Greek Connection

Greece was the country where a (smaller) number of Serbs go on vacation, and which they swear at due to the visas which are causing headaches amongst the potential Yugo-tourists. In all other matters, the Serbs were looking into a different direction. Certain things started to change towards the end of the 80s: when the tour of the "anti-bureaucratic" rallies was commenced throughout Serbia and its vicinity, in which the complete serious-minded western press recognized populistic danger for peace and international balance. Only the Greek press was somewhat better disposed toward it. Milosevic, as the newly elected President of Serbia, made his first official visit abroad to Greece itself. The date was April 16, 1991. On that occasion he talked with President Karamanlis and Prime Minister Mitsotakis, he gave a few interviews and went sight-seeing in Athens and Thessaloniki (Serbian soldiers cemetery), Corfu and Sveta Gora (Mount Athos). His visit to Hilandar (the holiest Serbian monastery) incited stormy comments, and in circles close to the Serbian Orthodox Church was unofficially recognized as degrading and sacrilegious.

In November of 1991 Prime Minister Mitsotakis visits Belgrade immediately prior to the EU Ministerial Meeting on the rules of recognizing the Yugoslav republics. Serbian-Greek diplomatic coordination is continued on January 3, 1992 by Vladimir Jovanovic's visit to Athens, leaving Mitsotakis to put in another appearance in Belgrade ten days later, two days prior to the EU's official recognition of the independence of the former Yugoslav republics... The arbitration commission of the EU assesses that Macedonia as well meets all conditions for independence, and Adonis Samaras announces a veto; Milosevic travels to Athens on January 16 for talks with Mitsotakis. It is announced that the two sides see a way of resolving the crisis in creating a "mini Yugoslavia" - including Macedonia. "The suitors" have simply reached an agreement, however the "bride" wasn't overly interested... In March of the same year Milosevic "secretly" arrives with his family in Greece for a vacation, where he stays with a "personal friend", ambassador Milan Milutinovic. The media uncovers the visit, TV cameras hound the villa of the Serbian diplomat; in Athens they claim that news has been leaked by the "people from Skopje" in order to publicly expose "secret Greek-Serbian diplomacy". Three months later Slobodan Milosevic makes his bizarre idea public on forming a confederation of the two neighbors (!) Serbia and Greece, which incites disbelief, cold aversion and even mockery in the latter.

At the beginning of March 1993 the Father, Leader and Son of the nation - Cosic, Milosevic and Bulatovic - with a little help of their friend Mitsotakis bring in the outlawed Radovan Karadzic to Vouliagmeni, a tourist resort in the vicinity of Athens, to enable him to sign the Vance-Owen peace plan in a pleasant villa, which is exactly what he does, using Mitsoutakis's pen. Yet later, the Serbian Assembly in Pale, in the presence of the above mentioned Serbian and Greek brothers, refuses to ratify that signature. When on October of the same year Andreas Papandreou's PASOK comes to power, the relations of the two countries are chilled a considerable degree, while Papandreou generally works towards simmering down the scalding nationalistic overtones in Greek foreign policies.

What has drawn Serbia and Greece together most remains, and in such an atmosphere stays intact: a mutual interest of the pressure employed on Macedonia.

Torn between their "friendship" on account of a third party (which reminds malicious tongues of Milosevic's and Tudjman's "Bosnian" friendship) and rivalry over the question "who is more important and greater", the relations between Serbia and Greece fluctuate. In spring of 1995 Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic demonstrate their weird sense of humor by kidnapping and tying down UNPROFOR soldiers to posts: diplomatic wrangling over the hostages lasts for a long time, accompanied by serious military threats. The Greek minister of defence and of foreign affairs Arsenis and Papoulas arrive in Belgrade; shortly after, the chief of the Serbian In the Right Place Jovica Stanisic spectacularly releases the terrified UNPROFOR soldiers (who following this experience shall never again wish to venture southward from Vienna), while the offended Greeks grumbled how Milosevic had "stolen their act" since he had wrongfully claimed credit for convincing the ill-famed general to release his prisoners. Amidst the skirmishes on high politics the 1995 summer hit is ideally compatible - Eurobasket, basketball championship of the continent which was held on June and July in Greece. The Serbs and Montenegrins "beat" their brother Greeks twice with an inhuman single shot difference and deprive them of their title and gold medal which the patriotically fired rooters had already envisaged on the necks of their boys. Athens witnesses previously unthought of anti-Serbian chants, catcalls and abuse which even drowned out the Yugoslav anthem. Divac's, Paspalj's, Djordjevic's, Danilovic's and the others' night of triumph turns into a night of celebration on the streets of Belgrade, yet also into a massive outflow of anti-Greek sentiments. Thousands of rooters arrive in front of the Greek embassy in Francuska street and maliciously chant, amongst other things, "Macedonia, Macedonia" and "Cyprus is Turkish"... Still, in Belgrade and Novi Sad a few ugly incidents occur in which Greek restaurants suffered damages and their owners injuries. On July 12 an Athens newspaper,Ta Nea, which is close to the government writes that "Athens is irritated by the indifferent attitude of the Serbian side" with regards to those incidents and concludes that "Belgrade has sacrificed its good relations with Greece at the altar of its hegemonic aspirations when it had assessed that the relation of powers allow it to".

Despite such negative overtones, the winner again proves to be what the south Serbs, culturally most radiated by the spirit of Levant, have defined as "love for love's sake, and cheese for money": on September of 1995 it was announced that Marko, the son of President Milosevic, intends to conduct business in Greece which is why, in order not to suffer from want in dubious boarding houses, he had rented a house in the luxurious part of Athens Psihiko, paying for that pleasure 12,500 German marks per month, as published in the political-economic weekly Ependitis. The rental agreement, allegedly, among other things "expressly states that four bodyguards would permanently live in the house", and Marko M. told his lawyer "that his father would use the house".

Towards the end of 1995 Slobodan Milosevic had more pressing business than to lie about in the Psihikose villa: in remote Dayton a new peace proposal for the Balkans was being pieced together, yet even that couldn't pass without "Greek connections". The pro-government weekly To Vima writes that as a "member of the Serbian delegation and personal adviser of the President of Serbia", Chris Spiru, the American of Greek descent also took part. The person in question is a former Democratic Party official from New Hampshire who had already started lobbying with Clinton in 1994 for the "truth on Milosevic and Serbia". Spiro was connected to Milosevic via Milan Milutinovic and on that evening of April 26, 1994 wrote the following entry into his diary: "A marvelous meeting with a great leader"... In Chris Spiro's interpretation, their conversations and his behind the scenes activities in the U.S. brought about an "Americanization of the peace process" as crowned by Dayton.

This is how Milosevic concluded that horrible war which, naturally, he didn't wish for and in which he didn't take part, yet the tails of the Balkan conflict were closing in on him even at the peak of his Dayton glory. In January 1996 the book Behind the Closed Door is published, written by Alexandros Tarkas, a close associate of the Greek former minister of foreign affairs Samaras, who (Tarkas) claims that Milosevic had towards the end of summer 1991 offered Athens a "coordinated policy" towards Macedonia which would include pressure of the "refugees from the northern regions". Allegedly, Milosevic had shown Samaras a map of the Balkans saying: "In the center of the Republic of Skopje, especially in the Tetovo region, around 150,000 Serbs live and not 40,000 as the census states"... "They could retreat further down in Skopje (Macedonia, author's note), all the way to your borders, at which point Serbia and Greece would be neighboring countries"! In case there is any truth in this, Milosevic shall undoubtedly go down in the history of geography as the creator of movable countries. Anyway, he had already moved one on August fourth of ninety five...

Countries may be movable, yet houses definitely aren't. Elefterotipija daily at the beginning of this year writes that Milosevic - via "third parties" naturally - "has invested primarily into real estate in posh Athens quarters Philoteia and Psihiko as well as on the Ionic islands", although no concrete proof is given, and alludes that Milosevic is preparing to flee to Greece in case the circumstances in Serbia (for him) worsen. We may once find out for sure whether word is of gossip or the truth, at least at the moment when the "circumstances in Serbia worsen"... Until then, the only sure thing is that the family Milosevic-Markovic is in love with Greece which they "deem as their second homeland". Elefteros Tipos daily colorfully describes the cruise of the "presidential couple" accompanied by their children and Milutinovic along the Aegean i.e. islands of the Saron bay in the vicinity of Athens in August 1996, on the "private vacation boat". In January of this year Eleftoritipija daily publishes "exclusive information" that Milosevic has bought the yacht Tin-Tin for 400,000 dollars which used to belong to the Marine Sport Co. Ltd., yet "his name doesn't appear on the contract of sale". The newspaper claims that the yacht was bought by the off-shore firm Marathon Marine Ltd. from the Island of Man with a branch office in Limassol, Cyprus. The former owner of the yacht refused "to confirm or deny information in connection to the sale of the boat" only saying that "as far as he knew, the buyers were some Yugoslavs".

In the sea of (mis)information which is circling around the Serbian president and his policies, diplomatic and financial activities, the only certain thing is that the regime which was headed by him has made very close, deep and almost un-extractable connections with Greece (and Cyprus) and that their decoding shall be a true challenge for a multi-disciplinary team of experts. Inquisitive digging into someone else's pocket is anyway amusement only for those people of, hmmm, specific tastes. What is easily discernible by a mere glance is that Greece has become the central node of many Serbian interests, more precisely those which were monopolized by Milosevic and which he has proclaimed to be in the interest of the people and the government. It is natural that Serbia is maintaining good relations with this important Balkan country, but not at its own expense, nor at the expense of third parties, nor for the profit of those who comfortably rule in the "government, that is me" style.