by Adam LeBor
14. The fall of Srebrenica did not hinder the career of one of the most senior UN officials in charge of peacekeeping operations at this time. Kofi Annan, now Secretary General of the UN, served as Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations (March 1993–February 1994) and then as Under Secretary-General (February 1994–October 1995; April 1996–December 1996). ‘His tenure as Under Secretary-General coincided with unprecedented growth in the size and scope of United Nations peacekeeping operations, with a total deployment, at its peak in 1995, of almost 70,000 military and civilian personnel from 77 countries,’ notes his biography on the UN website. www.un.org/overview/sg. The UN later published a self-critical report on Srebrenica.
15. Sandy Vershbow, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
16. Senior US official, author interview, November 2001.
17. David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (London: Indigo, 1996) p. 143.
18. Dr James Gow. ‘Belgrade and Bosnia: An Assessment of the Yugoslav Military’, Jane’s Intelligence Review, 1 June 1993.
19. Slobodan Milosevic, in Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Death of Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 230.
20. Point ten of the conclusion of the epilogue of the NIOD Srebrenica report argues: ‘There are a number of indications that it [the massacre] was a central command from the General Staff of the VRS. There are none pointing to political or military liaison with Belgrade. The involvement of the then president Karadzic (Republika Srpska) is unclear. In any case, the main responsibility for the mass slaughter lay with the military. Mladic’s central role was unmistakable and beyond doubt. He was a dominant presence during these days and was clearly in command. That does not alter the responsibility of others in leading positions in the VRS, the Drina Corps and in the special troops and security services.’
21. Sell, op. cit., p. 233.
22. ibid.
23. ibid.
24. Slobodan Milosevic, in Laura Silber, ‘Milosevic Family Values’, New Republic, 30 August 1999.
25. Charles Lane and Tom Shanker, ‘Bosnia: What the CIA didn’t tell Us’, New York Review of Books, 9 May 1996.
26. Roy Gutman, ‘Big Atrocity; Serb militia chief said to have role’, Newsday, 8 August 1995.
27. Richard Holbrooke, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
28. Haris Siladzic, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
29. David Austin, author interview, Zagreb, September 2001.
30. Momir Bulatovic, Slobodan Milosevic and Patriarch Pavle, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
31. Louis Sell notes, ‘The contents and tone of Mladic’s message raised serious questions in the mind of those who read it about the Bosnian Serb commander’s grip on reality’. Sell, op. cit., p. 248.
32. Richard Holbrooke, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
33. Momir Bulatovic, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
34. Hrvoje Sarinic, author interview, Samobor, Croatia, September 2001.
35. Richard Holbrooke, To End A War (New York: Random House, The Modern Library, 1999), p. 160. Interestingly, Holbrooke admits he later had doubts as to the wisdom of this decision. On pp. 166–7 he writes: ‘But I am no longer certain we were right to oppose an attack on Banja Luka. Had we known that the Bosnian Serbs would have been able to defy or ignore so many of the key political provisions of the peace agreement in 1996 and 1997, the negotiating team might not have opposed such an attack.’
36. Richard Holbrooke, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
Chapter 20
1. Haris Siladzic quoting Slobodan Milosevic, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
2. Slobodan Milosevic, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
3. Richard Holbrooke, To End A War (New York: Random House, The Modern Library, 1999). The author has drawn on Holbrooke’s account for many of the details of the Dayton conference.
4. ibid., p. 244.
5. ibid., p. 245.
6. Haris Silajdzic, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
7. Richard Holbrooke, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
8. Holbrooke, op. cit., p. 285.
9. Senior US official, author interview, November 2001
10. David Austin, author interview, Zagreb, September 2001.
11. Holbrooke, op. cit., p. 288.
12. Richard Holbrooke, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
13. Haris Silajdzic quoting Slobodan Milosevic, in ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
14. US official, author interview, November 2001.
15. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
16. Graham Blewitt, deputy prosecutor at the ICTY in The Hague, May 2002.
Chapter 21
1. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1, scene 5, ll. 72–4.
2. Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Random House, The Modern Library, 1999) p. 322. Holbrooke adds that President Clinton was ‘cool and slightly distant’.
3. Transcript of conversation on 13 January 1996, as recorded by the Croatian Secret Service, printed in Globus magazine 1 February 2002.
4. ibid.
5. Serbs who make a pilgrimage to the holy sites of the Orthodox church in the Middle East preface their name with ‘Hadzi’, just as Muslims who travel to Mecca add the word ‘Hajji’ to their name.
6. Globus magazine, 1 February 2002.
7. Dayton guaranteed free passage all over the country, but for some time UN troops guarded the crossings between the Croat-Muslim Federation and Republika Srpska. The border was known as the ‘Inter-ethnic boundary line’.
8. The ICTY was established by UN Security Council resolution 827 in May 1993. Its authority is to prosecute four clusters of offences committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia (i.e. the six federal republics) since 1991: 1) Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions; 2) Violations of the laws or customs of war; 3) Genocide; 4) Crimes against humanity.
9. See the essay on Todorovic at the excellent website Free Serbia: Other voices from Serbia (www.xs4all.nl). The name Kundak comes from a description Todorovic gave of a barnstorming political speech to which he had listened. He described the peroration as a kundacenje, beating someone with a rifle butt.
10. Mihailo Markovic, in Robert Thomas, Serbia under Milosevic (London Hurst and Company, 2000), p. 246.
11. Slavoljub Djukic, Milosevic and Markovic: A Lust for Power (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), p. 110.
12. Thomas, op. cit., p. 231.
13. Serbian Public Revenue Agency, The Seven Biggest Robberies of the Milosevic Regime, p. 29.
14. See, for example, Francis Wheen, ‘How our politicians helped keep the butcher of the Balkans in power’, Bosnia Report, New Series No. 19/20, October 2000 or Noel Malcolm, Daily Mail, 6 November 1996.
15. ibid., p. 46.
16. David Leigh and Ed Vulliamy, Sleaze: The Corruption of Parliament (London: Fourth Estate, 1997), p. 110. This book has a detailed account of the work of the Serb lobby in Britain, and its links to the Conservative Party.
17. David Owen, in ‘A Safe Area’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode five.
18. Simms, op. cit., p. 176. Simms quotes from Gen. Sir Michael Rose’s memoirs, Fighting for Peace: Bosnia 1994 (London: The Harvill Press, 1998), p. 18.
19. See Ian Traynor, ‘Serbs question Hurd’s role in helping regime’, Guardian, 2 July 2001.
20. Braca Grubacic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
21. Thomas, op. cit., p. 287.
22. High level source, author interview, March 2002.
23. ibid.
24. Laura Silber, ‘Milosevic Family Values’, New Republic, 30 August 1999.
25. Thomas, op. cit. p. 305.
26. ibid., p. 308.
Chapter 22
1. William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1, scene 2, l. 36.
2. See Michael Dobbs, ‘The Crash of Yugoslavia’s Money Man’, Washington Post, 29 November 2000.
3. Globus magazine, 1 February 2002.
4. ibid.
5. Free Serbia, All the President’s Dead Men, ‘Radovan Stojicic Badza 1951–1997’, www.xs4all.nl/freeserb/feuilleton/e-index.html
6. Former regime sinder, author interview, 2001. See also the report on the hearings of the Federal Yugoslav Parliament committee, chaired by Vojislav Seselj, investigating the 2002 killing of the former federal defence minister Pavle Bulatovic. Transcripts of the hearings were published in book form by the Serbian Radical Party in Belgrade, January 2002. The book includes some of the testimony of former intelligence chief Rade Markovic, in which he talks about Radovan Stojicic and the tobacco trade.
7. Investigating Commission of Economic and Financial Abuses of the Milosevic Regime (ICEFA), The Seven Biggest Robberies of the Milosevic Regime, p. 28.
8. Slavoljub Djukic, Milosevic and Markovic: A Lust for Power (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), p. 98.
9. Douglas Hurd, letter to The Times, 6 February 1997.
10. Globus magazine, 15 February 2002.
11. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
12. Globus magazine, 1 February 2002.
13. Free Serbia, op. cit., www.xs4all.nl/freeserb/feuilleton/e-index.html
14. Federation of American Scientists, Intelligence Resource Programme, www.fas.org/irp/world/serbia/cfs.htm
15. Many believed that the real reason Arkan set up shop in Pristina was to take his cut of the smuggling rackets. None the less, the fear his men inspired was real enough.
16. The KLA was not the only armed faction, but it was the main one. Nor was it a cohesive, organised force, especially in the early days.
17. The praise was for backing the supposedly ‘moderate’ faction of the Bosnian Serb leadership, led by Biljana Plavsic, against Radovan Karadzic. Just how moderate Plavsic is will be examined at her trial for war crimes and genocide at the ICTY.
18. Tim Judah, The Serbs (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 138.
19. Mira Markovic, Night and Day (Kingston, Ont.: Quarry Press, 1996), p. 242.
20. General Klaus Naumann, author interview, Budapest, March 2002.
21. Boris Yeltsin, in Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Death of Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 286.
22. Tim Judah, op. cit., p. 166.
23. Louis Sell, op. cit., p. 289
24. General Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War, (New York: Public Affairs, 2001) p. 150.
25. ibid.
26. ibid., pp. 153–54
27. General Klaus Naumann, author interview, Budapest, March 2002.
28. Milosevic indictments. IT-02-54.
29. General Klaus Naumann, author interview, Budapest, March 2002.
30. Slavoljub Djukic, op. cit., p. 113.
Chapter 23
1. Vasko Popa, ‘The Warriors of the Blackbird’s Fields’ (London: Anvil Press, 1996).
2. Investigating Commission of Economic and Financial Abuses of the Milosevic Regime (ICEFA), The Seven Biggest Swindles of the Milosevic Regime, p. 37.
3. General Klaus Naumann, author interview, Budapest, March 2002.
4. Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 158.
5. Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Death of Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 297.
6. ibid, p. 300.
7. Mira Markovic, Hard Talk, BBC Television, 3 September 2001.
8. Tim Judah, op. cit., p. 227.
9. Jane Perlez, ‘Purges Hint at the Beginning of the End for Milosevic’, New York Times, 29 November 1998.
10. Slobodan Milosevic indictments. IT-02-04. ‘Kosovo’, Count One, deportation, paragraph 63.
11. Tim Judah, op. cit., p. 241
12. Michael Montgomery and Stephen Smith, transcripts of their interviews for All Things Considered, broadcast on US National Public Radio on 25 October 1999, are available at www.americanradioworks.org/features/kosovo/more1.htm.
13. Senior British diplomat, author interview, 2001.
14. Louis Sell, op. cit., p. 312.
15. Mira Markovic (to come).
16. Robert Block, ‘Milosevic’s Cronies Struggle for Removal from Blacklist’, Wall Street Journal, 1 October 1999.
17. ICEFA, op. cit., p. 39.
18. Robert Block, op. cit.
19. Jelena Grujic, ‘Milosevic wields Psychic Weapon’, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 1999.
20. Blaine Harden, ‘The Milosevic Generation’, New York Times Magazine, 29 August 1999.
21. Graham Blewitt, author interview, The Hague, May 2002.
22. Senior British diplomat, author interview, November 2001.
Chapter 24
1. Leon Trotsky, in Gordon G. Chang, The Coming Collapse of China (London: Century, 2001).
2. Douglas Waller, ‘Tearing Down Milosevic’, Time Magazine, 12 July 1999.
3. Adam LeBor, ‘Blair tells Serbians to Overthrow Milosevic’s “corrupt dictatorship”’, Independent, 5 May 1999.
4. Senior British diplomat, author interview, November 2001.
5. Senior US official, author interview, May 2002.
6. Braca Grubacic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002. Launched in 1993, the VIP newsletter – full name VIP Daily News Report – is an authoritative daily English-language press digest of the Serbian media, published by Braca Grubacic. Both VIP and Grubacic are well-regarded by journalists and academics alike.
7. Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Death of Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 331.
8. High-level Serbian source, author interview, March 2002.
9. High-level Serbian source, author interview, March 2002.
10. Graham Blewitt, author interview, The Hague, April/May 2002.
11. ‘Milosevic Faces A New Challenge’, Associated Press, 3 March 2000.
12. Roger Cohen, ‘Who Really Brought Down Milosevic’, New York Times, 26 November 2000.
13. Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy, (Boston, MA: Albert Einstein Institution, 1993).
14. British diplomat, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.
15. Senior US official; author interview, May 2002.
16. High-level Serbian source, author interview, March 2002.
17. Takis Michas, Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic’s Serbia during the Nineties, (College Station, Texas: A&M University Press, 2002). See also review by Tim Judah: www.tol.cz
18. Matic Slovoljub, author interview, Pozarevac, August 2001.
19. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
20. Blane Harden, ‘The Unrepentant’, New York Times Sunday magazine, 20 January 2002.
21. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
22. Slavoljub Djukic, Milosevic and Markovic: A Lust for Power (Montreal and London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), page 146.
23. Dessa Trevisan, author interview, London, December 2001.
24. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews; Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.
25. Ivan Stambolic, in Louis Sell, Slobodan Milosevic and the Death of Yugoslavia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 337.
26. Paul Watson, ‘US Aid to Milosevic’s Foes is Criticised as “Kiss of Death”’, Los Angeles Times, 28 August 2000.
27. Louis Sell, ibid., p. 342.
28. Senior British diplomat, author interview, March 2002.
29. Dusan Stojanovic, ‘Milosevic’s Final Days: From Arrogance to Panic to Disgrace’, Associated Press (Belgrade Bureau), 7 October 2000.
30. Dragan Bujosevic and Ivan Radov
anovic, October 5: A 24-Hour Coup (Belgrade: Belgrade Media Centre, 2001), p. 52. The author has drawn on this fine account for many details of the fateful day.
31. Elias Canetti, Crowds and Power (London: Phoenix Press, 1998 edition), p. 59.
32. Dragan Bujosevic and Ivan Radovanovic, op. cit., p. 143.
33. Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, summer 2001–spring 2002.
34. Steven Erlanger and Roger Cohen, ‘From a Summons to a Slap: How the Fight in Yugoslavia was won’, New York Times, 15 October 2000.
Chapter 25
1. Reginald Wyon, The Balkans from Within (London: James Finch & Co., 1904), p. 38.
2. Paul Gallagher, Reuters, The Hague, 8 February 2002.
3. Dragan Stojkovic, ‘Like A Freak Show’, Transitions Online (www.tol.cz), 24, May 24 2002.
4. Details of arms found in Milosevic household as reported by Carlotta Gall and Steven Erlanger, in the New York Times, 2 April 2001.
5. See Appendix: 2.
6. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
7. Zorka Milin, ‘Slobodan Snores!’, IWPR Tribunal Update, July 16–21, part one, 2001, www.iwpr.net.
8. Roy Gutman and Rod Nordland, ‘Body of Evidence’, Newsweek, 23 July 2001.
9. Milosevic Court Appearance, Associated Press, 3 July 2000.
10. Senior British diplomat, author interview, November 2001.
11. Slobodan Milosevic indictments. IT-02-54. ‘Kosovo’. www.un.org/icty
12. Mirko Klarin, ‘Rugova Recounts “Cordial” Milosevic Meeting’, Tribunal bulletin, 29 April–4 May 2002, www.iwpr.net
13. Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (London: Macmillan, 1998) pp. 309–10. Though it should be pointed out that most of the Jewish community in Albania proper was hidden and saved from the Nazis.
14. Slobodan Milosevic indictments. IT-02-54. ‘Croatia’.
15. Graham Blewitt, author interview, The Hague, April/May 2002.
16. ‘Pax Americana’, The Death of Yugoslavia, episode six.
17. Vjera Bogati, IWPR Tribunal Update, No. 265, 6–11 May 2002, www.iwpr.net.
18. Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.
19. Blane Harden, ‘The Unrepentant’, New York Times Sunday magazine, 20 January 2002.