Salon.com > Alex Todorovic

Waiting for Slobo

Sat, 31 Mar 2001 09:00:00 +0000

On Friday, reports in the Serbian media announced that Yugoslavian dictator Slobodan Milosevic had finally been arrested. As of Friday evening, no official confirmation had been made, and aides denied the news, saying Milosevic was still safely holed up in his villa, where he has lived in seclusion since the fall of his government last October.

While rumors and conflicting reports continue to circulate, everyone is still waiting for Slobodan Milosevic. The Hague is waiting to put him on trial for war crimes, and Serbs are waiting for his arrest to be confirmed -- Yugoslavia's immediate future hinges on it.

If the news is true, why has it taken so long to arrest Milosevic?

Democratic reformers imagined a different scenario when Milosevic was toppled from power. The world warmly embraced President Vojislav Kostunica and Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the mastermind behind the October revolution. But things quickly began to founder. Kostunica, a constitutional lawyer, insisted that democratic reformers take power legally, which meant gradually, and that meant nothing meaningful could be done before Serbian elections were held at the end of December.

“He’s finished”

Thu, 05 Oct 2000 20:50:00 +0000

Less than two weeks after he was voted out of office, the government of President Slobodan Milosevic appeared to have made its last stand Thursday night as hundreds of thousands of protesters stormed the streets of the capital, violently demanding his ouster.

Just hours after Belgrade citizens waged a day-long battle with police to take control of the Parliament building and a key government television station, the official government media was addressing opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica as the country's "president-elect."

With the nation's police and army in disarray, protesters swarming the streets and the opposition firmly in control of television, Milosevic must be looking for a way out. Indeed, news reports of the suspicious departure of three military planes Thursday evening fueled speculation that Milosevic might be trying to flee the country.

Serbia's opposition had scheduled a massive rally Thursday afternoon that was billed as the "final push to oust Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic." And that rally now appears to have turned into just that.

Milosevic rival claims assassination attempt

Mon, 04 Oct 1999 18:00:00 +0000

Yugoslavia's most prominent opposition leader, Vuk Draskovic,
has claimed that a car accident last Thursday in which he was injured and his
brother-in-law killed was an attempt on his life. Draskovic
was the only survivor of a massive three-car accident on Thursday
afternoon, two miles from the town of Lazarevac in central Serbia.

The allegations illustrate the high tensions between different Yugoslavian opposition factions, as well as the increasingly violent conflict between President Slobodan Milosevic and the forces calling for his resignation.

Draskovic and his entourage were traveling in three vehicles when a large
transport truck smashed into the first two vehicles,
killing four people instantly. The Serbian opposition leader announced on
Thursday evening's 10 o'clock news on his Belgrade television station,
Studio B, that the crash was in fact an assassination attempt.

"The truck came out of nowhere," he said. He warned the perpetrators to "think well about what they've done."

Revenge is theirs

Tue, 27 Jul 1999 19:00:00 +0000

The latest series of Albanian revenge killings has inflamed Serbian popular resentment against U.N. peacekeepers in Kosovo. They also cast doubt on the notion that Serbs and Albanians can live together as neighbors in the province.

Serbs now widely believe that the peacekeeping forces -- known by their acronym as KFOR troops -- are aiding the reverse "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo.

"We can no longer believe in the good intention of British soldiers," said Vera Janicijevic, who lost her son and husband when 14 Serbs were slain last Friday evening in the village of Staro Gracko in Kosovo.

Stevo Lalic, who witnessed the killings, said the Serbs were killed with automatic weapons in a wheat field, then run over with tractors.

Serbian Bishop Artemije and other Serbian leaders met with the head of the U.N. mission, Bernard Kushner, to demand that more be done to protect Serbs.

"We placed our hope in you, but we can no longer do that and therefore do not ask for our cooperation until the evil which is being committed against Serbs comes to an end," Artemije told Kushner.

Winning ugly

Mon, 03 May 1999 10:00:00 +0000

Rev. Jesse Jackson and his interfaith delegation arrived in Belgrade last week with a seemingly impossible mission -- convince Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to release three American prisoners of war who have been held captive since March 31. And though it wasn't pretty, somehow Jackson scored.

Jackson apparently had not done a lot of homework before his freelance negotiating mission to the Balkans. This cultural gap was evident numerous times during Jackson's three-day visit to Belgrade. He twice shook hands with a wanted war criminal, and put former communists and atheists on the spot by asking them to join him in prayer -- but neglected to pray when he met with Serbia's religious leader, Patriarch Pavle, instead talking politics. He regularly used his staple "building bridges" metaphor -- which translates badly, summoning up images of men in hard hats, and seems insensitive anyway, given that Yugoslavia hardly has any actual bridges left, thanks to NATO's bombs. And his single-minded pursuit of winning the release of three American soldiers offended many Yugoslav officials who met with the delegation, especially against the backdrop of increased civilian casualties from NATO strikes while he was there.

Draskovic fired

Wed, 28 Apr 1999 10:30:00 +0000

Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs Vuk Draskovic was removed from office late Wednesday afternoon by Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic. His firing comes in the wake of three days of sharp criticism by Draskovic aimed at the Slobodan Milosevic machine.

Draskovic's three days of dissent began Sunday evening, in a live interview on Studio B television, which is controlled by Draskovic's Serbian Renewal Movement. The 52-year-old deputy prime minister told Serbian viewers that they were being lied to by Radio Television Serbia. He criticized terminology often used in RTS broadcasts, such as "criminal NATO aggression."

"Aggression is never friendly," said Draskovic. He told viewers not to deceive themselves in expecting Russia to help Serbia, and ridiculed the importance of the proposed Russian, Yugoslav, Belarus alliance. "Nobody is going to help us," Draskovic said.

Draskovic urged Serbs to face reality: that public opinion had turned against Serbia, and that it was impossible to defeat NATO or the new world order. As a possible solution to the Kosovo crisis, Draskovic said that United Nations troops should be allowed to operate in Kosovo as a peacekeeping force with a security council mandate.