American Military Community

[usmc5831]

Thought this may be of interest since we have a few from Serbia on here.



BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) -- To some Serbs, Ratko Mladic is a villain; to many others, he's a wartime hero.

As the noose tightens around the top U.N. war crimes suspect, the fugitive general has come to symbolize the divide in Serbia over its role in the Balkan wars.

Faced with immense international pressure to arrest Mladic before the 10th anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre on July 11, Serbia's authorities insist they are hunting down the former Bosnian Serb commander to hand him over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.

Mladic is wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for orchestrating the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the eastern Bosnian enclave after it was captured by Serb troops. Serbian authorities say they're closing in on arresting Mladic, who has spent a decade on the run.

The slaughter at Srebrenica -- Europe's worst killing of civilians since World War II -- has become a symbol of the brutality of Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Mladic was indicted in 1995 for genocide and crimes against humanity together with former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who vanished that year. Karadzic reportedly has been hiding in disguise and on the move in remote and mountainous corners of the Balkans.

Signs of support
In Serbia, Mladic still commands considerable support among nationalists and hard-liners in the ranks of the police and the army, who refuse to acknowledge that Serb troops committed war crimes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

In a sign of such support, graffiti depicting Mladic as a hero and praising his "Srebrenica Liberation" appeared in Belgrade and the central city of Nis on Saturday. T-shirts and calendars with pictures of Mladic are sold at flea markets, but also at shops run by the influential Serbian Orthodox Church.

Until a few years ago, Mladic openly dined at fancy Belgrade restaurants and attended soccer matches.

He disappeared from public view when Serbia's conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica shifted his opposition toward The Hague tribunal this year, lured by promises that Serbia could become an European Union member, but only if Mladic is arrested.

Western diplomats in Belgrade believe Mladic recently was moving between Serbia and the Serb-controlled parts of Bosnia protected by about 50 heavily armed loyalists.

Recent opinion polls in Serbia suggest that only about one-third of the population know what happened in Srebrenica in early July 1995. A vast majority of Serbs consider the U.N. tribunal to be an anti-Serb institution.

Leading human rights activists and Serbia's liberal politicians say such a picture is the result of the refusal by Serbia's postwar authorities to clearly condemn war crimes and acknowledge the republic's role.

"We didn't have, and we still haven't got, the courage to point our finger to the real culprits," said Milan St. Protic, a historian and former Belgrade ambassador in Washington. "We have to take on the cross of blame and responsibility."

Protic was one of the leading politicians who ousted former President Slobodan Milosevic from power in 2000 and extradited him to The Hague tribunal a year later. But, he says, Serbia's new, moderately nationalist authorities have failed to turn the page in dealing with the wars that Milosevic fomented.

Facing the past
Natasa Kandic, a leading human rights activist, says some important steps in facing the past in Serbia have recently been made, but that authorities still haven't clearly distanced themselves from the remnants of Milosevic's regime.

"Although we have had public condemnation (of war crimes), what we see happening is a struggle ... to protect Milosevic's heritage," Kandic said. "We must not allow the genocide in Srebrenica to be denied."

The Srebrenica massacre came to public focus last week after a 1995 execution by Serbian gunmen of a group of Bosnian Muslims -- four of them minors -- was aired unedited on local television.

The horror of the footage triggered a wave of public condemnation of war crimes. It was the first time that Serbia had come face-to-face with the brutality of its troops -- something that has been denied for years.

The footage led President Boris Tadic to address the nation, triggered the arrest of five paramilitaries and prompted parliament to draft a resolution against war crimes, a measure expected to be adopted this week.

On Sunday, Tadic told private BK Television that Serbia must face up to the war crimes and that it was good the footage was shown on the Serbian television so that "we can see what it (the war) looked like in reality."

Critics say this is not good enough.

They cite the content of the parliament resolution, which reportedly will condemn all war crimes committed during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo -- thus taking the edge off the declaration and turning it into a general document acceptable to everyone.

"No one here is prepared to say that Milosevic's regime was a criminal regime," said Borka Pavicevic, a leading human rights activist and political analyst.

Serbia's parliament is heavily influenced by Milosevic's nationalist allies who control nearly half of the 250 seats. The ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party -- the single strongest party in Serbia -- on Saturday demanded an end to alleged "anti-Serb" hysteria over Srebrenica.

No top Serbian politician showed up at a conference on the massacre Saturday, which was held in Belgrade and organized by Kandic's Humanitarian Law Center, to hear some of Srebrenica's women, who lost their sons and husbands in the slaughter, speak of their hardships.

Ivana Dulic Markovic, Serbia's agriculture minister, came to the conference, but only in an unofficial capacity as a citizen.

"I can only bow my head and cry," Dulic Markovic told the participants. "When the mothers of Srebrenica victims passed beside me, my knees started to tremble."
_________________
Make money fast

http://Usmc5831.smptrms.hop.clickbank.net

Need a car?

[AvENGeR7.62FMJ]

Okay,i see the point of this.

Just to make some things clear,in Srebrenica about 2500 civilians were killed,it was a war crime which im ashame of and which never should have happened.The reason it happened is bringing para military forces into the the war,units like Tigers (Voislav Seselj) Scorpions and Arkans own private army.When you take them into war its just the matter of time when will mass murders occure.Yes Ratko Mladic is guilty,and yeah Radovan Karadzic is guilty too,but they defended this country the best they could.No matter what they should be punished for their actions,but i must say that im sick of assholes like St Protic,Borka savicevic and Dulic Markovic, who were outside when the whole thing happened and who only knew how to bullshit about everything.It was war,civil ethnic and religious war,what do you expect a clean fight? yeah right.
What hurts me the most is that word "warcrime" always indicates Serbia,never bosnia and croatia,what about serbian victims of their retaliation ? what about more than 4000 missing persons ? no one gives a f**k about them! whats important is that Bosnians and Croats wine on TV how serbs did this and that,yeah ok,it happened,they have a confession,what else do they need,but when you ask them, "hey,whats with the serbs"? they say "that never happened".Two sides are needed to fight a war and you all know that very good,two sides.War isnt so black and white.I know a man who was a guard in Srebrenica at the time,he told me that they fead the prisoners as long as they had food to give,so when food ran out,they asked muslims to take em back which they refused so what was to be done with them than to kill them? maybe there was an other option,but people in command did the best they could.When i see movies like "behind eneymy lines" and "vukovar live" i get sick,it shows serbian army to be disorganised group of drunk bums with rifles which offcourse is not the case.This world is eager to hear out only one side.Just like with Kosovo,they celebrate 6 years of KFOR's presence and calling the mission a "Succsess"?! what sucsess?! since they came you got 1000 serbs missing more 1500 killed and over 50.000 serbian houses burned ,is that a succsess?What happened in march of 2003? albanian go berseker and no one gives a damn.Incapable KFOR units even began fighting with serbs !! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THIS WORLD? its is not LOGICAL!!!! you have 90 percent of kosovo that are albanians rampaging on 10 percent which are serbs and you start beating up serbs,wheres the common scence there?!so offcourse the result is another massive fleeing of serbs to central area leaving Kosovo almost ethnicly clean with albanians,but hey that was the big plan of EU and who knows who.What KFOR's mission was ,is to distract Serbs while albanian rebbels arm up and train to be able to pair us,before 1999 they only had automatic rifles and maybe mortars,but now they have uniforms ,rifles ,MG's, LMg's,AT weapons of all kinds even choppers.

KFOR WELL DONE ,IT REALLY WAS A SUCCSESS.

[usmc5831]

Thanks for the clarification Dusan. I find it interesting to hear the perspective of people who acutally live there as opposed to a news reporter who has been there tow weeks. thanks for your insight.
_________________
Make money fast

http://Usmc5831.smptrms.hop.clickbank.net

Need a car?