or in the name of its human rights tradition, should Europe first require a friendly Serbian government to make the politically difficult arrest of a man blamed for the worst ethnically motivated mass murder on the Continent since World War II? That involved the massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys from the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, an enclave under the failed protection of United Nations peacekeepers from the Netherlands.
An investigation into Mr. Mladic’s whereabouts, how he has eluded capture, and Europe’s shifting response to him paints a picture of a man of obstinate will and bravado, slowly and haltingly being drawn into a shrinking world of shadows. Over the years, as European pressure for an arrest intensified and then retreated, he received vital, little known, assistance from Serbian military forces and several of the country’s past governments.
By all accounts, one of the most effective points of pressure was withholding consideration of E.U. membership until Serbia produced Mr. Mladic.
But as Europe has struggled with the dilemma, time seems to have played its hand. The vividness of the wartime horrors has receded outside the Balkans. Mr. Mladic has gotten older, and, according to many people, sicker and more isolated, probably moving from nondescript apartment to nondescript apartment in New Belgrade, a sprawling extension of Belgrade across the Sava River.
The two-year-old government of Boris Tadic has been overtly pro-Western and has vowed to apprehend Mr. Mladic, even though he has defied arrest for more than two years after his fellow fugitive, the former Bosnian strongman Radovan Karadzic, was brought in.
Given all of this, there are strong indications that when European foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg next Monday, the balance could tip away from requiring an immediate arrest and that an E.U. admission process that would take several years could start.
“Your future is the European Union and that future must accrue as soon as possible,” the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, said in Belgrade this month, a comment representative of others made in Belgrade over the past month, by officials from France, Germany, Belgium and other E.U. members. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also visited and offered encouragement to the government.
But some senior European officials and human rights groups are unrelenting in believing that a compromise over Mr. Mladic would undermine international law and amount to a moral failure.
“The arrest should be a number one priority,” Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, said in an interview.
At a commemoration of the massacre this summer, he was one of many speakers to urge a quick capture. “I said in Srebrenica at the summer memorial that this was the most emotional moment for me in my three years with the tribunal,” Mr. Brammertz recalled. “I could see that for all of the survivors and relatives, Srebrenica is not an event from the past, but something dominating their life, not only today but for tomorrow. And the number one priority for the victims is to see Mladic in the Hague.”
Although the European Union halted accession talks in 2006 when Serbia failed to arrest Mr. Mladic, Dutch diplomats say they are now the lone holdouts for an arrest as a prerequisite for resuming the discussions. They are hoping to forestall action until December, when Mr. Brammertz issues his annual report evaluating Serbia’s effort in the manhunt. In the last few days, to the consternation of some E.U. officials, he has called for more aggressiveness.
Mariko Peters, a Green member in the Dutch Parliament, which passed a resolution this month seeking to delay a decision, acknowledged, “Our Dutch position has become more isolated.”
“Many nations are weighing Mladic’s capture as just one of many factors — stabilization of the Balkans, the Kosovo issue, upcoming Serbian elections and the need to give rewards to democratic forces that are weak,” she said.
Mr. Tadic, the Serbian president, has been adamant that he is dedicated to a capture. In response to written questions, he wrote, “This government of Serbia is doing absolutely everything in its power to locate and arrest him.”
Given history, many analysts in Serbia and beyond remain skeptical.
“It’s easy to hide successfully when nobody wants to find you,” said a key protector of Mr. Mladic’s fellow fugitive, Mr. Karadzic, offering a wry smile.
Out in the open
Mr. Mladic, who commanded Bosnian Serb forces, has proved a wily foe — tough, resourceful and abetted by military-trained protectors, according to more than two dozen sources, including government investigators, two loyalists who aided him and Mr. Karadzic, and five family friends, including the family priest.
A tall, burly man of 68 with a ruddy face and sharp blue eyes, Mr. Mladic was born in a remote Bosnian Serb village, Bozanovici. He was shaped by poverty and the killing of his partisan father by soldiers of the Nazi puppet state in Croatia. His rise in the Yugoslav Army was swift.
In 1992, one month after a Bosnian majority voted to secede from Yugoslavia, Mr. Mladic’s forces launched the three-and-a-half-year siege of Sarajevo, killing 10,000 people, including 3,500 children. In July 1995, the Srebrenica men and boys were led to killing fields where they were shot with hands bound. The Bosnian war ended five months later.
That year, an international court in The Hague indicted Mr. Mladic twice, for war crimes in the Sarajevo siege and for genocide in the Srebrenica massacre. He became a fugitive at a time when 60,000 NATO troops were on the ground, raising questions about why he was not seized. American and European diplomats say a consensus prevailed that no country wanted to spill its soldiers’ blood in a battle with Mr. Mladic’s armed protectors — which has left Serbian governments asking why they should risk the same.
Mr. Mladic certainly did not lie low for many years. Protected by Serbia’s nationalist president, Slobodan Milosevic, he visited for several years the grave of his daughter, Ana, who committed suicide with his favorite pistol in 1994. He enjoyed a Chinese-Yugoslav soccer match surrounded by bodyguards at a Belgrade stadium in 2000. His framed photograph hung in bars like the Crazy House in New Belgrade. He prayed at his brother’s funeral in 2001 in a jogging suit and sunglasses with a young woman on his arm, according to the family priest, Vojislav Carkic, who said local men blocked off the cemetery road.
One protector — a Serbian military officer who was later arrested — recalled that Mr. Mladic lived fairly openly in a house guarded by a private 52-man security detail with four cars. Last year, a former Mladic bodyguard, Branislav Puhalo, testified that the unit was established in 1997 on Mr. Milosevic’s orders.
For Mr. Mladic, this was the easiest time.
Doubts grow about manhunt
After 13 calamitous years, Mr. Milosevic was ousted in October 2000 after a popular uprising.
In 2001, a new government, threatened with the loss of American aid and World Bank loans, arrested him on genocide charges and sent him to The Hague.
Mr. Mladic pulled back from public view and began to move among military barracks, according to friends, who said they would visit him to play table tennis or chess. As he did, the myth of his fugitive cunning only grew. In 2002, the government signed a cooperation agreement with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. It eventually asked him to leave the Topcider barracks in Dedinje, an exclusive Belgrade district where he was hiding. According to Vladimir Vukcevic, Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor, he simply refused.
The Topcider barracks, built in the 1960s under the dictator Josip Broz Tito, was an ideal hiding place, as it concealed an underground city carved into a hill. Mr. Milosevic is believed to have hidden behind its thick, reinforced concrete walls during the NATO bombing of 1999.
The military authorities tried to smoke Mr. Mladic out by summoning a police helicopter to hover over the barracks, dropping a decoy rope ladder to pretend a raid was imminent. But that did little more than provoke Mr. Mladic to speed away, a level further into Belgrade.
Investigators say that they chose not to attempt an arrest out of fear of a violent shoot-out with Mr. Mladic’s ardent military supporters. This, along with other subsequent failures to make an arrest, intensified doubts about whether the manhunt was genuine.
At one point, a former protector said, 50 bodyguards formed a human shield when investigators showed up at one of the safe houses Mr. Mladic began to use, and he fashioned another escape.
There were other near showdowns. In March 2003, the Serbian prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, pledged to arrest him to pave the way for E.U. admission. Days later, a sniper killed Mr. Djindjic.
‘Snitch culture’ aids movement
When their network was vibrant, Mladic loyalists would meet routinely in four crowded public lobbies in Belgrade — summoned by the code, “waiting room,” according to a former protector who is now on trial in Belgrade with more than a dozen others for helping Mr. Mladic. All were brought in at a time of intense Western pressure.
As the former protector described the process as it worked in 2006, they discarded mobile telephones and SIM cards 4 kilometers, or 2.5 miles, from their gatherings in crowded places where they could easily blend in. Meeting face to face, they hardly spoke, discussing protection logistics by exchanging written messages that they burned.
Mr. Mladic’s pursuers came from two agencies, one military and another that reported to senior government officials, and sometimes they clashed. According to an agent involved, military intelligence labeled one of its actions “Operation Network.” Mr. Mladic was referred to as “The Host.”
A former member of the government’s surveillance operation — who described with precision the monitoring of Mr. Mladic and Mr. Karadzic — said investigators knew the fugitives’ hiding places until February 2008, five months before the Tadic government took over and Mr. Karadzic was apprehended. Until then, the official said, the surveillance team did not receive an order to make an arrest.
The former investigator said teams stalked both men outside their apartments and followed their helpers on grocery trips. Until his arrest on genocide charges in 2007, they said, the mastermind of the network that shielded Mr. Mladic was Zdravko Tolimir, a former general and an assistant commander of intelligence in the Bosnian Serb Army who is now on trial in The Hague.
The investigators received technical help from the United States and other countries, but those forces have dwindled. And even when at full strength, according to Mr. Mladic’s protectors and investigators, they faced an insidious force that often undid their efforts — an elaborate “snitch culture” in which officials in military and state intelligence regularly tipped off Mladic operatives.
Perhaps with such insight, Mr. Mladic visited his dying mother’s bedside in 2003, Father Carkic, the family priest, related, and then vanished before investigators arrived. His mother’s marble tomb, located in a verdant Bosnian cemetery, is inscribed: Provided by Ratko Mladic.
Pressure and concessions
Mr. Mladic’s support from Serbian governments ebbed and flowed, shaped by national politics and the West’s inconsistent pressure.
But on many occasions, his protection reached to the political elite, investigators say. Mr. Vukcevic, the prosecutor, said that Vojislav Kostunica, prime minister from 2004 to 2008, pressured him to try those accused of war crimes in Serbia, to shield them from the potentially harsher justice of The Hague.
When he refused, he said, Mr. Kostunica tried to oust him, but was blocked by the West, particularly the United States. Mr. Kostunica has vigorously denied in the Serbian media that he knew the whereabouts of Mr. Mladic or Mr. Karadzic or obstructed the search.
Still, Western officials detected a long-running pattern: Whenever pressure increased, the Serbs made limited concessions. When pressure receded, efforts evaporated. The authorities staged raids targeting Mr. Mladic and Mr. Karadzic through the first half of 2008, for example. But in interviews, Serbian investigators and protectors of the two men said members of Serbian state intelligence services were simultaneously watching Mr. Mladic and Mr. Karadzic in their true hiding place, far from the drama.
“This game has been going on now for five to six years,” a Western diplomat said. “They are either waiting for him to die — a stroke or kidney problems — or hoping to get into the European Union without doing anything.”
‘Very disciplined’ fugitive
The government’s boldest move took place in 2006. In raids on homes and hangouts, the government arrested more than a dozen protectors, culminating in the arrest a year later of the network’s supposed organizer, Mr. Tolimir, the former Bosnian Serb general. The actions severely damaged the network, but there is a belief that they, too, actually worked to help Mr. Mladic.
To Mr. Vukcevic, the Serbian prosecutor, the arrest of a key protector, whom he identified as Stanko Ristic, was devastating. “It sent a message to Mladic to run away and hide,” Mr. Vukcevic said. “It was catastrophic.”
After the arrests, one investigator, who said he monitored Mr. Mladic through 2008 outside his apartments, described a fugitive still at large, but in a smaller way, reduced to an ascetic existence in the large, gray towers of New Belgrade, where he could disappear like a ghost.
Mr. Mladic “was very disciplined,” the investigator recalled. “He stayed in his apartment and food and supplies were brought to him. He lived in tall buildings with 40 other apartments in New Belgrade where there are only 54 police officers for 70,000 people. He was never seen leaving the apartment even to go to the park. It was like he was under house arrest.”
Investigators and friends of Mr. Mladic say his network is now likely down to one or two people — deeply loyal associates, with probable links to the former Yugoslav Army — who aid him in a way roughly parallel to what a former protector says was the way Mr. Karadzic was helped.
One of his allies described how Mr. Karadzic shifted among a collection of 12 apartments in New Belgrade once every five months and survived monthly on €200, or about $280, for groceries. Protectors delivered newspapers, bread, even fresh salmon. Funds came from former associates, say friends.
But Mr. Mladic’s life is likely harder. Mr. Karadzic disguised himself as a New Age guru with a bushy beard and circulated in public. Mr. Mladic’s friends said he has refused an elaborate disguise, preferring an underground existence, and that he may be sick.
In a raid in March 2009 on the Bosnian home of Dusan Todic, a former military associate of Mr. Mladic, European Union troops found evidence that Mr. Mladic had used Mr. Todic’s military medical identification to seek care in Serbia.
Is he alive, or dead?
The Serbian authorities, pressed by Western countries since Mr. Karadzic’s arrest in 2008, have clearly been intensifying pressure on Mr. Mladic’s family.
His wife, Bosiljka, whose nervous tick has intensified under constant surveillance, was detained in June and questioned for possessing unregistered weapons that the authorities knew about for years, according to Milos Saljic, the family’s lawyer. Darko, Mr. Mladic’s son, is routinely searched at airports and his computer business clients have been pressured to break contracts, Mr. Saljic added. Darko’s wife, Biljana, was recently fired from a position at the state telecommunications company.
“They want to destroy the family,” Mr. Saljic said, noting that relatives sought a court order to declare him dead to relieve pressure. Prosecutors say the family was really trying to recover assets, including a $50,000 pension, frozen by the state.
Yet some friends insist that Mr. Mladic is indeed dead, having committed suicide to foil the manhunt, or that he will choose to take his life if he cannot thwart an attempted arrest.
The Serbian authorities say that regardless of how the European Union treats Belgrade’s application, they will press for an arrest. “Serbia will bring its international obligations to completion,” Mr. Tadic, the president, wrote in response to written questions.
On a recent, misty, gray afternoon in Srebrenica, rows of marble tombstones were mixed with freshly turned red dirt.
The remains of victims — heads, arms, legs, scattered and concealed by Serbian forces — are still being discovered 15 years after the killings.
dear kate,
with all due respect, your comment is pure rubish, please find your self a nice mental sick hospital somewhere in croatia, or even beter somewhere in the western europe and leave us alone, we are getting better now.
thaks in advance.
p.s. this post is excelent, thank you Justine
Thank you for your opinion, also one question, why are croats still up to their racist ushstazi ways?
Kate is a hard core Ustasha, she or he is very hateful and people like her are responsible for all the pathetic lies about Serbs. She knows well who commited crimes im WWII. Many of my friends are Serbian and the always have a question “Why are the Croates so hateful, and why did they kick out over 300 ooo Serbian familes from Krajina?
as it is croats still think of themselves as Ustasha
Serbs are a nothing but an infectious disease, an infestation on a large scale which managed to escape the pits of hell, where they have been mutating since the dawn of time. Serbia’s nauseating mental twisted inbred sickness has brought nothing but pain and misery to others.
Mainstream media won’t print Serbian infectious garbage lies no more, umm I wonder why. So they resort to the internet where they can freely spread their sickness. But what they don’t realise is that they are giving others, who wouldn’t have the privilege to meet a Serb in real life a chance to see for themselves on their websites, what a demented bunch of lost delusional people the Serbs are.
Serbia’s whole existence is based on folk mythology, one lie after lie which has mutated from one generation to another generation to the stage where their lies have mutated to Super Bug status or as a Serb would say, the gospel truth I swear.
When are the Serbs going to stop being like parrots? and stop repeating the bullshit passed down to them by their previous generations of parrot Serbs and STOP the bullshit once and for all that has engulfed their lives and their history. Serbia’s sickness has to cease for peace to have a chance to prevail, listening to Serbia’s sickness makes me sick.
Just Google anything to do with Croatia and most of it will be connected to some hate mongering Serb, the internet is polluted with Serbs and their friends spreading Serbia’s propaganda.
People often ask why the Serbs and Croats hate each other. Google and have a look and see for yourself who’s doing all the hating, it’s the Serbs and not the Croats.
The Serbs are always twisting, changing and adding to their past events of lies in their history to make it sound better. I don’t think there is nothing in Serbia’s History books that hasn’t been tampered with, even Historians can’t keep up with Serbia’s ever changing strange History.
The 90′s war isn’t completely directly related to WW2 as the Serbs amongst many other things would like us to believe.
To understand the current history of any conflict in between any nation, you have to look into the past for answers.
Do your own research on actual events in Europe and not from Serbs or their so called Serbian History books or the Serb polluted anti Croatian websites, which might I say, there are a plenty.
I’m sure if you ask a Serb for answers that he will pull out facts showing that everything was Serbian and Serbia was this and that, with a sniff of tears here and a sniff there and how Serbia was proudly half of Europe once…. bla bla bla and how they were the only true Christian defenders of Europe…. bla bla bla. Who don’t understand why the World is against against them when the Croats, Bosnians and Kosovars have killed trillions and trillions of Serbs bla bla bla…sniff sniff, I’m getting a headache just thinking like a Serb.
The Serbs are not what they are trying to portray themselves to be in this day and age. They are a cunning deceiving pathological breed of liars who actually believe in their own lies and then think that they are spreading the truth. They kill, steal, plunder, destroy and loot as seen in the wars of the 90′s and then try to portray themselves as the victims.
The World could be excused for being deceived by the first Serbian lies in the beginning of the Serbian Croatian war, but the Serbian lies started to smell when the Serbs kept using the same old lie repeatedly in Bosnia’s war and then Kosovo’s War. Many in the West then started to think, “Hold on something isn’t right here”. Finally the World started to see through the Serbian web of lies and bombed the Serbs, they shouldn’t have stopped!
Nothing has changed in the past 800 years of battles with the Serbs, except for the Serbian history books that try to deceive the World by depicting the Serbs as the victims and the heroes.
For 800 years the Serbs made many incursions into the territories of Croatia to create their dream of Greater Serbia.
In short, this is what the whole bullshit war was about in the 90’s, nothing more and nothing less. I have just given you a quick answer to what the conflict was about in between Croatia and Serbia.
I scratch my head in amazement and wonder at what the fantastic excuses may have been that the Serbs gave to the then powers of Europe to justify their many incursions into Croatia. One thing I definitely know is that the Croatian’s weren’t called Nazis or Fascists, as Hitler wasn’t around during those times and that America wasn’t blamed for starting the war either as they weren’t the super powers then. The Serbs probably blamed Caesar and the Roman Empire for starting the War instead, lol .
The Croats don’t hate the Serbs like the Serbs hate the Croats. The Croats don’t want to hate any one. It is the Serbs that continue to hate the Croats, as they see the Croats as invaders and foreigners who are living in Serbia’s God given Heavenly Country of Great Serbia. To the Serbs, everything is Serbia and everyone is Serbian. The Croats hate the Serbs not because they are Serbs but for what the Serbs keep doing to them.
Another mytholicaly belief that I found on the internet is that the Serbians believe that they are heavenly people who are Gods soldiers and that Serbia is Gods new Israel, as quoted in this next extract which is on the internet with many other fascinating facts posted by the Serbs.
“Lazar is portrayed as having been
visited by an angel of God on the night before
battle, and offered a choice between an earthly or
a Heavenly kingdom, which choice would result in a
victory or defeat, respectively, at the Battle of
Kosovo. Lazar, naturally, opts for the Heavenly
kingdom, which will last “forever and
ever” (“Perishable is earthly kingdom,
but forever and ever is Kingdom of Heaven!”),
but has to perish on the battlefield.
“We die with Christ, to live forever”
tells he to his soldiers. That Kosovo destination
and that Testament, it is a union
which Serb people made with God and sealed
it with martyrs blood. On Kosovo Serbs voted
with their souls for Kingdom of Heaven and that
was and has been their right destination. Since
then all Serbs truthful to that Testament are
becoming people of God, Christ’s New
Testament nation, heavenly Serbia, part of
God’s New Israel. This is why sometimes Serbs
refer to themselves as the people of Heaven.”
How mind blowing can the Serbs be, woww? Any normal minded person would read this and say, what a load of bull. But the Serbs aren’t normal minded.
You will get a complete different picture from the Serbs and to my surprise, lol, will only hear the complete opposite from them on any of their Croat hate sites. The Serbs will try to show you that they were the persecuted and that they were the victims and that this was all due to the continuous Croatian persecution and so on, you know the picture.
The Serbs will portray to the World that they were always the victims in Croatia but were strangely the ones holding the guns and doing all the shooting and occupying?
The Serbs were never victims due to Croatian persecution in Serbia, why? Doesn’t that tell you something? The Croats never at any time fought with the Serbs in Serbia.
Croatia had no reason to do so, as Croatia in their history never invaded any foreign land, Croatia only protected its borders. The Serbs always fought the Croatians for Croatian territory on Croatian soil for the past 800 years and the 90’s war was nothing but a continuing never ending quest by Serbia to establish its dream of a Greater Serbia.
Where is the panadol, I’m getting a headache thinking about all that anti Croatian crap on the internet, there is so much.
Don’t the Serbs have anything better to do with their lives instead of sitting by the computer and spreading anti Croatian hatred?
I’m a firm believer in free speech, but something has to be done about the bullshit that someone can easily and freely post on the internet. It can be damning and damaging upon others as it continues to be for the Croatians.
I was born 1967, I’m not a Fascist or a Nazi and I don’t understand how can I be called one? The Germans who were the inventors of Nazism don’t get called this anymore, even the Italians aren’t called Nazi’s either but I do as a Croat. Why?
I watched a documentary once called the aftermath, life after humans. After 5 minutes it dawned on me. Wow, no Serbs, how peacefully nice would that be.
This is not a Serbophobia article but a SoOverSerbia article.
I would love to think that there will be peace but I can’t see that happening. Why? There are a few big hurdles for Serbia to cross which have I have listed.
Serbia must want peace for peace to happen.
Serbia would have to apologise to the countries around itself for the current and past grief and suffering that is has caused by them in their pursuit for a Greater Serbia.
Serbia has to denounce their dreams of a Greater Serbia.
Serbia has to change its present day thinking of itself and her neighbours.
All Serbian History books in their archives have to be rectified. Every false addition that was added in their History Books must be recognized and re-edited and deleted forever.
I honestly can’t see peace from the Serbs by the way the Serbs are still continuing to blindly debate and pedal their false nationalism pride, as witnessed on this website and on those other million Croatian hate webpage’s.
History will unfortunately repeat itself again, with war once again rearing its ugly head as Serbia makes another push for a Greater Serbia again in another 50 years or so.
I feel so sorry for the future poor innocent peoples of Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Vojvodina, Kosovo, Sandzak, Montenegro and Macedonia who will once again have to endure and suffer at the hands of the delusional Serbs.
I just wonder what pathetic lies and excuses the Serbians will invent and use to portray themselves as the victims once again to justify the violence called war.
On the Serbian flag is a Christian cross.
The four back the front C’s on the cross mean “SAMO SLOGA SRBA SPASAVA”
This means: “ONLY UNITY SAVES THE SERBS”.
Or my interpretation
SAMO SRANJE SRBA SPASAVA
ONLY SHIT SAVES THE SERBS
Only Unity saves the Serbs, what Unity? Is this the same unity war speech which was delivered and televised live to the World by the then ex Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade in front of hundreds of thousands of chanting flag waving nationalist Serbs prior to the war in the 90’s.
Slobodan Milosevic said, “Where ever there is a Serb, Serbian house, Serbian grave or Serbian Church that is Serbia”.
The 2 current biggest lies that the Serbs are freely pedalling to the World with their Serbian friends on the internet at present are that the Serbs were against the Germans in WW2 and never committed crimes against the Jewish people.
There are documented facts that will prove that the Serbs were also allies with the German Nazis and Mussolini’s Italians and that Belgrade was astonishly the first European city to solve the Jewish problem by publically declaring itself Jewish free, but the Serbs will deny this truth as well.
If the Serbs were such heroes than why was their so called Serbian hero Chetnik leader Draze Mihajlovic hung as a criminal by the Partisans in Belgrade after World War 2.
There is documented evidence that will also show that the Serbs were to great extent allies with the Ottoman Empire and not the true Christian defenders as the Serbs have portrayed themselves to be. Their first alliance was noted back in 1396 in the Battle of Nicopolis where the Holy Crusades near win over the Ottoman Empire was crushed thanks to the help of the Ottoman Empire Serbian Allies lead by Stefan Lazar.
The Serbs have to say thank to the Turks, as it was the Ottoman Empire that settled the Serbs and their Orthodox Church for the first time in Bosnia as defenders and Tax collectors of the Ottoman Empire, but the Serbs will adamantly deny this truth as well.
Can the Serbs deny that there are currently 3 millions Serbs who are now residing in Turkey?
Why? I thought the Serbs were persecuted and hated by the Turks. Well that’s what the Serbs seem to be saying to us in their Croatian and Bosnian hate sites. These Serbs that now live in Turkey were the good servants of the Ottoman Empire who were allowed to leave with the retreating Ottoman Empire and settle in Turkey. Documented proof will show this to be the truth but the Serbs will still deny this too.
This is what I can’t understand about Serbia and its Serbian people. This is their factual past and this is how events actually happened, but the Serbs for whatever reason beyond me, will instead chose to see it differently and then lie about it to everyone by making up a new glorified Serbian twisted history instead, why? WOWW truly mind blowing.
I can understand the Serbs trying to deceive the World but to lie to each other about themselves is the most astonishing part. The Serbs will deny the truth till their last breath because they themselves no longer know what the truth is as they have lied so much that they actually believe their lies to be the truth.
Here is an extract from Serbia’s former President Dobrica Cosic which can be found freely on the internet, explaining what a Serb is about.
“Dobrica Cosic Former Serbian President “We lie to deceive ourselves, to console others; we lie for mercy, we lie to fight fear, to encourage ourselves, to hide our and somebody else’s misery. We lie for love and honesty. We lie because of freedom. Lying ie is the trait of our patriotism and the proof of our innate smartness. We lie creatively, imaginatively, inventively.”
Is Turkey going now going to be a part of a Great Serbia’s dream because there are so many Serbs who live there, lol? Serbs are scattered around World like many other nationalities, should we people around the World hold grave concern for a Serbian invasion too, lol.
Serbia’s ex President Milosevic infamous unity speech can still be viewed on the internet. You can also view the victorious singing Serbian Chetniks marching through the streets of Vukovar shortly after the City fell to the Serbs. They were singing to their then President Slobodan Milosevic, asking him to only send salad and to not send meat because there will be plenty of meat from the Croatians that they will slaughter and kill. Are these the Serbian Warriors the only true defenders of Christianity in Europe? If these are the good Christian Serbs then I would hate to come across the bad Serbs, lol.
The post above, “Fed Up With Ser Lies” (sic) is racist hate speech and should be deleted.
This clown has been up to this before. Its a copy and paste job.
http://www.topix.com/forum/world/serbia/TJG0TLH06CURMOV3B/p32
@ Jonathan – Racist hate speech?? The truth hurts doesn’t it? Great post
@Superfknman – The truth does not hurt. Lies, slander and propaganda “hurts” anyone who actually values honesty and accuracy. Astroturfing shills like Mr Fed up muddy the water with bunk.