BALKANS: From Russia With Doubts

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Mar 29 2006 (IPS) - The recent death of former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic has brought relations between Russia and Serbia into the spotlight again.

Media outlets both at home and abroad have not missed the opportunity to stress that Milosevic’s family lives in Russia, and seeing in this evidence of “traditionally extremely good” relations between the two countries.

Milosevic’s widow Mira gave interviews from Moscow, while his son Marko flew from Moscow to The Hague in The Netherlands to claim his father’s body from the coroner’s office. Milosevic’s brother Borislav gave widely publicised interviews to international media from his hospital bed in Moscow.

The three Milosevics living in Moscow did not attend the funeral of the former leader held in his native town Pozarevac Mar. 18. But when a small plane chartered by a filming company circled over Pozarevac, many people gathered for the funeral believed it had brought the Milosevics from Russia.

Many among them chanted a popular slogan from the days of Milosevic’s rule: “Us (Serbs) and Russians – 300 million people!” Serbia has a population of seven million.

“At home, ‘the traditionally good relations’ stands at the level of popular belief or myth, while for those outside this country, it’s a nice catch phrase for superficial reporting as people are generally unfamiliar with the real situation,” analyst Bratislav Grubacic told IPS. “When looking into the recent past, there is no evidence of any glamorous support for Serbia coming from Russia.”

The recent past of Serbia was marked by wars in former Yugoslavia and the accompanying international punishment from international bodies that included Russia. Milosevic led Serbia into that punishment.

The former leader died of a heart attack Mar. 11 in the detention unit of the United Nations-founded International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He fell from power in October 2000, after a decade of rule.

In two rounds of strict United Nations sanctions against Serbia (1992 and 1998), Russia abstained from voting in the Security Council. It did not veto the resolutions, as Milosevic’s propaganda had led many Serbs to believe at the time.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bombing of Serbia in 1999 following Milosevic’s repressive rule against two million ethnic Albanians did not come up before the UN Security Council. Russia went on to play a decisive role, pressing Serbia into practical capitulation.

Former Russian prime minister Victor Chernomyrdin flew to Belgrade with UN representative Marti Ahtisaari in June 1999, with the message that Serbia will be flattened by bombing unless Milosevic withdrew his troops from Kosovo. Milosevic agreed, and the bombing ended. UN Security Council Resolution 1244 put Kosovo under the jurisdiction of the United Nations. Russia supported the vote.

“Russia used Serbia at the time of the rule of Slobodan Milosevic exclusively for the needs of its anti-Western propaganda,” Russian analyst Andrey Pyontovski said in a recent interview. “That was useful at the time due to the Russian trauma of the lost cold war.”

Balkans analyst from the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies Janos Bugajski told Serbian media that apart from politics, there are specific financial interests that Moscow and Belgrade share, dating back to the times of the Milosevic rule.

“Strong interest groups in Moscow were in business with the corrupted Milosevic regime and profited from illegal operations that ruined Serbia,” Bugajski added. “They are now providing protection for the Milosevics in Russia.”

Dozens of well-known Serb businessmen have lived in Russia since the beginning of the nineties. Milosevic’s brother Borislav was Serbia’s ambassador to Moscow in the 90s.

After the change of regime in Serbia in 2000, Borislav turned to private business and never returned to Serbia. He was later joined by Marko in 2000 and then Mira in 2003.

According to the Serbian branch of Interpol, between 300 and 350 people with “red” international arrest warrants issued by Serbia live in Russia.

Among them Mira Markovic is wanted for financial abuse at the time of her husband’s rule, former police general Vlastimir Djordjevic is wanted for war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, and Bogoljub Karic, owner of Mobtel, the first Serbian cell phone company, is wanted for tax evasion.

“As far as I know, no wanted person was extradited from Russia to Serbia in the past six years,” Interpol bureau chief in Belgrade Milos Oparnica told local media.

The Russian embassy in Belgrade declined to comment.