Jasmina Tesanovic: Slobodan Milosevic Died

Belgrade, March 11, 2006 1.p.m

Slobodan Milosevic Died
by Jasmina Tesanovic

B92 is unofficially reporting this news from Hague prison. His family is contacted.

Few days ago a Milan Babic Serbian leader convicted of war crime committed suicide in Hague, before he managed to testify against others indicted for war criminals, Milosevic too... Three years ago the prime minister Zoran Djindjic who arrested Milosevic and sent him to Hague in 2001 was killed almost on the same day.

Few days ago Milosevic was denied to travel to Russia for medical care.

It is a bad moment for justice and war tribunal. The first judge May in the trial against Milosevic died too some time ago. But the trial goes on.

Milosevic was accused of genocide in Bosnia,among other crimes elsewhere. Those people are missing too, unable to plead justice. Someone else will have to do it for them all.

Backlash is expected in this much criticized process, as well as on the local grim political scene. Serbia is divided, the two sides in the historical postwar trial are consolidating, streets may get hot as when Milosevic seized power, waged wars and was toppled by million of Serbian people . This so called transition towards truth and reconciliation may become a dangerous transition to nowhere.

2.30 p.m.

Milosevic lawyer is raving live on B92 TV; he was killed by medical neglect. the journalist is arguing that the trial was interrupted often because of his health condition and that he always refused help of lawyers to share the burden but insisted on self defense. The highest ranged officer in the first war crime tribunal in the world accused of 66 different crimes will not be there to face his verdict. My father has a sentimental tone while he is telling me the breaking news. My daughter is phoning me too, she says, Nobody gives a damn really among my friends, he was a dead man anyway.

His party members here are officially declaring: Milosevic was killed in hague by Hague. Vuk Draskovic, current minister of foreign affairs says; he killed a lot of people , politicians and tried to kill me too several times. I don’t feel sorry.

A mother from Srebrenica whose family was killed by serbian military says: God's justice has got him A serbian journalist is commenting on CNN, we Serbs are sentimental when it comes to death. we always feel sorry whoever it may be. Why is she using this word WE...I am among her WE people.

A writer who wrote 4 books about Slobodan Milosevic criticizing him severely is speaking live, he says he feels awkward because notwithstanding his political opinions he thinks that he was not the only one to blame and take the burden of all crimes. He claims that Hague tribunal is proving to be failure and that Serbia is being victimized objectively by international pressures. it s a pity that serbs could not afford and organize their own war tribunals. I have a deja vue feeling as all media in different languages are repeating the same news; we are the center of the world... a country which hardly exists except for the amount of bad news it can produce. Milosevic was my biggest marketing really, his myth has nothing to do with his death, today or yesterday or tomorrow. What he did cannot be undone.

Serbian doctors will take part in the autopsy in Hague and speculations are already going on as to where is he going to be buried. Hopefully not next to the politicians and journalists he murdered, in the graveyard of heroes in downtown Belgrade.

Update: Milosevic's lawyer and family claim that one day before he died he wrote a note to the Russian embassy in Hague saying that he was being poisoned in the prison. Thus they demand the toxic autopsy to be performed by Russian pathologists tomorrow.

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Jasmina Tesanovic is an author, filmmaker, and wandering thinker who shares her thoughts with BoingBoing from time to time. Link to previous posts about her work.

Image: This is one of my favorite photographs of all time. It was taken in 2000 by a photographer working for independent news network Radio B92 in Belgrade, and depicts elated crowds who have just learned that Slobodan Milosevic conceded defeat to presidential election winner Vojislav Koštunica. It ran with this story in Silicon Alley Daily.

Reader comment: I-Ball says,

Thank God he's dead. As one of the many soldiers who went across the Sava into Bosnia, first to save the U.N. folks there and then to "keep the peace", I've seen the terror and destruction he left behind. My squad found the first mass graves. I'm glad he's dead.