“Pescanik” means hourglass in Serbian. It’s a weekly radio show on B92, one of the few, if not the only radio show truly critical to the current (and all the previous ones) goverment.
This is a movie shown on the Pescanik DVD promotion recently in Dom Omladine.
Author is Nadezda Milenkovic, journalist, one of the frequent guests in the show. Movie consists of pictures by Goranka Matic, one of our best photographers, showing Serbia in the nineties, and the voice you hear is Slobodan Milosevic and his twisted view on the world. Translation is below.
What you see on the photos are the scenes from the Belgrade streets during the demonstrations and protest against the regime, and some faces from Belgrade who in their fields contributed to the fight against the tyrant’s rule.
Translation:
S.M: “We are again in conflicts and we stand again before them. These are not armed conflicts, although i don’t exclude the possibility of such kind”
Soldier: “Once again, fire!”
Svetlana Lukic (journalist, one of the authors of Pescanik): “What are you aiming at? Do you know what are you aiming at?”
S.M: “You have to realise one thing: This nation will never accept slavery.”
“You didn’t want to defend Republika Srpska for half an hour, and now you want me to send children from this place to die defending your homes from which you ran like cowards.”
“I told them before, there is an old Serbian saying: he who wants more, loses the little he has already”
People chanting at a pro-govermant rally: “We won’t give away Sloba, Slobo we love you!”
S.M: “I love you too.”
S.M: “Children of the refugees found all the doors open for them in Serbia. A job was found for all those who fled to Serbia, and all over Serbia, for more than a decade, a huge number of very comfortable and modern apartments is being built to accomodate the refugees.”
S.M: “From ‘87 to ‘97 nobody was killed in Kosovo.”
S.M: “We have shown that we have an unbeatable army, the best army in the world, because the people were the army, and the army was the people”
“In this moment, the task of rebuilding the country lies before us. We shall begin this instant with rebuilding of our bridges.”
“Uranium bombs, computer intrigues, drugged young killers and paid or blackmailed local mercenaries…”
“An i am sure that the supreme court of history will show that we have defended in the last 10 years Serbian national interests better than anybody could have expected.”
“You shouldn’t waste time, life has it’s limits.”
“The end.”
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Watching this movie, and especially the images from the many protests and rallies that occured throughout the ’90s, it made me think where did this whole popular energy of Belgrade go and from where did the apathy come? It also made me think whether these same people are ready to repeat that if, God forbid, the SRS comes to power. I would surely do that.
Another great aspect of the movie is that it shows that not all pf the people stood behind the politics of Milosevic and that was proven in ’91, ’96 and finally October 2000 and the Serbian people shouldn’t carry the collective burden of one man’s policies.
Finally, it was striking for me to see in the movie the images of those that were the victims of the Milosevic regime (during and after) such as Curuvija, Stambolic and Djindjic.
Good post Viktor
You have to do me a favor and translate that for me. You know I don’t speak serbian!
Much appreciated if you do that for me!
Kristian
Sure, Kristian, i’ll do it later when i find some spare time. Just check back tommorow or later in the evening.
cheers!
cvijus wasnt it so much easier for all of us in the old days?
Those who supported Milosevic just continued supporting Milosevic no matter what (classic example of the inelasticity of his support base) or switched to the Radicals – always with the option of switching back at a later date.
To those against him everything seemed so clear why he and the policies he was conducting must be stopped.
Popular enegry needs something to oppose. This is one of the chief reasons why the Radicals are doing so well at the moment. ‘We’ (who supposedly lean towards the democratic block) are in power.
Certain parts of that block are trying to re-enegrise the population by opposing the current government. They are also desperately trying to maximise their own political support base.
That latter fact makes cynics like me baulk at LDP initiatives.
Dont worry if the Radicals come to power everything would become very clear again and IMO opinion there would be large scale anti government protests.
I’m not convinced that the Radicals will be allowed to come to power either by ‘democratic’ parties or the West. Perhaps they could form a government with Kostunica but this would still cause protests and kill their support base.
Bear in mind that (IMO) Serbians today vote against governments rather than for them.
Also cant help but be a little cynical concerning the old days – dont get too nostalgic about them. Slavko Curuvija latter efforts at journalistic integrity only just made up for his earlier support of Slobodan Milosevic and friendship with Mirjana Markovic. Still, he wasnt the only one charmed or taken in by Milosevic at one time or another.
bganon, good point there. One of my greatest disappointments after October 5th was to see how many different reasons people had for opposing Milošević. I kind of identified all people on streets with progressive thinking and anti-nationalism, so it was easy to feel good among that crowd.
But, if Radicals did came to power again, I’m not sure how much popular outburst there would be. Perhaps it would take us another 10 years to come to terms with new surrounding, like it did with Milošević?
Can you people just for a change stop slagging on Serbia? What bigotry! What was wrong with any one thing that Milosevic said in that video — even if it WAS taken out of context…he didn’t say one bad thing, no matter how hard the attempt to make out he did. What a number has been done on not only the Serbian nation but Milosevic specifically. His Kosovo Polje speech has been completely, deliberately, mistranslated, for a start. Anyone who actually followed the Hague trial knows that they never proved a thing and couldn’t make the accusations stick, try as they might — with millions and millions of dollars to do it with! He had to die to save them face. And, no, I wasn’t one of his fans, and, no, he wasn’t the best president in the world, but I suppose you’d tell me that Clinton was better — maybe Bush is better! Milosevic did not have a “twisted” view of the world but all those who continue to propagate that cardboard cutout personality of him certainly have. Enough is enough — you and your NGOs need to go back home and start criticizing your own. It’s like a friggin world gone mad. The Serbs continue to be branded with genocide they didn’t commit and that no one can provide any evidence for and the video taper who thrills when he murders old Serbian peasants all around Srebrenica and shows the tapes proudly to reporters — well, he goes free at the Hague and receives a hero’s welcome back home in Bosnia. A world gone mad. Yes, yes, black is white and white is black, and night, of course, is day, too.
http://www.williambowles.info/guests/2006/0306/milosevic.html
Guest Writings
14/3/06
The Real Milosevic By David Montoute
In her book Fool’s Crusade, a powerful exposé of the West’s anti-Yugoslav propaganda war, journalist Diana Johnstone explained how the European media in the 1990s had collectively invented a fictional character bearing the name “Slobodan Milosevic”.
Johnstone’s statement was no exaggeration. Over the ten years of Yugoslavia’s dismemberment, Slobodan Milosevic was repeatedly described as the man who ‘started the Balkan wars’ by appealing to a rabid Serbian nationalism and bankrolling ‘separatist’ uprisings throughout Yugoslavia. Here was the man who championed his ‘Greater Serbia’, attacking Slovenia and Croatia, going on to ignite a civil war in Bosnia, and finally ‘ethnically cleansing’ Kosovo.
Or so we are told.
In fact, a look at the actual record turns all this on its head. Far from causing the break up of Yugoslavia, Milosevic did his best to preserve it. Since this implied his opposition to the unilateral and illegal secession of the Yugoslav republics, Milosevic could falsely be accused of inciting regional rebellions in the Serb-inhabited parts of the former Federal Republic. By April 1992, however, the Yugoslav Parliament had voted to recognize the secessionist republics within their existing borders. And whilst the Belgrade government did provide material support to Serbs living outside the new, smaller Yugoslavia (consisting of only Serbia and Montenegro) its prime role in the Croatian and Bosnian conflicts was that of a mediator pushing for the quickest possible resolution. This fact is borne out by the support that Milosevic gave to each and every one of the five peace proposals tabled for Bosnia (including the 1992 Cutileiro Plan, sabotaged by Washington).
But to read the latest outpourings of the corporate press, one would imagine that Milosevic, found dead in his cell at the Hague on Saturday, in which he had languished for 4 years, really were the ‘Butcher of the Balkans’ as his Western opponents had dubbed him. It seems the propaganda war, begun in 1991 by Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, will not abate.
Press coverage of the Yugoslav wars reveals a depressing and almost total absence of independent thought amongst our opinion formers. Journalistic ‘research’ in this case has consisted of little more than searching out and then parroting the statements of Western leaders, as if the latter were somehow not protagonists in the unfolding events. Spain’s EL PAIS, true to its elitist credentials, believes that Milosevic’s miserable death alone in a cell, after having been denied medical treatment, provides a “positive lesson”. His ‘crimes’ they say, have not gone unpunished, and simultaneously serve as dissuasion to potential emulators (clearly not thinking about the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan).
Meanwhile, the UK Guardian, one of the biggest cheerleaders for NATO aggression in Yugoslavia, claimed in its online site that Milosevic, by dying, had ‘cheated justice’. In fact, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, an ad-hoc formation lacking any basis in international law, has nothing to do with justice. With no clear separation between prosecution and judge, no appeal body, admittance of hearsay and anonymous testimony, it violates, as Ed Herman has pointed out, virtually every standard of due process. This was evident from the very beginning of Milosevic’s ‘trial’ when two new indictments (for Croatia and Bosnia) were brought against him. As John Laughland wrote in the Spectator, this was “in direct contradiction to one of the most fundamental principles of customary extradition law, namely that a defendant may not be tried for a crime other than the one for which he was originally sent for trial” [i.e. the alleged abuses in Kosovo]
But since Milosevic was kidnapped and not ‘extradited’, extradition law here has no relevance. Laughland continued “there is only one conceivable explanation for this judicial shenanigan… these last-minute indictments over Croatia and Bosnia were issued to cover up the weakness of the Kosovo indictment the very indictment which constitutes the moral justification for the 78-day war that Nato fought against Yugoslavia in 1999.” 1
As the ‘trial’ progressed over the following years, the prosecution was continually thrown into disarray as Milosevic, representing himself, easily refuted the fraudulent charges levelled against him. Since the prosecution was undoubtedly only familiar with the fictional Milosevic of newspaper legend, this must have come as quite a shock. Perhaps the defining moment came when the Prosecution’s star witness, Rade Markovic, Milosevic’s former head of State Security, testified that, while in custody, he had been tortured to provide false testimony against his former boss. Defying the tribunal, Markovic testified that “the Yugoslav army and Serbian police had strict orders to protect Albanian civilians during NATO bombing… I never got any order, nor did I hear about any order or plan to expel Albanians”.
This is entirely consistent with Milosevic’s own testimony before the tribunal:
“For ten years since the time you claim Serbia “seized” control of its own territory, there were no murders, no expulsions, no plunder, no arson, no arrests in Kosovo. We did not have a single political prisoner in Yugoslavia – not one. Kosovo had 20 newspapers and other publications in Albanian, which one could buy at every street corner. Not a single issue, not a single copy, was ever banned. Albanian political parties, even separatist ones, worked freely. Someone here said we tolerated them. No, our view was that everything should be permitted – except violence.” 2
But given that these are the words of the monster himself, and our scepticism is inevitable, it is worth citing the words of Canada’s ex-ambassador to Yugoslavia:
“I am convinced that the Tribunal was established to make Milosevic and the Serbs guilty of all the crimes committed in the Balkans. His guilt is essential if the Germans and the Americans who played such a critical role in causing much of the bloodshed and the violence in the Balkans are to be let off the hook.” 3
Surveying the prevailing opinions on Yugoslavia shows us just how succ
essful the Tribunal has been
in this regard. But even a cursory examination of man’s life and career gives the lie to the accepted view. Brought up in the internationalist tradition of the Partisans, Milosevic consistently opposed the trend of Serbian nationalism, describing it as a “serpent in the bosom” of the Serbian nation. According to Konstantin Kilibarda “The enemy of the West never was Balkan chauvinism as such, but multiethnic Yugoslavia… that clashed with the interests of global capital flows… and the geostrategic designs of NATO in the region.” 4
Now, the defender of multinational Yugoslavia, after claiming to have been poisoned, has died in miserable conditions. Whether the poisoning claim is ever verified (5) is probably redundant. The NATO-funded Hague Tribunal is responsible for his death, just as surely as its patrons are for the deaths of thousands of Yugoslavs over the past 15 years.
Slobodan Milosevic was a humanist and a statesman. And whatever his genuine faults, he was perhaps the only regional actor in the Balkans to have consistently worked in favour of peace. Now that the real Milosevic has died one can only assume that the false Milosevic, the caricature drawn by the mass media, will quickly follow suit.
1. The Spectator: February 9, 2002
2. http://www.icdsm.org/milosevic/30jan.htm
3. http://www.serbianna.com/columns/borojevic/009.shtml
4. http://www.swans.com/library/art9/kkilib02.html
5. news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060312/ap_on_re_eu/milosevic_30
David Montoute studies naturopathy in Madrid. He can be contacted at gnaoua22@yahoo.co.uk
Everytime i see a comment like this it makes me wonder if these people are kidding or do they really believe that Milosevic was a peacemaker. It’s sad really.
For me, whether Slobo was a peacemaker or not, commited genocide cleansing or not, I don’t give it much emphasis on it anymore, cause when you do research abroad you don’t see it black and white anymore and realize the Milosevic was just a part of the negative side of the whole mechanism.
What I care right now is that through his actions Serbs received negative labels, destroyed the prospering economy of Serbia, implemented a dictarorial regime upon his own people for which he allegedly fought for, implemented twisted cultural norms (turbofolk) and segregated us from the rest of the world. When you look at it from todays perspective I only realize how much did he destroy Serbia nad its people thus I cannot say anything possitive for him, as I couldn’t say it during the nineties. No matter what his ideals were, what he left us as a result surely cannot characterize him as a great leader,quite the opposite, he was one of the biggest historical mistakes of Serbia.
Cheers
PS – To Ajp: use your head.
ajp (and others with a similar opinion). You are arguing with the wrong pepole and in the wrong place.
You will notice that at this blog most criticism of the past centres not around the Hagues accusations but about the experience of what it was like to be living in Serbia at that time and today.
There is no question that the rule of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia had a huge impact on people living here in a negative way. Although I accept that the super elite were rolling in riches and relatively speaking the poorest in society had their living standards maintained – ie factories and state companies that were losing millions were bailed out by the state and wages also.
Yes I have doubts about some of the issues you mentioned too but this is the Belgrade Blog not the Hague or Kosovo Blog.
As far as slagging on Serbia is concerned criticising politicians has nothing to do with Serbia. And its good that we can be open and honest about the problems Serbia faces. That way those visiting the Belgrade Blog will not get a false picture about what to expect.
The Serbs who run this forum are the spoiled Serbs – who sit on their @rses all day in front of a computer or travel to festivals and roam all over. They have it easy.
You don’t see anyone of them working with or helping the refugees.
It is easy for them to criticize and have their fun, but they don’t really help anyone or donate their money to the poor.
I think they should all pack and go to the U.S. or Canada. Does Serbia need their sh!t? No.
Thats odd anonymous its ok to have it easy if you live in the West but you have to live in misery if you are in Serbia?
Thats a very strange way of thinking.
As for helping people the information on this site is free of charge and we aim to try to show why Serbia is a place worth coming to, again with honesty and no false impressions.
anonymous,
as already Bg Anon stressed out, the purpose of this site is to promote Serbia as a place worth seeing and hopefully we can contribute here in increasing the tourism of Serbia from which everyone in Serbia can profit.
This is our way of donation, which can also be effective
“This is our way of donation, which can also be effective”
Do me a favor! Puhleese. Does it salve your conscience, then?
The fact that Milosevic was not the best leader — and I was against him the whole time he was in power — is neither here nor there. He came into his own, in my opinion, only after he went on trial and showed that the west had no case at all against him or Serbia. But major western powers coming in, as they were dismembering Yugoslavia, and twisting his speech in Kosovo in which he was PROMOTING brotherhood and diversity, not speaking against it, as was deliberately misreported, is deplorable at the very least. Bombing Serbia was criminal. Making Serbia out to be the bogey man in the Balkans was criminal and was the complete opposite of what was actually going on. So are you content now that the U.S. with the aid of other major world powers is accomplishing in the Balkans what Hitler attempted but failed to do? Are you proud? It’s going to make it up to the Serbs, isn’t it, that there are kind bloggers around who want to show people that Serbia is a nice place to visit after all? What!! It’s NOT full of evil creatures who are going around committing genocide? It isn’t? No kidding! So how come that’s all we were told about Serbs for 15 years? Serbia (and to a great extent Montenegro) is actually the ONLY truly multicultural and diversified country of all the countries that were once part of Yugoslavia? The Serbs are not ethnic cleansers? Jeez, it sure looks like Croatia, Slovenia and Kosovo have been ethnically purified…and Bosnia, isn’t that ethnically separated and divided? Montenegro and Macedonia have some diversity, but I’m confused — how come Serbia has over 30 different nationalities living in peace, including hundreds of thousands of Albanians in Belgrade, alone? Well, waddaya know!
Oh, hey, but it’s behind us now…yeah? I mean it’s so uncool for people like me to bring this stuff up. I mean, man, isn’t it…like…over? Can’t we all just get along? Got another beer or another joint, man? Like…hey, man — peace, OK?
On the one hand serbs have nothing to be ashamed of and on the other you talk about our salving consciences.
On the one hand you talk about how we do nothing for the common people. On the other what contribution have you made?
You lecture us from North America and tell us the way we should be behaving and at the same time infer that Westerners have been bossing Serbia around. Oh the irony.
No wonder you sound so confused.
I mean where do you get these facts from anyway – hundreds of thousands of Albanians in Belgrade? We live here, remember?
Please, if you have a problem I recommend professional help rather than using this blog to take out your angst.
I’m not lecturing SERBS!
I’m protesting the lack of even so much as any kind of ACKNOWLEDGMENT by westerners of what they have done to Serbia, let alone an apology or efforts at restitution.
All it would take for a little more peace to settle in the hearts of all Serbs, in my opinion anyway, is some ACKNOWLEDGMENT. But have you seen any? Anywhere? No, Serbs are supposed to just accept the criminal acts against Yugoslavia and Serbia and now go on, genuflecting to the EU or whatever — living a so-called normal life even though you have been set back decades by sanctions, bombings and dismemberment of your country, not to mention countless people dying so unnecessarily. One little comment from someone in a position of power in the West OR from more than just a few ordinary citizens in the West that all this was WRONG and based on falsehoods would go a long way to salvaging what is left and for Serbian people to move on. Even now they have their Western-placed quislings in the Serbian government and Western supported OTPOR and Western-financed NGOs undermining and snooping — are they ever going to let Serbia have its self-determination – by its own people?
Too bloody bad if you think I’m angry – I AM. I was brought to the West as a small child, but I always visited Serbia — in fact all of Yugoslavia — often, and stayed in close touch with family there. My heart is in Serbia, especially now that it has been/still is so criminally violated, but I had friends all over Yugoslavia and considered myself a Yugoslav then, not Serbian. What do you know about me anyway — you’re making assumptions about me as a person instead of responding to any points.
It’s my mistake if I wasn’t clear that I was NOT addressing my grievances to SERBS. No, I was not addressing the Serbs here. There ARE, after all, non-Serbs making comments here — or some of those comments maybe came from Serbs that I mistook for non-Serbs because they sounded more like Americans or Britons than Serbs. But, hey, if you don’t want me to bring up this so recent/still current history, which is still affecting all Serbs, then, fine, go ahead and talk about less controversial things — like which is the best cafe or whatever occupies YOUR minds.
As for the numbers of Albanians in Belgrade, if you like I’ll dig out the statistics — it’s always given as 100,000 – 200,000. Of course, those Albanians probably don’t resemble the ones in Kosovo — that’s why they don’t live in Kosovo. People blend in together all over Serbia — that was one of my points. Serbs are a very tolerant people (to their own cost as a result) and they have been painted as just the opposite — all over the world there is a horrible image of Serbs now. You cannot say ANYTHING about a homosexual or a black person in the West (and I’m not implying that one should so don’t now jump on me for that now) but you can say whatever the hell you like against Serbs and nobody will so much as blink, not if it’s spoken out loud to you in person, or on TV, or in a newspaper. ANYTHING. Serbs have become generally accepted as the lowest of the low. If you, as Serbs, are fine with all that, then go on your merry way and maybe I shouldn’t have the high respect I have always had for the Serbian people any more. Maybe those days are gone and the national mentality has changed as it has subjugated itself to trying to please its tormentors.
Some of you might live in Serbia but people like me for whom it’s not so easy to just move back, though we might long to, people like me who have gone into debt helping out people in Serbia during the last 15 years, people like me who research and read to find out as much as possible about Serbia, both in the past and now, people like me who protest and write to well known columnists and radio hosts and newspapers about their misinformation regarding Serbia, well…perhaps we’re more informed even than you are. Sometimes distance gives one objectivity. And, yes, a lot of Serbs in the diaspora took all this much harder than you who lived through it over there — probably some of it was guilt about not being there with you physically, some of it nostalgia, but mostly it was outrage at our new countries.
I’m not going to apologize for not living in Serbia because it wasn’t a choice I made for myself. And don’t bother to be resentful of someone living in the West as if they are better off than you — that only applies to material things…maybe….and those are not what matter in wider scheme of life. I’m searching for some integrity both in the Western powers and their citizens, that’s all…
So, if you’re telling me this is the wrong forum, FINE. I’ll leave you to your discussions on easier topics.
———
By the way, does it interest you that today there was an announcement that the ICTY has dropped charges about Račak and Dubrava from the trials because they have no case for that? Račak was the excuse used to get started with the bombing, remember? But now they have no case. Many such accusations have been disproved in the Hague, not that that kind of thing makes the news very often. Not interested? Fine.
ajp well seeing as this site is run by people who live in Serbia and you accused us of slagging on Serbia and being bigots its difficult to not feel as if we are on the receiving end of a lecture.
If you think that you have a greater right to be angry than those that live in Serbia thats your choice. In fact I personally respect your choice – both your opinion and your decision to live in the West but its about time the same respect was given to those who think or choose differently.
That includes the choice of Serbians to vote for the current government you call a quisling one. That government was voted in by the Serbian people and both OTPOR types and NGOists hate it branding it nationalist not quisling or pro Western.
The only logical conclusion is that in order for most of the Serbian people not to be slurred with the traitor or quisling tag is to vote for SRS or SPS right? That kind of reminds us of the 1990′s.
People at this blog are writing from their own perspective just as you are writing from yours. We each have different opinions on these issues you mentioned but they are not the issues that are relevant for this Belgrade blog because its only political insomuch as a political event unfolds within the country which will be of interest to those who care or those intending to visit.
Please respect us here. None of us are Mother Teresa types but we genuinely want Serbia and its people to prosper. This is our modest attempt move it in that direction.
You have managed to ignore most of my specific comments and to misundersand the one you did mention.
Certainly I respect any Serbs working for the betterment of Serbia. I know that the majority of Serbs are NOT nationalistic and are, in fact, very tolerant people — sometimes too tolerant for their own good, as it has turned out, but nevertheless they have that quality. Serbs have been painted as a people who want a Greater Serbia — which is a complete lie.
Serbs certainly might have voted in the present government but anyone who is not a fool knows that it was American money that promoted those that got elected and that’s how they got elected. I am very worried about you young people especially who are on this track that bending to the will of America will make everything OK for you again. And the political naivete you exhibit! If you continue to bend over to the West for a whipping, you will continue to be whipped!
I don’t regard the alternatives parties you suggested as good replacements for the current government. I have yet to see anyone of true leadership caliber in Serbia for the past many years. I hope for and look forward to that person or persons showing their faces soon. Serbia needs a strong democratic leader who is not afraid to act in the interest of Serbs and not bow down to ruling from outsiders who have made a lackey out of once proud Serbia. Serbs don’t deserve what has been done to them and what is continuing to be done to them.
I wish prosperity and respect for Serbia. That’s all.