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Will Curbing Criminals Curb Serbian Crimes?
by Omer Bin Abdullah
09/07/2001
War criminal and out-of-favor former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, is facing judges in The Hague. His nemesis, Vojislav Kostunica, a 56-year-old law professor, who has rallied Serbia's people and its disparate opposition forces against him, did not endorse his extradition.
Kostunica's opposition to the extradition only defines his meticulous efforts to safeguard his nationalist credentials. The former professor, who never joined the ruling party during the communist era, has also been the most consistent Serbian nationalist on the political stage, except for the ultra-rightist Vojislav Seselj.
Anti-communism and nationalism were combined in Kostunica's thinking as far back as 1974, when, as a young academic, he criticized Tito's reshaping of the Yugoslav constitution along the lines of a loose-knit federation. He believed that the federation undermined the position of the Serbs who lived outside Serbia, or in Serbia's then newly autonomous provinces, Kosova and Vojvodina.
Kostunica was among the founding members of the Democratic Party, but he left in 1992 because he considered it to be insufficiently nationalist. His newly established Democratic Party of Serbia formed an alliance with Vuk Draskovic's conservative Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO).
By the mid-1980s, it had become fashionable in Serbian intellectual circles to espouse the Serbian nationalist cause. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Milosevic responded to the rise of nationalism by abolishing, in practical terms, Kosova's autonomy and encouraging Serbs to rebel against authorities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the meantime, multi-party politics returned to Serbia. Kostunica distinguished himself primarily by his repeated attacks on the various peace plans, including the Dayton Accords put forward for Bosnia.
Critics say that Kostunica, along with Seselj, formed a "war party". Although Kostunica kept away from the political fray, the revival of Serbian nationalism, along with the escalation of the Kosova conflict, gave him another chance.
Kostunica brings with him much personal baggage. He is married with no children, and the urge to leave a mark on history may oblige him to bring his nationalistic credentials into play. After all, he was nominated by much of the opposition, with the exception of the SPO, because he was seen as a firm nationalist who would stand the best chance of beating Milosevic following the latter's defeat in Kosova.
Kostunica combines the rhetoric of advocating that Serbia join Europe and European institutions with strong anti-NATO criticism. He has also embarrassed the United States by denouncing Washington's establishment of an office in Budapest to assist the Serb opposition, calling it interference in Serbia's affairs. Despite such criticism of the U.S. and the West, he is considered a democrat.
The opposition to Milosevic was political and guided by economics, especially the urge to be counted as an equal partner in Europe. The federal government includes pro-Milosevic ministers, who resigned when he was extradited.
Kostunica claimed that he had heard of the extradition only from news broadcasts. But, friends of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, cast doubt on that, saying Kostunica had washed his hands of Milosevic, but wanted to keep Serb nationalists "sweet" while gaining credit for the money promised to Yugoslavia in Brussels.
The political divide over the extradition indicates that Kostunica and Djindjic are using these extraditions as tactical weapons. As such, these extraditions will be motivated by internal political considerations as much as by the urge to have Serbia accepted by Europe.
The Hague still wants Serbia's president, Milan Milutinovic -- who has also been indicted -- to face trial. None of Serbia's leaders want to extradite him now because that would provoke a bitter battle to replace him as president, which may still be the most powerful job in the country. Pressure to hand Milutinovic over may mount if Radovan Karadzic, 56, the former Bosnian Serb President, and General Ratko Mladic, 58, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, the other two most prominent indicted war criminals still at large, are arrested.
The U.S., with its leadership of NATO, is hardly seen as willing to allow the emergence of a major European power, especially when it endangers the position of its faithful ally Britain, which pegs its power on American coattails.
Milosevic's extradition proves that real power in Belgrade, the capital of both Serbia and of the Yugoslav federation, lies with the Serbian, rather than federal authorities. That means the federation must either be refashioned completely or dissolved. Internal divisions rive Montenegro, where some want Yugoslavia to survive and others seek independence.
Djindjic favors a new Yugoslav federation in which Serbia and Montenegro are both independent in all but name. This may be a tactic to sweeten the world community's acceptance of letting Kosova stay within Yugoslavia - an option not favored by the Muslims, the so-called "ethnic Albanians."
The System
The blame for the Muslim Holocaust has been centered of a handful of leaders such as Milosevic. However, maneuvers by the various leaders clearly show that the "nationalistic" -- read Islamophobic -- trend is pervasive. The expressions of surprise by Kostunica, and the resignation of Federal Prime Minister Zoran Zizic, who protested against Milosevic's handover, are indicators that crimes against Muslims are normal behavior, just as they are a way of life in Israel.
In addition, the Serbian Orthodox Church -- a Church that stands accused of protecting Karadzic during the massacres of the Bosnian war -- has not gone on record to condemn such crimes.
The war crimes tribunal in The Hague is simply charged with trying a handful of individuals without extracting punishment on the Serb nation that has, and is, an essential participant in these crimes. Also, the constant refrain is: in order to keep nationalism under the lid, Serbia must be provided financial aid in order to offer its citizens economic rewards. This can only mean that Serbia can continue to use nationalism as a weapon whenever it needs money.
One must not forget that when the "peace" plan was imposed on the Muslims in Dayton, Milosevic was declared by the West as "the guarantor of peace in the Balkans." The presence of a junta in Washington that continues its public lovemaking with the "Butcher of Sabra and Shatilla," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, only points to the possibility that any Serbian war criminal or gangster can be repackaged to secure American and Western interests that center on the premises that Islam should not allowed a role in Europe.
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