by Adam LeBor
February 2003
New constitution for Union of Serbia and Montenegro adopted by Yugoslav parliament
Biljana Plavsic, former Bosnian Serb leader, sentenced to eleven years in prison for crimes against humanity
Former paramilitary leader Vojislav Seselj surrenders to ICTY Mira Markovic flees to Russia
Assassination attempt on Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic
March 2003
Zoran Djindjic murdered by sniper in Belgrade
Serb authorities arrest thousands in nationwide crackdown on organised crime including Svetlana Raznatovic (aka Ceca), widow of Arkan, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic. JSO is disbanded
Vojislav Seselj pleads not guilty to war crimes and crimes against humanity
April 2003
Serbia-Montenegro admitted to Council of Europe
State funeral of Ivan Stambolic, after his body is discovered in Serbia
Serbian police issue arrest warrant for Mira Markovic in connection with the murder of Ivan Stambolic, also for Marko Milosevic on charges of assault
Nasir Oric, leader of Muslim defenders of Srebrenica is arrested and extradited to the ICTY
Notes
Many of the sources of information or quotation in this book are interviews conducted by or on behalf of the author. In each chapter the details of an interview are given at the first instance. Thereafter, when a person’s words are quoted, it can be assumed that unless otherwise stated the interview details remain the same.
Chapter 1
1. Seska Stanojlovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
2. Borislav Milosevic, author telephone interview, April 2002. Many of the hitherto unreported details of the Milosevic family’s war years are taken from this interview.
3. Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 130.
4. Draza Markovic, author interview, Belgrade August 2001.
5. These figures, by Vladimir Zerjavec, are quoted in Tim Judah, The Serbs, p. 134.
6. Milica Kovac, interview by Vesna Peric-Zimjonic, Pozarevac, March 2002. Milica Kovac is a pseudonym.
7. The country’s full name was then the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.
8. Milan Kucan, author interview, Ljubljana, October 2001.
9. Alex Bebler, quoted in Nora Beloff, Tito’s Flawed Legacy: Yugoslavia 1939–1984 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1985), p. 144.
10. Aca Singer, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
11. Peter Bacso, City Lives: Budapest (television programme), EuroArt Media Ltd, London 2000. Scheduled for broadcast by RTE (Eire) in autumn/winter 2002.
Chapter 2
1. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
2. Ljubica Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
3. Draza Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
4. Seska Sanojlovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
5. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
6. Nebojsa Popov, interview by Vesna Peric-Zinjonic, Belgrade, April 2002.
7. Zivan Berisavljevic, author interview, Novi Sad, September 2001.
8. Borislav Milosevic, author telephone interview, April 2002.
Chapter 3
1. Nebojsa Popov, interview by Vesna Peric-Zimjonic, Belgrade, April 2002.
2. Tibor Varady, author interview, Budapest, August 2001.
3. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
4. Aleksandar Nenadovic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
5. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
6. Milica Kovac, interview by Vesna Peric-Zimjonic, Pozarevac, March 2002.
7. Ljubica Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
Chapter 4
1. Mihailo Crnobrnja, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
2. Milos Vasic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
3. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
4. Aca Singer, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
5. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
6. Zivorad Kovacevic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
7. William Montgomery, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
Chapter 5
1. Reginald Wyon, The Balkans From Within (London: James Finch & Co., 1904), p. 38.
2. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
3. Zivorad Kovacevic, author interview; Belgrade, November 2001.
4. In 1977 the magazine Komunist attacked Cosic for claiming that Serbs were being ‘exploited and denigrated by other Yugoslav nationalities’. See Judah, The Serbs, p. 157.
5. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
6. Nora Beloff, Tito’s Flawed Legacy: Yugoslavia 1939–1984 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1985), p. 136.
7. Mihailo Crnobrnja, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
8. Draza Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
9. Milos Vasic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
10. Dessa Trevisan, author interview, London, September 2001.
11. Slobodan Milosevic, Years of Clarification (Belgrade: Belgrade Publishing House) 1989.
12. Seska Sanojlovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
Chapter 6
1. Braca Grubacic, author interview, November 2001.
2. Ljubica Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
3. Tahir Hasanovic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
4. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
5. Zivorad Kovacevic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
6. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
7. Janet Garvey, author interview, Budapest, October 2001.
8. Mihailo Crnobrnja, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
9. Seska Stanojlovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
10. Aleksa Djilas, ‘A Profile of Slobodan Milosevic’, Foreign Affairs, summer 1993.
11. General Nikola Ljubicic in Stavoljvb Djvkic, Milosevic and Markovic: A Lust for Power (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2001), p.15.
12. Draza Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
13. Ivan Stambolic, Mladina magazine, Ljubljana, 6 August 1996.
Chapter 7
1. Slobodan Milosevic in Robert Thomas, Serbia under Milosevic (London: Hurst and Co., 2000), p. 44.
2. Mihailo Crnobrnja, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
3. ‘The Memorandum’ in Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), p.49.
4. Between 1971 and 1981 the Albanian population of Kosovo increased from 916,168 to 1,226,736, i.e. from 73.7 per cent of the population to 77.4 per cent. In these years the Serb population dropped from 228,264 to 209,498, i.e. from 18.4 per cent to 13.2 per cent. Figures based on Federal Institute for Statistics. Judah, op. cit.
5. It was not altogether surprising that SANU members had exhibited a maudlin ethno-centrism when they demanded a defence of ‘Serbian interests’. For those brought up on western European traditions of inquiring scepticism, the role of the intellectual is to question established truths. In other words, dissent. In a state reasonably confident of its own identity, and with a long enough history, these truths to be deconstructed are those previously accepted as self-evident: the founding myths of nationhood, for example. In eastern Europe the role of the intellectual has in the past been very different. Until 1989 most of the region was for centuries ruled by foreign powers, whether Ottoman, Habsburg or Soviet. Yugoslav nationalist intellectuals, such as Cosic or his counterparts in Zagreb, could agree that Tito’s creation was a ‘prison of nations’. Prevent
ed from fulfilling their manifest destiny by foreign occupation, such countries have historically charged their writers – seen as the standard bearers of the national soul – with keeping the patriotic spirit alive. Their job was not to deconstruct national myths but to forge them. The very notion of national identity was fused literature and language. Across eastern Europe in the nineteenth century lexicographers such as Serbia’s Vuk Karadzic classified and codified the dialects of their native tongue into a unified language. To write in the national tongue, to bring it alive and create a corpus of literature was to legitimise it and, by extension, the nation itself. The Hungarian poet Sandor Petofi even started a revolution by reading one of his works on the steps of the National Museum in 1848.
6. Study commissioned by the Forum for Human Rights, 1990. This study of rape allegations in Kosovo concluded that inter-ethnic rape was relatively rare and heavily over-represented in the media. Cited in Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia. ed. John B. Allcock, Marko Milivojevic, and John J. Horton (Denver and Oxford: ABC-CLIO, 1998), p. 234.
7. Exchange between Milosevic and demonstrators as included in ‘Enter Nationalism’, episode one of The Death of Yugoslavia, the six-part television series by Brook Lapping Associates, first broadcast on BBC1 in autumn and winter 1995.
8. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
9. Mira Markovic and Slobodan Milosevic in The Death of Yugoslavia.
10. Miroslav Solevic in The Death of Yugoslavia.
11. Azem Vllasi in Lenard J. Cohen, Serpent in the Bosom: The Rise and Fall of Slobodan Milosevic (Colorado: Westview Press, 2001), p. 63.
12. Miroslav Solevic in The Death of Yugoslavia.
13. Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (London: Phoenix Press, 1998 edition), pp. 58 & 73.
14. The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one.
15. Lenard J. Cohen, op. cit., pp.64–5.
16. Ivan Stambolic in The Death of Yugoslavia.
17. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
18. Poem quoted in Dusko Doder and Louise Branson, Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant (New York: The Free Press, 1999), p. 44.
19. Zivorad Kovacevic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
20. Milan Kucan, author interview, Ljubljana, October 2001.
21. Tahir Hasanovic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
22. Slobodan Milosevic in Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 160.
23. Milos Vasic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
24. Bosko Krunic, author interview, Novi Sad, August 2001.
25. Dusko Doder and Louise Branson, op. cit., pp.46–7
26. Dragisa Pavlovic, in Lenard J. Cohen, op. cit., p. 68
Chapter 8
1. Ivan Stambolic in Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London: Penguin/BBC, 1995), p. 45.
2. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
3. Borisav Jovic in The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one. All quotes by Borisav Jovic are taken from this series only.
4. Milosevic learnt this early on which has bedevilled investigators from the Hague tribunal trying to establish a paper trail to connect him to war crimes.
5. Milosevic in Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 44.
6. Mihailo Crnobrnja, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
7. Account and film footage of the Eighth Session of Serbian Communist Party as included in The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one.
8. Ljubinka Trgovcevic in Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 46.
9. Azem Vllasi, ibid., p. 46.
10. Zivorad Kovacevic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
11. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
12. Tahir Hasanovic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
13. Dobrica Cosic in Lenard J. Cohen, Serpent in the Bosom: The Rise and Fall of Slobodan Milosevic, (Colorado: Westview Press 2001), p. 73.
Chapter 9
1. Reginald Wyon, The Balkans from Within (London: James Finch & Co., 1904), p. 46.
2. Slobodan Milosevic in Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London: Penguin/BBC, 1995), p. 6.
3. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
4. Braca Grubacic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
5. Zivorad Kovacevic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
6. Milovan Djilas, The New Class (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovic, 1983), p. 60.
7. Bosko Krunic, author interview, Novi Sad, August 2001.
8. The source of this nickname is uncertain, but he was caricatured on Croatian television in a waiter’s uniform.
9. Zivan Berisavljevic, author interview, Novi Sad, August 2001.
10. Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 66.
11. Miroslav Solevic in The Death of Yugoslavia.
12. Dessa Trevisan, author interview, London, September 2001.
13. Zivorad Kovacevic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
Chapter 10
1. Slobodan Milosevic, speech at Kosovo Polje, 1989.
2. Dessa Trevisan, author interview, London, September 2001.
3. Mihailo Crnobrnja, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
4. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
5. Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 25–26
6. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
7. Mira Markovic, Answer, (Kingston, Ontario, Quarry Press, 1995) p. 33.
8. Milan Kucan, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode three.
9. Milan Kucan, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one.
10. Milan Kucan, speech at Cankarjev dom, 27 February 1989. Translation supplied by the Slovenian president’s office.
11. For a fuller discussion of the role of the Serbian Jewish Friendship Society and the rivalry between Milosevic and Tudjman to recruit Jewish supporters, see Appendix 1 p. 331.
12. Serb television, quoted in The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one.
13. Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (London: Phoenix Press, 1998 edition), p. 49.
14. Borisav Jovic in Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London: Penguin/BBC, 1995), p. 70.
15. John Reed, War in Eastern Europe (London: Phoenix, 1994 ed.), p.22.
16. Slobodan Milosevic, speech in Robert Thomas, Serbia under Milosevic (London: Hurst and Company, 2000), p. 50.
17. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
18. Warren Zimmerman, Origins of Catastrophe (New York: Random House, 1996), pp. 22–3.
19. Zivorad Kovacevic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
20. Draza Markovic, author interview, Belgrade August 2001.
21. Reginald Wyon, The Balkans from Within (London: James Finch & Co., 1904), p. ix.
22. Mihailo Crnobrnja, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
Chapter 11
1. The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one.
2. Sandor Marai, Embers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf and London: Viking Penguin, 2002), p. 43.
3. This exchange between Milan Kucan and Borisav Jovic is transcribed from The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one.
4. Ljubica Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.
5. Milan Kucan, author interview, Ljubljana, October 2001.
6. Slobodan Milosevic in The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one.
7. Ivica Racan, author interview.
8. Momir Bulatovic in The Death of Yugoslavia, episode one.
9. Communique of 23 January 1991. Translation supplied by the Slovenian president’s office.
10. Borisav Jovic in The Death of Yugoslavia, episode three.
11. Vaso Predojevic, author interview, Ljubljana, October 2002.
Chapter 12
/> 1. Reginald Wyon, The Balkans from Within (London: James Finch & Co., 1904), p. 13.
2. Borisav Jovic in The Last Days of Yugoslavia (Belgrade: Prisma, 1996 Serbian ed.), p. 108.
3. Borisav Jovic in Tim Judah, The Serbs (London: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 169.
4. Also alleged to be members of the ‘joint criminal enterprise’, as detailed in the ICTY indictment, are: Borisav Jovic, Branko Kostic, General Veljko Kadijevic, General Blagoje Adzic, Milan Babic, Milan Martic, Goran Hadzic, Jovica Stanisic, Franko Simatovic, Tomislav Simovic, Vojislav Serselj, Momir Bulatovic, General Aleksandar Vasiljevic, Radovan Stojicic and Zeljko Raznjatovic, a.k.a. Arkan. Mihajl Kertes is not mentioned.
5. Milan Kucan, author interview, Ljubljana, October 2001.
6. Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia (London: Penguin, 1992 ed.), p. 27.
7. Although no copy of the RAM plan has yet been produced as evidence, its existence was reported by senior Yugoslav figures such as then federal prime minister Ante Markovic (see Chapter 14). Whether or not RAM actually existed as a single document, the ideas attributed to it certainly represented a sustained current of both nationalist thought and early Milosevic-era policy. The US writer Louis Sell, a former diplomat in Yugoslavia, notes: ‘While I was serving in the US Embassy in Belgrade from 1987–1991, I cannot recall ever hearing of the Vojna Linija or the RAM plan, although the actions of the Serb authorities in providing military and other forms of support to Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia were well known. At some point during my last year in the embassy, I was shown a covertly obtained document that revealed contingency plans by the military to rapidly carve out a zone of control over an area marked on a map that roughly approximated the areas of the Serb agitation that later became the so-called Krajina. This may have been the RAM plan or something similar.’ Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 374.
8. ibid., pp. 110–11.
9. Testimony of Jerko Doko, Prosecutor v. Tadic, case IT-94-1-T, 6 June 1996, pp. 1359–61.
10. Former Serbian intelligence officer, author interview, 2001.
11. Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (London: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 228.
12. ibid., p. 223.
13. The power of such symbolism as a manifestation of patriotic defiance should not be underestimated. During the winter of 1991, when Croatia was under severe attack, the author dined one night in Zagreb. A salad was served which contained a radish. Into the red skin of the radish, the chef had cut a tiny but precise sahovnica pattern.