POLITICS-SERBIA & MONTENEGRO: An Exceptional Indifference to War

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Feb 20 2003 (IPS) - After facing 11 weeks of NATO bombing four years ago, Serbs do not seem to care whether Iraq is attacked or not.

The bombing was a traumatic experience for millions of people in Serbia. More than 1,000 civilians died in the bombing. Infrastructure and industry were left in rubble.

"For many people the thought of bombing of Iraq means dealing with their own trauma of 1999," says psychiatrist Zoran Ilic from the Belgrade Institute for Mental Health. That is one reason many do not want to confront that scenario, he says. "People want to protect themselves from the terror of their own memories."

This experience of bombing had led some to suppose that Serbs particularly would display some sympathy with Iraqi people. The majority of Serbs continue to oppose war, going by opinion polls, but few were willing to come out to demonstrate against it.

"Serbs see only a superficial similarity between bombing against Serbia and bombing against Iraq," says analyst Stojan Cerovic. "For most people here, Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction are just an abstract story."

"It was another thing when people chanted ‘Slobo-Saddam’ in rallies against Milosevic," says psychology professor Dragan Popadic from Belgrade University. The decade of rule of former president Slobodan Milosevic was marked from time to time by mass protests by hundreds of thousands of people.

Towards the end of Milosevic’s rule about a million people demonstrated against him in Belgrade. He finally had to surrender power.

The 11 weeks of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) raids in 1999 followed the repressive policies of Milosevic against the two million strong Albanian community in Kosovo, then a part of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Milosevic fell from power in October 2000 after a decade of rule.

The new leadership of Serbia and Montenegro has mostly refrained from commenting on developments around Iraq. The Foreign Ministry limited itself to a short statement that "Iraq should adhere to all the relevant United Nations (UN) resolutions." Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said that "regarding the war in Iraq, Serbia will not take sides."

The new administration is making few comments on Iraq because "Western powers were and still are allies of the new regime," says Ivica Dacic from Milosevic’s Socialist Party.

But if Iraq is attacked, "I am certain that people will definitely feel sympathy for innocent civilians, and will say more," says Ilic. "For the time being, there is another confusing issue – Iraqis are Muslims, like ethnic Albanians or Bosniaks, and the wars of the nineties had a religious element to them."

The former Yugoslavia fell apart in those wars, with Orthodox Serbs on one side, and Catholic Croats, the Muslim Bosniaks and ethnic Albanians on the other. More than 200,000 people died in the wars.

The only politician to openly support Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is Vojislav Seselj, the controversial right-wing leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS).

Seselj has been indicted for war crimes in former Yugoslavia by the tribunal at The Hague set up by the UN. Seselj was a key associate of Slobodan Milosevic in the ethnic cleansing campaigns against Croats, Muslims and ethnic Albanians.

Seselj calls Saddam Hussein "a brother in arms and freedom" and has offered "all possible support and help" to the Iraqi leader. Seselj has travelled to Iraq several times in recent years and has met with Saddam Hussein.

Seselj organised a rally against military action in Iraq two weeks ago that drew about 2,000 demonstrators. But that rally was an exceptional demonstration.

"People in Serbia are tired of rallies," says Popadic. "Saddam Hussein is a distant issue. Mostly they know that the two rulers (Milosevic and Saddam Hussein) really have nothing in common."

While few are demonstrating against war, a recent Gallup poll showed that people overwhelmingly disagree with the military action against Iraq. In Croatia, 78 per cent opposed it, and some 90 per cent wanted the Croatian army to stay away from military action in Iraq. In both Bosnia and in Serbia and Montenegro, 75 per cent opposed war.