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March 14, 2006
Rachel Long, Belgrade
[Rachel Long blogs at Pustolovina: adventure in Serbian.]
I heard about the death when someone rushed into a seminar on the future of Kosovo to proclaim "Milosevic died in The Hague." My first thought (and the first though of everyone else) was, "is it true?" The group spent the next half hour trying to make the broken TV in the corner of the room work, find a radio station that wasn't playing music, or call friends to confirm the news. [Some recent big news - like the reported extradiction of Mladic, has been retracted later. No one wanted to react until we knew the truth.]
The response in Belgrade has been underwhelming. Later in the day, I went out on the street to see if there was any sort of reaction, public mourning, anything. There wasn't. People seemed more concerned with the honey festival going on in a main square and the newly opened Nike stores on the main shopping street. I think the 'general public' (if there can be such a thing) is tired of politics. Carla del Ponte and EU officials are on the TV news ever day demanding the extradiction of Mladic and Karadic. Montenegro will be voting on its independence from Serbia in a few months. Peace talks on the final status of Kosovo are beginning. Serbia and Montenegro could be a much smaller country by this time next year. It's all a lot for someone to pay attention to, especially someone who struggles to eat and to stay warm, as many Serbians do.
I work for Women in Black, a feminist anti-militarist organization, unfortunately very much on the fringes of Serbian society. Around the office and in the activist community as a whole, there has been a greater response. People are frustrated that his trial is over, that all of the truth of what he has done will not come out, that he will never be officially branded a war criminal. My boss is thinking of putting together an unofficial 'women's tribunal' in which the rest of the trial could happen. Others are worried that he will be deified, that his death will be tied into the many conspiracy theories of some sort of USA-EU-UN conspiracy against the Serb people. People are worried about where he will be buried, if his wife will be allowed back into Belgrade without facing criminal charges. [She is currently living in Moscow to escape the charges against her.] They don't want him to recieve a full state funeral or be buried in a place that could turn into a site for pilgrimmage.
Additionally, the day after Milosevic's death was the third anniversary of the assassination of Zoran Djindjic, a much more democratic, reform-minded, and western-oriented leader. Will the future commemorations of Djindjic's death be overshadowed by the anniversary of Milosevic's? Time will tell. . .
Posted by Henry Shepherd at March 14, 2006 12:40 PM
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