Just plain bizarre military news

What's good is that Serbia has introduced the option for conscientous objectors to fulfill their military service obligation with a civil service alternative. What is bad is that the decision as to whether conscientious objectors fulfill the conditions for an exception from armed service is left to a local commission, which is guided by no law regulating what those conditions are.


The violent Mr Djokić, photo courtesy of Glas javnosti.

So the application of Dragoslav Djokić of Niš was rejected because of his police record, which the Defence ministry determined to contain "an offence with elements of violence." What terrible thing did Mr Djokić do? Apparently one night in 2002, he walked his dog without a muzzle, for which he received a ticket and a penalty of 400 dinars for "improperly equipping his dog."

Any comparison with retired high-ranking officers charged with gross violations of international humanitarian law who recive full pensions and the concerned attention of prime ministers and Patriarchs is, of course, wholly inappropriate.

Congratulations to Histologion, Pestiside and Carniola!

The voting has ended for the Satin Pajama awards for best European weblogs over at A Fistful of Euros. Although East Ethnia was not declared the best weblog, it was not declared the worst either. The winner in the category of Best European Weblog is The Glory of Carniola, and the category of Best Southeast European Weblog was won by Histologion. The best New Weblog is Pestiside. Every one of them worth a frequent visit!

On the importance of institutions

The second part of the interview that Brankica Stanković did with former Đinđić advisor Vladimir Popović has been broadcast on B92, and it is no less controversial than the first half (from which I gave some quotations in an earlier post). In this one he accuses active politicians, especially prime minister Vojislav Koštunica and his party DSS, of involvement in the conspiracy to murder Mr Đinđić. Other politicians are not spared, nor is the Serbian Orthodox Church. It is not surprising that there should be furious responses.

Nor is it surprising that one of the most furious is the press release from DSS. They call Mr Popović a "false witness," and accuse him of "pathological hatred" toward them. Then they indulge in a little rhetorical fancy:

"Aside from the judicial organs which have the obligation to verify the public accusations Popović makes, we consider that there exist in this society specialised institutions which could perhaps, on the basis of what we have seen, give some help to Vladimir Popović."

Let's say it is a given that DSS is angry, justifiably angry if Mr Popović's charges are not true. All the same, considering that earlier this week their justice minister threatened that he could produce criminal charges at will, it might be that threatening to put politically inconvenient individuals in mental institutions will not really help them with their growing reputation for abuse of power.

Patriarchy in action

Vladimir Lazarević has decided to go and face trial, and although it has taken him since October 2003 to do it -- a luxury afforded to the rare indictee in the world -- he is receiving warm words of congratulation. There is probably nothing wrong with a verbal pat on the back for fulfilling basic obligations, if it makes the indictee feel better. One of my favorite quotations from Harry Truman is the one in which he describes the president as:

"...a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering,
kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway."

But Patriarch Pavle of the Serbian Orthodox Church has gone a bit further. He says that Lazarević is going to "represent the interests of the people and defend the truth." What interest does the Patriarch have in mind?

Call for submissions: Carnival of the Balkans #1

The first edition of Carnival of the Balkans will be coming on 7 February. The Carnival's purpose is to showcase good writing from around the web about the Balkans. The theme for the February 2005 edition is:

BALKAN MUSIC AND ARTS

Submissions should be in the form of blog or forum posts from anywhere on the internet, published at any time. Please send your favorite posts (your own or another person's) on the topic to Eric Gordy [eastethnia at gmail dot com] by Friday, 4 February. Posts may be in any language, but if they are in a language I do not know I will ask someone else for help.

What constitutes a post about "Balkan music and arts"? The fact that the person who submits it thinks it ought to be considered in that category.

Let the submissions arrive!

Update: You may ask, What is a blog carnival? This might help. Keep the submissions coming!

Where the bridges lead

When I first read about the initiative to link the Mostar and Zagreb universities by an internet video connection at OneWorld, I put a celebratory post here. Ero Hercegovina also pointed to it with pride. My enthusiasm comes from two sources. First, I am a committed lover of connections between universities, and particularly international connections. The reasons for this are probably too obvious to mention. Second, one of the best things about the internet is that it makes it possible for the information that people have available to depend less on their geographic location or institutional affiliation. In the original news article from Pincom there was mention of plans for the Zagrepčani to make their databases available to the Mostarci.

What I did not take into account was the exclusive nature of the Zagreb-Mostar link and the ugly prehistory of Mostar's bureaucratic inclusion in the Croatian university network. As AR (who is a globally recognised authority on cultural history and its destruction in the region) wrote in the comments to the original post:

"...the links between the "Sveuciliste u Mostaru" and Zagreb actually go back a dozen years -- to 1993, to be precise, when Croat nationalist militants took control of the facilities of Mostar's long-established Univerzitet "Dzemal Bijedic" on the west bank of the Neretva, kicked out the non-Croat faculty members, students and staff, and renamed the cleansed institution "Hrvatsko Sveuciliste u Mostaru." The "Hrvatsko" has since been dropped from the official name, but the institution continues to be basically mono-ethnic and continues to function as if it were an institution in Croatia, rather than in Bosnia. "

Ludost also pointed out reasons to be suspicious on her site, asking (my translation):

"Wouldn't it be logical for the first link of that sort in Bosnia and Hercegovina to be between the universities in Mostar and Sarajevo or Banja Luka? Or maybe a series of joint lectures, if a video link were to be too expensive? But excuse me for being naive, for something like that there would have to exist a linguistic-educational consensus, not to mention a political consensus, right? In fact, a stable integrative state would have to exist, woudn't it?"

A commentator provided additional suspicion, saying "Now let's see whether the Croatian government is so generous toward the University and other cultural institutions in Croatia itself. I'd say not."

What the critiques cluster around is pointing out that the value of connecting institutions with one another is eclipsed by the obvious ill intentions of the agencies doing the connecting: it is subordinated to a project of "national unification" across borders, and it may well be designed so that one connection preempts another. Nobody was persuaded by my defense (which I posted in a discussion on Ludost's site) that "good things can come from bad intentions ... if the HDZ-ovci on both sides of the border established a way of connecting universities, probably other people can use it for other ends."

Ludost responded with a subtle satire in which the Croatian government sponsored a video link between classrooms in the segregated town of Stolac. And she wrote to me:

"In my opinion, the connecting of Mostar and Zagreb universities is not a positive step and cannot bring anything positive while so many other institutional mechanisms in Bosnia remain disconnected. in Bosnia we are witnessing a terrible death of all state institutions -- perhaps you are familiar with the current drama of Zemaljski muzej and six other institutions -- that are not ethnically devised. On that death of non-ethnic institutions, the ethnically and nationalistically set up institutions thrive, such as the Mostar university. this is a process of slow death of all Bosnian non-ethnic functions that's been going on since the end of the war, and with the blessing of the Dayton agreement. In that slow death of Bosnia, in that creeping ethnic tumor through all institutions and social mechanisms, I see this link between Mostar and Zagreb like yet another metastasis."

I can confirm a lot of this from casual observation. On my first postwar trip to Sarajevo, if I had looked more closely at my bus ticket I would have seen "S. Sarajevo" written on it, and known that I was being taken to a remote bus station in Lukavica, miles from any city. In Konjic, I had the pleasure of renting a room from a woman whose architect husband was held during the war in a camp that he had designed himself (as a factory): he has left his native town for Croatia permanently, and she can hardly wait to retire and join him. Last summer on our little vacation excursion from Makarska to Ston (oysters! they're silent and have no ideology!), there was no indication anywhere in Neum that would indicate to a casual observer that they were not in Croatia.

At the ground level, the potential of the inter-university link fades, because its purpose is to demolish other links.

One more general, maybe?

Monday's Danas reports that ICTY indictee Nebojša Pavković (who had previously declared that he would not be going to the Hague alive) may be preparing to join his former subordinate Vladimir Lazarević at the Hague. They quote his lawyer Ljubiša Živadinović to the effect that he is preparing a defense.

Should the Lazarević surrender come through and Pavković go to face the charges against him, that would leave Sreten Lukić, who many speculated would be the first to go voluntarily, and Vlastimir Đorđević, who is widely believed to be hiding in Russia or threreabouts, from the four generals indicted by ICTY in October 2003.

New! Balkan blog carnival!

This is an idea that was inspired by the awards competition over at A Fistful of Euros (Plug: Feel free to go and vote for East Ethnia if you want to). Basically several people thought that there are enough Balkan blogs, and that there is enough variety in them, that they could be showcased independently rather than as a small subcategory of Europe. As much fun as an awards competition could be, the suggestion won out to begin a Balkan blog carnival. What is a blog carnival? See Science and Politics for a presentation of several of them.

In short: a page has been set up for the Carnival of the Balkans. The first edition will be on 7 February, on the topic of Balkan arts and music. If you want to be an editor of the carnival, send me a note at eastethnia at gmail dot com, and if you want to submit a post for the carnival (yours or someone else's) write to me at the same address.

Republican sexual fantasies

By now probably everybody has read about the newest torture revelations from the illegal prison at Guantanamo. Today there are mainstream media condemnations from Maureen Dowd in the New York Times and even from token right-winger Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe. There is of course nothing new about the revelation of obscene and hidden details of political life. What makes this one different is that is that the obscene details are being played out on a large scale, using public resources, and in the name of every citizen.

None of this can be covered over with ritual condemnations or, as with the torture in Iraq, with show trials of a few low-ranking military personnel. The decision to use public institutions for the sexual humiliation of political opponents and people who are imagined to be political opponents can only be a political decision taken at the highest levels.

Who's afraid of the inquisitor wannabe?

The Serbian justice minister Zoran Stojković, whose legal reputation is built on prosecuting "political offenders" in the 1980s, has a few old tricks up his sleeve. Today he is quoted as telling a reporter that officials of the previous government are afraid of him, because they know that there are criminal complaints against them in the drawer.

So, how does he know whether people are afraid of him or not? Is this drawer that he is talking about his drawer? If there are criminal complaints, why have they not been acted upon? Or does he gather stuff to keep in his drawer to be pulled out at some opportune moment, along the way vaguely hinting at their existence but not specifying what they are?

This minister who continues to believe that the law is his private property should resign. Or be hounded out. And should certainly be prosecuted. No doubt a criminal complaint against him could be found in a drawer somewhere.

Update: Oh look, DS is going to try to recall Stojković and interior minister Dragan Jočić in the parliament.

Đinđić: The movie

A group of young people in Serbia has been distributing, by any way they can (CD, P2P servers, handing it out at sidewalks, giving it as a gift in bookstores...), a documentary assembled from various public speeches and statements of the murdered prime minister Zoran Đinđić, in the belief that his words do have a message for people who have forgotten him or never heard him when he was alive. I have just downloaded and watched it, but will hold myself back from offering an opinion until you have watched it.



You can get it in AVI or Real Player format (AVI is higher up on the "CD" page, Real Player is a bit lower) at the site of the group Kapiraj i kopiraj. The film is about 30 minutes.

New on East Ethnia: All the news I've linked so far

Have a peek to the right of the screen and downward, and you will see that I have finally done what I have been meaning to do for some time: added links to the Balkan news sources I read regularly. Now East Ethnia is your one-stop buvljak for commentary, debate, sour humor and the events of the day.

In the plan for some fine day: links to research institutes.

Academic titles we all want

The older generation of endowed professorial chairs were named in honor of inspiring individuals or in the last instance in honor of individual donors who established the chair. More recent endowed chairs have been given corporate names: I vaguely recall seeing an advertisement for a "BMW professor of German studies" at a US university. This sparked me to think what I could aspire to as a Balkan boy. The Naxi-Taxi professor of mobility? The Čokolino professor of development? The Šipad professor of stability?

But Dillard University in Louisiana is asking for applications for what may just be the best job title on the planet: the Ray Charles professor of African American material culture. Take a moment to kick yourself for having chosen a different field. Then think: my new ambition is to be the Disciplina Kičme professor of multiplicity.

Cold is cold, but this is cold

Have people seen how US vice president Dick Cheney dressed for the commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz?



Did the corrupt old cretin think he was going skiing?

Universities of all lands, linkajte se

It is now possible for students at the University of Mostar to receive lectures from the University of Zagreb through an internet video link. This opens up the possibility for many more connections throughout the region and beyond. I'm for it.

balkania <--This is the "Balkania" tag, follow the link and see how easy it is to use!

People, this is a fantastic thing!

Peter Patnaik's Honey where you been so long is offering a song a day (mp3 format) of prewar blues, as well as some surprises. He also hosts a radio program on WUAG 103.1 FM in Greensboro, North Carolina, which does indeed have a live feed. Thanks to Bifurcated Rivets for the link.

Koštunica produces a surrender

Looks like I was wrong in predicting that the news this week would be the surrender of Sreten Lukić. Turns out it's Vladimir Lazarević. We will see whether this surrender encourages others.

This is not likely to put the controversy to bed. For one thing, judge Schomburg's critique (quoted in the previous post) applies to this indictment, which is based entirely on command responsibility. It is possible to win a conviction on command responsibility, but not automatic, and the ICTY prosecutors would need to show a level of skill they do not always show. For another, the big fish remains Ratko Mladić.

Tomorrow's Danas today...

Friday's edition of Danas has an interview (translated from Der Spiegel) with ICTY judge Wolfgang Schomburg. He has criticisms of ICTY's work, complaining, for example, about "...shaky indictments. One gets the impression that first they issue an arrest warrant, and only then start the real investigation." He also has reservations about uneven sentencing, about the control of information by the prosecutors, and about the public engagement of the ICTY prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.

This is my summary, with a little translation into English of their translation from the German. The Danas article can be found at their web site (click "Dijalog" on the menu). Or if you read German (sorry to say that I do not), you can find the entire interview in Spiegel.

Football and politics

Serbian finance minister Mladjan Dinkić has a sports metaphor for the state of relations between Serbia and the EU:

"Right now, we have a clear penalty shot and there is no goalie. All we have to do is decide whether we will kick it into the goal or off the field. I think that anyone who is reasonable would choose to score the goal and to keep playing in the EU tournament, and not to switch to some tenth-class Balkan league."



Here's a photo of Roberto Baggio. Although maybe Mr Dinkić was thinking of a great old film.

The export market for democracy

Down Histologion way, Talos has a great quotation from Eric Hobsbawm about the difficulties associated with "exporting democracy," as so many people like to call it. The core of Professor Hobsbawm's critique seems to be that powerful states do not take major decisions in a democratic manner themselves, plus that what is sent abroad as democracy is often just attractive packaging for states advancing their self-interest in the context of power politics.

The war in Iraq could be used as an example, although it would be easy to challenge the notion that that the US or UK derives any benefit from that fiasco. Outside of a few small groups which have derived financial benefit -- but that is not just conspiracy theory, it is the problem with contemporary democracy generally. Look at surveys in any democratic state, or the Eurobarometer, and you will find high levels of discomfort in established democratic states. Most of it is derived from alienation from institutions, which are seen as dominated by powerful interests and nonrepresentative.

In the EU candidate countries or the countries that would like to be candidates, the problem is magnified by weak credibility of the new elites, and also by the feeling that "democracy" is being imposed as a set of demands from above. Europeans and Americans might be surprised that not everyone is so sure that their empire is necessarily more attractive than the Soviet one. What keeps the "transition" process going is that there is also very little nostalgia for the old authoritarianism or aspiration toward a new one in most places. This is a precarious foundation, and marginality, poverty and unemployment whack their hammers at it every day.

balkania

Academic reality show

When I read this fine satire piece on the site of Bitch, Ph.D., I laughed heartily. You might, too.

Out of the mouth of Beba

None of the people who said that they were going to sue Vladimir Popović-Beba have done it yet. Yesterday I offered a translation of some bits of his very provocative interview. On the other hand, it looks as though prosecutors are starting to look into his charge that Milorad Vučelić embezzled "donations" to State Security. It is not clear whether anything will happen with his claim that he has video of Radical party deputies accepting envelopes with bribes from a Socialist party official on the floor of the Parliament.

Today's Vreme has a cartoon by Predrag Koraksić that nicely summarizes the situation. The nickname "Beba" translates to, of course, "Baby."



balkania

The courage of their convictions (and acquittals)

The uproar over television host Petar Vlahov interviewing widow and has-been krimobarbie Ceca Ražnatović has already been nicely reported by Drax. Now it seems that Nova TV is responding to public pressure from people who love her songs but hate her web of associations and cancelling the broadcast of the interview.



Because, you know, if a heavily made up singer who is associated with fascists can be shown on television, the next thing you know you could have figures from the far right all over the public sphere. Wouldn't want that, right.

balkania

Housekeeping: The list continues to grow

Time for that periodic post to draw attention to the new links that have been added. If you look to your right, you will see that the Balkan link list is growing, and these are all good ones, I think:

Balkan-scissors: News, comments and lovely historical photos from Seesaw
Chapati mystery: Where the empire is resisted
Džabalebaroš: Good things from Belgrade, and sav taj rokenrol
Kakanien: Mostly Balkan-related academic news
Kushtrim Xhakli: The secret connections between Sweden and Kosovo
Novalas: Soda with your Citroen?
Sylvie la dilettante: Direct from Bruxelles, to places further east

As always, please let me know if I have forgotten yours or have neglected to find out about something good.

Edo Maajka's North American tour

According to his official biography, Edin Osmić "embodies the good spirit of the Bosnian people and the area he comes from."



Now the North American audience can experience the good local qualities that made Edo Maajka Iskon's "person of the year" at the following clubs:

11 February: Toronto, The Opera House (735 Queen Street East)
12 February: Atlanta (CBS Ctr Platinum Room, 4001 Presidential Parkway)
18 February: Detroit (no location announced)
19 February: St Louis (Europe Nightclub, 1521 Washington Avenue)
20 February: New York (Club Casino, 26-44 Borough Place, Woodside-Astoria)

Unfortunately, it looks like he will not be coming to Boston. If he is not coming to your town either, at least you can enjoy the video for "No Sikiriki" (.ram file, requires Real Player), not only sort of hippie-dreamy, but also the only rap tune of which I am aware that contains a mention of burek.

balkania <--This is the "Balkania" tag, follow the link and see how easy it is to use!

Proven by science!

I don't know whether you think that waiters and bank clerks are politer in some regions of the world than others. But now data are available on how polite they are in Croatia, writes Ljiljana Hlača in Glas Slavonije. The "Heraklee" agency sent "mystery shoppers" (apparently this is a term of art) in October and November of last year to banks, shops and restaurants around Croatia, and found:

13% of bank clerks did not "politely greet" their customers, and only 7% gave "clear and understandable" answers to questions.

In 17.5% of shops, prices were not "properly displayed," but 64.2% of shop clerks greeted their customers, while only 39% did not thank customers for purchases.

71.87% of waiters offered their customers additional drinks, but only 41.94% offered dessert.

Did I say science? I meant "information-gathering."

Update: Just to note that I have generally found that things like restaurant service in all of the countries of the region are far better than here in the US. When I told this to my dear wife, she said "yeah, but that's not saying much."

Will there be news this evening?

Serbian deputy premier Miroljub Labus is promising that it will be known by this evening what will happen with the four generals who have been charged by ICTY and whom the governments expects to "voluntarily surrender." However, nobody else seems to have the same information or to be willing to corroborate his statement. His discussion with journalists included this exchange:

Labus: The courts should act on [the issue of ICTY indictments].
B92: The court sent a warrant to the police.
Labus: Then the police has to carry out that warrant.
B92: But the minister of police says they will not.
Labus: That is now the question, do we have a state or do we not. That is what our discussion is about. The catalyst is the question of cooperation with the Hague tribunal, but the theme is whether we respect our own laws and whether our institutions exist as state institutions. That is a much more serious question than whether some general will give himself up or not.

The question remains open as to whether Labus's party G17+, which favors sending indictees to ICTY, would leave the governing coalition if its immobility were to continue. It is a high risk calculation for Labus, who is probably aware that if elections were to be called, his party could probably not hope to do as well as it did the last time around.

Update: It's evening, and looks like no news. Probably the "surprise" will be the surrender of Sreten Lukić sometime in the next week.

Balkania

Corruption: Let the charges fly!

A bitter and public back and forth of accusations has been set off by a rare interview which the late Zoran Đinđić's confidant Vladimir Popović-Beba granted to Brankica Stanković for Radio B92's program "Insajder." Beba Popović is widely regarded, rightly or not, as having been a grey eminence of the Đinđić government, and hardly ever speaks to the press. In this interview he comes out with some revelations that, if true, are bound to spark controversy.

Mr Popović describes the contacts between Mr Đinđić, former interior minister Dušan Mihajlović, and criminals from the Unit for Special Operations (JSO or "red berets") and the Surčin criminal clan, the difficulty that police had in controlling well-connected criminal groups, and the difficulty that the government had in controlling the police. I will offer a few longish quotations--the conversation was informal, so please excuse the heavy use of ellipses and brackets (also the translation is a little free, check the original before quoting it):

"The key events around 5 October [2000, the day the Milošević regime fell] were a secret meeting of all the leaders of DOS [the Democratic Opposition of Serbia], and a meeting between [then incoming federal president Vojislav] Koštunica, [Slobodan] Milošević, [Russian foreign minister Igor] Ivanov, [head of military general staff Nebojša] Pavković, and now we hear that [head of military security] Aca Tomić and a journalist from the Beta agency were also present. [...] I don't know when the text of that discussion with Milošević from 6 October will be released, but I know that Nebojša Pavković secretly organized the taping of that meeting. [...] There was a fight between Koštunica and Slobodan Milošević. Milošević charged that he had formed Koštunica's party and helped him, which Koštunica denied, but [Milošević] insisted that he gave him publicity, that he allowed the people who financed him to get some contracts which made it possible for his party to receive money, that he allowed him to become popular by giving him access to state television. Koštunica assented at one point, and Ivanov managed to insist to Koštunica that he owed Milošević after all."

[....]

"I think it is not fair to mention only [director of State Security] Radomir Marković when talking about politicians who were protected after 5 October. Maybe he was justifiably a symbol of the most repressive side of the rule of Slobodan Milošević, but Koštunica and the people around him did not only protect Marković. If we want to be truthful about it, then we have to say that after 5 October Koštunica protected all of Milošević's apparatus, that means the army, Milošević's media, Milošević's institutions, the members of Milošević's family, and everything else. Koštunica protected them all."

[....]

"What none of us knew was that after 5 October there there would be a property fight between State Security, Milošević's politicians and Milošević's tycoons who had for ten years under the mantle of war and patriotism been doing business over the territory of the former Yugoslavia. I mean, we all knew that more or less, but we did not think that relations were the way they were.

"We fell into that and did not know and we needed a lot of time to figure out what was going on. It became clearer to us about a month after Zoran [Đinđić] became prime minister, when Jovica [Stanišić, former head of State Security] at one of our meetings told Zoran, I was present, that Zoran should do something about getting money from [former Milošević confidant] Milorad Vučelić, who had stolen some 40 million marks from State Security. He took out a folded piece of paper from his wallet, it was there with the photos of his kids, and on it were written the numbers of ten bank accounts and the exact amount of how much money was where and he said that that was the money that State Security had got from various business operations and from the donations they had got from individuals who in the war years had given them money to buy equipment, helicopters, and so forth. And Vučelić was some kind of connection between State Security and those people, he was supposed to take half and give the rest, but in the end he took it all and did not give any."

[....]

"If you ask me whether [the organized crime figure from Surčin] Ljubiša Buha had some connections by which he got contracts [for paving highways], I will tell you -- yes, he had a connection, but that connection was not anybody from the government but [Milošević confidant] Milutin Mrkonjić, who worked in his firm for a year. A person who for five or however many years was involved with paving jobs in Serbia. Who did Zoran Đinđić know in the paving business in Serbia? Or any of us from the leadership of DOS? Nobody, and still the story goes around that Zoran said to him, okay, that capital you got from crime, fine, I have no problem with that capital, as long as you stop doing crime I will give you the permits to invest that capital in legal businesses. Now, why would he ask the prime minister? Who asked anybody anything, do you think that Ljubiša Buha is the only person who made millions on the black market under Miloševic? From crime, smuggling, kidnapping, whatever. Look at [the luxurious Belgrade neighborhood] Dedinje, in Dedinje there are 500 houses, every one worth 4-5 million euros. How many people do you know about who got there with dubious capital? The Karićes and who else? You don't know about any others. Well, whose are those 400 houses? Who are those people? Are those people who had 5000 euros or marks as a monthly salary under Milošević and earned it? No, those are people who made that money in a suspicious way. Nobody talks about them, and none of them needed permission from Zoran Đinđić to buy into anything."

The story has its incredible moments, and there are times when it is hard to be credulous about Mr Popović's professed naivete. At one point even the reporter tells him, "now you are really talking like you are from Sweden or something." It is also clear that Mr Popović has reason both to argue against the portrayal of himself and Mr Đinđić as being close to criminals, and also to discredit Mr Koštunica.

But the detective-novel elements should not be dismissed out of hand. Less likely stories have proven to be true. Judging from the initial reactions (also in Blic) of people named in the interview, there are a lot of heated denials but no formal charges of slander.

Balkania

Patriotism in action

This morning I already shared news of one youth political organization's action to pressure the Serbian government into action on the Hague question. Now there is another. The youth organization of the Civic Alliance of Serbia (GSS) showed the indictees how to give themselves up voluntarily, knocking on the door of the Government offices with passports and suitcases in hand. Spokesperson Jovana Tavčar explained, "we demand that the government arrest the indictees and begin to deal with the country's other problems."

GSS has redesigned their web presentation, and the party's former president Goran Svilanović, also the former foreign minister, gave an interesting and revealing interview to Ivana Stevanović of B92.

Balkania

Multiple intelligence shell game

Fascination has been developing about The Washington Post's report on Sunday that US Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld had established secret intelligence units ("strategic support teams") independent of the CIA, charged with carrying out clandestine operations. After denying the story, the Defense Department confirmed the existence of these units today.

What seems to be at stake here is not that new things are being done, but that they are being done by a different agency. There are probably two main reasons for the Defense department to want to take over this type of job from the CIA: first to avoid oversight, and second because Bush administration officials have been unhappy with the CIA failing to tell them the things they want to hear.

Another motivation seems to be for the Defense department to exercise greater control over "human intelligence," which would include interrogations. Considering the growing evidence about the way Defense has been conducting interrogations at such places as Iraq and Guantánamo, the desire to avoid oversight is understandable. Destructive and doomed to failure, but understandable.

Update: Thanks to TK for this interesting detail. Tom Gjelten of National Public Radio reports that "This has not been reported, but already these special teams have been on assignment in Bosnia working closely with the CIA and with special operations forces. In Bosnia, the mission has been to go after Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the two Serb leaders who have been at large for such a long time. And this is one of the countries where these teams are already operating." The audio of the report is available from NPR.

Current Affairs

Who's who on the far right

Over at Osservatorio sui Balcani, Danijela Nenadić has a useful overview of extreme right groups in Serbia, who their main actors are, and what they are up to. It's worth a peek. Članak je na talijanskom.

Balkania

Wakeup call

Today's Danas leads with a photo of the action "Waking up from the nightmare" by the Democratic Party (DS) youth organization. They delivered alarm clocks to prime minister Koštunica and charged him with "setting a record in returning Serbia to darkness."



Konstantin Samofalov, president of the Belgrade DS youth group, says that they brought Mr Koštunica alarm clocks to help him wake up, transistor radios to hear the news, and (toy) mobile telelphones to communicate with the people. I think that the sign the fellow with the hat is holding reads "Ko to tamo zeva?" ["Who's that yawning there?"], a reference to Slobodan Šijan's much-loved 1980 film about petty competition between people oblivious to their fate.

Balkania

Back from the blue mountains

Just a quick post to let everyone know that the blizzard has ended, and we have come back from our lovely stay in the very cold Berkshire mountains, where the local populace was duly fascinated with the Balkan cabbage-centered creations. Posting to resume once I get the daughter, delighted by school being cancelled two days in a row due to snow, to bed. This might be a while, as nobody has to wake up early and her father is inspired for a long bedtime story.



Photo by David Ryan, Boston Globe.

Turns out there are a lot of good weblogs!

You can vote for your favorites over at the site of A Fistful of Euros, which is hosting the First European Weblog Awards. Should you feel inclined, this site is nominated in a couple of categories, but there are also tons of other favorites. In fact it was through the first call for nominations that I found some of my favorites.

Introducing the "Balkania" tag

The Technorati service has introduced a neat little feature that might make it possible to follow new posts on a subject on any weblog. The feature is described on the Technorati tags page. This looks like a pretty decent way, with a small bit of human memory and the finger effort involved in cutting and pasting, to see what people are saying on a particular day.

I have opened the "Balkania" tag as a way of marking and getting listed posts related to, broadly speaking, the Balkans. There is probably no need for a debate over what Balkans are, let the definition develop through usage of the tag. For now, if you go to the "Balkania" page, you will only find listings for this site. But there are are also astonishingly simple instructions for getting your own posts listed under this category if you want.

Have a look and see whether it interests you.

Balkania

Our delay will continue for another day

But the snowy landscape is very lovely indeed! Not so great for travel, however. Good thing that even this side of the Appalaichian Trail has wi-fi.



Photo courtesy of Glas javnosti, which also provides a very amusing accompanying article.

Balkania

Those who deny cabbage to others deserve it not for themselves

There will probably not be new posts here over the weekend, because we are on a mission. Our Belgrade friend from the halcyon days of gradskool is off teaching at a very fine college very far from the nearest object. She dreaded the prospect of the bucolic life, but I think that over the years she has come to enjoy it, and her children are especially delighted. But being so far from the Balkans has a major drawback: no regular supply of kiseli kupus. This has never been easy for us in this large but kupus-deficient country either. In California we used to be supplied by our friend's mother who made it in the basement. Our rural friend used to get shipments from Vancouver.

But we have found a source: the Euro Market in Lynn, out past the airport, features a variety of Balkan specialties, including kiseli kupus from Travnik, courteously vacuum packed by Poljorad-Travnik! They used to have a Macedonian version in jars, somewhat thinner and more suited to sarme, but heaven knows we are willing to trim some stems in pursuit of perfection. Our mission: to deliver three heads of it to our friend, roll them up, and enlighten the countryside.

Too bad they are predicting a huge blizzard, but we are driven by a higher purpose. Back to you Monday.

Update: Thanks to AR, what we will not be drinking with our sarmice:

ZAGREB, Jan 21 (dpa) -- A wine in Croatia has been named after fugitive Croatian Ante Gotovina, whom the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has charged with war crimes. The daily Jutarnji list reported Friday that a wine called "Gotovina" was presented in his hometown of Zadar earlier this week. Former general Gotovina has been in hiding since the ICTY indicted him for war crimes related to the deaths of 150 Serbs during the Balkans war in 1995.

Graševina could be nice, though. Okay, now we really have to get going.

Balkania

The glamor of Pirot

With apologies to The Glory of Carniola for the near-identity theft in the title, I offer you, courtesy of my Ohioan friend, a story of near-identity theft. It goes like this: a confidence artist by the name of Goran Marković looks, I guess, a lot like the actor Bruce Willis. He was able for a time to take advantage of the resemblance to get a lot of unpaid privileges for himself, deflect the attention of authorities, you name it. He even got himself a set of forged documents in the name of Bruce Willis, but there he made a crucial mistake: according to news.com.au, he "he linked the name Bruce with Australia's invasion of Hollywood," and got himself a fake Australian passport in the actor's name instead of a fake American one. So when the police in Pirot pulled him over and he gave them the Hollywood treatment, they:

"...immediately arrested him when they saw the passport was Australian. A further check revealed the car he was driving was stolen and an ensuing investigation linked him to other car thefts. 'When we pointed out the mistake he had to admit he wasn't the real thing,' a police spokesman said. 'He said he thought that Willis, like Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson and Nicole Kidman, was Australian. He did look like him, but it was the Australian accent that gave it away'."

It seems that there is a message for crooks here, that they need to keep up to date on their show business trivia.

Balkania

This week's commentary by Svetlana Lukić

Svetlana Lukić is not sparing any rhetorical ammunition. In this week's commentary she turns her attention to the Serbian government, which has brought negotiations with the EU to a standstill because of its equivocal approach to the question of treatment of accused war criminals. She turns up the heat on Mr Koštunica:

"There is no longer any point in mentioning the prime minister, unless somebody initiates a disciplinary hearing or a criminal complaint against him. That man should be fired, since he has been absent from his job for months, and should be made to answer criminal charges, because his government is violating the law of the country in the most heavyhanded way, beginning with the fact that it cooperates with people who have been charged with crimes and protects them from the law. In a word, Koštunica should be fired, and the same day he should be brought in for interrogation and held. Let history judge him for treason."

Well, now! Her editorial has sparked a debate in the readers' comments section, where responses range from "Bravo!" to charges that Ms Lukić wants to establish a dictatorship and has the "typical profile of an ideological journalist born for a single-party system." One thing that the heated exchange shows is that in the wake of the decision by the US and the EU to make the point that continued inaction on war crimes has a price, political discourse is not remaining untouched.

A word of caution is due: the comments section of B92 is not a representative sample of the Serbian population, so a wider range of responses will probably not be available to people who follow events virtually until Saturday or Sunday. And I'll be away for the weekend, so you're on your own.

Balkania

Hit of the day (policy wonk category)

For those of you looking for a stimulating and short read, have a gander at the essay by David Held on globalisation. Ostensibly a response to Martin Wolf's book Why Globalisation Works, Professor Held's essay gives a brief balance sheet on the question and advocates a turn to social democracy. Thanks to Arts and Letters Daily for the heads-up.

The mystery of the Croatian blogs

I don't know what is up with the host at blog.hr, but you may have noticed that their blogs have been unreachable since yesterday. Ludost is offering temporary refuge for posts, so you may be able to find the new work of your favorite writers at this spot.

Update: Saturday evening: they're back!

Balkania

Update from Vranjske on the Mačkatica case

The local Vranjske novine is running an article that provides a little more detail on the story that first emerged in an article by Nataša Kandić in the 24 December issue of Danas, where she gave details of the burning of corpses from Kosovo in the "Mačkatica" factory in Surdulica. In the article, Ms Kandić charged that:

"...the burning of corpses in the Mačkatica factory took place in two phases, on the 16th and 24th of May 1999, after midnight, with security provided by the Red Berets, who at the time had a base in the village Bele near Vranje. Milorad Luković Legija, who was then the commander of the Red Berets, according to our information personally accompanied one delivery of corpses and was present during the burning. The bodies were burned in incinerators 4 and 5. The deliveries of the corpses and their burning were carried out by Zoran Stošić, who was then head of State Security for the district of Pčinj, Bratislav Milenković, the head of the Security Intelligence agency (BIA) for Vladičin Han and Surdulica, Dragan Stanković, head of the local police in Surdulica from 1993, Miroslav Antić, head of the BIA in Vranje, Dragan Lakićević, the director of the Mačkatica factory, and his assistant, Aca Đorđević."

Perhaps the charge that received the most attention was that the project of destroying evidence of crimes against humanity was coordinated by Dragomir Tomić, president of the "Simpo" furniture factory and minister for all purposes during the Milošević period. Mr Tomić immediately responded with a statement denying all charges: "Dragomir Tomić was never acquainted with with any facts connected to the events mentioned or any similar ones, if they happened, nor did he ever have any information about them." Dragan Lakićević issued a similar denial.

Official responses have been slow. The special prosecutor for war crimes, Vladimir Vukčević, has promised an investigation, while justice minister Zoran Stojković gave only evasive responses.

Ms Kandić notes that the public has been more responsive than institutions have on the matter: "I would say that in comparison to institutions, the public is less silent. It seems to me that there is a part of the public that is shocked, which considers that this is just one of the horrific things that testifies to the dark pogrom that the former regime carried out here. With regard to the institutions, there are still people there who want to cover it all up, who want the past not to be mentioned, that there should only be mention of Serbian victims, and that crimes, burnings and the destruction of evidence of crimes against others should never be mentioned. I would say that there is a serious blockade which makes it difficult to gather information, and that it is difficult to encourage ordinary people to speak about it, because they are still under threat, because they are afraid and they see that the same people who were in power then are still in power now."

One indication might be suggested by the statement of district prosecutor Milan Božinović on the investigation that his office carried out: "We requested a detailed report from State Security and from Public Security, and we got a report that said that in our area there was neither evidence nor any trace of graves or of any possible burning. After we got two such reports, completely independent of one another, there was no longer any basis to develop an indictment, and the information was given to the state prosecutor."

Vranjske novine's reporter Saša Stojković observes one detail that may be telling: "It is suggestive for the whole story that so far nobody has taken any action against Ms Kandić herself. Because if she were lying, the machinery of the 'patriotic judiciary' would have to come into action and move against her. There has been no such reaction, and Nataša Kandić herself does not expect any charges to be filed against her, 'for the simple reason that I am speaking the truth'."

Time will tell whether the special prosecutor for war crimes files charges. There are similar potential cases, of which the best known is the recovery of a freezer truck with corpses from the Danube river near Tekija.

Balkania

What price security?

I had kind of promised myself I would not have posts related to the presidential inauguration, but...

Americablog found this photo accompanying an Washington Post article on the challenges that the Marriott hotel chain has in providing comfort and security for all of the guests who are coming to Washington for the event. Susan Biddle's photo shows US Secret Service officer Richard Burfield and an unidentified companion checking the buffet.



I honestly did not know this was how such things were checked.

Revenge of the mad doctor

Not only the fear that somebody might ask me for emergency medical assistance, but also the appearance of all those titled zlikovci in politics (not to mention evangelicals!), have pretty much dissuaded me from using the title "Dr" for any but official purposes. But this does not prevent me from taking a voyeuristic interest in the description, now up to eight installments in Nezavisne novine, of Dr Karadžić by Dr Plavšić. She has a reason to characterise her own role as minimal, since her defence at ICTY relied on arguing that she never had any proper authority. But the bits here are really pretty fascinating: Dr K never informed Dr P about meetings; Dr K falsified minutes of meetings, Dr K has been sending incriminating forged transcripts to ICTY from his place in hiding. But apparently Dr P got to exercise some authority over Arkan, who was not even a doctor. Nurse your desire for further installments, the paper is publishing a new excerpt every day.

Update: An article by BBC gives a few quotations in English translation, s'il vous plait. There's a little bit more in Reuters.

Update2: Thanks to AR for the tip. In today's Danas there is an article on the presentation of the book in Banja Luka (go to the "Hronika" page). The first interesting detail is that the manuscript was brought out of Sweden by Milorad Dodik. But there is also a long quotation from the book about Karadžić's adoration of Milošević. As I am reading more from the book, though, it becomes increasingly clear why she is trying to put everything on Karadžić and present herself as, what her defence lawyer once called her, an "ikebana."

Balkania

A protest idea I am not certain about

Actually I am not certain whether this is a protest or something else. But it seems that since the war in Iraq began, in the German city of Bayreuth, somebody has been has been decorating the doggie droppings ("puppy poop," in the report by Deutsche Welle) that visitors leave with little American flags. I imagine the sort that get stuck into the top of ice cream concoctions, but I really do not want to spoil anybody's dessert. Parks administrator Josef Öttl is also not sure, and guesses "Maybe someone is protesting the war in Iraq or just trying to let people know that there are too many dog droppings in the park." A police spokesperson points out that placing flags in puppy poop is not a criminal offence.

If indeed the gesture is meant as a protest, its effectiveness is probably open to question. Another question remains: are war supporters less likely to clean up after their dogs?

Serbian tradition

The new issue of Vreme has an interview with the historian Branka Prpa, director of the Belgrade Historical Archive and chief editor of a new book, Hronologija: Moderna srpska država 1804–2004 [Chronology of the modern Serbian state, 1804-2004]. Dr Prpa argues that from the 19th century onward, there is a strong modernising current that runs through Serbian history, and that this can be regarded as among the most distinguished traditions of the country. In doing so she argues against those critics on the political right who use "tradition" as an argument for undoing modernising reforms. A quote:

"Those people who call so much on tradition ought to know that aside from the Cyrillic alphabet, there is something else that can be called a Serbian tradition, except they are not familiar with it, and that is shameful for any traditionalist who claims to respect their own tradition. They should first familiarise themselves with their tradition, rather than before that, on the basis of their own ignorance, coming out with positions and decisions by which they define the idea of tradition."

One popular definition of tradition is that it is that set of practices that people engage in without knowing why. And imagine knowing why!

Balkania

For the record

2004 Presidential election returns in the town where I live:

Kerry (D): 21,065 79%
Bush (R): 5,202 20%
Cobb (G): 137 1%
Badnarik (L): 129 0%

So Bush has about as much support in Brookline as Mesić has in Hercegovina.

Today's recommended interview

Aleksandar Popov, director of the Center for Regionalism in Novi Sad, discussing the Igman Intiative with Veliborka Staletović at One World.

Balkania

Thank you for agreeing to be arrested

Today B92 is reporting that the Serbian government appears to be succeeding in its negotiations with ICTY indictee Sreten Lukić, and that he will agree to surrender for trial on charges laid by the Hague prosecutors.

What an interesting country, where high ranking officials go to great pains, after long political debate, to entice people charged with crimes to agree that it would be nice if they were to face trial. To clarify: the statute of the ICTY is a part of domestic law. Of course, this luxurious treatment only applies to people charged with major violations of international law. Minor offenders get arrested.

Balkania

Are twits in power for genetic reasons?

This fellow is the president of Harvard University, which is an educational and research institution, where research is carried out that sometimes makes it possible for people to know what they are talking about. Unless, of course, the people in question are blissfully unacquainted with that research. That might be why Lawrence Summers decided to tell a conference on diversity in science and engineering that the reasons for the low representation of women in the area have to do with them being unwilling to work hard enough and not being biologically disposed to understand mathematics. No transcript is available, since Dr Summers apparently decided to blither off the cuff.

According to the New York Times, Dr Summers has two explanations for his concerted campaign to demolish the prestige of the institution which employs him. One is that "I wanted to add some provocation to what I understand to be basically a social science discussion," which he certainly did, demonstrating that provocation attracts a good deal more media attention than social science.

His other other explanation is "I'm sorry for any misunderstanding but believe that raising questions, discussing multiple factors that may explain a difficult problem, and seeking to understand how they interrelate is vitally important." But there is no misunderstanding: the conference participants may well have been raising questions, discussing factors and seeking to understand, but Dr Summers was not.

Also: Do take a peek at the responses by Prof. PZ Myers, by the pseudonymous Professor B, and by Matt Yglesias.

Albanian cuisine in Boston!

I ran across this completely by chance, but it seems that there is an Albanian restaurant in Boston! We have yet to try it, but Café Apollonia offers a full Albanian menu prepared by chef Marlon Hysi. It has positive reviews by the Boston Phoenix, the Boston Globe and CitySearch. I hope to be able to report back full agreement with the reviews in the very near future.

Sad update: After assiduous persuasion my family agreed to try Apollonia tonight. It was hard to get there because there was a terrible fire at a church in Jamaica Plain along the way. Any curious readers thinking of trekking to Roslindale to try what I am sure is an excellent place may want to know that they work every day except Tuesdays. I do promise a culinary report.

Balkania

Prediction: Trouble for Koštunica, or not

If you have been following the news the past few days, you probably know that the United States is suspending economic aid to Serbia and Montenegro because of failure to apprehend and deliver indictees for the violation of international humanitarian law to the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. The main political actors opposed to stepping up cooperation, aside from SRS and SPS which are directly complicit in the crimes for which charges have been filed, are: Prime minister Vojislav Koštunica, interior minister Dragan Jočić, and justice minister Zoran Stojković, all from DSS. The opposition DS of president Boris Tadić supports accelerated cooperation, as does federal president Svetozar Marović. Other supporters of accelerated cooperation include deputy premier Miroljub Labus (G17+) and foreign minister Vuk Drašković (SPO).

B92 quotes Mr Drašković today: "Slobodan Milošević, his generals, commanders and followers are a disgrace to our history and tradition. The transfer of indictees to the Hague is our moral and national obligation. The future of the people cannot be held hostage to a handful of indictees." Even people who disagree about the "disgrace" part are probably finding more reasons to agree about the "hostage" part.

Never mind the opposition parties. If the parties which are now in the government but oppose Mr Koštunica's approach were to withdraw from the governing coalition, it would force new elections to be called, and DSS would not win. Mr Tadić has invited the parties to do just that. What remains to be seen is how serious this invitation is, and how ready the people in power are to take the risk of losing it.

Update: Time to see whether G17+ is serious about anything. Blic is reporting that G17+ vice president Dušan Petrović is inviting his own party, SPO and Nova Srbija to withdraw from the governing coalition if DSS does not come forward with a policy in ten days. "Let them decide whether they accept that Serbia return to isolation or whether they will take measures to prevent it," the paper quotes Mr Petrović as saying. Correction: Mr Petrović is a vice president of DS. Makes more sense. Nova Srbija has already declared that they have no intention of withdrawing from Mr Koštunica's coalition, while SPO declares that their preferred resolution is not that they leave the government, but that DS enter it. So clearly a lot of options are in play, and much of it seems to depend on how receptive G17+ and SPO are likely to be to coordinating their activity with their sometime opponents in DS. The worst case scenario? All the centrist parties leave, and DSS stays in power with the support of SRS. Too disgusting to conceive of, you say? They already made a similar deal with SPS, which is how Mr Koštunica was able to form a government in the first place.

Update2: Have a look at Gordana Suša's commentary in Nezavisne novine.

Update3: Tomorrow's news today -- Danas is reporting from "circles close to the Serbian government" that the government has agreed with the State Department to arrest three generals indicted by ICTY if they do not appear voluntarily by 27 January. This is not the whole enchilada, but it is at least a bean. Either the coalition parties succeeded in pressuring DSS, or the whole conflict was a media spectacle. Or the "circles" are rolling out false information.

Balkania

That periodic "housekeeping" post

Some new sites were added to the link list in the past week or so:

Canada foreign policy: Stan Markotich's analyses of world politics
Christopher Lydon: The works of America's best radio interviewer
David McCandless: Journalism and satire from the Guardian contributor
Heart of Europe: Nicholas Whyte on European politics and culture
Pastoralni kupus: Živciranje zbog glupih političara (35,89%)
Skelly Wright: Tribulations and trials of a public defender

A couple of others were removed from the list, not because I do not like them, but because now that the US elections are far behind, those sites which are primarily concerned with the Democratic party and its future are not so interesting, and probably will not be unless by some huge surprise the Democrats begin to show some signs of life. Basically the only sites that are remaining in the "US politics" section are ones that I actually read every day.

The "Balkan blogs" list continues to grow, but it remains thin in blogs from Serbia, Albania and Macedonia.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is, of course, the holiday on which Americans are supposed to remember and commemorate the contributions of Martin Luther King, Jr. The establishment of the holiday might have had the paradoxical consequence of neutralising Dr King, making him into a noncontroversial and consensual voštana figura. So it would not be a bad idea to become reacquainted with some of the things he actually had to say. His thoughts on the war in Vietnam, for example, have become timely once again.

First projections from Index

The first two exit polls show Stjepan Mesić with a commanding lead. Puls has Mesić at 70.85% and Kosor at 29.15%, while GfK has Mesić at 71% and Kosor at 25.5%. This is more variation between sources than I would need to consider either reliable. Also, the surveys were conducted only on RH territory, not BiH.

Update: Nobody wants to cast doubt on any results, of course. But B92 is reporting a result of 70.75% for Mesić, 39.15% for Kosor. Which adds to 109.9%, an incredible turnout by any measure!

Update2: GONG's first unofficial projection: Mesić 65.62%, Kosor 32.78%. The official results will have to be announced sometime in the next few hours, but this seems beyond the capacity of fraudulent results from Hercegovina to alter. Ratko Maček, campaign director for Kosor, says they would be happy with 35%.

Update3: Final result according to the Electoral commission, as reported by Index: Mesić 65.98%, Kosor 34.02%. On the territory of Croatia, Mesić won in all districts except Ličko-senjska, 47,24% to 52,76% and Šibensko-kninska, 49,70% to 50,30%. The vote was close in Splitsko-dalmatinska, 50,85% to 49,15%, but he won by large margins everywhere else in the country. The "diaspora" vote was hugely lopsided in the other direction, though, as Quod observes in the comments: 17,47% for Mesić, 82,53% for Kosor. There are clearly major differences between voters who live in Croatia and voters who do not over where the country's interest lies.

Update4: I do believe that I agree with the people who are saying that it would be good for both Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina to do away with the "diaspora vote." It came into being as a manifestation of Mr Tudjman's territorial ambitions and as a way of assuring a permanent reserve of votes for HDZ, and it is now a bastion of irresponsible influence and fraud.

Update5: It looks like Mr Mesić agrees with me, imagine that. Ordinarily he might not get far in wanting to eliminate the "diaspora vote," especially with HDZ in government, but there is the added factor that the EU wants uniform electoral laws.

Croatian presidential election

The first projections are promised any minute now by Index. In the meantime, turnout projections suggest that fewer people are voting than in the first round in Croatia, but more than in the first round in the "diaspora." Add to this the support that HDZ receives from its solid constituency among the deceased, and the results might have some surprises.

By the way, I keep citing Index, but there should also be results available from my dog's favorite television outlet, HRT.

Croatian journal of media research

Thanks to Piskarije for linking to this. Medijska istraživanja features articles on media, journalism, technology and rhetoric of media, with abstracts available for all and full text, even English translations, available for some. Their archive contains issues going back to 1995, and it is searchable.

Appalling

Thanks to Quod for bringing attention to this. According to a report today in the Guardian, the British Museum has examined the site of the ancient city of Babylon, which has been used by the US and Polish military as a depot. John Curtis of the museum's Near East department found:

"...cracks and gaps where somebody had tried to gouge out the decorated bricks forming the famous dragons of the Ishtar Gate. He saw a 2,600-year-old brick pavement crushed by military vehicles, archaeological fragments scattered across the site, and trenches driven into ancient deposits. Vast amounts of sand and earth, visibly mixed with archaeological fragments, were gouged from the site to fill thousands of sandbags and metal mesh baskets. When this practice was stopped, large quantities of sand and earth were brought in from elsewhere, contaminating the site for future generations of archaeologists."

It would be hard not to agree with the parliamentarian-archaeologist Lord Redesdale, quoted in the report -- "Outrage is hardly the word, this is just dreadful."

Low-ranking reservist convicted in torture conspiracy

Charles Graner has been convicted of five counts related to the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. T.A. Badger's AP report calls this low-ranking soldier "the reputed ringleader" of the conspiracy to violate US and international law. Is this meant to imply that ringleaders Gonzales, Rumsfeld and Bush can expect to be let off the hook?

The blog equivalent of a chain letter?

Matt Yglesias is inviting whoever is looking for another way to put off getting to work to open up their computer’s music player, hit “random shuffle,” and list the first ten songs that come up. What the heck:

David Bowie, “Somebody up there likes me”
Ana Pupedan, “Fantovski dan”
Equipe 84, “Ho in mento te”
Hayseed Dixie, “You shook me all night long”
Oružjem Protivu Otmičara, “Kasnim”
Cibo Matto, “About a girl”
Bran Van 3000, “Montreal”
Zabranjeno Pušenje, “Pišonja i Žuga”
Kirsty MacColl and Billy Bragg, “Darling, let’s have another baby”
Almamegretta and Massive Attack, “Karmacoma”

The idea may be that this is supposed to show something about the person involved. I shudder at the thought.

Weekly commentary (not mine)

It is always a treat to hear Svetlana Lukić's weekly commentary on B92. In this week's, she sums up the past year, but it is all there in the conclusion:

"Does it happen to you sometimes that you see yourself on the streets of Belgrade on 5 October, but this time as a caricature?"

I do wonder how many people will answer yes.

Coffee pot design?

Over at Left2Right, Don Herzog has a substantial commentary and response to an interview on CBN (don't tell me you haven't heard of it? the Christian Broadcasting Network?) with the faith-based literary critic Jim Nelson Black, author of Freefall of the American University. The book argues about American universities that "most are nothing but Leftist indoctrination factories, filling students' minds with politically correct and often morally repugnant mush." Apparently he goes beyond the standard bias, selection of amusing elective courses, and so on, and also promises to show "how colleges and universities have virtually eliminated study of the history of various sciences -- in order to conceal their Christian roots" and the disturbing spread of "homosexuality, cremation, and coffee pot design."

Oh, and did I mention that the faithful are offered voyeuristic conjecture about what Dr Black imagines students' sexual practices to be like? I shouldn't forget to mention that sort of thing. But let's hear a bit from the author himself, courtesy of CBN:

"What they are not teaching are the things you and I learned at college. They are not teaching freshman English nor American history, nor basic mathematics and science. They are teaching radical courses about sexuality, and benign courses on vampires and the undead. That is actually the name of one course."

"In fact, Marxism is the controlling doctrine on the university campus today. Capitalism is negative to most university professors; I would say 60 percent of them, as Marxism was 30 years ago."

"As many as 70 percent of college students are sexually active today; as many as half of those, or more, have STD's and many of them don't know it."

"Even at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, and other universities that I talk about in this book, and interviews I have done on those campuses, ‘hooking up’ is the new fad. That means having sex with anybody, any time, and you try not to know the name of the person with whom you’re having a relationship."

Dr Black must work at a very interesting university where there are not literature, history, mathematics or science courses, and where he has medical information about students that they do not have themselves! I wonder which university that is?

Of archival interest, perhaps

It looks as though that small crowd of people who draw on Balkan politicians' memoirs of the recent past are getting a new source to consider. Biljana Plavšić will soon be coming out with Svedočim, her memoir direct from the Hinseberg prison in picturesque Sweden. Portions are being published as a feuilleton in Nezavisne novine. The first two installments are online already.

I've got no assessment, since I haven't read it yet.

Desperate cry for help

My cousin is coming this weekend, and I want to make him a nice veal paprikas, with daragaluske. Any tips, tricks, recipe suggestions?

Update: I'm happy to report that the borjupaprikas was mightily enjoyed by all, in no small measure because of the very fine borju provided by John Dewar & Co. Quality Meats.

Is this a recipe?

Thanks (I guess) to Unfogged.

1. Choose a minority group
2. Add a bad idea

The result: you may get the Bush administration. Or you may get this particular meshugas.

The Templars flutter again

From the text of a leaflet distributed today in the otherwise really very pleasant city of Split, signed by "the Templars," as reported by Index:

Ask yourselves why all Serbs, Muslims, atheists, autonomists and ultraleftists so passionately support Mesić?!
Why do all of the destroyers of Croatian traditions, aided by various cults and associations of homosexuals and prostitutes support Stefan [that's a sic, but I didn't translate the connotation of the word they used for "homosexual"--EDG] and his Milka!
Are you a part of that crowd!!!?
If you are not, come out for the elections and show it!!!
Do not allow the further degradation of the Croatian freedom-loving, traditional and Catholic values!

I've never heard of this group "the Templars," but anyone can have suspicions:



Roger Moore as Simon Templar in the classic television series The Saint.

Update: Wow, Drax has some new details about this incident! It involves planes, a former high-ranking military officer, transport authorities ....

This was sent with the title, "Politika rides again"

Awww. A story of linguistic chauvinism to melt anyone’s heart. The brilliant DP sends along an article from Tuesday’s Politika featuring a young girl from Nikšić who sets off for a visit to unknown Johannesburg with a copy of Politika in her hand, certain that ”they will recognize me by Politika, because that is where I learned to care for the beauty and feel the spirit of the Serbian language.”

What brought the poor lass to the point of maintaining an inefficient long-distance paper route was the “elimination of the Serbian language” in her school (the school authorities decided to offer instruction in Montenegrin, which everybody knows is completely incomprehensible to the Serbian speakers of Nikšić). So she told her mother, "Mama, I want to go to Trebinje. There they study Serbian and speak Serbian.” She was inspired to celebrate the great educational tidings in poesy, which I permit myself the modest liberty of translating here:

I only write with Serbian letters
that Vuk gave to us all
I only inhale with a Serbian soul
It will be so as long as I am around…

(It's a bad translation, so let me give the original: „Само српска слова пишем/што Вук нам је дао свима/само српским духом дишем/биће тако док ме има...”)

Who would not be inspired? A rich guy from Johannesburg was inspired to invite the girl over to observe as the words of her verse were engraved on the wall of the Serbian school there.

To steal another paper’s promotional slogan, to može samo Politika. But do you also get the impression that there are a lot of rich guys with too much time on their hands?

Ohio on the Neretva

Novi List is reporting on charges of election fraud in the first round of the Croatian presidential election. According to the article, in two places in Hercegovina, in Čapljina and Orašje, votes were counted from people who had died and from people who did not turn up at the polls (it is likely that there were some people who fell into both categories). Although the deadline for appeals of the election results has passed, it is not too late for criminal charges of election fraud to be filed.

It looks as though it is possible that fraud in Hercegovina might have changed the results of the first round. According to the article, Stjepan Mesić came 14,005 votes short of winning in the first round. He received 4, 825 votes from Hercegovina, while Jadranka Kosor received 36, 783 votes of the 54,112 people who voted there.

Update: Two developments. The election monitoring group GONG has filed criminal complaints related to the election fraud. Jadranka Kosor was asked by Dražen Ciglenečki of Novi List how it felt to be the candidate whom dead people prefer, whereupon her bodyguard attacked the TV cameraperson who was filming the exchange. No bananas are believed to have been involved.

Update2: Drax has a pretty persuasive argument that none of this enhances the image of GONG, which failed to spot the fraud in time and which emerged with inaccurate projections of the results.

Update3: Count on Stipe Mesić to clear things up. He states, "I don't believe that dead people voted over there, but somebody certainly voted in their place."

Update4: It would be interesting for someone to run the crosstabs and see whether the inclination of a dead person to vote for HDZ correlates in any way with the historical period in which they lived.

So many great photos today!

This one is from the protest of the veterinarians of Zemun, in Danas.



I took my doggie to the vet today, so naturally I am quite sympathetic with their plight.

Mystery reader, predstavite se

Paviljon Veljković in Belgrade


The "Paviljon" restaurant in Zagreb

Language to fit your technology

It really is a challenge to find neologisms in every language to match the new terms that grow up around technologies. During our brief time in Hungary, I was interested (and mildly relieved) to find that many of the words for agricultural products and ordinary household items were the same as those used in Serbia, and that most of these were borrowed from Turkish. I was also delighted to find that the old Slavic softveraš has the Hungarian equivalent szoftveres.

But here is one that I had yet to see. In an article from B92 about Microsoft issuing a new patch for defects in its operating systems, we read, "Kompanija Microsoft je u utorak ponudila nove zakrpe..." Folksy, I like it.

Fries with that?

Thanks to Bora Ž. for this photo! I have meant for a while to post something about Professor Ante Kolega's project to preempt a McDonald's takeover of the Dalmatian tourist feeding sector by launching his version of authentic Mediterranean fast food, Srdela Snack. Personally I like Professor Kolega's idea -- a nice bit of fish with salad and white wine for only a little more than your typical fast food product. But as this photo from Kosovo suggests, the rush to globalised low cuisine might just be irresistible.



Something tells me that this particular spot might not be observing all the terms of the franchise agreement, though.

Adventures in law enforcement

It is not clear that the ban on smoking in enclosed public places has met with universal welcome in Italy. But regardless of whether you support the new regulation or not, you have to agree that the vigilante enforcement measures described in this BBC report are, ah, worthy of attention:

"A glamorous woman dressed in a white uniform and equipped with a water backpack bearing a smoke-busting logo twirls for the cameras. Then out into the street they march, a gaggle of journalists and interested onlookers following Italy's new anti-smoking Pied Piper through the bustling centre of Rome's night life.

'In here!' shouts the smokebuster, pausing outside the door. 'I can see smokers!'

They burst through into a tiny bar, which turns out to be more of a strip joint.

The semi-naked bodies gyrating on the tables do not take too kindly to being sprayed with water by the smokebuster. She retreats under chants of 'Legalise everything now! More cigarettes! More drugs!' from the bare table-dancing smokers."

Any criminologists out there who want to speculate on whether the water backpack method is likely to enhance compliance?

Adventures in reconstruction and redevelopment

According to a report by Andrew Bounds in the Financial Times, the European Agency for Reconstruction is subject to an investigation for mismanaging its programs for reconstruction in the Balkans. It seems that “a fifth of the contracts signed by the European Agency for Reconstruction in 2003 have ‘anomalies’.”

Among the principal “anomalies” are charges of bribery of an EAR employee by Siemens and Lurgi Lentjes in order to win a €49.8m contract to renew a power station in Belgrade in 2002. The article reports that “the employee, who allegedly received money and a luxury car, was suspended and then resigned. His exact whereabouts are now unknown and European parliamentarians believe he has moved to Africa.”

These sorts of stories do quite a lot to help those political forces which oppose greater cooperation with Europe, and to discourage people who want to accomplish worthwhile things in a legitimate and honest way.

After Ceca, Ceca

I will be the first to say that I expected more from the mighty BBC than an article of vague generalities and quotations from two sources. But Matt Prodger's short piece does have a couple of delicious lines from Ceca.

First, explaining her domestic popularity: "Greeks listen to Greek music. Italians listen to Italian music. And Serbs listen to me. It's to do with national identity. Britney Spears and Madonna could never be a success here like I am."

Second, waving aside any association with the things she is associated with: "I don't know what they're talking about. I don't sing songs about nationalism. I only sing about love. And besides, Milosevic has been gone for four years, and I'm still here."

Very nice. Now go listen instead to "Uslovna sloboda" by Jarboli.

Progressive witchcraft

I'm quite taken by Kathy Paur's summary of the liberal values of the Harry Potter book series, which she presents together with some other takes on childrens' literature over at BOPnews:

"Harry Potter is ostensibly a self-reliant individual taking on the worst evil-doer of all – but the Potter subplots hold significant populist lessons: Pure-blood elitists are mean people you wouldn’t want to befriend. Discrimination against lower socioeconomic classes (chiefly house-elves, goblins, centaurs, and were-wolves) is not only immoral but may have disastrous consequences (the Order of the Pheonix worries that the goblins will support Voldemort if he promises not to treat them like second-class citizens). The media (The Daily Prophet) can be bought by those in power and used to mislead and endanger the citizenry. An ineffective government (the Ministry of Magic) which isn’t committed to the well-being of the people is more than capable of ignoring real threats and punishing whistle-blowers. And free, high-quality education is wonderful fun."

There is an interesting discussion developing in the comments too. On the other side, it seems that there are people on the right willing to run with all sorts of inflated or satirical claims about the books promoting the spread of the dark arts.

The art of the bad deal

Anyone who wants to build up an art collection in a hurry may want to get in touch with the Agency for Bank Receivership and Liquidation in Serbia. B92 reports today that they are preparing an auction of 73 works of art from the collections of failed banks, whose value has been confirmed by the staff of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade. On sale on 30 January will be works by Safet Zec, Radomir Reljić, Aleksandar Cvetković, Ljubica Sokić, Jovan Bjelić, Peđa Milosavljević, Mića Popović, Olja Ivanjicki, and Milan Marinković-Cile.



I doubt very much that the above painting, "Evropa terra incognita" (Radomir Reljić, 1968) is on sale, since it is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

One damn dime for your thoughts

Most of you have probably received by now this message going around the net calling for 20 January to be observed as "Not One Damn Dime Day." The last one that I got bore the (electronic) signature of the venerable TV journalist Bill Moyers, though I doubt very much that that very kindly and tolerant fellow has much of anything to do with the malediction of legal tender. The idea is that on the day that George Bush is to be inaugurated, all the good people of America would simultaneously demonstrate their disgust and their power by, ummm, not shopping. Presumably this would demonstrate to the centers of corporate power that el pueblo unido jamás será vencido.

Any reasonably competent economist will explain why putting off your shopping until 21 January is not likely to flip any big corporate wigs, and that it would have no effect at all on your fixed costs. This whole business seems designed to play into the popular fantasy that people can bring about major change by not doing anything (Bartleby, anyone?). It smells to me like a hoax. How does it smell to you?

Update: If you like the idea of a massive boycott and find yourself in the Netherlands, I think that winkelen ought to be permitted.

New photo blog sighting

He has only just begun, but my friend Miladin zvani Jela has put up his new photo blog. Just seven photos for now, and in the future -- at least eight!

Good news and bad

The good news today is that much to relief of my much burdened spouse and her computer, I finally got my machine back from Apple today! And it is humming along in fine repair! The best bit of all is that they do not seem to have destroyed my existing files, which means I will not have to scour the P2P servers for the works of Üstmamó and Brooke Benton.

The bad news is that the domains at blog.hr seem to be unreachable today. Let's hope this is temporary, as nearly all things are.

Flattering as it is

The editors of the Wampum blog are very kind indeed to list East Ethnia as a nominee in their Koufax awards competition for best new blog. But there are so many really outstanding nominees, I do not think I am really in the running. The competition is a great way to find new and interesting things to read, though.

Recommended reading for today

At Osservatorio sui Balcani, the sociologist Aljoša Mimica is interviewed by Ramona Parenzan and Denis Kajić. In Italian, nego šta.

Important decisions made over the weekend

Among the dilemmas we had was deciding who had done the best versions of the works of Serge Gainsbourg. For the song "Un poison violent, c'est ça l'amour" we could not resolve the question of whether the original version stood up to the cover by Eszter Balint. But no dilemma on the topic of "Je t'aime moi non plus." The prize goes to Miss Kittin, for her version with Sven Vath.

Ten letters with onions

One of the happier bureaucratic customs is the postal service's use of stamps to commemorate great individuals, historical moments, places and other cultural icons. There was a time when I would not send a letter without an Otis Redding stamp. But our friend Milena is kind enough to send along a picture of this Bosnian stamp, celebrating a darn good culinary product:



Other countries should follow suit.

Update: Have a look at the comments, Mr Teekay suspects that the photo may be a hoax. If it is, the postal service would be wise to embrace it.

Update2: Counselor Skelly has evidence that the stamp is real, he provides a link in the comments.

Four more Gmail invites

Sorry for the lack of updates over the weekend, family and fun beckoned too vociferously. I'll have some new items up today. In the meantime, the nice people at Google have given me four more invitations for Gmail to hand out. If you want one, drop me a note at eastethnia at gmail dot com. First come, first serve.