The reason this post will be so short, and unusually sarcasm-free is that I was trying to find words to write about this news in some coherent way, but this time I admit – words fail me. I am usually prepared for everything Serbia has to throw at me, but every now and then the people running it manage to find some new and innovative ways to catch me off guard. Hopefully, I’ll write some more on the matter in the comments to this post if I find appropriate words.
So what actually happened?
The state of Serbia decided on a top secret parliament session to pay 900K dollars to Miladin Kovacevic’s victim, Bryan Steinhauer and another 100K for his bail. It was also decided that this case should be filed under ‘classified’ and of utmost importance to the country’s image.
When the news was first leaked, most thought it’s so unbelievable that it’s got to be fake, including myself. It turned out none of the politicians or ministers allegedly involved wanted to comment on it, thus making it official.
Now that it’s out, it provoked a huge negative reaction in Serbia. No wonder, I must say. I still believe all this mess could have been avoided if he was extradited to the US, even if that would mean a breach of country’s constitution.
This kind of dealing with the problem is dangerous and wrong on so many levels, no wonder they tried to make it top-secret classified.
This is probably the biggest screwup of the new government so fair, and their record was not exactly clean before it. I’m also interested to see how the citizens will react or if they will react at all – too much stuff like this makes you blunt after a while.
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Ida, this is one of the few occasions I can remember when your response has actually dealt with the point at issue. If there’s an issue that provides a common strand to the arguments I have with you it’s the apparent failure and unwillingness of Serbia’s apologists to deal with the real issues that legitimately concern the rest of us.
I don’t think I have any problem in accepting that others may have been at fault when there’s substance to the accusations and I’m not blind to the crimes that were committed against Serbs. I’m particularly respectful of the Serb/ian/s who refused to succumb to the genocidal mania that you can’t bring yourself to acknowledge, let alone condemn, brave individuals who in a number of instances lost their lives as a result. I’m not a Serb-hater, but I know which Serbs I admire.
One day Serbia and hopefully you too will realise that dealing with the issues will open up space to discuss Serbia’s genuine problems and grievances. In the meanwhile we carry on wasting our time on the mashup of reality, fantasy and evasion that voices like yours try to convince us is the way Serbia sees the world.
One could easily substitute “Serb propaganda” for “anti-Serb propaganda” and use your argument against yourself, Ida. Nobody on this blog except you denies the fact that no country involved in the actions of the 1990s and 2000s is blameless.
However, I am less disposed to feel sympathy for Serbs when Serb supporters such as yourself spout such vehement victim rhetoric that places the blame of the actions of the past solely on non-Serbs. To yourself, it seems that any rebuttal of the idea of Serbs being anything but the victims is anti-Serb propaganda.
It works both ways, Ida. Fairly recently, you posted a comment that stated that a Serbian Orthodox priest in Croatia was severely burned in what you insinuated was a bombing or a savage attack by Croatians on an innocent Serb priest. Owen seemed to think that the damage was caused by faulty gas pipes. If this is true, wouldn’t your prior post be considered pro-Serb propaganda?
“However, I am less disposed to feel sympathy for Serbs when Serb supporters such as yourself spout such vehement victim rhetoric that places the blame of the actions of the past solely on non-Serbs.”
If your sympathy is so fickle as to be swayed/diswayed by one person on the internet then you could never be a true friend/good supporter of Serbs anyhow. Nor could you be a person on a quest for truth or even a good-hearted person. No good-hearted or honest person who truly cares about suffering of people and wants to separate lies and deception from the truth would simply blackmail their sympathy on the basis of one person on the internet who annoys them and is not saying/behaving as they wish.
I notice that Owen doesn’t mention anything he’s done/given for refugees or anything like that. He is simply a swallower of the mainstream propaganda (and the mainstream media IS used as a tool to control the masses) and simply has no independent thought of his own.
Ida, you reported the explosion that Fr Zivkovic was so badly burned in as suspicious. I didn’t condemn you as propagandising when you leaped to the conclusion that this was a suspicious event, by implication an anti-Serb outrage. I simply suggested that it was quite a “normal” (so to speak) occurrence after a very cold spell when gas leaks are not unusual. My hypothesis was just that, a hypothesis, as yours was.
I think except in the most abnormal of times it makes sense to assume the most normal explanation unless there’s good reason not to. I go back to this simply because of your outright refusal to consider that you might have leapt to the wrong conclusion, as I did over the report of Bryan Steinhauer’s death. I’m quite willing to accept that I should have checked whether there were other reports confirming that, as Viktor did. But I didn’t. I was wrong. There’s no point not acknowledging that. But you too don’t check things out. I’ve now found it reported that similar gas explosions occurred in the same street in 1989, 1993 and 2007.
http://daily.tportal.hr/article.aspx?aID=4885&kID=1
I’ve asked you if you’ve been able to confirm your suspicions. I’m not going to condemn you if you were wrong – it’s hardly for me, living in a glass house, to throw stones. Can’t see the practical need in life for reality checks?
Sorry, that last sentence sounds more abrupt than it was meant to as left out the “you”. Can’t you see the practical need in life for reality checks?
Ah Ida, why would Serbs need me when they’ve got such friends as you? But your assumption that anybody who doesn’t support Serbs as blindly and whole-heartedly as you must be evil is a bit harsh, don’t you think? I’m not sure in the end who decides what constitutes a good or a bad person, but I’m pretty sure that being “a true friend/good supporter of Serbs” will not be a deciding factor. Unless of course you’re an adherent to the Prince Lazar martyrdom thing, but that’s a different story.
Just because I don’t support your ultranationalistic tendencies doesn’t mean I don’t think that Serbs had atrocities committed against them. It’s also a bit presumptuous to think that you or any other one person were/was the deciding factor in giving my sympathy to one group or the other. It’s not uncommon to hear some Serbs and Serb sympathizers deny the actions of Serbs in the past, just as it’s not uncommon to hear the same from ultranationalistic Croats and Croat sympathizers. There seems to be a collective blind eye sometimes when it comes to that region.
And why should Owen have to justify anything he has or has not ever done for refugees? It’s not really any of your business. Does your statement that you have donated to the Serb refugee cause make you a better person than Owen? What if Owen has donated to the Albanian/Bosnian/Croat refugee cause instead? For that matter, what if Owen has donated to the Congolese/Darfurian/Somalian refugee cause? What if he/she chooses to donate to his/her local soup kitchen or animal shelter? Is he/she still a bad person if he/she has not donated to the Serb refugee cause but has donated to the other causes? Believe it or not, Ida, Serbs aren’t the only people/things that matter in the world. However, you mentioning that you singled them out for donation makes me think that you believe otherwise.
Ah, but this post just proves what you already thought, doesn’t it Ida? I’m just a regular old Serb-hater along with everybody else who writes anything negative against Serbs or Serb supporters like yourself.
This is insane.
How can a case about someone beating someone else in a bar fight and a consul issuing documents improperly ALWAYS turn into “Serbs have been done wrong in the wars of the 90s”
This isn’t about the balkan wars, this is about some thug and a diplomatic official behaving improperly.
“Believe it or not, Ida, Serbs aren’t the only people/things that matter in the world. However, you mentioning that you singled them out for donation makes me think that you believe otherwise.”
No, but this is a blog about Serbs and Serbia, and if you don’t care for them then why spend so much time reading and commenting about them? I’m not marring the Croatia/Bosnian Muslim/Albania sites and propagandizing (whether truth, exaggeration, or fiction) there. Yet it seems you can’t find anything about Serbs/Serbia without the Serb haters or propagandists/propagandist-believers commenting on EVERYTHING.
“Ah, but this post just proves what you already thought, doesn’t it Ida? I’m just a regular old Serb-hater along with everybody else who writes anything negative against Serbs or Serb supporters like yourself.”
I don’t know what your exact interest/slant towards Serbs is, I just reacted to your statement because I’ve seen it almost exactly before.
“and if you don’t care for them then” – Ida, why do you have this compulsion to twist whatever anyone says into something that it’s not?
This is a blog about Serbs and Serbia, but also about the Balkans and the entire ex-Yugoslavia region.
And this post is about Miladin Kovacevic.
I have no problems with Serbs or Serbia in general, I wish Serbs and Serbia, along with the rest of ex-Yugoslavia, all the best. However, I posted on this blog because, and for this I apologize Viktor – I’m sure this really isn’t in the spirit of your blogs, it’s kind of fun baiting you Ida. As Owen mentions, you have a predilection for misinterpreting what other people write, which is hard to resist. Sorry.
It’s hard to believe that Miladin Kovacevic is worth $1,000,000 USD. To my understanding, that’s no small sum in Serbia. I imagine it would be much less expensive to extradite Kovacevic but then the government would also have to contend with his supporters and others who might say that the government is betraying the Serbian people and constitution by giving Kovacevic up to the US. If what happened during the protests against Kosovo’s declaration of independence is any indication of what might happen if Serbia were to extradite Kovacevic to the US, I imagine Serbia would be very happy paying $1,000,000 as opposed to having to pay much more in damages caused by protesters who might be a very small but very volatile and destructive group. Who knows really?
While Brian Steinhauser may have instigated the fight (I read somewhere, possibly on the NY Post website and as mentioned earlier, the NY Post is not exactly known for it’s great journalism, that he sucker punched Kovacevic in the back of the head,) I think Kovacevic would find it hard to convince a jury or a judge in either the US or Serbia that he acted totally in self defense if the following is true. The same article that stated that Steinhauser sucker punched Kovacevic also mentioned that some of Steinhauser’s teeth fell out of his mouth when he was lifted off the floor after being kicked in the head numerous times by Kovacevic. Of course, this is all circumstantial because nobody posting on this blog was there on the scene when it happened. But while the fear in Serbia is that Kovacevic would not get a fair trial in the US, the fear in the US is that justice may not prevail in a case tried in Serbia, especially since all of the witnesses are in the US.
My question is how could the government afford to pay out $900,000, roughly two thirds of Serbia’s GDP? Perhaps Serbian prostitutes in Dubai are paying tax?
Marc-
In the case you are refering to, it was 20 people, not 50. Also the pilot was tried in the United States by a military court, with the agreement of the Italian government. Full details and verdict here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/290652.stm
Would the U.S. of A. extradite any of its citizens, even the worst criminals, or war criminals, to Serbia or any other country for that matter? I’d really like to know.
Speaking of people being beaten into a coma. Just read of the conviction of a U.S. prison guard who beat a homeless, mentally ill man (who happened to be from the former Yugoslavia) into a coma from which he never awakened for 14 months and then was taken off life support.
The man’s name was Zoran Teodorovic – which looks Serbian to me. The guard received 6 years – which was shorter than the U.S. wanted for bar brawl which left a guy in a temporary (and some say was medically induced) coma, from which he awakened and was walking, talking and reading at least several months later. They U.S. deal was said to be for 12 years for the 20-year-old Serb. Rather steep for a fight which he did not start or initiate – it was his friend, the Bosniak who started arguing with Bryan Steinhauer. And it was those 2 who first came to blows before Miladin entered the fray. In addition there was another man involved in the fight. So for one person in a fight which he didn’t initiate and which had 4 involved and for which there was no fatality, paralysis, and only a temporary coma to get 12 years when those who murder get much less, shows a bias.
I think Zoran Teodorovic’s murder by U.S. prison guards, combined with the high amount of homosexual assaults and aids spread going on in U.S. prisons, are just a few of the reasons why the Serbs life would be in danger in a U.S. prison. Not to mention being unable to be visited by his parents.
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Ex-NY jail guard gets 6 years in inmate’s death
June 1, 2009
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – A former New York correction officer has been sentenced to six years in jail for the beating death of an inmate.
Former Westchester County jail guard Paul M. Cote was sentenced Monday.
The 43-year-old was convicted in a federal court in White Plains in 2006 of violating Zoran Teodorovic’s (Tay-oh-DOOR’-oh-vitch’s) civil rights. The victim was a mentally ill homeless man who was jailed on a trespassing charge.
The beating happened in October 2000. Teodorovic slipped into a coma and died the next year.
A judge later threw out the jury conviction, saying some inmates’ testimony wasn’t credible. A federal appeals court overturned that ruling in a decision written by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who has been nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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“As a result of the beating, Mr. Teodorovic was in a coma for 14 months and died in December 2001, shortly after Mr. Cote was released from prison.”
...”According to federal and county prosecutors, the jail beating started after another guard ordered Mr. Teodorovic to clean his jail cell. Mr. Teodorovic refused and struck the first guard, Mark Reimer.”
“When Mr. Reimer put him in a bear hug and wrestled him to the ground, prosecutors said, Mr. Cote ran over and kicked Mr. Teodorovic’s head at least four times, leaving him with severe brain damage.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/nyregion/07guard.html
As an Italian, I have only found Serbs to be complete idiots, saying things like “Serbians invented the lightbulb” or “Constantine was really Serbian”. It’s like they forgot how we (i.e. the Romans) gave them their name from Servus, because it was the only thing they were apparently good for. But then I read comments like these on your blogs and I am actually surprised. I am glad to see there are at least some Serbs (albeit in cyberspace) who ARE intelligent enough to understand concepts such as justice and the value of human life. Hey, it’s been 10 years since any genocide by the Serbs. Maybe there is hope afterall.
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