The Butcher Of The Balkans

Normally I would have been upset at receiving a phone call at 10am on a Saturday morning, (my sleep in day,) but the annoyance of the call was soon forgotten, once the perpetrator of the call spoke;

"LJ, sorry for calling so early, but I figured you wouldn't mind it. Slobodon Milosevic is dead."

I was immediately overcome with mixed emotions.

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I had worked as an Albanian/English linguist with the US Army and Marines in Kosova, from the first day the NATO bombing campaign ended in June of 1999, for just over 6 months.

Like it was yesterday, I remember flying in from Camp Able Sentry in Macedonia, on a Marine helicopter, strategically hugging the mountain sides, as we headed to our makeshift base in the mountains of southern Kosova. I remember the drive from this mountain base, through village after village burned down, spray painted with Serbian insignia of their ultra-conservative, ultra-nationalistic warrior sect, the Chetnicks.

I remember seeing mixed villages, where Albanians and Serbians once lived together. You would see one house in rubble, decimated from mortar fire that it took, while the house no more than 20ft away, stood unharmed, with a Serbian flag waving atop it.

As we approached the city of Gjilan in south eastern Kosova, along the road side, men, women and children gave the two finger victory/peace sign to us as we passed. In Kosova, the US Military were greeted as liberators, with flowers and candy. And that is no exaggeration.

When stopping to talk to the locals Albanians that had remained, there was a look in their eyes that said so much. Their faces smiled with joy and relief that the American's had come to save them from the ethnic cleansing Slobodon Milosevic had ordered against them. At the same time, their eyes showed loss and pain. For too long and for too many, Milosevic's crimes had taken their toll on the Albanians in Kosova. They wanted to be happy, but the loss of life, liberty, and land had wore their spirits thin.

In the days, weeks, and months following KFOR's (NATO's name for Forces in Kosova,) you saw a rebirth within the community, within the country. Freedom and democracy had prevailed, and the security of the Albanians within their fatherland, was helping move past and heal the pains of the massacres and atrocities experienced by the Kosovar Albanians. But never would/will the Albanians of Kosova ever forget the crimes committed against them.

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The death of the Butcher of the Balkans came too soon. The terror and pain that Slobodon Milosevic inflicted upon Albanians, Bosnians, and others in former Yugoslavia, really could not have been properly punished with death. If he would have lived a hundred more years, knowing that each day that passed, he was imprisoned, having lost his freedom and rights, just as he had done to so many himself; it would have not been long enough.

But his death does bring closure to a dark part of modern day history. It also should bring light to the threats we face here in the United States, when the Executive starts moving further and further to the brink of dictatorship, and then wholly into it.

Tens of thousands died in Kosova for their freedoms. A quarter of a million Bosnians died for their freedoms too. We really don't need to look all the way back to Hitler's Germany to learn lessons as to how absolute power corrupts absolutely.

May we here in a America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, one day too, aspire and desire to be free again. May we one day again, dream the American Dream. May we commemorate the sacrifices of previous generations, all the way back to our founders, but reclaiming our freedoms, our liberty, and our democracy.

I wish I could remember to whom to attribute the following paraphrased statement about democracy, but it goes something like this;

"When you have something good, something that is truly desired by others; you don't need to force it upon people. By living it truly and by setting an example for others, they will do whatever they can to have it, including stealing it from you."

This is true of democracy. The way America showed Democracy to the world over the 20th century is the reason so many countries are either democratic or aspire to be so.

What kind of example are we setting for the world now?

•  Tips...

  just because it has been a strange day for me.

  by The 1n Only Leoni on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 04:54:36 PM PDT

•  Thank you for that account.

  I hope this country doesn't devolve any further into a dictatorship.  Although I have not had my human rights violated to the extent that the Albanians and  Bosnians did, I know what it is to experience human rights violations, here in the U.S.

  You can read the true account of my experience by going to:

  http://www.indybay.org/...

  by deb98126 on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 05:03:37 PM PDT

•  He got off too easy..

  Same will happen to bush,rumsfield,rice,cheney,gonzales etc..Read somewhere that first you have to clean the wound throughly, before you can heal..We have to clean this wound first.

  by bayside on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 05:03:52 PM PDT

•  Thank you

  for this eye-witness statement of, it must be admitted, one side - the more oppressed - of the Kosovo/a conflict. The probable independence of the region will be difficult for the Serbs as this is their "motherland" as well - Historically the Battle of Kosovo against the Ottomans was the foundation of modern Serbia. It will be a bit like the US losing Plymouth Rock.

  Having said that, I really only disagree with one of your comments
  

  
  But his death does bring closure to a dark part of modern day history
  

  
  There are still two major war criminal indictees, Mladic and Karadic who have yet to surrender to the International Tribunal. Until they are handed over and are tried, the matter cannot be closed.

  by londonbear on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 05:08:42 PM PDT

•  Why couldn't the Yugoslavia approach

  That the US took have worked to bring about regime change in Iraq?  Yugoslavia had been without democracy for 50 years, but they took it upon themselves, with US support and some bombs to take Slobodan out of power themselves.  The US supported the Yugoslavian people's own attempts at Democracy rather than invading the country to force it on a people who may not have been ready.  Hmmm...

  by Larry Horse on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 05:58:42 PM PDT

•  US not a democracy

  "This is true of democracy. The way America showed Democracy to the world over the 20th century is the reason so many countries are either democratic or aspire to be so."

  you are either very naive, very young or very ignorant regarding 20th century american history...
  also, I seem to remember back in the 90s, the KLA (kosovo liberation army) being labeled a terrorist organization by the US state department... There is more than one side to every story...

  by KolHun on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 05:59:35 PM PDT

  •  Oh Give Me a Fucking Break

    The US is a democracy.  It's not a perfect democracy, and for much of the 20th century is was far from perfect in terms the rights of African-Americans.  But drop the banal bullshit.  This isn't the house organ for the Revolutionary Worker's League.

    by DHinMI on Sat Mar 11, 2006 at 06:14:00 PM PDT

    •  not a fucking break given and NOT dropping

      the banal BS which is anything but banal or BS. I suggest you open your eyes and start using your brain for a change. US not a democracy:

      70% of americans cannot name their congressmen or their senators;
      49% believe that the president has the power to suspend the Constitution;
      ~30% will name an issue when they explain why they voted the way they did and only 1/5th hold consistent opinions on issues over time;
      86% think that the 1st amendment gives way too much freedom (of the press);
      Only 20% can name all the 5 freedoms guaranteed by the 1st amendment (80% can correctly name 5 characters on the Simpsons)
      (in a 2004 paper, Princeton political scientists estimate that "2.8 million people voted against Al Gore in 2000 because their states were too dry or too wet" as a consequence of that year weather patterns - these voters cost Gore seven states, any one of which would have given him the election)...

      What polls and surveys suggest is that the belief that elections express the true preference of the people (i.e DEMOCRACY at work) is imaginary: the fraction of the electorate that responds to substantive political argument is hugely ouweight by the fraction that responds to slogans, misinformation, "fire alarms", "October Surprises", random personal associations, and "gotchas"... People don't understand what it means to be "fiscally conservative" ot to have "faith in the private sector" or to pursue and "interventionist foreign policy". From the point of view of democratic theory, American political history is just a random walk through a series of electoral options - some years things turn up red; some years they turn up blue...

      Another theory is that although people may not be working with the big picture or are short on details, their preferences are dictated by something and that something is ELITE opinion; political campaigns are struggles among elites, who communicate their preferences to the rest of the electorate by various cues, low content phrases and images... In that sense, democracies are really oligarchies with a populist face.

      Yet another theory is that the cues to which most voters respond are, in fact, adequate basis on which to form political preferences. People use short-cuts (gut reasoning) to reach judgements about political candidates and these shortcuts are as good as the long road of reading party platforms, listening to debates etc..

      Up to you to figure out if in fact the US is a Democracy...

      As for your other comments - some people may be offended by your "far from perfect" remark; lest we forget the interventionist foreign policy of the US - please read Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize acceptance speech - I will give you a small preview:

      "But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked....
      The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven."

      by KolHun on Mon Mar 13, 2006 at 06:34:57 PM PDT

      •  Whatever

        Yeah, I'm really young and naive, and you know everything.  Gee, I'm so lucky to have your tutelage, you brilliant possesor of truth and virtue.  

        by DHinMI on Tue Mar 14, 2006 at 01:53:02 AM PDT