SERBIA: Two Anniversaries And A Question

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Mar 15 2007 (IPS) - Talks on the troubled southern Serbian province Kosovo ended last weekend at a significant moment for Serbia, when the anniversaries of the death of two leading historical figures were being marked.

One was the first anniversary of the death of former leader Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic died in his sleep in the detention unit of the UN-founded International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Mar. 11 2006. Milosevic was on trial for war crimes in the wars of the 1990s that tore former Yugoslavia apart, but did not live to be either sentenced or acquitted.

Milosevic’s policy of repression of ethnic Albanians led to NATO bombing in 1999 and introduction of UN rule in Kosovo.

A memorial service for Milosevic was held at his grave in the backyard of his family house in his native town Pozarevac, some 100 km east of Belgrade. Only about 200 sympathisers attended. His family members live in exile.

The other was the fourth anniversary of the assassination of the first post-Milosevic prime minister Zoran Djindjic. He was killed Mar. 12, 2003, by remnants of Milosevic’s regime in front of the government building in Belgrade. Djindjic masterminded the ousting of Milosevic in 2000 and extradited him to the ICTY in 2001.

Thousands queued Monday to light candles at Belgrade’s New Cemetery where Djindjic was buried. The memorial service was held in front of a huge audience, with President Boris Tadic among family members and party colleagues attending. Tadic comes from Djindjic’s Democratic Party.

The two represent different faces of Serbia, which is still deeply divided on the role they played. For many, Milosevic remains the hero of the Serbian nation who defended Serbs all over former Yugoslavia. For them, Djindjic was a traitor.

To others Djindjic represents the modern ways Serbia could take. One test is views on the future of Kosovo province, dominated by two million ethnic Albanians who want a break with Serbia. Milosevic’s supporters want Kosovo firmly within Serbia; others are less emphatic.

“The Kosovo issue and related problems come as the direct consequence of the rule of a man who was not in power since 2000 and is now dead, but still troubles our lives,” analyst Milan Nikolic told IPS. “One can say that historically, Milosevic’s legacy is 90 percent bad, as we still feel the consequences of it until this very day.”

One of the latest issues related to Milosevic’s legacy was the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) two weeks back that Serbia was not guilty of genocide in Bosnia- Herzegovina.

But the ICJ ruled that Serbia, led at the time by Slobodan Milosevic, did nothing to prevent the genocide in Srebrenica in Bosnia. It held that Belgrade could have prevented that massacre in 1995 in which 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed.

“The politics of Milosevic is still active, and his legacy as well,” historian Predrag Markovic commented in the popular weekly NIN. “This country needs discontinuity with his rule; we have important issues to deal with.”

His comment came after Milosevic’s Socialists marked the anniversary of their leader’s death with a public proclamation that “Milosevic is part of history, but also of our present and future. There is no discontinuity with his politics, as it represents the uninterrupted battle of Serbia for social and national freedom.”

The tributes to Zoran Djindjic’s politics were not quite as firm. “He cemented the new direction, possibilities and the European way Serbia can take in the future,” founder of Djindjic’s Democratic Party Dragoljub Micunovic told IPS. “Such a legacy remains; however and unfortunately, it is not prevailing.”

Many sympathisers of Djindjic and his politics say that Serbia is stalling in reforms and in making decisive cut with the past on the road to European integration. Analysts blame the conservative and nationalist government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica for such a course.

Historian Latinka Perovic wrote in the popular daily Blic: “Zoran Djindjic was the most important phenomenon in recent history. It is not only because of his strictly European views that one can remember Djindjic; he represents an important effort of Serbia to cross the watershed of an authoritarian past and become a modern state. That is what this country has to do, even without him, despite all the efforts of slowing down the process.”

In remembering the two leaders in different ways lies a fundamental question about the future of Serbia.