Oh, My People...

The life achievement of Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic resists the test of time and threatens to outlive its creators. The achievement is not the Bosnian Serb Republic, but the Bosnian ruins. The two leaders did not deal with their republic very much; it has already become anarchic and disintegrated, and who knows how it will eventually end up and what the territory will look like. Perhaps this is why they did manage to accomplish the supreme goal, to break up Bosnia for good, but they must share the merit with many other zealous workers similar to themselves.

At any rate, few things in Bosnia happen according to the idea of its restoration in the spirit of multi-ethnic tolerance. Serbs are leaving the parts of Sarajevo lost in Dayton; Muslims are not inviting them to stay and are taking Sarajevo for themselves; Croats in Mostar are demanding a clear line. All the players agree that no further ethnic incoherence may be tolerated. The belligerent style of strictness, clarity and unambiguity is still in, which means that no one strongly believes in this peace. Whoever is leaving some place is destroying and burning down whatever he cannot take with him, not only in order to spite others, but also in order not to be tempted to return some day. Neither Carl Bilt nor NATO can do anything about this. The principle of division, built into the peace agreement, obviously dominates over the demand to let the refugees return and cancel the results of the war. Thus everyone admits that Karadzic and Mladic have succeeded and won, but this is exactly why they must be punished. Their evidence was too strong. Such evidence was not in use in Europe for a long time. But they knew murder was the best proof that Bosnia was really dead. Bosnian Serbs were more diligent in doing this than anyone else and this is why others will benefit more from their accomplishment then they themselves will. And the two main authors have been placed beyond the law.

However hard they tried to hide in Pale and its vicinity, from here to eternity there are only two ways for Karadzic and Mladic to get themselves off the international posters. One way goes to The Hague tribunal and the other straight to hell. There is no third way because the whole world had plenty of time to notice and recognize the two, especially since they, while they were doing well, did not care much about discretion and cover-up. Besides, they have nothing to bargain, nothing big to offer in exchange for their heads. Unlike them, Milosevic, for example, always thought how he would clear his name and how he would redeem himself. That is how he offered the Dayton peace and these two, which is enough for the time being. All the Bosnian deals are now in God's and America's hands, which means that we shall have to wait and see where the efforts of these two powers will take us. It is interesting to see what the people, who were capable of doing all those wonders in the name of the people and for the people's benefit, are doing now.

The situation is ideal for someone who is looking for an opportunity to sacrifice himself for others and for the general cause. They would do a great favour to the people who were led and represented by Karadzic and Mladic if they took over the responsibility, justified all those who were under their command and stood up in front of the court and history. Their deed is almost completed and there will be many others among the Bosnian Serbs who will want to follow their way. If the two sacrificed and removed themselves, the position of their distressed republic would certainly improve and their war enterprise might become more serious and would not look like just the unbearable ease of killing. These Serb knights, however, unanimously claim that they will be defended by their army and people. They have already lost the war and accepted peace. They are forcing the people to move out of the Sarajevo suburbs and to prove by their misery that the policy of killing was the only possible one. They are not even thinking of clashing with NATO in any circumstances or for any national reason, unless if someone tries to arrest the two of them.

Karadzic says this would be a blood-bath and that NATO would need twice as many troops as it has in Bosnia to arrest him. He himself is, thus, willing to be the cause of a new war, this time against NATO. What the results of such a war might be is quite clear, but there are some sacred things which the people must defend until self-extinction and these are Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Mladic. I wonder where in the Serbian epics did Karadzic, the minstrel, find models for this kind of attitude and heroism?

Milan Martic, when he heard that The Hague tribunal had brought charges against him, had nothing else to say but that the attack on him was the attack on his people. He did not say that he, too, would be defended by his grateful people of Krajina, because he had not had many opportunities to meet many of them, but he said he believed that they knew that he and they were one, especially when it came to sharing responsibility.

The phenomenon of inviting the people to take over someone's personal trouble is not a new one, but the proportions are becoming epidemic. Serbia's Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic also has his private people, comprising the employees of his company, who are defending him against the claims that he had taken for himself and for them the best export deals and income. They are willing to share any guilt with their manager-prime minister and to defend him by all means, except if this means that they have to give back the money, but things will not go this far. This example from our socialist practice shows how the workers can be solidary with the director and owner, instead of clashing with him like in capitalism.

I am sure that this phenomenon is not a new one and that its origins date back in pre-history, that is before the historical Eighth Session, of which there certainly must be some written trace. Somewhere about that time, at the beginning of the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, a range of big and small sacred things were introduced, before which stood a protective cordon in the form of the entire Serbian people. I do not quite remember whether anyone mentioned his driver or bodyguard, but any comment about himself, or Borisav Jovic, the Yugoslav People's Army, TV Serbia, "Politika," was immediately passed on to the Serbian people. The question was what the people thought about such an attack on themselves, and the people stood up.

This is how it all began and how new sacred objects and oaths were established, since they no longer knew what to do with the old one "We are Tito's - Tito is ours." Afterwards, it did not have to be repeated all the time, because many relics of the past were gradually removed and Milosevic was careful enough to carry out such operations as quietly as possible so as not to hurt the people's feelings. In time only he remained, magnified by the fact that everyone else could be replaced.

Karadzic, Mladic and Martic, who are now trying to use the same prescription for The Hague tribunal, seem desperate and it will not guarantee their protection. International forces are not trying to catch them yet; they are probably waiting for the people to abandon them completely. That is very likely to happen, because people follow and defend their leader only out of fear, or when they get or expect to get something that otherwise does not belong to them. But when all that the leader can expect to get is a cell in The Hague, I am afraid the people will slowly start walking away. However, I am prepared to understand the surprise and disappointment of anyone who ends up so lonely after he was supported by his people. I guess I myself would be surprised to see that my readers - my people - are for no good reason refusing to get killed instead of me.