The Dominion - Serbia

Declaration made in Kosovo, cities across Serbia riot

Amy Miller — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:32:00 +0000

Not even an hour after the declaration was made in Kosovo that it was 'officially' an independent country, people were gathering in the different cities in Serbia. Belgrade and Novi Sad saw the most destruction.

Going around downtown Belgrade in the last few hours one can see packs of men trying to catch up to large groups who are still roaming the city. The Slovakian embassy had all its window's smashed. Many shops and buildings were similarly damaged, cops were hurt, and many journalists were injured. Lots of spray paint went up today, slogans such as 'EU NEVER' and '1389,' referring to the Serbian historic battle in Kosovo where Serbs fought against the Turks, 'protecting the Christian world' and their territories.

The people rioting were members of Obraz, a clerical-Fascist group, and of many various football clubs.

Obraz is accused of the bombing of the Slovakian owned shopping mall Mercator in Belgrade last week. They also demonstrated this week at Kontekst, an art gallery, as it was opening an exhibit that showcased artists from Pristina, Kosovo. The exhibit was shut down and art pieces were destroyed.

Big demonstrations have been called for tomorrow, one at noon at the university, another an hour later called by Activni Centar, a group that has been running a major advertising campaign for the last few months focused upon keeping Kosovo inside Serbia. Thousands are expected.

The government has called for a demonstration at noon on Thursday.

-10:36pm Sunday
Belgrade, Serbia

Kosovo Crisis Continues

dru — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:18:27 +0000

Serbia and EU escalate conflict; misery of majority of Serbians and Kosovars likely to continue

Pro-European Union (EU) candidate Boris Tadic won the final round of Serbian Presidential elections on February 4. Tadic beat nationalist Serbian Radical Party candidate, Tomislav Nikolic, by a little over two per cent of the vote. His win is largely attributed to the Serbian expatriate vote.

The central election issue was the status of Kosovo. Serbia's southernmost province has been under UN tutelage and occupation since the NATO bombing campaign of 1999 forced Serbian forces out of the province. Kosovo holds historic and religious significance for Serbs. Now, for many Serbs, the province has become a symbol of US and European attempts to weaken and break apart the former Yugoslavia, and now Serbia. Less symbolic crises -- such as widespread unemployment, sub-poverty wages and restrictions on migration -- loom in the background, but have yet to share in the electoral spotlight.

European and US diplomats hailed the election results as an endorsement of their policies. "The results for me at least signalled the wish of the majority of the people in Serbia who want to continue the path towards Europe, and I'd like to say Europe is very happy with that," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters.

The day after the election, the EU announced a new force of 1,800 "police and legal officials" to be deployed to Kosovo, which has been under UN administration for the past eight years. The EU did not announce their decision before the election, arguing they did not want to "interfere" with the outcome of the vote.

With Kosovo expected to declare independence in the coming weeks, the EU's move has thrown the Serbian government into crisis. Any move to support EU efforts towards Kosovo's independence would be deeply unpopular, and would likely trigger another election or a place in a coalition government for the Radical Party.

Half the Serbian population supported the Radicals, led by Vojislav Seselj. Seselj could not stand for election; he has been imprisoned at The Hague for five years, awaiting trial for crimes against humanity. He is viewed by many as a symbol of Serbian defiance against foreign imperialism. Tadic, on the other hand, represents compromise. He made it clear during his campaign that Kosovo should remain a province of Serbia but that European integration was the primary goal, and that sacrifices might have to be made.

Serbia currently faces a 50 per cent unemployment rate. The average income remains 300 Euros a month. Serbs face tough visa restrictions and the vast majority of people under the age of 30 have never left the former Yugoslavia.

Some observers say fundamental issues are being overshadowed by concern over Kosovo. Igor Todorovic, editor of Privredni Pregled, a Belgrade-based economic daily, said Serbia’s two main political parties are using the Kosovo conflict to their advantage. "By making the Kosovo issue such a constant issue, by filling the headlines everyday, it means they managed to neglect all the other problems that they actually have the authority and the power to solve."

When the news of EU plans for the Kosovo mission broke (without consultation of Serbia), Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica cancelled the meeting in which he intended to sign the integration agreement between Serbia and the European Union. Newly-elected President Tadic wanted to go along with the signing regardless of the EU decision. Many felt Tadic was bowing to international pressure and disregarding the views of people of Serbia. Before assuming his current role, Prime Minister Hassim Thaci was the leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an organization funded by the smuggling of illegal arms, drugs and people, and likely on the receiving end of significant CIA backing. Analysts are nearly unanimous in predicting the fall of the new government.

It has become evident that eight years of UN occupation has done little in terms of benefiting most people living in Kosovo -- either the Albanian majority or the Serb, Roma or Egyptian minority groups. It is estimated that between three and five billion dollars in "international aid" has been pumped into Kosovo since the 1999 bombing, which resulted in over 250,000 Serbs and Romas from the region becoming refugees. An estimated 300,000 Albanians fled in the months preceding the escalation of fighting between the Serbian army and the KLA, and the resulting addition of NATO forces and bombings.

The result was Kosovo as a UN protectorate, its population unable to determine its own affairs.

Today, there is no clean drinking water throughout the province. Electricity is sporadic and can be out for 12 hours at a time. Despite these conditions, the UN maintains that "much progress has been made."

Corruption is rampant. International organizations and institutions based in Pristina often repeat the "need to address the problem," but Kosovars are skeptical. Avi Zogiani is with the Anti Corruption Organization, a grassroots group trying to keep track of aid money-fueled deals in the area. "The so-called government of Kosovo is in a constant state of readjusting ideas of development to coexist with economic and industrial interests of the outside world," says Zogiani.

"With eight years of having no influence on the political process, on decisions, the people have given up on trying to guarantee any of their rights and instead choose to suffer at the whims of the international actors and players."

Privatization of state-owned resources and services is nearly complete. The coal factory is the latest to be sold off, and the development wing of the US State Department is in charge of much of the operations of its sale. This involves regular consultation with the energy minister and handpicking the NGO that would do the "outreach" to "educate the population on the benefits" of privatization.

Over a billion dollars already has gone into this coal plant, and it still suffers from daily blackouts. The expected buyer, a US-Czech company CEZ has promised an additional $3.1 billion in investment to make it operational, if they get the deal. Zogiani believes part of the last ditch dealings could involve ensuring major players in the current UN force receive more of the privatization booty before the UN moves out and the EU settles in.

Kosovo has become a diplomatic and geopolitical flashpoint, with Russia backing Serbia's opposition to full independence. Meanwhile the US State Department and EU have taken an aggressive stance in favour of independence, using EU membership as a carrot and the country's economic woes as a stick.

Russia holds the powerful UN Security Council veto, and can to block any attempt to push through a resolution. With opposing positions set by the two sides, the future looks dismal for the people of Kosovo caught in the middle. Alexander Popadic, editor of Kontrepunkt, a widely-read independent popular web forum, magazine and grassroots media organization based in Belgrade, expressed frustration with both the Russian and American influence in the region.

"The presence of Russian Big Brother in the minds of Serbian people and the US for the Albanians has to be cut off," said Popadic.

"Such steps are necessary if we are to see some real progress and independent development of this region. Stuck within the process of so-called unfinished modernization, with the burden of wars and neoliberal reforms, Serbia and Kosovo are deeply polluted with nationalist hatred, religious fundamentalism and social insecurity."

A declaration of independence is imminent. Most EU countries and the US have already signaled they will immediately recognize Kosovo's country status. Few people in Serbia seem ready to physically fight for Kosovo again. However, many politicians have shown they are not willing to hand over the province.

The only certainty is that people in both Kosovo and Serbia will continue to live in desperate conditions with few opportunities. The international institutions which speak of peace and prosperity for the region have in fact delivered the opposite.

Czech Helicopters

Jo Negociata -- Vetëvendosje!

Signs in a Serbian Area of Kosovo

Food aid

Kosmet

Tadic Supporters

Mark Mackinnon's New Cold War

dru — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:48:21 +0000

Canada, the US and democracy promotion in the former Soviet republics

Mark Mackinnon's new book opens with a tale of two large buildings blown up by terrorists. The president, until then an unremarkable leader with deep ties to the country's secretive intelligence agency, seizes on the tragedy by launching a war against the terrorists. Suddenly popular for his decisive strikes, the president sends troops to a small Muslim country that had been occupied, then abandoned by previous administrations. He uses the urgency of war as a pretext for consolidating power, naming his lackeys to key positions. The "oligarchs" of the country, Mackinnon writes, proceeded to set up a system of "managed democracy," where the illusion of choice and a popular longing for stability cover up the fact that fundamental decisions are made in an undemocratic fashion and power remains concentrated in the hands of the few.

Mackinnon, who is currently the Middle East bureau chief for the Globe and Mail, is of course talking about Russia, and its president, ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin--though if Mackinnon notices parallels with another country, he doesn't say so. The Muslim country is Chechnya and the terrorist attacks were against two apartment buildings in the town of Ryazan, 200km southeast of Moscow. Questions were raised about KGB involvement.

Mackinnon's book is The New Cold War: Revolutions, Rigged Elections and Pipeline Politics in the Former Soviet Union.

Almost without exception, Canadian reporters find it a lot easier to cut through PR spin and official lies when they're covering foreign governments--especially when those governments are seen as rivals of Canada or its close partner, the US. But when the subject is closer to home, their critical acumen suddenly wilts.

Mackinnon suffers from this common affliction less than most reporters. One gets the sense that it's a conscious choice, but still a tentative one.

Over the last seven years, the US State Department, the Soros Foundation and several partner organizations have orchestrated a series of "democratic revolutions" in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. And, during those years, each "revolution," whether attempted or successful, has been portrayed by journalists as a spontaneous uprising of freedom-loving citizens receiving inspiration and moral support from their brothers and sisters in the West.

Evidence that this support also involved hundreds of millions of dollars, meddling with choices of candidates and changes to foreign and domestic policies has been widely available. And yet, for the last seven years, this information has been almost entirely suppressed.

Perhaps the most glaring evidence of suppression came when the Associated Press (AP) ran a story on December 11, 2004--at the height of the "Orange Revolution"--noting that the Bush Administration had given $65 million to political groups in Ukraine, though none of it went "directly" to political parties. It was "funneled," the report said, through other groups. Many media outlets in Canada--notably the Globe and Mail and the CBC--rely on the AP, but none ran the story. On the same day, CBC.ca published four other stories from the AP about Ukraine's political upheaval, but did not see fit to include the one that tepidly investigated US funding.

Similarly, books by William Robinson, Eva Golinger and others have exposed US funding of political parties abroad, but have not been discussed by the corporate press.

Canada's role went unreported until two and a half years later, when--coinciding with the release of The New Cold War--the Globe and Mail finally saw fit to publish an account, written by Mackinnon. The Canadian embassy, Mackinnon reported, "spent a half-million dollars promoting 'fair elections' in a country that shares no border with Canada and is a negligible trading partner." Canadian funding of election observers had been reported before, but the fact that the money had been only a part of an orchestrated attempt to influence elections had not.

For reasons that remain obscure, the editors of the Globe decided, after seven years of silence, to allow Mackinnon to tell the public about what Western money has been up to in the former Soviet Union. Perhaps they were influenced by Mackinnon's choice to write a book about the topic; perhaps it was decided that it was time to let the cat out of the bag.

It's a fascinating account. Mackinnon starts in Serbia in 2000, where the West, after funding opposition groups and "independent media" that provided a constant stream of coverage critical of the government--as well as dropping 20,000 tonnes of bombs on the country--finally succeeded in toppling the last stubborn holdout against neoliberalism in Europe.

Mackinnon describes in detail how Western funding--an effort spearheaded by billionaire George Soros--flowed to four principle areas: Otpor (Serbian for 'resistance'), a student-heavy youth movement that used grafitti, street theatre and non-violent demonstrations to channel negative political sentiments against the Milosevic government; CeSID, a group of election monitors that existed to "catch Milosevic in the act if he ever again tried to manipulate the results of an election"; B92, a radio station that provided a steady supply of anti-regime news and the edgy rock stylings of Nirvana and the Clash; and assorted NGOs were given funding to raise "issues"--which Mackinnon calls "the problems with the power-that-is, as defined by the groups' Western sponsors." The Canadian embassy in Belgrade, he notes, was a venue for many donor meetings.

Finally, disparate opposition parties had to be united. This was facilitated by then-US Secretary of State Madeline Albright and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who told opposition leaders not to run, but to join a "democratic coalition" with the relatively unknown lawyer Vojislav Kostunica as the sole opposition candidate for the presidency. The Western-funded opposition leaders, who didn't have a lot of say in the matter, agreed.

It worked. Kostunica won the vote, the election monitors quickly announced their version of the results, which were broadcast via B92 and other Western-sponsored media outlets, and tens of thousands poured into the streets to protest Milosevic's attempted vote-rigging in a demonstration led by the pseudo-anarchist group Otpor. Milosevic, having lost his "pillars of support" in the courts, police and bureaucracy, resigned soon after. "Seven months later," Mackinnon writes, "Slobodan Milosevic would be in The Hague."

The Serbian "revolution" became the model: fund "independent media," NGOs and election observers; force the opposition to unite around one selected candidate; and fund and train a spray-paint-wielding, freedom-loving group of angry students united by no program other than opposition to the regime. The model was used successfully in Georgia ("the Rose Revolution"), Ukraine ("the Orange Revolution") and unsuccessfully in Belarus, where denim was the preferred symbol. The New Cold War has chapters for each of these, and Mackinnon delves deep into the details of the funding arrangements and political coalitions built with Western support.

Mackinnon seems to harbour few illusions about the US exercise of power. His overall thesis is that, in the former Soviet Union, the US has used "democratic revolutions" to further its geopolitical interests; control of oil supply and pipelines, and the isolation of Russia, its main competitor in the region. He notes that in many cases--Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, for example--repressive regimes receive the hearty support of the US, while only Russian-allied governments are singled out for the democracy promotion treatment.

And while Mackinnon may be too polite to mention it, his account significantly contradicts the reporting regularly vetted by his editors and written by his colleagues. Milosevic, for example, is not the "Butcher of the Balkans" of Western media lore. Serbia was "not the outright dictatorship it was often portrayed in the Western media to be," Mackinnon writes. "In fact, it was more like an early version of the 'managed democracy' [of Putin's Russia]." He is frank about the effects of the bombing and sanctions on Serbia, which were devastating.

But in other ways, Mackinnon swallows the propaganda whole. He repeats the official NATO line on Kosovo, for example, neglecting to note that the US and others were funding drug-dealing autocratic militias like the Kosovo Liberation Army, the subject of many misleading, laudatory reports by Mackinnon's colleagues circa 2000.

More fundamentally, Mackinnon ignores the West's central role in the destabilization of Yugoslavia after its government balked at further implementation of IMF reforms that were already causing misery. Mackinnon experiences and discusses the phenomenon of destabilization-by-privatization in most of the countries he covers, but seems unable to trace it back to its common source, or see it as principle of US and European foreign policy.

Former Russian Politburo operative Alexander Yakovlev tells Mackinnon that Russia's politicians had "pushed the economic reforms too far, too fast" creating "a criminalized economy and state where residents came to equate terms like 'liberal' and 'democracy' with corruption, poverty and helplessness."

In one of the more dramatic moments in the book, the 82-year-old Yakovlev takes responsibility, saying: "We must confess that what is now going on is not the fault of those who are doing it... It's us who are guilty. We made some very serious errors."

In Mackinnon's world, the rapid dismantling and privatization of the state-run economy--which left millions in poverty and despair--is an explanation for the Russian and Belarussian peoples' love affair with strongman presidents who curb liberties, marginalize opposition, control the media and maintain stabilnost, stability. But somehow, the ideology behind the IMF-driven devastation doesn't make it into Mackinnon's analysis of the motivations behind "New Cold War."

Mackinnon notices the most literal US interests: oil and the Americans' fight for regional influence with Russia. But what escapes his account is the broader intolerance for governments that assert their independence and maintain the ability to direct their own economic development.

Energy and pipeline politics are a plausible explanation for the US's interest in the southern former Soviet republics. He might have added that the US used Georgia as a staging ground during the Iraq war. When it comes to Serbia, Mackinnon is forced to rely on an implausible account of NATO carrying out a moral mission to prevent genocide. The claim no longer makes any sense, given available evidence, but remains prevalent in the Western press.

Mackinnon mentions Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela in passing. In all of these places, attempts have been made to overthrow the governments. In Venezuela, a US-backed military coup was quickly overturned. In Haiti, a Canadian- and US-led coup resulted in a human rights catastrophe that is ongoing and recent elections confirmed that the party that was deposed remained more popular than the alternative presented by the economic elite. In Cuba, attempts to overthrow the government have been thwarted for half a century.

To explain these additional, more violent attempts at "regime change," it is not enough to cite the literal interests. Venezuela has considerable oil, but Cuba's natural resources do not make it a major strategic asset, and, by this standard, Haiti even less so. To explain why the US government provided millions of dollars to political parties, NGOs and opposition groups in these countries requires an understanding of neoliberal ideology and its origins in the Cold War and beyond.

This much would be evident if Mackinnon added some much-needed historical context to his account of modern-day methods of regime change. In his book Killing Hope, William Blum documents over 50 US interventions in foreign governments since 1945. History has shown these to be overwhelmingly anti-democratic, if not outright catastrophic. Even mild social-democratic reforms of government in tiny countries were overwhelmed by military attacks.

If true democracy involves self-determination--and at least the theoretical ability to refuse the dictates of the "Washington Consensus" or the IMF--then any evaluation of democracy promotion as the tool of US foreign policy has to reckon with this history. Mackinnon's account does not and remains almost resolutely ahistorical.

The last chapter of The New Cold War, entitled "Afterglow," is dedicated to evaluating the ultimate effects of democracy promotion in the former Soviet republics. It is Mackinnon's weakest chapter. Mackinnon limits himself to asking whether things are better now than before. The frame of the question lowers expectations and severely stunts the democratic imagination.

If one sets aside these considerations, then it is still possible for curiosity to get the better of the reader. Is it possible that good things can come even from cynical motivations? Liberal writers like Michael Ignatieff and Christopher Hitchens made similar arguments in support of the Iraq war and Mackinnon flirts with the idea when he wonders whether young activists in Serbia and Ukraine were using the US, or whether the US was using them.

So, did things get better? The information Mackinnon presents in his answer is extremely vague.

In Serbia, he says, life is much better. The revolution hasn't brought too many benefits to the daily lives of Serbs, a cab driver tells Mackinnon. However, he writes, "The era of gasoline shortages and of young men being sent off to fight for a 'Greater Serbia' was long past and the late-night laughter and music that spilled out of Belgrade's packed restaurants spoke to an optimism unheard of under the old regime."

In this and many other cases, Mackinnon buys a well-diffused propaganda line without looking at the facts. Straying from the meticulous detail he brings to his reporting of the ins and outs of democracy promotion, Mackinnon seems to believe that it was a diabolical scheme by Milosevic--and not economic sanctions or bombing and subsequent destruction of the bulk of Serbia's state-owned industrial infrastructure--that led to gasoline shortages. Mackinnon admonishes Serbs to face up to their role in the war, while letting NATO's bombing campaign, which left tonnes of depleted uranium, flooded the Danube with hundreds of tonnes of toxic chemicals, and incinerated 80,000 tonnes of crude oil (thus the gasoline shortages), off the hook.

In Georgia, Mackinnon again relies on nightlife in the capital city as an indicator of the country's democratic well-being. "The city bubbled with a sense that things were starting to move in the right direction...swish Japanese restaurants, Irish pubs and French wine bars were popping up on seemingly every corner." The leisure activities of the economic elite are just that; there are many ways to judge the well-being of a country, but to rely on the sights and sounds of well-heeled city dwellers enjoying themselves to the exclusion of other criteria is peculiar.

Mackinnon remarks in passing that the Western-backed regime of Saakashvili has resulted in "declining freedom of the press," but has "boosted the economy."

In Ukraine, "newspapers and television stations could and did criticize or caricature whomever they wanted," but the Western-backed free market ideologue Yuschenko made a series of blunders and unpopular moves, resulting in major electoral setbacks for his party a few years after the "revolution" that brought them to power.

Strangely, Mackinnon's sources--other than the odd cab driver--seem to consist entirely of the people receiving funding from the West. Independent critics, apart from aging and deposed former politicians, are virtually nonexistent in his reporting.

Still, the question: did the West do good? In the final pages, Mackinnon is equivocal and even indecisive.

Some countries are "freer and thus better," but the Western funding has made it more likely for repressive regimes to crack down on would-be democratizing forces. In Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, he is critical of the lack of funds for democratic promotion, leaving local NGOs and opposition groups hanging. He attributes this inconsistency to arrangements where American needs are better served by repressive regimes. In other parts of the chapter, he finds democracy promotion as a whole to be problematic.

At one point, he comments that "the help that [US agencies] gave to political parties in countries like Ukraine would have been illegal had a Ukrainian NGO been giving such aid to the Democrats or Republicans." One also imagines that Canadians would not be impressed if Venezuela, for example, gave millions of dollars to the NDP. Indeed, the prospect seems as ridiculous as it is unlikely...and illegal.

Mackinnon's information suggests, though he does not say it outright, that associating the idea of "democracy" and its attendant freedoms with Western funding and US-led meddling in the governance of countries is likely to undermine legitimate grassroots efforts at democratization. For example, dissidents in Russia tell Mackinnon that when they gather to demonstrate, people often look at them spitefully and ask who is paying them to stand in the street. In one case, Mackinnon points out that a report from an authoritarian government claiming that dissidents are pawns of the West is dead-on.

Mackinnon's assessment does not follow this evidence to its conclusion; he doesn't stray from the view that alignment with either the US or Russia are the only options for countries in the region.

While alignment with one empire or another may seem to be inevitable, Mackinnon's implicit Russia-or-US manicheanism obviates other ways of promoting democracy. Mackinnon ignores, for example, a decades-long tradition of grassroots solidarity with democratic forces in countries--predominantly in Latin America--where dictators were often financially backed and armed by the US government. Such movements were usually limited to curbing excessive repression rather than sponsoring democratic revolutions, but this lack of power can be attributed, at least in part, to the lack of media coverage from mainstream journalists like Mackinnon.

If one is concerned with democratic decision-making, then surely one is also concerned with the ability of countries to make decisions independently of the meddling of foreign powers. Mackinnon also does not address how such independence might be brought about. One can speculate that it would involve preventing the aforementioned meddling.

The New Cold War is notable for its thorough account of the internal workings of democracy promotion and the point of view of those receiving the funding. Those looking for an analysis that bring such a thorough accounting to its actual aims and effects, however, will have to look elsewhere.

New Cold War

Orange Revolution

Invest in Serbia!

dru — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 01:55:31 +0000

Some government-funded folks at U of T are organizing a conference about investing in the new, "western friendly" Serbia.

The region has already seen some high-profile investment from Canadian companies. Organizers say that participants can expect a frank assessment of the potential for the region as whole as it moves towards political and economic stability along with membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the European Union.

The Serbian Radical Party

dru — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 05:07:08 +0000

The press has repeated, ad nauseum, that the Serbian Radical Party, which won a plurality of seats in yesterday's election, is "ultra-nationalist", and in a few cases "far right". Unfortunately, there's almost no information about their positions or policies, other than they're against European integration and the extradition of General Ratko Mladic to the Hague.

On the second point, it's hard to argue with them. If one wishes to enforce international law, the way to do it is not to set up a US-funded kangaroo court that refuses outright to try war criminals on both sides. That's not justice, that's a farce. Enforcing international law is a great idea; enforcing it selectively just means it's not law and it's not international. And it's hard to get excited about non-international non-law.

"Ultranationalism," Serbia and You

dru — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 22:58:09 +0000

Credit to the BBC for not only not using (at least in that article) the term "ultranationalist" to deride the Serbian Radical Party, which appears to be on its way to winning the elections (but probably not the government) in Serbia today, as many outlets undoubtedly will. The BBC gets extra points for alluding to the small fact that NATO dropped 20,000 tonnes of bombs on the country might have an effect on whether the majority of Serbs are willing to sacrifice their well-being to join the EU.

Bruce Konviser on Serbia

dru — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:45:56 +0000

In today's Globe, Bruce Konviser hits all the major notes of Globe and Mail foreign coverage: unspecified "pro-western reforms" are good, "nationalism" is "destabilizing", and why should any facts get in the way of us reporting that story once again.

I forgot the most important one: history doesn't exist, and if it does, it doesn't matter.

(For a long, fascinating, historical take on whether Serbia should join the EU, check out this essay of sorts by John Bosnitch)

Milosevic the Guilty?

Sat, 18 Mar 2006 00:47:54 +0000

Part one in a five-part series on the former Yugoslavia

[ Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five ]

Guilty? If the media is going to claim that Milosevic is a genocidal monster, it should point to evidence instead of repeating accusations.

The Associated Press, Reuters and the CBC refer to him as the "Butcher of the Balkans." Making light of his recent death, the Daily Show's Jon Stewart referred to him as a "madman" and a "genocidal maniac". The Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders said that he was "considered responsible for 250,000 deaths and the descent of the former Yugoslavia into terrible ethnic warfare." The Globe and Mail compared him to Hitler and named him a "war criminal" in an obituary. "Few of history's dictators can match this grim record," wrote the Toronto Star.

The death of former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic will, it seems, go down in history as the final verdict on his guilt as a mass murderer on the order of Stalin and Hitler.

There's only one thing missing from all the claims of Milosevic's guilt: evidence.

The Associated Press, for example, notes that all "witness testimony is on public record"--indeed, full transcripts of all testimony are available online--but their 1500 word report on Milosevic's crimes does not refer to any of it directly. In an oversight of broad and systematic proportions, precious few of the dozens of stories about Milosevic in the Canadian or American press refer directly to the hundreds of hours of witness testimony.

One can speculate about the reasons for this lack of the most elementary evidence. However, the fact that evidence is not presented in newspapers and broadcast reports threatens to undermine what journalists, politicians and intellectuals from all points on the political spectrum seem to know without any doubt: that Milosevic was a monster.

The media's assertion-based case against Milosevic could be further undermined by journalists who reported on the trial itself.

Neil Clark, covering the UN War Crimes Tribunal for the Guardian in 2003, wrote that "not only has the prosecution signally failed to prove Milosevic's personal responsibility for atrocities committed on the ground, the nature and extent of the atrocities themselves has also been called into question." In the worst massacre that Milosevic had been charged with--at Srebrenica in 1995--the prosecution "produced nothing to challenge the verdict of the five-year inquiry commissioned by the Dutch government--that there was 'no proof that orders for the slaughter came from Serb political leaders in Belgrade.'"

"The trial has heard more than 100 prosecution witnesses, and not a single one has testified that Milosevic ordered war crimes," wrote John Laughland in the British Spectator.

These kinds of verifiable claims threaten to undermine what thousands of Canadian and American journalists, politicians and intellectuals apparently know to be true. Accounts like Clark's and Laughland's are trivially easy to disprove—to prove them wrong, all that is needed is to refer to the testimony that contradicts their claims.

During the breakup of Yugoslavia, previously overlapping and coexisting ethnic groups fought over territory. During the war, it is indisputable that thousands of Muslims, Croats and Serbs were killed in massacres, battles and NATO bombing raids. And hundreds of thousands were indisputably displaced by the conflict. It remains to be proven, however, that Milosevic was singularly responsible for the humanitarian disaster. Some facts suggest otherwise. For example, many Muslim refugees—who the Serbs were accused of "ethnically cleansing"—settled in Serbia in government-funded housing, which NATO later bombed. That said, it remains possible that Milosevic is guilty of the genocide that NATO leaders accuse him of, but evidence needs to be shown of his guilt before it can be concluded. Incidentally, NATO leaders exempt themselves from prosecution in the court where Milosevic stood trial for war crimes prior his death.

Lacking evidence that Milosevic ordered war crimes to be committed, media reports speak of his "ultra-nationalist" appeals to Serbs and his desire for a "greater Serbia". Reuters, the Associated Press and many other outlets frequently refer to a 1989 speech as evidence of Milosevic's embracing of Serb nationalism. Reuters provides the following fragment without context: "They are not armed battles, though such things should not be excluded." The Guardian uses an even smaller fragment, describing how Milosevic "mesmerised the mob by assuring the minority Serbs in the ethnic Albanian province that no one would ever 'beat them' again."

During the same speech that is widely seen as Milosevic's defining moment as an ultra-nationalist, whipping Serbs into a frenzy that led to ethnic cleansing, Milosevic also claimed that "no place in Serbia is better suited than the field of Kosovo for saying that unity in Serbia will bring prosperity to the Serbian people in Serbia and each one of its citizens, irrespective of his national or religious affiliation."

Milosevic continued in his allegedly genocidal fever pitch:

Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that it is its advantage. National composition of almost all countries in the world today, particularly developed ones, has also been changing in this direction. Citizens of different nationalities, religions, and races have been living together more and more frequently and more and more successfully.

The entire speech, with translations by both the BBC and the US Commerce Department, is widely available. Perhaps there is other evidence available that Milosevic was a rabid nationalist and supporter of ethnic cleansing. Journalists who quote the 1989 speech to support the case, however, are either being disingenuous, or have not read the speech for themselves.

Continue reading Part II

Media Coverage:

» Doug Saunders: Spectre of Milosevic still haunts Balkans

» Reuters: Milosevic carried his defiance to the end

» Reuters: Milosevic dies in jail months before trial verdict

» Associated Press: Ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic dies in U.N. prison

Further reading:

» Wikipedia: Slobodan Milosevic

» [Greek Television]: Transcript of interview with Slobodan Milosevic

» Milosevic's 1989 speech

» Alexander Cockburn: Did Milosevic or His Accusers "Cheat Justice"? The Show Trial That Went Wrong

» Paul Craig Roberts (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan): Was Serbia a Practice Run for Iraq?

» Neil Clark: The Milosevic trial is a travesty

» Diana Johnstone: Srebrenica Revisited

» John Laughland: International law is an ass

In the first of a five-part series, Dru Oja Jay looks at the media's guilty verdict in the case of Slobodan Milosevic.