A Serbian Journalist Reflects on The Arrest of Radovan Karadzic

We Serbians have just sent one more guy down the road to the valley of the War Criminals. In The Hague, Netherlands, he might be able to reflect on the awful past while watching the seaside from a tiny window in his cell. Radovan Karadzic is finally imprisoned…

Windows have long been the leit motif of my memory of the war in Bosnia, as one of the most disturbing press reports I saw then described people trying to jump to safety out the window of a burning church where Muslim gunmen had locked them. Those who managed to jump out were shot to death by a waiting soldier. In my mind’s eye, I always add to this picture the soldier’s smile - I can easily assume he had fun doing his job. What would you do in such a situation: jump out the window, or burn to death while hoping the soldiers would have mercy and open the door?

No one was happy to cross roads with any Serbian military tails either, in those days. They were adding even more oil to the flames of war, culminating in the Srebrenica killing of 7000 Muslims –the biggest project of all Bosnian ethnic engineering. In that summer of 1995, Karadzic & Co. finally demonstrated who was in charge of the bright new “state,” the Republika Srpska.

I did observe the Bosnian war closely as a reporter, but mostly from the “safe” territory, Serbian territory. My entire reporting career, though, started on the streets of (a Muslim) Sarajevo in flames, amid the rain of sniper shots, in the early months of war. Still, once I got out, I never went back down to the city from the hills where the Serbian military and its proxies were in control — and bombarding downtown Sarajevo, when they were sober enough to do so.

As a journalist, you go where power is, most of the time. We are tasked to look for the one who pulls the strings. And in those days that guy was in Pale, in the hills above the Sarajevo: Radovan Karadzic. He used to state proudly, and not just in one interview – in fact, this sentence was common to most of his interviews – “I have full control over the military of Republika Srpska.”

This precise quote is going to be repeated many times over next few years in the Hague Tribunal. It is part of the indictment against Karadzic, which charges the former president of the Republika Srpska (that part of Bosnia “given” to Serbs by the Dayton peace agreement of December 1995) for ethnic cleansing. The indictment contains eleven counts accusing Karadzic of genocide and crimes against humanity - to mention just the most important items.

I did find one report of the full indictment — on the BBC: “Bosnian Serb forces executed thousands of Bosnian Muslim men in an organized, widespread and systematic manner. Mr. Karadzic and Mr. Mladic are responsible for the unlawful confinement, murder, rape and inhumane treatment of the non-Serb civilian population in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Detainees were terrorized by random brutality and sexual violence,” said the British news agency. But the local Serbian media, in digesting its shock over Karadzic’s arrest after thirteen years of hiding from justice, somehow forgot to add to its headlines any notion or detail of what the story was actually all about. For days, their reporting instead focused on Karadzic’s new identity as Dr. Dragan David Dabic, an expert in alternative medicine. He had built an entirely new life in “alternative” circles of Serbia and Bosnia, disguised with long hair and beard, and assisted by a shadowy circle of supporters.

So the Karadzic story was just another sexy new thing for the tabloids. We learned about Dabic’s mistress and “great love,” while he was still officially married, of course, and his wife and family endured regular visits from NATO and later EU forces. We also saw lovely video from Bosnia, about the opening of private hospital for sexual problems, where Karadzic was accompanied by some lady other then his beloved one. I guess he was proving a point: the owner of that hospital invited him to work together because he “saw with his own eyes how spermatozoids are speeding up under the bioenergy from the Dr. Dabic (ergo Karadzic) hand.”

But sadly, once again war crimes as a remaining burden to our Serbian past, and thus to our future, were somehow deemed not sexy enough to report.

Of course the perceptions of the Western media were, once again, completely different than “ours”. Still, my impression is that my Western colleagues did not pay enough attention to the fact that this trial is also going to put in the spotlight on many of “your” politicians – especially Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat who was the chief architect of the 1995 peace accord that finally ended the fighting.

There are old insinuations, which have become a part of the myth, that Karadzic made a deal with the U.S. State Department not to be extradited to The Hague. Many “witnesses” of that alleged deal discuss it in their career-washing biographies (see video 1 below). In the end, this “agreement with Holbrooke” was part of the very first sentence Karadzic uttered upon appearing before the Tribunal last week. “It was a matter of life and death,” he said, making clear his perspective on the importance of sticking to the purported “deal.” He believes Holbrooke had an equal interest in not having a trial about politics and the war in Bosnia open to the public.

Nevertheless, this trial is going to be open—and highly political. In other words, it is going to be ‘very sexy’ in the long term, even for the Western media. There were more than a dozen reporters’ cars parked front of the Tribunal for Karadzic’s appearance – and not more only because the media room is limited to just forty journalists.

Apparently, however, CNN did not find the latest events spicy enough to cover it. But then they had already created a journalistic scandal: a few days prior, a CNN report about demonstrations in Belgrade organized by extreme nationalists angered at the arrest of Karadzic, was edited to include scenes from demonstrations in Budapest, Hungary — and God knows elsewhere! The video, which was posted to the CNN web site for a day before was removed, and then appeared on YouTube, shows police forces using water cannons, which were not actually used, as well as a fire set front of metro station –but Belgrade has no metro, and nothing was set on fire in Belgrade! (See video 2 below.)

In the end, there was one more falsehood: I watched Richard Holbrooke on the BBC the day of the arrest, saying he had always refused even to shake hands with Karadzic or Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. But just Google a video from the signing of the Dayton agreement and see yourself what is true and what is not. Ah, dear Holbrooke, have you not had enough?

Video 1: Washington made a Deal over Srebrenica

Video 2: CNN’s report on “Belgrade demonstrations”

Popularity: 1% [?]

Subject:
Quasi denominational ethnic designation- “Muslims”-when referring to the Bosniaks (native, distinct ethnic group, people from Bosnia)

Dear Ms.Grujic,

I just couldn’t ignore misuse and use of term ‘Muslims’ when you referred to the Bosniaks as one of the native ethnic groups, peoples, in Bosnia. That pseudo-ethnic and religious term is very deceptive in the context of the Balkan politics, when is applied to the historically legitimate ethnic group, namely the Bosniaks.
Bosniaks—along with the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina—have their own distinct language, culture, and history. Referring to them as Muslim is not only imprecise, it denies them their existence as an ethnic group altogether. While this may seem like a trifling distinction to the general reader, it is important to note that this imprecision has been intentionally exploited to commit acts of genocide against ethnic Bosniaks (see the February 2007 official judgment by the International Court of Justice at The Hague). Calling Bosniaks “Muslims” was specifically designed to lessen the sympathy other Europeans might feel for the plight of a “non-European” people.

The fact that entire national, ethic group is named, labeled as religious group especially in complex, often xenophobic and competing web of the Balkan nationalist politics, has negative echo and has been and still being used as justification for war, war crimes and acts of genocide
There is no need to, emphasize, accentuate the religious affiliation of the Bosniaks as you did in your article. You did not mention religious affiliation of the Bosnian Croats or Serbs. The religion is a part of private sphere in life of the Bosnia and Bosniak culture. We know that Bosniaks prevalent social dimension is a very secular.
I think we should have a simple rule: either use just religious terms or just ethnic terms when you describe the composition of Bosnian population or both terms but applied equally, in the same way. We can not name, define some peoples by religious and some by ethnic terms in the same context or sentence in particular when you write, discuss ethnicity of peoples.

Again, please refer to the CIA Factbook to confirm what I wrote in my letter.
According to CIA: ethnic composition facts in Bosnia –Bosniak 48%, Serbs 37,1% , Croats 14,3%, other 0,6% in 2000 census.

Or Country profile: by BBC
“Its three main ethnic groups are Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs
The 1995 Dayton peace accord, which ended the Bosnian war, set up two separate entities; a Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Bosnian Serb Republic, or Republika Srpska, each with its own president, government, parliament, police and other bodies”.
“Major languages: Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian” –by BBC

I hope that you will consider correcting your terminology when you refer to the Bosniaks,
If you review other media (AP, the Economist, the Washington Post, etc.) you‘ll see that they use proper ethnic term for Bosniaks.
.

Please understand that using this term is reductive, and doesn’t represent our people truly. Because you never use the term \”Christian Orthodox\” for the Serbs or \”Catholics\” for the Croats, when you refer to the other Bosnian ethnic groups.

Some consistency would be welcome and truly appreciated.

This distinction is very important to us. Give us that much, please.

Thanks for your consideration. All the best!
Sincerely,

Thanks,

Mesha Dzinovic
New York City

mesha.dzinovic@eventlinkgroup.com

Absolutely right observation, Danny - it would be wonderful if could be enough to use terms such as victims and perpetrators, or simply people, as you suggest. When it comes to ethnic conflict, however, I believe this is not enough to picture conflict and represent its dynamics. I even had a hard to time to remember correctly “ethnic” background of my memories, as all of them are “just” the people in the flash backs. But thinks “need” to be clear and simple, ready for the ones without much knowledge about this part of the world.
Which I admit, was mistake. we all need to start to use “people”.
in the response to Mesha Dzinovic - yes, you are completely right. I actually thought of a term used in West that is widely spread and known, much more then Bosniaks. If this piece was a study, I would do have more space and certainly different approach. However, thank you for this important observation.

Best wishes,
Jelena Grujic
weekly Vreme, Belgrade