Milosevic (63 page)

20.
Dragan Vuksic, author interview, Belgrade November 2001.

21.
Warren Zimmerman,
Origins of a Catastrophe
(New York: Random House, 1996), p. 39.

22.
Mira Markovic, op. cit., p. 242.

23.
Tim Judah,
The Serbs
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 188.

24.
Detailed information about the attack on Zvornik taken from Annex IV, Part
III. Report on ethnic cleansing operations in the north-east city of Zvornik. The Policy of Ethnic Cleansing, Final Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts, 28 December 1994.

25.
Final Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts.

26.
Jose Maria Mendiluce in Laura Silber and Allan Little,
The Death of Yugoslavia
(London: Penguin/BBC, 1995), p. 246.

27.
ibid.

28.
Vojislav Seselj in Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 247.

29.
The author is grateful to Peter Maass, who generously provided a transcript of his interview with Milosevic. The interview took place in Belgrade in April 1993.

30.
Markovic, ibid., pp. 63–64.

31. Hrvoje Sarinic,
All My Secret Talks with Slobodan Milosevic: Between War and Diplomacy 1993–1995
(Zagreb: Globus International, 1999 Croatian Edition), p. 46.

Chapter 16

1.
Milan Panic, Laura Silber and Allan Little,
The Death of Yugoslavia
(London: Penguin/BBC, 1995), p. 287.

2.
Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.

3.
Warren Zimmerman,
Origins of Catastrophe
, p. 198.

4.
The term ‘concept deficit' was first used in the mid-1990s to describe the inability of Swiss bankers to understand the seriousness of the charges against them in the scandal over Holocaust-era bank accounts.

5.
Warren Zimmerman, op. cit., p. 198.

6.
Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.

7.
Tibor Varady, author interview, Budapest, August 2001.

8.
Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 175.

9.
Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 215.

10.
Mihailo Crnobrnja, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.

11.
Some years later Professor Varady met Edit on a train between Budapest and Novi Sad. He told her about Milosevic's great interest in her well-being and career. Edit was ‘taken aback'.

12.
Silber and Little, op. cit., p. 287.

Chapter 17

1.
See You in the Obituaries
, a television documentary about Belgrade gangsters, B-92, 1995.

2.
Ljubica Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, August 2001.

3.
Financial details of the Milosevic house purchase at Tolstoyeva 33 as detailed in
The Seven Biggest Swindles of the Milosevic Regime
, pp. 37–8. This highly detailed fifty-two page report on the financial mismanagement and institutionalised corruption of the Milosevic era was compiled by the Investigating Commission
of Economic and Financial Abuses of the Milosevic Regime (ICEFA). A copy was made available to the author in November 2001.

4.
Diplomatic source, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.

5.
Ian Traynor,
Search for the Missing Millions
,
Guardian
(29 March 2001).

6.
Stefan Wagstyl, Irena Guzelova and Kerin Hope,
Milosevic's Murky Fortune
,
Financial Times
, (6 April 2001).

7.
Serbian inflation figures as reported in Eric D. Gordy,
The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives
(University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), pp. 170–1.

8.
Aleksandar Radovic, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.

9.
Aca Singer, author interview, Belgrade, November 2001.

10.
The Boss eventually returned to Belgrade, in December 2001.

11.
Borisav Jovic, in Eric D. Gordy, op. cit., p. 172.

12.
Dusan Mitevic, author interviews, Budapest, autumn 2001–spring 2002.

13.
Ian Traynor,
Guardian
, op. cit. Traynor quotes ‘Yugoslav government sources and western diplomats in Belgrade'.

14.
Budomir Babovic, author interview, Belgrade, 2001.

15.
Under this system students unable to attend classes – for example because of illness – are allowed to take examinations when they are ready. Marko was not ill but just did not want to go to school.

16.
Vreme
magazine, Belgrade, 25 January 1993.
Vreme
printed a transcript of an interview Marko gave to the Pozarevac radio station Bum 93.

17.
Mira Markovic,
Night and Day
, p. 239.

18.
Zoran Kusovac, ‘Crime and Culpability in Milosevic's Serbia',
Jane's Intelligence Review
, 1 February 2000.

19.
Quoted in
See You in the Obituaries
.

20.
ibid.

21. ibid. The gangsters interviewed who survived were later angered by the fact that the programme was watched by western embassies, who subsequently refused to issue them visas.

22.
ibid.

23.
Conversation recorded by the Croatian secret service and printed in
Globus
magazine, Zagreb, 1 February 2002.

Chapter 18

1.
Hrvoje Sarinic,
All My Secret Talks with Slobodan Milosevic: Between War and Diplomacy 1993–1995
(Zagreb: Globus International, 1999). p. 255.

2.
Hrvoje Sarinic, author interview, Samobor, Croatia, September 2001. All quotes by Sarinic in this chapter are taken from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.

3.
Hrvoje Sarinic, op. cit., pp. 187–189.

4.
Milosevic – Initial indictment for war crimes in Croatia. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Case No. IT – 02 – 54.
Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. October 2001. Annex One paragraph 53.

5.
Hrvoje Sarinic, op. cit., p. 202.

6.
Mira Markovic,
Night and Day
, (Kingston, Ont.: Quarry Press, 1996) p. 244,

7.
Lord Owen disputes Hrvoje Sarinic's statement that he made these comments, describing them as not correct. In an email to the author Lord Owen wrote: ‘I always believed the Croatians could win back at the negotiating table land lost to the Serbs in Croatia.'

8.
As recounted in Bosnia Report April-July 1999. The Bosnia Report is published by the Bosnia Institute, a London-based charity dedicated to information and education about Bosnia.
www.bosnia.org.uk
.
Further adventures of Hrvoje Sarinic in the land of the Serb aggressor.
This three part series was based on Sarinic's book. Lord Owen disputes Hrvoje Sarinic's comments about Mira Markovic's book, describing them as incorrect. In the same email he wrote to the author: ‘I never knew about Mrs Milosevic's book, let alone made any suggestions.'

9.
Tibor Varady, author interview, Budapest, August 2001.

10.
Lord Owen disputes Tibor Varady's account of this occasion. In an email to the author he wrote: ‘In August 1992 I had not met Milosevic. I was only appointed the EU's envoy in late August and only visited Belgrade in September, so Tibor Varady's recollection is incorrect that I had lunched with him.'

11.
Mira Markovic, author interview, Belgrade, March 2002.

12.
Lord Owen actually described Mira Markovic as ‘a Marxist theorist, as is obvious from her words'. He noted: ‘It is not possible to anticipate where Milosevic will lead his country without also analysing the views of his wife. Fortunately he does not take much note of her economic views and shows every sign of wanting his country to have a market economy.' David Owen,
Balkan Odyssey
(London: Indigo, 1996), pp. 291–2.

13.
Yves Goulet, ‘MPRI: Washington's Freelance Advisors',
Jane's Intelligence Review
, 1 July 1998.

14.
ibid.

15.
Atif Dedakovic has entered legend.

16.
Mira Markovic in Tim Judah,
The Serbs
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 296.

17.
Stipe Mesic, author interview, Zagreb, September 2001.

18.
The largest wave of ethnic cleansing was the expulsion of the Kosovo Albanians in the spring of 1999 when hundreds of thousands fled from Serb forces.

Chapter 19

1.
Radovan Karadzic, ‘Pax Americana',
Death of Yugoslavia
, episode six.

2.
The Surrealist Hit Parade radio show was hugely popular all over Yugoslavia, and tapes of the programmes were even circulated through refugees in western Europe, wrote Chuck Sudetic in the
New York Times
in July 1993. The Surrealist Hit Parade mocked everything from Serbian ethnic cleansing techniques to
rising Muslim nationalism. A Serbian commander details his plans for dealing with the US Navy: ‘First we sign a ceasefire. Then we surround them and give them forty-eight hours to hand over their weapons. When they refuse, we burn their houses and kill the cattle. Then we march in and declare it the Serbian Autonomous Sixth Fleet.' A Muslim nationalist discusses his newborn baby with his Serbian wife. ‘I'm a liberal. We don't have to call it Mehmet or Alija. We'll name him Mehmet-Alija.'

3.
Hrvoje Sarinic,
All My Secret Talks with Slobodan Milosevic: Between War and Diplomacy, 1993–1995
(Zagreb: Globus International, 1999) p. 201.

4.
Slobodan Milosevic, letter to the Bosnian Serbs. Dusko Doder and Louise Branson,
Milosevic: Portrait of a Tyrant
(New York: The Free Press, 1999), p. 181.

5.
Doder and Branson, op. cit., p. 182.

6.
Risto Djogo died in September 1994 in Zvornik, Bosnia, in mysterious circumstances, the night that Ceca, the singer married to Arkan, gave a concert.

7.
Doder and Branson, op. cit., p. 187.

8.
Laura Silber and Alan Little,
The Death of Yugoslavia
(London: Penguin/BBC, 1995) p. 374.

9.
ibid., p. 380.

10.
ibid., p. 381.

11.
ibid.

12.
In April 2002 the Dutch government resigned after the publication of a 3,500-page report on the fall of Srebrenica,
Srebrenica, A ‘Safe' Area
(Amsterdam: Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), 2002). Point two in the epilogue highlighted the vagueness of the term ‘Safe Area': ‘Nothing was clear about it except that the dominant light option ruled out a mandate for a genuine military defence of the area or its population. The presence of UN troops was intended rather to be a warning by the international community not to attack (“to deter by presence”). The proclamation of the zone as a safe area created an illusion of security for the population.'

13.
The report's epilogue also argued that the Bosnian Serb onslaught was partly ad hoc in nature: ‘With hindsight there are no indications that the increased activity of the VRS [the Bosnian Serb army] in east Bosnia at the beginning of July 1995 was aimed at anything more than a reduction of the safe area Srebrenica and an interception of the main road to Zepa. The plan of campaign was drawn up on 2 July. The attack commenced on 6 July. It was so successful and so little resistance was offered that it was decided late in the evening of 9 July to press on and to see whether it was possible to take over the entire enclave.'

Therefore the author would argue that if General Mladic was responding to changing circumstances, a military response by the international community early in the attack on Srebrenica might have deterred him from going as far as he did.

14. The fall of Srebrenica did not hinder the career of one of the most senior
UN officials in charge of peacekeeping operations at this time. Kofi Annan, now Secretary General of the UN, served as Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations (March 1993–February 1994) and then as Under Secretary-General (February 1994–October 1995; April 1996–December 1996). ‘His tenure as Under Secretary-General coincided with unprecedented growth in the size and scope of United Nations peacekeeping operations, with a total deployment, at its peak in 1995, of almost 70,000 military and civilian personnel from 77 countries,' notes his biography on the UN website.
www.un.org/overview/sg
. The UN later published a self-critical report on Srebrenica.

15.
Sandy Vershbow, in ‘Pax Americana',
The Death of Yugoslavia
, episode six.

16.
Senior US official, author interview, November 2001.

17.
David Owen,
Balkan Odyssey
(London: Indigo, 1996) p. 143.

18.
Dr James Gow. ‘Belgrade and Bosnia: An Assessment of the Yugoslav Military',
Jane's Intelligence Review
, 1 June 1993.

19.
Slobodan Milosevic, in Louis Sell,
Slobodan Milosevic and the Death of Yugoslavia
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 230.

20.
Point ten of the conclusion of the epilogue of the NIOD Srebrenica report argues: ‘There are a number of indications that it [the massacre] was a central command from the General Staff of the VRS. There are none pointing to political or military liaison with Belgrade. The involvement of the then president Karadzic (Republika Srpska) is unclear. In any case, the main responsibility for the mass slaughter lay with the military. Mladic's central role was unmistakable and beyond doubt. He was a dominant presence during these days and was clearly in command. That does not alter the responsibility of others in leading positions in the VRS, the Drina Corps and in the special troops and security services.'