Serbia as Usual by: Sonja Biserko

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odlican tekst (na engleskom) sonje biserko o stanju u srbiji... vauuuu... preneseno sa web stranice bosanskog instituta u londonu.

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http://www.bosnia.org.uk/news/news_body.cfm?newsid=2123

Serbia as Usual

Author: Sonja Biserko
Uploaded: Friday, 28 October, 2005

Editorial translated from the latest issue of Helsinška povelja (Belgrade) discusses the difficult relations with its neighbours caused by Serbia's continued adherence to a destructive national project

Serb nationalism constantly renews itself while holding onto the same old premises, as is evident in its attitude towards Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosova and Macedonia. The events of the past few months, and the rhetoric of the Serbian political elite regarding all crucial issues, show that the latter has not given up on the national project formulated some time ago by Dobrica Ćosić and Milorad Ekmečić, despite the fact that the main executors of that project - Slobodan Milošević and Vojislav Š ešelj - are being tried at The Hague for their ‘joint criminal enterprise’. Belgrade’s policy, however, is now more transparent to its neighbours, notably Macedonia and Montenegro, but also to the world at large. It seems that the implacable logic of Serb nationalism, with its fatal determination to create a Serb ethnic state, has finally placed recent important events in the region in a completely new light. The international community, especially the EU, has been forced at last to take into account and accept the reality of Belgrade’s key role in the destruction of Yugoslavia, and in the events of the period between 1990 and 2005.

The commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre provided an occasion for the world to reaffirm its position in regard to this horrible crime, as well as to the genocidal Serb policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole. Belgrade has sought to ‘redefine’ the crime by denial, or by attempts to ‘balance’ it with Serb casualties. This involved falsifying the date of the 1993 massacre of Serbs at Bratunac, which came in response to an earlier crime committed by Serbs against Muslims. Accordingly on 12 July this year the Serb nationalists commemorated 3,000 Serbs killed or missing during the whole war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in an obvious desire to come close to the figure for Srebrenica. This manipulation and moral crassness served only to confirm the cold-heartedness of the Serbian elite.

Numerous incidents occurring in Belgrade - such as the meeting at the Belgrade University law faculty on ‘The liberation of Srebrenica’; the video tape of the murder of six young men from Srebrenica (shown at The Hague Tribunal and later on Serbian TV); and numerous demonstrations organised by eight NGOs with a whole number of other bodies - have stirred up the political scene in Serbia. For it had not been expected that the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre would provoke quite such worldwide attention, focussed on the crime’s moral aspects. Serb nationalists had overlooked the fact that Europe is defending its own values in Srebrenica, and that time has obliged it to admit its errors and passivity with respect to Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is because Srebrenica brought into question its own ethical, political and military credibility. This has never been understood in Serbia, where anger at the unveiling of Serbian unwillingness to confront Srebrenica came to be directed at the eight NGOs, or more precisely at the women who head them.

Unable and unwilling to deal with the essential issues that beset her, Serbia has instead opened up all its unresolved state issues, thus demonstrating that its relevance in the region lies precisely in the fact that it holds the key to solving many of the klix issues affecting Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo - and even Macedonia. Serb nationalism, in the form of an alliance between the government and the Serb Orthodox Church (SPC), is once again on the march, above all on the political plane. For some time now the Serbian side has been aggravating its relations with its neighbours, notably provoking incidents in both Macedonia and Montenegro.

The SPC has thus attempted to establish its own church organisation in Macedonia, disregarding the existence of the autonomous Macedonian Orthodox church. The installation of Jovan as the SPC’s autonomous representative in Macedonia forced the Macedonians to confront for the first time the fact that Serbia is set against its independence. The long-lasting informal coalition between Serbia and Macedonia in regard to the Albanian issue had obscured the essence of Serbian policy towards Macedonia, which is based on the premise that ‘those who control the valley of the Vardar control the Balkans’. This well-known thesis propounded by Milorad Ekmečić explains Serbia’s behaviour in Macedonia, as well as in the Preševo valley. Since partition of Kosovo is now clearly unrealistic (as shown by the Contact Group declaration in April this year), NATO and the USA have taken a new interest in southern Serbia (Preševo and Bujanovac). The Macedonians are slowly coming to understand that only by forging an agreement with the Albanians can they protect their identity and state sovereignty from aggressive neighbours. This process of realisation has led also to a new evaluation of the second Yugoslavia and its role in establishing the Macedonian state in 1945.

Serb nationalists in Montenegro, with strong support from official Belgrade and in particular from prime minister Koštunica, have been provoking and fanning conflict in reaction to the projected referendum on Montenegrin independence. Their strategy is to convince the international community that the only way to prevent a further escalation of tension is to postpone the referendum.

Over the past few months Metropolitan Amfilohije, leader of the most radical wing of the SPC, has been aggressively denouncing the referendum. In cooperation with the army he organised an ‘airborne assault’ on Mt Rumija, with a helicopter depositing a tin church on its summit as a symbol of the supremacy of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This incident became a key issue for inter-state relations, because of the involvement of the SCG army. The combined operation laid bare the collusion between these two national institutions - church and army - which have not ceased to work systematically for the creation of a Great Serbia. That the army’s role was formally restricted to a logistic one alone was due solely to NATO’s presence in the region.

Bishop Amfilohije has in this context raised also the question of returning ‘seized church land’, which according to him covers one third of Montenegro’s territory. He has been warning that everything in Montenegro will have to be divided, in the event that the latter opts for independence: schools, the budget and, of course, the territory. He recently conducted a service at Kamnička Bistrica in Slovenia, dedicated to Chetniks killed there after World War II. And at the recent burial of Radovan Karadžić’s mother - whom he never fails to hail as a Serb heroine - he declared: ‘Mother Jovanka is today being received into the ranks of the immortal mothers [.] She taught her progeny that nothing is more sacred than faith and honest service of God and nation.’

Montenegro has always been at the centre of the Serb nationalist project, which is why the solution of Montenegro’s status is of strategic importance for the whole region. Only Montenegro’s independence would end the Serb nationalists’ illusion about Great Serbia. That this idea is still alive is testified to by the fact that Vojislav Š ešelj, in his first appearance in the role of witness for the defence of Slobodan Milošević before the court in The Hague, insisted on the concept of Great Serbia. Š ešelj, who is president of the Serb Radical Party, did this in order to attract voters away from Milošević’s Serb Socialist Party, which is falling apart. He insisted that the Radicals, the largest single party in the Serbian parliament, are the true bearers of this concept, which ‘assumes a single Serbian state that would include all Serb lands and the majority of the Serb people’, and that would nurture ‘the brotherhood and unity of Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Serbs, Muslim Serbs, Protestant Serbs and atheist Serbs.’

In regard to Kosovo Serbia maintains not a dialogue but tensions linked to the ongoing assessment of standards and the forthcoming negotiations about Kosovo’s status. The media propaganda against Albanians has not abated: the intention is to portray them as terrorists (given that the struggle against terrorism is a priority for the West). But despite its many problems, Kosovo is advancing faster than Serbia. Its state institutions are being built under the supervision of the international community, which means that within a decade the Albanians will have a legal system corresponding to Western norms, by contrast with Serbia which is moving in the opposite direction. Regardless of Serbia’s objective advantages and Western insistence that it has the greatest potential in the region, it is becoming ever more clear that this is yet another illusion devoid of real foundation.

The Bosnian lawsuit against SCG for genocide and aggression has become another important state issue for Serbia, engaging the efforts of practically the entire administration as well as a number of NGOs. Certain Western states too are seeking to solve this problem through arbitration, without recourse to the international court of justice. It is imperative, however, for Serbia and the region as a whole that the suit should be dealt with by the court: i.e. that Serbia’s aggression and genocidal policy towards the Moslems should be legally established. It is only by deconstructing and demystifying the Serbian project in relation to Bosnia-Herzegovina that the region can achieve stability and peace.

Commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Croatian military operation Oluja [Storm] has renewed polemics concerning its nature. The Serbian government’s attempt to reduce it to massive ethnic cleansing is designed to deny the legitimacy of the military operation, and accordingly to equalise responsibility for the war. Ignoring the well-known agreement concluded in 1992 in Geneva between Tuđman and Ćosić regarding the ‘humane transfer of population’, the Serbian government is using this opportunity to seek to slow down the process of Croatia’s adhesion to the EU. The key important of Croatian-Serbian relations, or rather of their fragility, is once again on the agenda. Serbia is clearly trying to retain the privilege of dictating the tempo of events in the region, in order to be in a position to control the progress of regional normalisation.

Serbia is increasingly showing itself to be what the world never wished to see. Contrary to the expectations of the international community, Serb nationalism remains strong, while the imperialist reflexes of Serbian politicians remain a permanent threat to peace in the Balkans. Indicative of this is the text recently published in Danas by the former US ambassador to Belgrade William Montgomery, in which he writes: ‘Yugoslavia’s dissolution in 1991 was a reality. The best way forward was not to attempt to prevent the inevitable by engaging in fruitless actions, but to concentrate all available energy to ensuring that the break-up when it happened would be peaceful.’ This judgement is encouraging, since it indicates that the international community (meaning Europe, the United States and the international bodies) is changing its earlier perception of the nature of the Yugoslav crisis. If this continues, it will greatly aid its mediating role in regard to the future of SCG and the solution of Kosovo’s status.

It is increasingly becoming clear, at a distance of fifteen years, that the Yugoslav federation provided an optimal modus vivendi with respect to the borders of the republics and provinces, and for all ethnic communities living within its borders. Unless Serbia itself understands this fact, it too will succumb to dissolution. It is an indisputable fact that the Serb issue remains at the centre of the Balkan crisis. The outside world should realise, however, that its solution should not be sought at the expense of others, by way of various forms of compensation that would allegedly appease Serbia. This is why the idea advocated by some of a union of Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro is also unrealistic. The Balkan crisis can be solved only by resolving the tensions within Serbia itself, and by reducing Serbia to its proper size. This means also that the international community should take into account the complex nature of Serbia itself, and in this context help to resolve the status of Vojvodina, Sandžak and even Belgrade. Such an approach would arrest the agony of the Serbian elite and put a stop to the continued generation of Serb nationalism.

Translated from Helsinška povelja, Belgrade, no. 85-86, July-August 2005