The Last Barricades

On January 6, in the head office of the Serbian National Renewal Party in General Zdanova Street in Belgrade, a cocktail party was held in order to celebrate Orthodox Christmas. The gathering of some forty or so patriotically inclined Serbian intellectuals has been used as a motive for forming the steering committee for the protection of rights against The Hague Tribunal - a lobby group which shall, as its goal, contest the worthiness of the Tribunal from the legal, historical and humanistic aspect.

Judging by the list of the steering committee members, Bosnian Army Chief of Staff General Ratko Mladic, BS leader Radovan Karadzic and the old world order shall be defended from The Hague Tribunal by a colorful group of people whose joint characteristic can be defined as severe, often even extreme interceding for the "Serbian cause".

According to the words of Mirko Jovic, Serbian National Renewal Party leader, the first concrete step which the committee shall take will be to compose two documents which shall be forwarded to the international and domestic public and institutions. The composing of one of them shall be supervised by Professor Smilja Avramov, who has been denying, from the very start, the constitutional standing of The Hague tribunal, and that document shall be forwarded to domestic and foreign legal institutions (yet not the actual Hague Tribunal, since, in accordance with the general opinion of the members of the Committee, such an act would mean a recognition of the Tribunal). The second document is being composed by Momo Kapor and Dragos Kalajic, which has the intention of motivating writers and other humanities intelligentsia, domestic as well as foreign.

The call for a dialogue is readily accepted by prof. Veselin Djuretic, a historian whose book "The Allies and the Yugoslav War Drama" has at its time opened up a whole new definition of the roles of the chetniks and partisans in World War II. According to Djuretic, the Second World War in the former Yugoslavia has continued up till today, and all mistakes which the so-called international community has made during the last few years has emerged because they had failed to realize that fact.

Djuretic is convinced that The Hague Tribunal is "a successor of the policies which confuse causes and consequences".

"General Mladic and President Karadzic can be held responsible for certain concrete deeds yet they had, just as every single Serbian fighter had, waged a totally defensive war. And even if there were some crimes from the Serbian side, word is of crimes committed in self-defense or out of pathological states of the conscience which can not be criminally charged", he states. "I was a participant of the national conference in Bijeljina directly prior to Dayton, and even then I stressed that attention should be drawn to the indictments against Karadzic and Mladic. Karadzic told me: 'I'm not important', and I answered back: "As President, you are, since through you the Serbian nation in its entirety is being indicted'".

What the real effects of the committee shall be on opposing The Hague Tribunal and the new world order generally, shall be seen after the completion of the above mentioned "documents". What is certain is that in the Serbian right (and even wider) a certain re-formation has come about, formed on the basis of the conviction that some "descendants of convicts and English scum" are to put the Serbs on trial (painter Milic od Macve), which represents the ultimate humiliation which a person cannot quietly accept. "It is true that the committee somewhat resembles various 'committees for the protection of human rights' which were formed during the eighties in the Association of Writers at 7 Francuska Street, says Mirko Jovic, "yet even the times in which we live remind us of those times. What we have here is resistance to the anti-Serbian campaign which exists in Serbia itself".

The regime press has almost totally kept quiet on this attempt to defend Serbian honor, and from the civic-liberal circles, a sarcastic evaluation has arrived that we have a "committee for the protection of Ratko and Radovan in the name of the defense of the basic human rights of crime". At the same time, professor Vladimir Vasiljevic, international law expert has, through the Serbian Renewal Party (SPO), suggested to the federal parliament a law by which the local government would be obliged to cooperate with The Hague Tribunal. That bill will be introduced for procedure approximately at the same time when Dr. Avramov is to complete her detailed proposal, and the public opposition of the apologists and fierce opponents of The Hague Tribunal is something that the local regime would like to evade, since that would force it into publicly siding with one of those two sides, which would compromise it in any way - as the servant of the new world order or as the opponent of the Dayton agreement, along with the sanctions and all else that goes with it.

Frame 1

Nebojsa Pajkic and Isidora Bjelica, representatives of "Polit-Art", the New Serbian Right, a Metaphysical Monarchy and other similar projects which were proclaimed by the local public as conceptual neofascism, stated that they had found themselves in the committee for the protection of rights against The Hague Tribunal quite accidentally. "We received an invitation for the cocktail party and the distribution of presents to the children of fallen Serbian fighters, and since we are well known for being especially fond of cocktail parties, we gladly took off", says Pajkic. "We were then invited into a special room, at which time we were informed of the occasion. On that first meeting, an incredibly relaxed and open atmosphere reigned - everybody spoke apart from Djogo and Lubarda - and I think it is good when such different people gather in one place." "Some people found themselves together who haven't spoken to each other for years, which is of vital importance in today's atmosphere of capitulation", adds Bjelica.

Frame 2

The painter Milic Stankovic, better known as Milic od Macve, who also portrays himself as the first Serbian vampire and General Lepenski, is one of the main initiators of the committee. The Serbian National Renewal Party was chosen, he says, as the center "because it is compatible, and because it did not discredit itself before the outside world". "This is a chance for us to redeem our honor and standing", he says. "America is an imperialistic force which acts according to the interests of Asian-African Islamism, and should be checked regardless of the price. Which is why a crystallization on the internal-political level is extremely important for us, as well as the support of patriotic forces in Russia and China.

Link

The very Minister of Health, Leposava Milicevic, turned her critical remarks upon the abuse of children for pornographic reasons reminding us, amongst other things, that "Serbia is at this moment facing a drop in natality" (Borba daily of January 15).

The moral stand of the Minister (that it is "horrendous to earn money by destroying younger generations") is clear, which can't be said for the link with natality: would, in case of a natality rise, the problem seem completely different, is it a case that in countries with higher natality rates there is a certain amount of surplus children who naturally fall into various pitfalls and abuse? Or is the Minister worried that potentially new parents shall forsake their so-called primordial duty (to reproduce) since they can plainly see what awaits children? It would truly be unacceptable (to rekindle the at one time favorite politician's phrase) to see that Serbia, due to pornography, has fewer and fewer subjects, less and less Serbs, military conscripts and taxpayers, as well as disciplined voters...

Out of step

Unlike the previous war years when the citizens of Banjaluka opted for boisterous Serbian New Year's Eve celebrations (January 13), this year brought certain novelties with it. Even though Banjaluka television refused to recognize festivities which are celebrated by the whole world on January 1, therefore broadcasting a stale Belgrade New Year's Eve program from the previous year, and the Parliament of the Serb Republic declared January 1 as a normal working day, the Banjaluka citizens were celebrating that evening, while those that remained at home - watched the New Year's Eve program which was broadcasted by Croatian television. The local media manifested their loyalty on January 13, when the New Year's Eve program was broadcasted from the hotel San, located some twenty kilometers from Banjaluka. The employees had a full four days "off", while being out of step with the rest of the world seems to have been ascertained yet again.