Just as Novak Djokovic showed off the best of Serbia with his Wimbledon win yesterday, so today the world saw the worst - war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic at The Hague.
Just as soon as Novak Djokovic showed the world the best Serbia has to offer, the engraving barely cold on his Wimbledon trophy, so the world witnessed the very worst: Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic back at the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, defiant, unrepentant, disruptive, unapologetic.
Today Mladic was removed from his hearing after quarrelling with the judge, the court entering a plea of not guilty on his behalf. He faces a total of 11 counts of genocide of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina and Srebrenica; persecutions; extermination and murder; deportation and inhumane acts; terror and unlawful attacks; and the taking of UN hostages.
He is charged in connection with the Srebrenica massacre – Europe’s single worst atrocity since World War Two – in which 7,500 Muslims were massacred, and is also charged over the 44-month siege of Sarajevo from May 1992 – in which 10,000 people died.
So, how easy will it be for new Serbia to consign Mladic, Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic to the past? And what does the future hold for the Serbia of Djokovic and president Boris Tadic?
The arrest and prosecution of Mladic, and the determination of Tadic to face down the ultra-nationalists who protested his capture, will do much to accelerate Serbia’s rehabilitaion, removing one of the key barriers to accession to the European Union; Djokovic’s advance to the summit of the tennis world rankings, and his imperious dethroning of Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon the icing on the cake.
Certainly, the unreconstructed elements are still there, from the pro-Milosevic graffiti scrawled on walls in central Belgrade and the selling of Mladic t-shirts at Belgrade’s main train station, to the subtle distrust of foreigners – or at least those who obviously look like foreigners.
Yet in Tadic and Djokovic – the man every Serbian boy wants to be, and every Serbian girl wants to be with, whose visage adorns billboard after advert after magazine cover – the future is brighter for Serbia than perhaps it’s ever been, even more than after the fall of Milosevic a decade ago.
As Misha Glenny wrote in The Guardian recently:
“It was fitting that Serbia’s president, Boris Tadić, himself announced the arrest of Ratko Mladić in Belgrade. Nobody has put in a greater effort to run down the indicted war crimes suspect than Tadić… What Boris Tadić has done with Mladić is to take a huge step towards the moral rehabilitation of Serbs and Serbia whose reputation was so catastrophically compromised by the wars of the 1990s.
“He deserves our support and respect.”
Though one can never forget the horrors of Milosevic, Mladic and Karadzic, nor should, Serbia now is a much changed place, its leaders looking outwards, to the future, to Europe, to the world, where its favoured son now sits atop.
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60 Responses to “Two faces of Republika Srbija: the hopeful future, the shameful past”
slobodan
I love how this man says he is not a biased in any way, and then lumps all Serbs together as a group, “OH, BUT YOU SERBS SHELTERED MLADIC”, man, really, come on now? Lose your hate, it will bring you nowhere. Poor attempt at journalism.
slobodan
Oh, and also, agreed with Beebo, he is just avoiding everything anyone says, ignoring facts and replacing it with his own ignorant self-beliefs, come on man, can you troll any harder?
Simon, Manchester
Dear Shamik the jungle King
Firstly I must say that, from a British perspective, using words like “ridiculous, rubbish, sick in the head” etc. in correspondence with your readers is certainly breaking new ground – had you worked for a serious institution I can’t help but think you’d have been looking for a new job now on account of these manners as this behaviour certainly is not representative of professional journalism.
As for your outcries on anti-Americanism of the comments on the blog I think you are mistaken there – from what I can see most people here seem to be American anyway and their comments are made on the hypocrisy of YOUR article and almost all opinions that were expressed in it. I, for one, certainly agree with most negative comments on here about your work.
As for myself equating genocide and “unintended and unordered” killing going on in Iraq and Lybia today – I would imagine you missed the articles in which the “angelic“ Gen Mladic himself also states that none of what happened in Srebrenica was intended or ordered (and yes I believe he needs to be put away just as I believe that people that were active in Srebrenica area before him (Oric et al), but on the “other side”, should have been put away as well and not set free). And again, going back to your comments on “unintended, unordered civilian deaths from allied campaigns to prevent the mass murder of innocent civilians” – can’t you see what everyone else on the face of this planet apart from the Midwest religious fanatics has seen – INNOCENT PEOPLE are being butchered out there because of oil on a DAILY bases and NO ONE is writing about this with an ounce of integrity. Why not write on what is going on in Lybia/Iraq today? You know well, as does everyone out there with half a brain, that innocent people are dying – or do you believe that someone can eliminate hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians by mistake? It was “unintended and unordered” he said! I can only laugh at that! If you believe Mladic so was Srebrenica as well! Can’t you see the flaw in you logic?
To sum things up, the problem with your views is that you don’t see the woods from the trees – your “high morality” and lamenting on Mladic/Serbia and your farfetched connections to tennis etc sound very false and hypocritical when seen in the light of things ON YOUR OWN DOORSTEP that you should really be writing about today if you were an independent thinking journalist. I suppose my error and that of other readers on here is that we made the mistake on presuming you are one – surely not to be repeated by myself! In any case good luck to you and I hope you will find the strength to open your eyes sometime…
Shamik Das
Simon, Manchester, “jungle king” – very subtle, along the same lines as “another Indian sucking up to his British colonial slave masters” and “Bosnian Muslim jihadi apologist”. And you expect me, “in correspondence” with one’s readers to say “thank you” and bow?! No. I do wonder if anyone’s actually read the original piece.
Finally, to all those commenting on this thread, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fliw801iX84&feature=fvst
That is all.
beebo
@Shamik
Again more anti serb propaganda, clearly you have a pro bosnian muslim agenda and your journalistic quality was wonderfully summarized by Simon above. Of course you post a documentary made by the BBC which for almost 15 years (from 1993 on) repeatedly stated (check their archives or just google this) that the “Bosnian Serbs murdered 250,000 Bosnian Muslims in the war”. These were fabrications and NEVER did the BBC apologize for these lies! 100k people died in the civil war and a third of those victims were serbs (10k muslims were also killed by croats) yet we see not one thing that you have posted about the serbian victims in this war. how can you even attempt to debate me on this? have you no shame?