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.
60 Responses to “Two faces of Republika Srbija: the hopeful future, the shameful past”
Shamik Das
Dear Slobodan,
Your unseeing, turning-a-blind-eye attitude typifies the problem; talk about bitter, uninformed and idiotic.
There’s no intent to provoke. Read. The. Article.
Dear Popusismikurac,
How nice of you to highlight most graphically the anti-British, anti-American bigotry at the heart of so many of the comments on this thread.
Dear Luke,
Sorry, but there was clear involvement and you know it. And, for the umpteenth time, who protected Karadzic and Mladic (whom you suggest have no connection to Serbia)?
Dear beebo,
You are joking, right? Where do you think Mladic has been for the past 15 years since his savage butchery?
And on your other ludicrous claims, I don’t have all day to rebut all the anti-US, anti-British tripe you’ve spouted.
Popusismikurac
Anti-American??? Show me where I was anti American. That would be hard for me to be since I am half American half Serbian. Most of my fellow Americans do not believe for one minute the anti Serbian propaganda. In fact most Americans are with the Serbs and against the Clinton bombings and anti Serbian foreign policy. In fact right now in the USA there is a huge movement of awakening and we are about to reclaim our republic. Yugoslavia was broken up by British, German and Vatican interests which are also anti American interests. I have brother Americans in the armed forces that tell me every time how they fought on the wrong side of the war. You would be surprised how many American soldiers do not hold the same views you do of Mladic and Karadzic. So don’t put words in my mouth.
Sanja
I cannot believe this rubbish is on top of Google search. Who do you think you are, judging Serbs by some propaganda you saw on CNN or BBC? I’m a proud Serb, my people have been through a lot and frankly your holier-
than-thou approach is quite annoying. From your name I can deduce that you are a Muslim, which kind of explains the way you are sympathising with one side of the Bosnian war when clearly all sides suffered. I haven’t seen you publish a positive article on how Ante Gotovina was arrested or display anger at the fact Naser Oric was left off so leniantly. But then again, the victims at the hands of these men were Serbs, and it is well known the the lives of Serbs aren’t of much value compared to the lives of others.
Oh and Mladic is a Serb from Bosnia, get your facts straight. Just because you are a South Asian living in Britain doesn’t necessarily make you a citizen of India, does it? I’m actually studying politics at UCL and from my standpoint your article is a sham and racist towards Serbs. Your knowledge of the issue is trivial and uninformed.
Oh, and final words: Novak supports Mladic. Think about it.
Shamik Das
A collective insanity has enveloped this thread. I cannot quite believe there are people out there who still doubt Mladic’s guilt. Just extraordinary.
Sanja, you’re accusing me of racism? Re-read your own comments about me and think again.
Popusismikurac, most Americans against the Clinton bombings and the liberation of Kosovo? Really?
Popusismikurac
It isn’t a collective insanity, rather a response to your absolute insensitivity. You blatantly manage to put in your anti Serbian propaganda on a rare happy week in recent Serbian history. Do you have any idea how cruel you are to bring this up. Do you know how many Serbs that are responding to this post and maybe even Bosnians or Croatians have lost people in the war. Are you willing to tell me that my 14 year cousin who was butchered by mujahedeen fighters in Bosnia doesn’t deserve his own memorial. Are you telling me my girlfriend who was driven out of her home at gun point in Croatia is not a victim of the war. DO you have any idea how the war in Yugoslavia was a bloody civil war with no one bad guy. Why dont you let the people of the region heal. WHy do you put salt on an open wound. Do you know how many of my fellow Bosnians and Croats would agree with me compeletley right now. When Gotovina was convicted a few months back I didnt throw it into the faces of my Croat friends. Even though maybe I had every right to do as a boyfriend to the victim of that ethnic cleansing campaign. We are trying to heal in ex Yugoslavia. Everytime some insensitive saddistic uninformed idiot like you writes piece like this you are undermining the peace efforts of good people all over the exrepublics. You are doing what Mladic Oric and Gotovina could only dream off. Spreading the hatred is the business you are entering. Friendly suggestion to you is to start blogging about kittens or candy. Stop paying homage to the propaganda that was forged so that a select few could make money of the suffering of millions. You are looking for bad guys in the wrong places.