Karadzic: small-town figure became front-man for Serb strongman Milosevic
Radovan Karadzic broke a boycott on his Yugoslav war crimes trial today to ask for 10 more months for his defense against genocide charges in Bosnia.
"I would really be a criminal if I were to accept these conditions," the former Bosnian Serb president told Judge Kwon O-gon, who is considering appointing a stand-by council for him...
... Who was Radovan Karadzic, then?
Balkan historians and Sarajevo experts say Karadzic always had a thirst for fame. He was a small- town Montenegrin, a bootmaker's son who moved from the hills to big city Sarajevo seeking greatness. He claimed lineage to Vuk Karadzic, father of the Serbian language. He published three volumes of poetry, much of it harboring a Sarajevo grudge:"The city lies ablaze like a rough lump of incense."
But he cut little weight among city blue-bloods even as he shape-shifted, for a time, into a Green Party politician and a soccer-club psychiatrist, or stood with Muslim leader Alia Izetbegovic to honor Muslims and Serbs killed in World War II and vowed never to let the Drina River flow with blood again.
Yet Mr. Karadzic's thirst for fame helped him become a key"front man" for Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic's bloody project of"greater Serbia," experts say. His venue: a war that dissident poet and Czech president Vaclev Havel called an attack on" civilizational values," when he pressed for military intervention in the 44-month siege of Sarajevo that fellow"poet" Karadzic helped direct. Barring the arrest of Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic, Karadzic's war-crimes trial is seen as a last chance to bring closure to the Balkan tragedy.
Long clashes over Sarajevo
From 1991-95, US and European capitals clashed over how to deal with children and grandmothers shot in the streets of a European city by Serb snipers in the hills above a city of Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish worship sites. Leaders weighed the cost of stopping the carnage against the meaning of not stopping it. Ineffectual blue-helmeted United Nations peacekeepers were sent in. At one point, Karadzic was so indispensable to the UN process that he could avert UN airstrikes against his own forces as they closed in on unarmed Bosnian Muslim"safe havens," usually on grounds that strikes would thwart a pending peace deal. The result: the Srebrenica massacre.
Yet,"before the war, Karadzic was a nonentity," says Bosnian historian Marko Attila Hoare."He was an embezzler, an opportunist. He has nothing to say, makes no intellectual contributions. His background is primitive."
Historians stress Karadzic's country background in the Balkan context."Milosevic tried to cut a figure as a modern European statesman; Karadzic was cruder," says Mr. Hoare."In October 1991, he openly tells Muslims in the Bosnian parliament that he will eliminate them. He's seen as a kind of wild man, doesn't know how to dress properly, but no one in Sarajevo could believe he would be able to destroy so many lives."...
Read entire article at The Christian Science Monitor
"I would really be a criminal if I were to accept these conditions," the former Bosnian Serb president told Judge Kwon O-gon, who is considering appointing a stand-by council for him...
... Who was Radovan Karadzic, then?
Balkan historians and Sarajevo experts say Karadzic always had a thirst for fame. He was a small- town Montenegrin, a bootmaker's son who moved from the hills to big city Sarajevo seeking greatness. He claimed lineage to Vuk Karadzic, father of the Serbian language. He published three volumes of poetry, much of it harboring a Sarajevo grudge:"The city lies ablaze like a rough lump of incense."
But he cut little weight among city blue-bloods even as he shape-shifted, for a time, into a Green Party politician and a soccer-club psychiatrist, or stood with Muslim leader Alia Izetbegovic to honor Muslims and Serbs killed in World War II and vowed never to let the Drina River flow with blood again.
Yet Mr. Karadzic's thirst for fame helped him become a key"front man" for Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic's bloody project of"greater Serbia," experts say. His venue: a war that dissident poet and Czech president Vaclev Havel called an attack on" civilizational values," when he pressed for military intervention in the 44-month siege of Sarajevo that fellow"poet" Karadzic helped direct. Barring the arrest of Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic, Karadzic's war-crimes trial is seen as a last chance to bring closure to the Balkan tragedy.
Long clashes over Sarajevo
From 1991-95, US and European capitals clashed over how to deal with children and grandmothers shot in the streets of a European city by Serb snipers in the hills above a city of Orthodox, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish worship sites. Leaders weighed the cost of stopping the carnage against the meaning of not stopping it. Ineffectual blue-helmeted United Nations peacekeepers were sent in. At one point, Karadzic was so indispensable to the UN process that he could avert UN airstrikes against his own forces as they closed in on unarmed Bosnian Muslim"safe havens," usually on grounds that strikes would thwart a pending peace deal. The result: the Srebrenica massacre.
Yet,"before the war, Karadzic was a nonentity," says Bosnian historian Marko Attila Hoare."He was an embezzler, an opportunist. He has nothing to say, makes no intellectual contributions. His background is primitive."
Historians stress Karadzic's country background in the Balkan context."Milosevic tried to cut a figure as a modern European statesman; Karadzic was cruder," says Mr. Hoare."In October 1991, he openly tells Muslims in the Bosnian parliament that he will eliminate them. He's seen as a kind of wild man, doesn't know how to dress properly, but no one in Sarajevo could believe he would be able to destroy so many lives."...