Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM) and Helsinki Committee for Human Rifgts in Serbia (HOPS) filed with the District Attorney (Prosecutor) in Belgrade April 1, 2009 a lawsuit against Dobrica Cosic[1], charging him with inciting ethnic, racial and religious hatred and intolerance, as stipulated by §317, para. 1, as well as by §387, para. 3 of the Penal Code of the Republic of Serbia, citing „Racial and other discrimination”, since in his book „The Time of Serpents – Writer’s Notes 1999-2000″ Dobrica Cosic wrote about the Albanian people, inter alia:
“That social, political and moral dreg of a tribal, barbarian Balkans, allies itself with America and the European Union in their struggle against the most democratic, most civilized, most enlightened Balkan people – the Serbian people.”
The two organizations underline that the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ratified by Serbia (“Official Gazette of the SFRY” – International Contracts, 6/67) stipulates that “the term ‘racial discrimination’ shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”.
Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights and Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, as organizations active in the defense of human rights, demanded of the District Attorney to act in accordance with authorities vested in him, and initiate ex officio criminal procedure against Dobrica Cosic on charges enumerated in the lawsuit.
Although this action on the part of the two organizations has triggered a range of reactions in the public — including columns and contributions by prominent authors published in most-read newspapers, debates on national radio and TV channels -Public Prosecutor failed to act on the motion. The Prosecutor’s silence, irrespective of the fact that it was to be expected out of political considerations related to the sensitivity of the subject-matter and the person in question, does not justify him. On the contrary: it underscores his responsibility for failing to react out of obvious reasons of political opportunism. This is especially aggravated by the fact that Cosic’s book was published by a public enterprise – „Official gazette”, as well as in light of President Boris Tadic’s public involvement in the debate on the issue. All this augments the Public Attorney’s responsibility, and signalizes an aggravated social situation where a personality of Dobrica Cosic’s format publicly advocates and disseminates ethnic and racial hatred.
The public debate triggered by the lawsuit featured a variety of arguments, including the „crown arguments” cited by Cosic’s defenders: the quotation used to substantiate the accusation against him had been extracted from a broader context; Cosic’s reaction was affective; Cosic is an old man. There have also been attempts to accuse YUCOM and HOPS of advocating the inclusion of thought crime in Serbia’s legal practice, or suppressing freedom of expression. Having been expressed without any explanations, such “arguments” represented part of a deja vu brutal campaign based on stereotypes regarding allegedly anti-Serb organizations.
Although the motion submitted to the District Attorney quotes a single sentence (see above), this does not suggest that the entire book titled The Time of Serpents -which features Dobrica Cosic’s political thoughts and notes in 1999, covering also the twelve weeks of NATO air raids — does not abound in similar outbursts of racist hatred not only against Albanians, but also against Montenegrines, Bosniaks and Croats, as well as citizens of EU-member states and especially Americans. The book contains hard-core anti-Semitic statements, too.
The reason behind initiating legal action on the basis of a single sentence is merely practical: it was deemed necessary to single out an illustrating example of racism expressed by a Serb who perceives his own ethnic group exclusively as a victim. It is as a consequence of the alleged continuous „serbophobia” that Serbs sometimes are prepared to commit crimes, too.
Instead of submitting a supplement to the lawsuit filed on April 1st, we decided to present the allegedly missing context to the public: not only had the incriminated sentence not been extracted from the context, but the contents and essence of Dobrica Cosic’s context is much more racist and nationalistic than a single sentence can suggest or demonstrate. Dobrica Cosic simply hates, or — at his best — doubts everything that is not Serb. Except, of course, when Serb traitors (he calls them apatrides), mondialists od the so-called „Other Serbia” are subject of his considerations.
I Of Slobodan Milosevic
Dobrica Cosic disqualifies Slobodan Milosevic by accusing him of betraying national interests, of being a Titoist, Marxist, internationalist, obsessed by power, an autocrat pursuing criminal policies to the detriment of Serbs. Cosic thereby makes no references to Milosevic’s policies of war, or to war crimes against other ethnic groups, or to Cosic’s own participation in inaugurating Milosevic and consolidating his power.
March 21, 1999 (on the eve of NATO air strikes)
“It is with the Patriarch’s signature that Milosevic was given authority to be Head of the Serb delegation and to practically exercise the right to lead the negotiations and make fatal decisions all by himself: the surrender of Sarajevo and Gorazde to the Muslims, and to subject Brcko to arbitration and practically surrender it to Alija Izetbegovic”. (p. 8)
May 16, 1999
Following several diplomatic and political moves by [the then political leader of Kosovo Albanians] Ibrahim Rugova, Dobrica Cosic accuses Milosevic and his wife Mirjana Markovic of releasing Ibrahim Rugova from detention, led by their marxist and internationalist ideology:
“I can be wrong about anything, but I should not write a lie and hide Serbian police and army crimes… A ground invasion of Kosovo is being prepared…Great Britain is in the forefront of belligerence and readiness to attack Serbia as soon as possible and save ‘poor little Albanians’… Rugova continues with his triumphant visits to Europe’s capitals and with diplomatic actions aimed at the liberation and independence of Kosovo. Slobodan Milosevic set him free, he was certainly talked into it by his internationalistic wife Mira, and enabled his chief enemy to victoriously work against Serbia. Internationalist generosity of the Marxist spouses with unlimited power may cost the Serbian people and its army dearly[2]“. (p. 105-106)
May 20, 1999
“Has anyone ever in history, except maybe Hitler, defended his/her power and his/her life by means of sacrifying a whole people? I do not know. Hitler was an ideological maniac, he did sacrifice Germany for his fiction, but he did have strength to pay his defeat with his and Eva’s suicide. Sloba and Mira will surely not pay Serbia’s defeat with their heads. They are merely ideological addicts to power”. (p. 115)
June 27, 1999
“And Milosevic’s regime and his party forcefully drive Serb refugees back to Kosovo; they are sending those martyrs back to be slaughtered by Albanians”. (p. 183)
July 12, 1999
“Milosevic’s policy towards Serbs who fled Kosovo is simply criminal. With the view to avoid admitting defeat and lost sovereignty, this scrupleless politician with the poltroons in his government, forces people to return to Kosovo to be slaughtered by Shiptars[3]!… This soulless tyrant with his television (Milanovic[4] – a Serb from Kosovo!) and Politika with its overfed Dragan Hadzi Antic[5], is hiding the truth about Kosovo. They are silent about Shiptar crimes. They have betrayed Kosovo. Disgraced the Serb people with their crimes, provoked a bestial vengeance of the wild Shiptar tribe, and covered it all up with lies about their successful defense of Kosovo. The end of Milosevic’s catastrophic rule is in sight. I don’t have a single bit of pity for the tragedy and shame awaiting this evil couple”. (p. 188-189)
July 23, 1999
“Milosevic is lying and destroying his followers. Albanians are committing genocide in Kosovo and he is forcing exiled Serbs to return under Shiptars’ knife; to return to their place of execution”. (p. 192)
“In destroying the Serb ethos, Milosevic’s policy has been and remains to be more devastating, more successful than all the doings of our external enemies. By surrendering Sarajevo at Dayton, he humiliated the Serbs; by betraying Krajina[6], he destroyed the existence and national dignity of several hundred thousand Serbs in Croatia; among Serbs Montenegrins, he spurred Montenegrin chauvinism and Montenegrin anti-Serbism”. (p. 194)
December 4, 1999
„Serbs are being accused of nesting the Milosevic regime. It was not Serbs who elected Milosevic in a democratic election and brought him to power. He is an organic outcome of retarded Titoism.” (p. 232)
“So, by not taking part in politics, if that state has committed a crime, political responsibility is borne. All of us, Serbs, are politically responsible for the state and national policies of Tito, Rankovic[7], Stambolic[8], Milosevic; those who voted for them and supported them more than us in the opposition. Only opposition activities absolve us from guilt; since we failed, we remain metaphysically responsible. (p. 233)
II On Serbs as objects of hatred; on Serbophobia; world conspiracy against Serbs; on Serbs as victims of Shiptar oppression; on Serbs as “Jews of the late 20th century”; on Serb traitors
a) Serbophobia, satanization of Serbs – „Antiserbism”
March 22, 1999
“A friend in Paris lets me know that six Serb men and women, who organized Serb demonstrations in France with the aim of defending Kosovo, have been strangled. And the French press reports that they committed suicide”. (p. 10)
April 17, 1999
“Demonizing the Serbs, nourished by the West throughout the entire decade, has caused hatred, malice, despise of Serbs by television viewers worldwide. The worst in our misfortune and plight lies in the fact that we do not even awake pity. We are deprived of human mercy and pity. We are deprived of human solidarity. The televisionized mankind considers that we deserve plight and suffering; they believe that crimes against the Serb people means God’s and man’s justice done. The televisionized mankind despises us because it is persuaded day in day out that we have committed ethnic cleansing and collective crime against Shiptars. That primitive, half-civilized people, cunning and cruel, criminalized through drug trafficking and socially degrading labor and position in Europe and America, has managed to create by means of blood- soaked money a power lobby and protectors in the most powerful and most civilized countries. Shiptars have become a collective sentiment of the present day. At the same time, they have managed to mobilize America for their national goals, and to coordinate themselves with the American imperialist strategy. They are now America’s land troops for its Balkan goals”. (p. 58)
April 19, 1999
“Friends inform me that Serbs in Germany are exposed to racial discrimination in the press, on the radio and television. Anti-Serbism has replaced anti-Semitism. Serbs are the Jews of late 20th century. Our workers, engineers, doctors, experts are exposed to despise and hatred. We have inflicted so much pain on ‘poor little Albanians’ to deserve to be exterminated by the democratic and humane world like beasts and let them ruin everything we have built in this century. British President Blair[9] says that Britain defends Albanians from Serbs, that it gives them aid, that it is their ally, and that there can be no discussion or agreement with Slobodan Milosevic. Consequently, they will bomb us until we are all dead. Allegedly, because of Milosevic. In reality, the English are today pursuing Disraeli’s policy towards Serbs. It has so happened in this civilization that television moved half the world – Europe and America – by means of its lies, against a small nation of less than ten million people. Can such a people do so much harm to America and Europe to deserve to be annihilated? Are the Albanian criminals pronounced as victims of the century? Have the Jews in America sold themselves to Shiptar drug traffickers?” (p. 62)
April 24, 1999
“Serbophobia is a new global ideology of hatred. We, the Serbs, are the new Semites. In fact, we, too, are a metaphor of a criminal nation. Jews, Turks, Germans, Russians, English, French, Dutch, Spaniards, Portuguese, have been hated by individual nations, or several nations, subordinated, exploited, defeated in wars. We are hated by more than a billion humans, all those who watch television; we are hated by those who do not know us, and by many who don’t even know what continent Serbia is on. We are a symbol of evil. We are the world’s Satan. The world hates us out of noble intentions; out of pity for those who have suffered from our misdeeds. We are hated both by ‘common folk’, as well as by those who have done no harm to anyone. We are hated by the righteous. Freedom lovers. Truth lovers. We are simply the Earth’s Satan. There has always existed hate stemming from delusion; but never has it reached the proportions of the present-day Serbophobia.” (p. 65-66)
April 28, 1999
“What kind of people are we if all our neighbors are against us? Or, what kind of peoples are they if they are against Serbia today? What is the price or blackmail which side all our allies with America and Albania? What are their skies and territories paid with to participate in a war against Serbia? Will they be richer and freer than they are today, after our disaster? Have we wronged so much that this world is killing us so long and with such cruelty?” (p. 71)
May 3, 1999
“War has been declared on each Serbian family: the war has entered our house; refrigerators, deep freezers, boilers, electric stoves are in danger; our bathrooms, kitchens, toilets are under attack. We have no more television, entertainment, music, news. War has been declared on each Serbian family, each Serbian man and woman, each Serbian child. Serbian children will drink warm milk no more; nor shall we drink coffee. What kind of meals will city-dwellers eat in skyscrapers without chimneys, without coal furnaces, how will the sick and the elderly climb to the 15th storey? How will our factories and workshops operate? And trolleybuses and trains? This is really the most total war ever waged against one people in Europe”. (p. 80)
May 22, 1999
“This war is in many respects a genocidal one; not only do bombers destroy civilian targets, hospitals, settlements; it is genocidal because it deprives millions of human beings of fire and water. One cannot live without fire and water”. (p. 119)
May 23, 1999
“Without electricity – fire and water, one cannot make it through bombardment. No war enemy has ever deprived their adversary of fire and water”. (p. 122)
“To win or lose a war, one does not have to kill and destroy; one should just destroy electricity systems and deprive people of fire, water, communication by means of ‘soft bombs’. That is progress! Compared to chopping off hands and heads, waving swords and stabbing with spears and knives. But, the Mujaheddin warriors brought barbarianism back to Serbian soil by chopping off Serbs’ heads during the Bosnian war”. (p. 124)
June 8, 1999
“The small world war has its ideology, its alibi, its ‘official’ lies, its champions of freedom and justice, its criminals and culprits; it has its court – at The Hague, which tries new official Nazis for a new holocaust and crime against humanity: Serbs and their ‘leader’ with his associates are the criminals. The evolution of madness and hypocrisy runs along the line of dialectic of paradox. The global paradox says: victims are criminals. Serbs who have for centuries been evicted from Serbian soil by Shiptars, find themselves today – partly on their own merit -playing the role of a persecutor of the people which, under the protection of Turkey, then Italy, and today of America and the European Union has persecuted them and practically banished them from their own cradle of statehood, culture and religion”. (p. 158)
July 12, 1999
“Massacres and torture, looting, torching and killing Serbs by Shiptar hoards are bestial in an Asiatic way. I do not know whether there has been so much slaughter of that sort in Turkish times. It is this kind of a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ that the West is turning a blind eye to; the Hague Tribunal is dealing with ‘mass graves’ with Albanians killed by Serbs. This corrupt, cynical, buccaneering West has enabled Albanians to commit genocidal crimes by opening the frontier with Albania; NATO, America and the European Union fake the creation of a ‘multiethnic Kosovo’ by enabling genocide against Serbs…”
„Milosevic’s policy towards Serbs who have fled from Kosovo is simply criminal. In order not to concede the defeat and loss of sovereignty, this unscrupulous politician and his minions in the Government is forcing people to return to Kosovo and be slaughtered by Arnauts[10]! … This soulless despot and his television (Milanovic – a Serb from Kosovo!) and Politika with that fat Dragan Hadzi Antic who eats tons of goulash an grilled meat, conceals the truth about Kosovo. They are silent about Shiptar crimes. They have betrayed Kosovo, they have disgraced the Serb people with their crimes, they have provoked the wild Arnaut tribe’s bestial vengeance, and covered it all up with lies about their successful defence of Kosovo. Milosevic’s catastrophic rule is nearing its end! I do not have a trace of pity for the tragedy and shame that await these mean spouses”. (p. 188-189)
July 23, 1999
“Reading Solzhenitsyn, I conclude: Only in the ‘transition’ does the decay of Serb national identity begin.Only Serb nationalists have been labeled as destroyers of Yugoslavia, aggressors, ideologues of was and ethnic cleansing. It has been declared that the SANU Memorandum[11] is a proof of Greater Serbian ideology and of the Serbian nationalism’s aggressiveness. Domestic ‘mondialists’, ‘Sorosites’ and paid apatrides, miserably paid, but paid, have, following the intentions of the American imperialist ideology, carried out an ‘intellectual’ confrontation with Serbian nationalists who are not chauvinists but Serbs they are. They have granted legitimacy to western anti-Serbism”.
“‘Human rights’ will annihilate Serb identity; it will dilute in internet mondialism and American subculture”.
“‘Transition’ will stimulate anti-Serb potentials by all means of corruption the ‘intelligentsia’ is most likely to submit itself to. Only in the ‘transition’ and in the completion of NATO Bosnian and Kosovo wars against the Serb people will all negative forces of Titoism surface in all their hitherto unknown shapes. Titoism had the destruction of ‘oppressive’ and ‘Greater Serbian hegemony’ as its main national goal; it was an ideological alibi, destruction of Serb people’s identity, of its historical greatness, its values and potentials. Titoist and western anti-Serbism will have conditions for unlimited destruction of the Serb ethos”.
“In destroying the Serb ethos, Milosevic’s policies have been and still are devastating, more successful than those of our enemies. In Dayton, he humiliated the Serbs by surrendering Sarajevo; by betraying Krajina, he ruined the existence and national dignity of hundreds of thousands of Serbs in Croatia; among Serbs Montenegrins he instigated Montenegrin chauvinism and Montenegrin Antiserbism.”
“America, a power created by genocide, perpetuates its hegemony by means of genocidal policies: its intention to destroy Russia and her ‘potential’ ally in the Balkans – Serbia. Its ideologues know all too well that Russia’s strength lies in territories. She should therefore be robbed of Siberia and Caucasus”. (p. 193-195)
July 25, 1999
“In the aftermath of such occupation of Kosovo and Metohija and of a genocidal expulsion of Serbs, Serb rights in Kosovo and Metohija can only be defended as historical and religious on the principles of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and the United Nations Codex of Human Rights[12] – as amended 1976 in Vancouver, which recognizes historical right as part of human rights, on the account of national identity contents. I do not know the exact wordings, but I believe that it is on this basis that we should fight for a Serb Kosovo and Metohija, for their historical, religious space where a Serb Vatican, Hilandar, San Marino, Lichtenstein or some other similar sovereign territory would be set up.
I didn’t formulate these ideas in a precise manner. If I were to express them publicly, I would have to draw up a text of an amendment to the 1976 Declaration on Human Rights and Venice Commission’s decision”. (p. 198)
October 28, 1999
“Albanians kill Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija continuously, daily. We seem to have gotten used to these news. Hashim Thaci[13], a.k.a. Snake, is enthusiastically assisted by the French ‘human rights defender’ Kouchner, the protector of Kosovo, and until yesterday, General Jackson of Britain. And, as of several days ago, a German general is KFOR commander. We have gotten used to that, too. No evil can frighten us Serbs anymore, nor can it amaze us. We have become numb to suffering, as well”. (p. 218)
b) Of Serbs
June 1, 1999
“Serbs are a folk easy to make happy and hard to make unhappy. This truth says the essential of the historical and life fate of the Serb people. It is with admiration that a story is being told in Belgrade and Serbia these days about a German who said at a peace rally somewhere in Germany: ‘I am ashamed to be a German. As long as Serbia is bombed, I am a Serb’. A foreigner’s smile, even if it is faked or ironical, suffices to a Serb to stop hating foreigners; to understand him and forgive if he demolished his house and saved his barn. ‘I am grateful to him. They could have demolished my barn, as well’. This is the way Serbian servile and feigning soul reacts. Hence, it is easy to rule the Serbs; anyone who desires power very much can rule them or anyone in power who does not do them all the evil that a man in power can do to his subordinates. Serbs have only negative experience with rulers. That is why they demand so little of their rulers. And they like dangerous politicians and tight reins, because they know that it is with such politicians and such rule that one can accomplish what one cannot accomplish with power alone. They comprehend at a merely human level that a ruler can do anything and is entitled to anything; that is why they suffer much, demand little and desire it much. This is the anthropological fundament of Serbs’ attitude towards power since the beginning of time and today towards Milosevic’s rule”. (p. 141)
June 4, 1999
“The fact that there is no man in Serbia who has moral and intellectual authority to assume the role of a national savior, i.e. American ‘quisling’; to be precise, the role of a traitor according to epic morality. Serbs of today don’t have a General Nedic[14]; they do have Vesna Pesic[15]”. (p. 148)
July 25, 1999
“I’m now beginning with notes on the character of the Serb people, and will write them on the margins of Solzhenitsyn’s views on the character of the Russian people. On several occasions I have been asked to write down my opinion about the Serb people. I could not, I did not dare write a single page about the Serb people’s features[16]. I did not believe that I know about these general features of the Serb ethos”.
“…Tito’s Yugoslavia, which came into existence after Ustasha and Albanian genocide, has done much to fragment Serb ethos. Persecution of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the attitude of Serbians toward Serbs ‘over there’ (called ‘PreCani’) – in Krajina, Slavonija, Lika, Banija, Kordun[17], and Serbs from Kosovo, shows that the Serb people in its essence is dispersed, scattered, forced to defend itself from the enemies by means of Serbdom. Serb nation is today being created and has been created by its state-territorial enemies – by means of genocidal attitude. Only now do Serbs cease to represent a nation of diaspora and are forced to concentrate and territorialize, which will determine new general features. Only in the 21st century will Serbs constitute themselves as a relatively homogenous nation, provided that it is not devastated by Americanization with its subculture”.
“We, too, have been separated from Croats and other Catholics, and most of all from Islam – from Turks and Turkish converts, by orthodoxy. To us, too, religion represents the core of spiritual identity whenever we are exposed to submission and assimilation. Orthodoxy is the last ditch defense of Serbdom. Our religion is perhaps less religious, and more a sense of, and right to freedom. Freedom as value and need has separated us from Bulgarians and Romanians”. (p. 199)
August 31, 1999
“I must note this. Unintelligence represents an inferior form of primitiveness and arrogance – a constant feature of the character of much of Serb men and women. It is an expression of primitiveness of intelligence and unenlightenement. Unfounded self- confidence has its matrix in the distinct social and individual inferiority. It is expressed as follows: ‘I can and dare what nobody can and dare'”. (p. 212)
“Violence, grey-zone business and sex will be their entertainment. How long will such a society last? As long as there is America as it exists and its ideology and civilization exist. The 21st century will be an apocalyptic century; a century of horror unknown to hitherto history. And of the victory of Ichtion’s monotheistic religion. And that will be Islam”. (p. 213)
December 4, 1999
“Ever since the war against Croats and Muslims, mondialists and apatrides are talking about the ‘Other Serbia'”. (p. 224)
“In this time of defeat of the Serb people, which began with the breakup of Yugoslavia that pulled us into wars which we lost and genocides which we suffered, but also committed, in a time of unexpected, unpredictable events, in a most uncertain time, with no allies, without support from the world, it wasn’t difficult ‘to be right’, to be on the victorious side. Ever since 1991, ‘being right’ didn’t require great wisdom. All one had to do was to opt for the policies of great force, to be a supporter of America, the European Union, Germany. All one had to do was to denounce one’s rights recognized to all of us; two and a half million Serbs had to be sacrificed and left for slavery, exodus and destruction carried out by the Ustashoid Croatia and Mujaheddin Bosnia. One was required not to take the side of one’s jeopardized compatriots in Croatia and Bosnia who were struggling for fundamental human rights; namely, one was supposed to take sides with chauvinists, criminals, the side of injustice and unfreedom; one was supposed to denounce liberation wars and victims for the unification of the Serbian people. Being politically ‘smart’, being ‘right’ in this historical downfall, being among the victors, being on the side of the ‘Other Serbia’ which is offered to occupiers and colonizers, was the easiest, because it was the hardest for the Serbian people”. (p. 225)
“We are occupied in Bosnia and in Kosovo, and exiled from Croatia. We are in the ‘international community’s’ [concentration] camp. We are in the world’s courtroom. We are convicted of having performed an aggression against Croatia and Bosnia; of having performed ethnic cleansings; of being a people of war criminals. The Germans weren’t accused or convicted for the same guilt; they committed those crimes and deserved those punishments”.
“Anyway, the ‘international community’, out of its strategic goals, had an interest in proclaiming Serbia the aggressor. But, in that Serbian defensive war, Serbs committed unforgivable mistakes and crimes: the demolition of Vukovar, attack on Dubrovnik, bombing of Sarajevo. They responded to the exiles performed by Croats and Muslims by exiling Muslims, and Croats to a lesser extent, from Bosnia”. (p. 226)
“Jaspers writes: ‘All of us Germans, without exception, have the obligation to clearly view our guilt and draw conclusions. Our human dignity obliges us to do so’. I emphasize: this is a Serbian obligation, as well. Germans are primarily guilty before others. Serbs are more guilty before themselves”.
“The essence of the Serbian question is not guilt, but delusion which was the matrix of the evils we committed… our guilt came about from our delusions… The gravity of our spiritual state is contained in the fact that neither religion nor philosophy can create faith in ourselves and mark the road to salvation. Historicism is necessary for our enlightenment”. (p. 228)
“Still, Jaspers has named few types of guilt. Why did he fail to mention delusional guilt, carried by ideology and religion? The guilt of delusions must also have an instance. Ratio, knowledge. Motive”. (p. 229)
“Jaspers claims: ‘The people cannot die heroically, it cannot be a criminal, it cannot act morally or immorally, this can only be done by individual members of that people’.
However, that claim is not absolutely true. Not all individuals act according to that general model; but, the people and any other human collective with some delicate religious or traditional features give the individual a behavioral pattern. Those distinctions are necessary, but they are difficult to establish… “
“Jaspers claims: ‘No one has to recognize a world’s judge in issues of moral and metaphysical guilt… On earth, there is no instance representing God, not as a church nor department of foreign affairs, and the least as world’s public opinion, shaped by the press’.
And what can one say about the role of CNN in the accusations against the Serbian people and about the world’s public opinion in which the guilt of the Serbian people of ethnic cleansing and aggression was shaped?
Defending Germany of the national-socialists’ guilt, Jaspers is not fully convincing. His principles do not cover the historical responsibility of the Germans and Germany for racism, anti-Slavdom, anti-Semitism, collective crimes and aggression. Jaspers believes: ‘When an indictee faces charges, a hearing must be provided. When there are calls for law, the defense is taken into account’.
Serbia was accused as the aggressor by some English history professor, incompetent, tendentious, paid expert. No Serbian professor was called to counter the estimates of the historical responsibility of the Serbian people stated by the English professor. Now, trial is taking place based on the prosecutor’s estimate. Now, Serbia is ‘legally’ an aggressor, who performed ethnic cleansing and the SANU Memorandum – the fundamental ideological document, instigator of aggression and ethnic cleansing. The vital question for Serbia and the Serbian people is: determining political guilt for the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war against the Croats and Muslims. Our enemies Croats and Muslims managed, with the help of the European Union and America, to proclaim Serbs the culprits for the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war. The factual diminishing of that historical responsibility is a condition of the creation of a new national self-awareness. And myself, and all Serb patriots, must ask this question by Jaspers from 1946.
Jaspers wonders: ‘Is it politically smart, purposeful, harmless and just to turn an entire nation into a outcast, to degrade it below the rank of other nations and, as the people itself gave up on its honor, to further deprive it of it…’
That is exactly what happened to the Serb people. But it is with the utmost seriousness, responsibility and argumentation, that we, the Serbs, should ask this question before the world’s public and respond to conscientiously and with arguments. We should respond truthfully to the allegations and publish our truth. Such defense is necessary for ourselves, as well, since there are a lot of Serbs who believe that it is us, i.e. Milosevic, who are to blame for the breakup of Yugoslavia because we did not want to accept a confederation; that we were the aggressors in Croatia and Bosnia, and all based on the ideology of the SANU Memorandum. In the 1991-1992 war, Serbia found itself in the position of Germany in 1946: war culprit… Bears collective guilt and is tried in The Hague. We are convicted by the ‘international community’ and punished morally, politically, criminally, economically; we were put in a camp from which culprits are brought out for the Hague. The Germans had Jaspers; we do not have Jaspers. Perhaps SANU could carry the responsibility for the elaboration of a new memorandum: Is there Serb guilt and what is it?” (p. 230-231)
„Serbs are being accused of nesting the Milosevic regime. It was not Serbs who elected Milosevic in a democratic election and brought him to power. He is an organic outcome of retarded Titoism.” (p. 232)
We led a defensive war and defended our people in Croatia and Bosnia. And in such a war, crimes were committed and we must condemn them. And Jaspers’ Germany led a war of conquest and genocide, so therefore its guilt is different and cannot be compared to Serbian guilt”. (p. 232)
„Therefore, even without taking part in politics, if a given state has committed crimes, political responsibility is borne. All of us, Serbs, are politically responsible for Tito’s, Rankovic’s, Stambolic’s, Milosevic’s state and national policies; those who have voted for them and supported them more so than those of us in the opposition. Only our opposition activities absolve us from guilt; since we have not succeeded, we remain metaphysically responsible”.
“Serbian guilt for committed war crimes in combats for the defense of Yugoslavia and the defense of the people in Croatia jeopardized by the Ustashi have an essential justification: there was a defensive war, the Serb people was being defended by the Ustasha-Muslim genocide. On the Serbs’ side – there was a biological, which means human right. But that motive does not give the right to crimes. The Serbian responsibility expressed in Yugoslav delusions has special features. Those delusions make us responsible”. (p. 233)
“Reading Jaspers’ thoughts on the Germans’ guilt in the time of national-socialism and Hitler, impressed by his consciousness and reexamining of the responsibility of the Nazi crimes and war, I wonder: why did the great writer Miroslav Krleza never think about his and Croatian responsibility for the Ustasha genocide over the Serbs?”. (p. 234)
“The questions about Serbian guilt are much, much more complex and deeply rooted in the past. As much as a conscious one, they require a knowledgeable and subtle analysis of cause and effect. Our guilt cannot by any means be compared to the German ones, which is persistently insisted upon by the European Serbophobes. We didn’t lead wars of conquest; we attempted to protect Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia from the threatening and active genocidal Ustashdom and Islamic fundamentalism”. (p. 235)
„’Foundation of new life on the source of our being can be achieved only by tireless self-disclosure, Karl Jaspers told the Germans in 1946. But his compatriots had their revenge on the Serbs for their post-Nazism humiliations, spreading Serbophobia, while being very tolerant regarding the crimes by Croats and Muslims. A Greater-German ressentiment”.
“The almost impassable difficulties of the Serb quest for its own guilt lie in the historical and moral being of our enemies: Croats, Muslims, Hungarians, Albanians in particular, which are filled with residual hatred and show no sign of self-criticism. National ideologies and national interests command them not to tell the truth about their crimes and guilt. In doing so, they are generously supported by the world. Our confessions would be and are being misused against us. They have established tribal societies of hatred. We are surrounded by peoples with leaders – criminals and numerous criminals – citizens. They even force us to keep silent about our guilt…” (p. 236)
“And Jaspers wisely says: ‘Human features are always similar. Everywhere there is that violent criminal minority, skilful and ready to grab a hold on power and use it in a brutal way’. Yes! Everywhere around us, such a minority is in power”. (p. 237)
c) Of Serb crimes against Albanians
May 13, 1999
“Svetozar Stijović, a linguist born in Peć[18], a great patriot, retold me a story of his cousin from Peć who arrived from Metohija yesterday. Our army and police evicted all Shiptars from Peć and Dečani[19]; Shiptar part of the city across the Bistrica river was burnt down and demolished…This inhabitant of Peć claims that the majority of Shiptars have been banished from Kosovo by the army, police and paramilitaries. Most of those who stayed remained in Prićtina. I do not understand this banishment of Shiptars; I consider that decision insane, fatal, anti-Serb. If it really is an order given by the Supreme Command and the Supreme Commander, then they should be tried in Belgrade for war crimes and genocide against the Albanian people. Is it by means of ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and Metohija that we will end our struggle to defend ‘sacred Serb land’? This is national disgrace, this Serb army’s collective crime annihilates the ethos of the Serb people and aligns it with barbarian peoples such as Germans, Americans, Croats, Muslims, Asians…How shall we continue historical existence with this collective guilt? What will literature, culture, spirit and morals of the Serb people be after this war?” (p. 98)
May 14, 1999
“The killing of Albanians in the village of Koris near Prizren, where around hundred were killed, has been confirmed; a plight of biblical proportions befell the Albanian people, too. These unfortunate Albanians are paying too high a price for their conquest of Kosovo and Metohija, and creating of a unified national state”. (p. 100)
June 13, 1999
“I, too, should draw up my moral balance sheet, to write down the whole truth about Kosovo. Yesterday I heard stories told by drafted soldiers and deserters from Kruševac, about Serbs soldiers’ crimes; about their ‘cleansing’ of Shiptar villages, killings, plundering; about undisciplined draftees in units, about bad command on the part of reserve officers, about a great demoralization of ‘glorious Kosovo heroes’ descendants’… The story of deserters’ demonstration triggered by a revolt of mothers under the slogan ‘Give us our children back’, lasted for three days. Widows on the Krusevac Town Hall were then demolished, trade union and high school buildings, as well, and the mayor himself was thrown a hale of stones on, too. The story why the draftees did not want to fight now seems convincing. However, the story of Serb soldiers’ crimes, Serbs’ hatred and vengeance, is so horrible that it has to be checked. I have to find out the Kosovo truth about Serbs. Should it be confirmed that Serbs have committed the crimes they are being accused of, and which are topical in Krusevac as well, I will publicly condemn Serb criminals. No patriotism will force me to silence…
Shiptars have encircled Prizren. Why? There are no more Serbs there… When Serbs did the killing, Albanians were protected by Clinton, Blair, Chirac, Kohl, Kinkel. Serbs have never been protected by anyone. America and the European Union have become allies and protectors of a chauvinist, aggressive, barbarian tribe; they have started a Small world war against Serbia to save Kosovo from ‘Serb ethnic cleansing’, and the outcome of their victory and devastation of Serbia amounts to creating an ‘ethnically cleansed Kosovo’, but cleansed of Serbs”. (p. 166-168)
June 15, 1999
“If mass crimes against civilian population committed by army and police should be proven, then a conscientious judicial-criminal investigation should be carried out. We dare not forgive Serb crimes. We must condemn them by highest judgment for collective retributions against civilian population. We should not hide our evils. Serb people’s ethos commands us that it should be defended and preserved for the future of the Serb people. Those who have violated it, damaged it, stained it with the blood and suffering of innocent Albanian victims – they must first be condemned by Serb moral and free court. Our public must have enough strength to comprehend and accept its evildoings, although Albanians’ crimes against Serbs have lasted for many more decades”. (p. 171-172)
June 16, 1999
“German soldiers still manage to push back the raging street mob which ethnically cleanses the city of Serbs, as it was probably cleansed of Shiptars by Serbs a month before. I have to check whether the local Serbs have torched and looted Shiptars’ houses. Now the KLA[20] will take vengeance”. (p. 173)
June 22, 1999
“More and more facts about the persecution of Albanians, torching and looting of their houses, come to my knowledge. And Serb army and police cannot clear themselves of responsibility for many crimes against Albanians, committed not only by local Serbs, Gypsies, Egyptians – volunteers from Kosovo and Metohija who have done the same what Chetnik volunteers did during the Bosnian war. I have to speak publicly about this”. (p. 177)
June 27, 1999
“If Serbs have done to Albanians what Albanians are doing to Serbs, then I am a Serb no more”. (p. 182)
July 12, 1999
“Important in his story: expulsion of Albanians was carried out by KLA on order, with the view of provoking a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ and media propaganda, followed by the eviction carried out by the Serbian police mostly, partly supported by the army and volunteers, killing civilians, too, looting everything what could be looted, torching Albanian houses – presumably out of conviction that the expulsion of Albanians can end up the way that the expulsion of Serbs from Croatia did. They torched and demolished mosques in places of resistance. It was a collective Serb crime against the Albanian people – a revenge for their crimes. However, until the NATO bombardment started, this expulsion of Albanians did not have a mass and general character. But when the bombing started, Albanians fled from NATO bombs as well. At any rate, the American scenario was being realized: a humanitarian catastrophe of Albanians was created with Serbs’ participation as the cause and motive for bombing Serbia and occupying Kosovo. It is by virtue of television’s power that Serbs have again been proven as criminals, aggressors, perpetrators of ethnic cleansing. After the ‘Kumanovo Agreement’[21] hoards of killers, arsonists and looters barged in from Albania and took and are still taking Shiptar vengeance with wild bestiality. Churches are torched and looted everywhere where Serb lunatics damaged or pulled down their mosques. The vengeance is manifold. There is certain security given to Serbs by KFOR but it is insufficient in front of the magnitude of the Albanian plundering even children participate in. Those Serbs, who venture to come back, get killed and slaughtered. Albanians kill patients in beds, too. There is no one to bury dead Serb men and women. Corpses rot in burnt down houses and in ditches. If Serbs have spared some Albanians in Peć as peaceful and honorable people, there exist no peaceful and honorable Serbs for Albanians. For them, all Serbs are blood enemies and everything what is Serb must be extinct”. (p. 186)
July 30, 1999
“Serbian policemen expelled all Albanians, undermined a mosque, looted and then torched Albanian houses in Mušutište[22] this spring. A commander of the ‘victorious police’ was convinced that the Albanians had been banished forever. The Patriarch tells me that and I cannot believe that Serbs are capable of all that much evil. But there are Serbs who think that they are always right”. (p. 205)
d) Unpatriotic youth, deserters, antiwar demonstrations, Serbian traitors and „apatrides”[23]
May 16, 1999
“I detest this unpatriotic, asocial and amoral youth of Belgrade, I predict it a miserable and hard future. This is not my people; I am not their writer… If military courts for draft evaders are not set in motion after this war, the Serb nation will be left without its ethos. If this criminal, plundering and moral scum of the nation is not branded and punished, we will remain a sick society forever”. (p. 105)
May 18, 1999
“Antiwar demonstrations erupted in Krusevac[24]. Serbian mothers don’t give their ‘children’ for freedom, fatherland and Kosovo. Did this capitulating rebellion have to take place in Krusevac, of all places? In Krusevac, where Duke Lazar Hrebeljanovic led the army to the Battle of Kosovo six centuries ago. What has happened to Serbdom that it is the very women of Krusevac today rebel against the defense of Kosovo? A paradox of history, its negative dialectics, the decline and death of Serbdom? I head reports today that foreign intelligence services have developed agile activities aimed at undermining the morals of the logistics, that those unconvincing ‘women in black’[25] embarked on a peace-making agitation, that foreign journalists and domestic ‘peace makers’ and the opposition’ to Milosevic have developed defeatist propaganda…” (p. 109)
“Demonstrations in Krusevac are antiwar and destructive… Mira Markovic[26] is being replaced by Danica Draskovic[27]; ‘A commie’ is replaced by a ‘Chetnik[28]-lady’. If the army is not established as a political pillar, if Perisic[29] and Generals Pavkovic[30] and Lazarevic[31] fail to organize the officers and the army to perform a putsch and prevent mobs of desperados from ruining what is still unruined, if the army does not get a grip over the chaos of the defeat in Kosovo, Serbia’s agony will turn into historical catastrophe”. (p. 113)
“..The battalion was pushed into a mutiny by two low-ranked officers -sympathizers of Vuk Draskovic’s[32] SPO. They have probably been recruited by a secret service. Existential despair, resistance without a chance, easily turns into desertion. This battalion of deserters was followed last night by yet another unit, again from Krusevac. Is it possible that the homeland of Rasina Partisans[33], maybe the best Serbian Partisans of all, gave birth to so many miserable desperados? Is Vuk Draskovic, a Chetnik, going to lead Partisans’ children into Chetnikdom? Again, what we are here dealing with is that fatal, negative dialectics”. (p. 113)
May 24, 1999
“Politicians, intellectuals, generals, writers, Serbian ‘democrats’ Bogdan Bogdanovic, Srdja Popovic, Vidosav Stevanovic, Mirko Kovac, Bora Cosic, Vojin Dimitrijevic[34] and a bunch of Belgrade ladies[35] who do not know what shame is and whose names I will not cite for reasons of personal embarrassment, they all moralize, they fight for human rights, they wage a war to prevent a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’, to protect Albanians from ‘ethnic cleansing’ and persecution, they do that under the auspices of America and the European Union in order to protect Mujaheddin and Ustashi[36] in Croatia. Naked financial, economic, strategic interests and goals, capital and profit hide behind this moralistic and democratic rhetoric”. (p. 125)
May 27, 1999
“This means that Milosevic is being denied the right to negotiate and conclude and agreement on Kosovo? Does that mean that they will go on killing us and destroying everything until they spend all their ammunition and ordinance, or until they get sick and tired of killing us? Or they expect us, desperados without fire, water and light, to start a revolution, topple Milosevic and his government and install Djukanovic, Vuk Draskovic, Vojin Dimitrijevic, Natasa Kandic[37], Vesna Pesic and the mondialist bunch”.
May 28, 1999
“The Hague indictment against Milosevic, Milutinovic, Sainovic, Ojdanic and Stojiljkovic[38] was received by patriots with bitterness; the raging opposition and the apatrides, mercenaries from the Civic Alliance[39] and mondialistic circles, reacted with gloat and revengeful hatred: Ceausescu fell!” (p. 131)
July 24, 1999
“‘That is fashionable here with us. To destroy patriotism on almost equal footing with ‘fascism’. And, in the United States it is ranked high…’ And here with us patriotism is identified with nationalism, and nationalism with backwardness, mondialists and Titosts think”. (p. 196)
e) Of Albanians
May 21, 1999
“Serbia has turned into a battlefield of the past and the future; we suffer an onslaught of Albanians’ archaic barbarianism and Americans’ and Europeans’ technological barbarianism. We are simultaneously attacked by the past of the Balkans and the future of the world. This alliance of Albanians’ archaic barbarianism and Americans’ technological-electronic barbarianism is the first such alliance of such proportions on European soil and maybe the first on our planet. And this alliance has legitimized itself through the struggle for ‘human rights’ and ‘protection of minorities’. ‘Protection of minorities’, ‘prevention of humanitarian catastrophe’ has in our age become the greatest deception and monstrous scam on the part of the great ‘protectors’, in fact enslavers”. (p. 118)
June 5, 1999
“For Australians, as well as for the entire Western world, we, the Serbs, are merely murderers and criminals. And Albanians, this Balkan tribe which throughout its existence has created nothing of value for the world’s culture and civilization, which has made itself a name by means of smuggling narcotics, today represents the most famous victim on the planet”. (p. 150)
August 30, 1999
“Another American-Balkan absurdity surfaced in a chain of historical absurdities the 21st century is ending with[40]: the most democratic state in the world takes for its main ally in conquering the Balkans and demolishing Serbia the most primitive, tribal ethnos, a wild and bloodthirsty arnautluk in which twenty-six thousand people await to be killed in blood feud vendettas. This social, political and moral dreg of the tribal, barbarous Balkans, takes as its ally America and the European Union in the fight against the most democratic, most civilized, most enlightened Balkan people – the Serb people. What a democratic mission of the hegemon of the world progress, what victory of the American ideology! This alliance with Albania and Hashim Thaci’s barbarous, plundering gangs in the struggle against Serbia, and Russia, and then Europe, notably Germany, represents moral misery, a veritable disaster of America’s democratic civilization, but also a triumph of American imperialism – conquest of Kosovo and dominance over the Balkans as a starting position for a conquest of Caucasus, Russia, ‘bloody’ oil. As in the middle ages with the Turkish penetration of Europe, it s now with the Americans, the modern Ottomans, that the Balkans becomes a spring board for the conquest of Europe with the aim of bringing Europe in total dependency of America, the new master of the world”. (page 211)
f) Hungarians are against Serbs, too
July 3, 4 and 5, 1999 in Budapest
“.A beautiful and large city half of which – Buda – was initially built by Serbs, by their first and subsequent migrations. St. Andrea is a Serb settlement with nine or eleven churches and a few old Serbs who speak a perverted Serbian language, is the chief tourist place of Hungary, especially Budapest today. It is on the Serb disaster that the Hungarians today earn hundreds of millions of marks from tourists who visit St. Andrea. So that they do not comprehend why they came to this little town on the bank of the Danube, ornamented by kitsch souvenirs – of Hungarian folklore”. (p. 183-184)
October 28, 1999
“Vojvodina is the primary concern. How to defend Vojvodina from Hungarian pretensions and provincial, bureaucratic autonomism”. (p. 218)
III Anti-Semitism
April 19, 1999
“Friends inform me that Serbs in Germany are exposed to racial discrimination in the press, on the radio and television. Anti-Serbism has replaced anti-Semitism. Serbs are the Jews of late 20th century. Our workers, engineers, doctors, experts are exposed to despise and hatred. We have inflicted so much pain on ‘poor little Albanians’ to deserve to be exterminated by the democratic and humane world like beasts and let them ruin everything we have built in this century. British President Blair[41] says that Britain defends Albanians from Serbs, that it gives them aid, that it is their ally, and that there can be no discussion or agreement with Slobodan Milosevic. Consequently, they will bomb us until we are all dead. Allegedly, because of Milosevic. In reality, the English are today pursuing Disraeli’s policy towards Serbs. It has so happened in this civilization that television moved half the world – Europe and America – by means of its lies, against a small nation of less than ten million people. Can such a people do so much harm to America and Europe to deserve to be annihilated? Are the Albanian criminals pronounced as victims of the century? Have the Jews in America sold themselves to Shiptar drug traffickers?” (p. 62)
April 24, 1999
“Serbophobia is a new global ideology of hatred. We, the Serbs, are the new Semites. In fact, we, too, are a metaphor of a criminal nation. Jews, Turks, Germans, Russians, English, French, Dutch, Spaniards, Portuguese, have been hated by individual nations, or several nations, subordinated, exploited, defeated in wars.” (p. 65-66)
May 29, 1999
“Serbophobia represents in the Jewish intellectual sphere a phenomenon which has an international character. It has come into existence together with European Serbophobia during the process of the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, when the world’s powers did not recognize the Serbian national question as a democratic question. An attempt to resolve this question by means of defending Yugoslavia was labeled by international factors as ‘joint criminal enterprise with the aim of creating a greater Serbia’ and deferred to the Hague Tribunal. It is not difficult to see that Serbophobia unites with Russophobia. Some, and they are not just a few, Jewish intellectuals have identified Serbian nationalism, even when it has an outspoken democratic and humanistic character, with German Nazism. This was done by a corrupt and lazy spirit, the kind of spirit which is instrumentally ideologized in the function of ‘organized lie’. It is from the throne of the epochal victim of Nazi and racist crimes, that a part of the intellectual Jewry has conquered the right to moral, ideological arbitrariness in the contemporary world, especially in civil and ethnic wars on the Yugoslav soil. Some Jews, acting as ideologues of anti-holocaust and anti-Nazism, have become paid, ‘lobbied’ Serbophobes, like for example Ellie Wiesel, Morton Abramovitz, Kouchner, Henri Levy and others. Or (there are probably) Jews today who cash in a postholocaust dividend on the account of the horrific plight and their relatives’ and compatriots’ deaths in crematoria, and thus provoke a reactive anti-Semitism. I despise anti-Semitism, especially if it’s religious; that is why professionalized Jews’ Serbophobia depresses me so…
I am not happy to have written these sentences tonight, after Voja Korac[42] had told me about Ellie Wiesel’s and American Jews’ stance and ‘humanism’ on this war against Serbia. Yet, it is curious: throughout the last centuries, and especially during their existential jeopardy in the Nazi era, Serbian people has been the nation which in the enslaved Europe has probably done the most good to the Jews, and some of them have paid back with hatred and servitude towards its enemies. Has it happened so because we had been their friends and done good to them? Probably”. (p. 135)
IV Of Montenegro, Montenegrins and Milo Djukanovic, but of Zoran Djindjic as well
March 25, 1999
“Shallow-minded and narcissistic politicians of Montenegro were taught a lesson in politics they couldn’t have dreamed of. In punishing and annihilating Serbian people, America did not spare Montenegro. In the Balkans, America protects only Muslims and Shiptars”. (p. 18)
April 15, 1999
“Momir Vojvodic informs me that fortunately ‘Montenegro was bombed last night, as well’. This Serb from Montenegro, a poet of a blossoming linguistic imagination, sincerely rejoiced on the bombardment of Montenegro and thus put to shame traitors like the Mafioso Djukanovic[43] with his gang, as well as the self-appointed writer and former ‘Serb’ Kilibarda. … Momir upheld the honor of Montenegro rather than ruin it; Momir harbors no dilemma between plight and cowardice”. (p. 52)
May 11, 1999
“They are dismembering Serbia, slicing it and poisoning it with uranium. For the time being, Montenegro is spared because[44] of its ‘democracy’, vassalage attitude of its President Djukanovic. Montenegro is preparing or being prepared for independence. Djukanovic and Djindjic are meeting German Chancellor Schroder today; a few day ago they called upon America not to conclude any kind of peace treaty with Milosevic; these two democrats demand from America to topple Milosevic and make a rule of their democracy possible. Both Djukanovic and all Serb over-ambitioned, narcissistic politicians addicted to power, will be defeated in this war. …
.Slobodan Gavrilovic, a distinguished official of the Democratic Party, a reasonable politician and a principled man dissenting from Zoran Djindjic’s views, came to me. He thinks that by leaving Serbia and fleeing to Montenegro, Zoran Djindjic brought himself as the Democratic Party’s leader in question. Gavrilovic believes that, once the war in Serbia is over, a broad popular political democratic movement should emerge, and that I should be at its helm”. (p. 94)
May 19, 1999
“.their aim is to politically destroy the Democratic Party which has already been morally driven into a crisis by its leader Zoran Djindjic by means of his forced flight to Montenegro and Germany. They say that he has been threatened with death. This cannot be ruled out these days. Nevertheless, unfortunately he manages to save himself…” (p. 113)
June 26, 1999
“News arrive from Montenegro that this tribe which has renounced Serbdom and given up Njegos[45], seduced by Americanism and hedonism of progress, forever benumbed by new, mostly tourism-speculative possibilities for idleness and easy, pleasant life, has really embarked on a separatist policy. Montenegro will become a separate vassal state, a little state of smugglers, waiters, chauffeurs, hotel maids and valets, employees in ‘tertiary activities'”. (p. 182)
July 23, 1999
“Montenegro resolutely continues its secession. They are separating out of political reasons that are unconvincing to me. The most corrupt by the West. Greedy and morally feeble Montenegrins turn quickly towards the West; they are deserting ‘mother Russia’ and ‘sister Serbia’. They are selling themselves hoping to become a Balkan Monaco. I wish them a happy journey into state independence!” (p. 192)
October 28, 1999
“Montenegrins are getting more and more independent; their Assembly yesterday passed a citizenship bill; in a few days they will have their own currency -deutschmark and Montenegrin mark. Good luck to them! May they relieve us, Serbs, at least of their hypocrisy and megalomania. Their state will not last long. It will be divided between Albanians and Muslims. May this Montenegrin misfortune stay away from Serbia”. (p. 219)
December 27, 1999
“Everybody who returns from Montenegro and all Montenegrins – Serbs, talk about the raging Ustasha-Montenegrin chauvinism: saying – they hate Serbs more than they hated anybody in this century. Montenegrin, Milo’s ‘democracy’, gave the freedom and wings to the hatred toward Serbs, Serbia and everything that is Serbian. Montenegrin separatism, stimulated by a vicious policy, cannot be throttled by anything except secession. Montenegro is thrown into tribalism, anti-Serbdom, provinciality. Those processes are rooted in Titoism – in the Montenegrin nation proclaimed by the Comintern, and realized by the Communist Party and Tito. This denationalization of the Montenegrin ‘democrats’ should be liberated of all limitations. Let them separate and live in their Montenegrin state. We have to liberate ourselves of them and they have to liberate themselves from us. We, Serbians, must not solve the Montenegrin issue. It is their right and their duty.
And in Kosovo, the daily killing, torturing, exiling Serbs and torching of Serb houses and churches goes on, under the patronage of America, the European Union and their troops. An occupation with ethnic cleansing and annihilating of everything that is Serbian”. (p. 240)
V Of Croats as eternal enemies; of a single good Croat who has condemned Ustashi; of Tito primarily as a Croat; of Krleza
“Josip Broz should return to his homeland in his tin box. It is there where he will represent the most significant tomb in Croatian history. This intruder should finally return to where he had started with his megalomaniacal adventure to conquer the world. May 4th next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the most pompous funeral in Europe this century. Did the old man’s casket shake when NATO bombs demolished his big, beautiful house? The ruined house that the Pozarevac[48]citizen of Montenegrin descent, the gifted bank executive Milosevic, wanted to appropriate. In the ‘Flower House’[49], beneath a huge marble block, ‘the greatest son of our peoples’, the most successful and most efficient Balkan tyrant, who was the most responsible for tragedies that befell Yugoslav peoples, the politician who made the creation of an Albanian republic possible, the politician whose policies are responsible also for this war with America for Kosovo, should in his bones be moved to his Zagorje, to his free, independent, Croatia. Josip Broz has, really, accomplished his mission in Belgrade. He has defeated Serbia in the 20th century”. (p. 82-83)
May 27, 1999
“[Radio] ‘Free Europe’ Croatian Service carries a statement by the chauvinist scoundrel Stipe Mesic[50] who said on the occasion of the indictment against Milosevic that Milosevic had only implemented ideas of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Dobrica Cosic. This cunning Ustashoid denounces me, too, to the Hague Tribunal. And Serbian academicians. Croatian hatred against Serbs has no boundaries. Ustashi talk what hatred dictates them, they are indifferent towards the truth and any human scruples whatsoever. Attacks on me and Serbian intelligentsia, on that unfortunate ‘SANU Memorandum’ undoubtedly demonstrate racist hatred towards the Serbian people, who has resisted American and German imperialism, trying to defend its freedom, national and human rights, paying the price of the greatest victims”. (p. 130)
October 24, 1999
“Last night Igor Mandic was my guest for dinner. This wonderful Croat, this anti-Tudjman Croat, this only Croat intellectual to courageously and loudly oppose the revival of Ustashdom in contemporary Tudjman’s Croatia, who has not written a single chauvinist sentence, a critic and an intellectual who had the courage o defend me from Lasic’s humiliation, the only Croat who writes for NIN, comes to Belgrade, does not hate Serbs and thinks responsibly and conscientiously about everything…” (p. 216)
December 4, 1999
“Reading Jaspers’ thoughts on the Germans’ guilt in the time of national-socialism and Hitler, impressed by his consciousness and reexamining of the responsibility of the Nazi crimes and war, I wonder: why did the great writer Miroslav Krleza never think about his and Croatian responsibility for the Ustasha genocide over the Serbs?”. (p.234)
VI Of America, Europe, Hitler’s and Mussolini’s human advantage as opposed to Clinton, Chirac, Blair, Schroder, Solana and Clark; of attitudes towards Serbs; world conspiracy against Serbs and Serbia
April 25, 1999
“Hitler and Mussolini, the Nazi and fascist leaders, have expressed in their belligerence anger, rage and bitterness towards those who wanted to defeat and destroy them. Clinton, Chirac, Blair, Schroder, Solana and Clark are rational and tranquil, indifferent or falsely concerned; often with a little smile. They are ironical and cynical. They are cold-blooded and rational murderers. Leaders of America and Europe bring no feelings into the killing of the Serb people and into the destruction of everything it has built during this century; they are technicians of death.” (p. 68)
May 2, 1999
“They have cut off Montenegro completely, they are encircling the 2nd Army, they are severing ties with RS on the way to Visegrad. Clinton, Chirac, Blair and Solana and other ‘democratic’ buccaneers defend and assert NATO’s credibility by means of the proportions of crimes against the Serb people”. (p. 75) “Murderers work on holidays, as well. Paid killers. They are limited only by per diems and salaries. Their conscience is at peace: they kill for ‘poor little Albanians” human rights”. (p. 76)
May 8, 1999
“. Everything is permissible to the war machinery which defends ‘poor little Albanians’ in Kosovo.Western civilization, whose energy is profit, has entered the era of nihilism.” (p. 86)
May 9, 1999
“In the vicinity of Djakovica[51], Americans and Europeans are throwing cluster bombs on the Serbian Army which is attempting to prevent hordes of Albanians from barging from Albania to Metohija”. (p. 89)
May 11, 1999
“This is a war we are not waging; our enemies dutifully kill and destroy everything valuable to us and our life and existence in a risk-free manner, without courage, technically and work-like. Such a war, except in Iraq and against Serbs in Bosnia, has never been waged in the history of warfare. In this war, there are only killers and victims”. (p. 95)
May 13, 1999
“Clinton, too, spoke tonight to American veterans at length about Kosovo and Serb crimes against Albanians: rape, massacre, mass murder, throwing people alive into fire.Clinton quoted Albanian refugees’ stories, the most drastic, unbelievable, unconvincing, like a bad repertoire of a provincial newspaper, whose brutality matches the style of kitsch… Clinton’s hate speech equals Hitler’s speeches of hate as the latter sent his armies to war against peoples of inferior race. Clinton claims that those crimes are committed in the name of Greater Serbia, and that they are motivated by subordination towards neighboring nations, whereas Slobodan Milosevic who is to be indicted by The Hague Tribunal for war crimes on the territory of former Yugoslavia, is cited as the ideologue of that greater and blood-thirsty Serbia. What Satan did it take to confabulate the Serb people’s 20th century, and to turn it from a liberator into a nation of villains? And none of the Mighty who command NATO and punish Serbia with most horrible sanctions and embargo, mention Albanians’ crimes and centuries of their genocide against Serbs. (p. 99)
May 15, 1999
“General Clark, a murderer, blames the responsibility of this massacre on the Serbian army, since it hides it military facilities and troops amongst civilian objects and uses Albanians as ‘a shield’. It is by means of Goebbels-like lies that western media attempt to justify a crime so hard to justify. Serb and Albanian peoples’ tragedy discloses the criminal soul of the capitalist and bourgeois West, which calls its aggression against Serbia ‘Merciful Angel’! … Clinton, Blair, Chirac, Schroder – are petty bourgeois, both socially and mentally. Petty bourgeois and dandy hegemony and its brutality and vulgarity is more unbearable than all hegemonies known in history, it is just naked violence, vulgar language and money. A disgusting world has emerged and continues to emerge”. (p. 101)
May 19, 1999
“And this devastation and killing of Serbia carried out by America and the European Union under shameful, criminal and bourgeois profiteers’ pretexts, with Nazi immorality, seems to have no end.” (p. 112)
May 20, 1999
“Savo Rakocevic informs me in a depressive way about news on American television depicting Albanian refugees, deplorable scenes of ‘poor little Albanians’ and hatred towards ‘Serbian criminals’ who carry out ethnic cleansing…” (p. 116)
May 28, 1999
“Conquest of Kosovo is the first motive behind this war, but it is also ‘…cowardice, evil nature, inhumanity in Clinton’s, Madeleine Albright’s, Wesley Clark’s character, capitalist-finacial clan of America – an invisible government. These criminals perceive politics only as gain and use their victory for yet additional gains, and this victory can in this world and in these times be achieved only by brutal force and lies; therefore, by means of total war. That is why they created NATO in the first place. And, in order to morally justify the war and killing, they invented the Hague Tribunal which ‘legally’ justifies their war by citing war criminals responsible for ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. Nothing more un-legal and more un-moral than the Hague Tribunal has been invented in the modern history of the world. NATO Spokesman, a British scoundrel named Jamie Shea, barked in Brussels on May 16 1999: ‘NATO is the Tribunal’s friend’…That means that the Tribunal has been created to judge Serbs.America wants to annihilate Serbia because Serbia is the only country in the Balkans which wants to be free and independent at any cost”. (p. 132)
June 12, 1999
“NATO troops cautiously entered Kosovo this morning from all directions. They advance slowly. They are afraid of landmines. They demand that Serb officers lead them. These protectors of human rights and saviors of ‘poor little Albanians’, overloaded with gear, in a combat mode and movement, many with fingers on their submachine guns’ triggers. Real scarecrows. They are afraid of themselves. These dark-green and camouflage uniforms, these expressionless and dull faces chewing gum out of neurosis and fear, these mercenary American and European monsters who simulate war and peace, conquer ‘sacred Serb land’ for their protégé Albanians, for a Republic of Kosovo, for Greater Albania, as if in a technical-technological apocalypse… America and Europe are robbing Serbia of Kosovo in order to create the most uncivilized and the most vial Balkan state which will be place d’armes of the Islamic fundamentalism in its march towards Europe and Russia in the centuries to come”. (p. 164)
July 14, 1999
“NATO is enabling Albanians to kill and expel the rest of the Serbs and finally rule Kosovo. The Serbian Government is silent. Milosevic is silent. The victorious General Staff and the glorious General Pavkovic – are silent”. (p. 189)
August 10, 1999
“The Balkans cannot be Europeanized until it is defined in terms of ethnicity and statehood. American and contemporary European political philosophy of multiethnic states and societies in the Balkans, on the territory of Bosnia and Kosovo, represents violence and a new form of colonization. There is no multiethnic and multi-religious culture. Culture is a crystallization of matter and spirituality of one origin. Peaceful and cooperative coexistence of cultures is a completely different question. Multiethnic culture is only subculture – rock ‘n’ roll music and industrial-technological culture; it is something that cannot be specified; something which emerges from the material sphere according to technical-technological requirements”. (p. 207)
September 12, 1999
“UN ‘peace forces’, in fact NATO troops, under the command of General Jackson and of the French Serbophobe Kouchner, continue to aid their protégé Thaci in completing the expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo and setting Serb houses and churches aflame”.
“Zaric, a journalist, informs me that I am ‘the only writer in the world whose books have been burned three times during his life: 1968, 1981 and 1999’. ‘Cosic’s books are taken out of Serb libraries with special pleasure, in a special ritual, and are burned with accompanying gunfire and wild rejoicing’. Zaric claims that, under the protection of the NATO troops of the West, a million Serb books have been burned in municipal libraries in Kosovo and Metohija. No one writes and speaks about that. But, when houses, churches and monasteries are torched, what does burning of books represent? Arnaut cynicism. No, Islamic, religious pogrom of everything that is Christian and Serb”. (p. 213-214)
November 26, 1999
“Together with the European Union, the Serbophobe Kouchner and General Reinhardt[52], assisted by the Shiptar Hashim Thaci, America continued the ethnic extinction of Serbs from Kosovo. They torch Serb libraries and churches, demolish Serb graveyards, too. They want to exterminate any proof that this has been Serb land. Serbs from Kosovo, most probably Milosevic’s supporters, have been most severely punished for this gullibility”. (p. 223)
Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, 19.04.2010.
Peščanik.net, 20.04.2010.
[1] Dobrica Cosic (b. 1921) – writer; high-ranking official in the Communist Party until 1968; member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), spiritus rector of the Greater Serbia project; first President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992-93), often referred to as “Father of the Nation”.
[5] General Manager and Editor-in-Chief of the Politika daily, a major propaganda tool of the regime.
[6] Serb-controlled part of Croatia, self-proclaimed as “Republic of Serb Krajina” 1991, collapsed 1995.
[7] Aleksandar Ranković, a prominent Communist politician who was ousted in an inner-Party struggle 1966, allegedly for “misusing security services” and attempting to impose Serbian dominance in Yugoslavia.
[8] This may refer to two persons: Petar Stambolić – a Communist veteran who was known for his indecisive stance on defending Serbia’s interests in the Yugoslav Federation, and Ivan Stambolić – a new generation Communist who introduced Slobodan Milošević to Serbian politics in the mid-1980s and was abducted and murdered by State Security in 2000, apparently on order from Milošević’s inner circles.
[11] A group of members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) drafted 1986 a document on Serbia being an underdog in the Yugoslav Federation. This document has become a blueprint of Serbian nationalists in the late 20th century.
[14] Milan Nedić, a Serbian politician who was Prime Minister of a quisling government during the German occupation 1941-44.
[15] Vesna Pešić, one of the leading personalities in the anti-Milošević opposition, presently an MP.
[21] The so-called „Military-technical Agreement“ signed by Serbian authorities and NATO officials in the Macedonian town of Kumanovo June 9, 1999 marked the end of NATO air raids and beginning of the withdrawal of Serbian troops, police and civilian authorities from Kosovo.
[23] While the term apatride denominates a person without citizenship, Dobrica Ćosić, apparently ignorant of the fact, uses it to perjoratively refer to persons who he deems unpatriotic.
[25] Ćosić is alluding to a women’s antiwar group consequently opposing the regime’s aggressive policies throughout the 1990s wars.
[28] Chetnik (četnik) – a royalist paramilitary movement that collaborated with the German and Italian invaders against the Partisan resistance during WW2, committing countless war crimes against civillians,too.
[29] General Momčilo Perišić, Chief of General Staff of Milošević’s armed forces, fired 1999 and joined the
democratic opposition. He now stands war crimes trial at The Hague.
[32] Vuk Drašković, a former journalist and writer who started as leader of the opposition (known as „The king of streets and squares“), who later allied with Milošević to become Deputy Prime Minister in the Federal Government (Jan.-Apr. 1999), founder of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) – a nationalist royalist party which subsequently sunk into insignificance.
[34] Bogdan Bogdanović – an architect and former Mayor of Belgrade, who lives in self-imposed exile in Vienna; Srdja Popović – a Belgrade lawyer and opposition activist; Vidosav Stevanović – a writer; Mirko Kovač – a writer who moved to Croatia; Bora Ćosić – a writer (not related to Dobrica Ćosić) living in Berlin; Vojin Dimitrijević – a law professor and human rights activist.
[35] An allusion to several opposition activists and prominent human rights defenders – all of them women who lead renowned human rights NGOs: Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Humanitarian Law Fund, Center for Cultural Decontamination, Women in Black.
[36] Ustashi (ustaše) – a millitant pro-fascist movement in the WW2 Croatia, founders of thbe quisling „Independent State of Croatia“, perpetrators of numerous war crimes against civilians, mostly Serb and Jewish, but also against Croat antifascists.
[38] Milan Milutinović – President of Serbia (1998 – 2002), tried at The Hague and acquitted; Nikola Šainović – Serbian Prime Minister (1993 – 1994) and FRY Deputy prime Minister (1994 – 2000), sentenced to 22 years by the ICTY; Dragoljub Ojdanić – Chief of General Staff (1998 – 2000) and Defense Minister (2000), sentenced to 15 years by the ICTY; Vlajko Stojiljković – Interior Minister of Serbia (1997 – 2000), committed suicide in front of the Federal parliament building in April 2002.
[44] Slobodan Gavrilović, presently General Manager of the state-owned Official Gazette publishing house that published Ćosić’s book.
[46] Miroslav Krleža (1893-1981) – a well known Croat and Yugoslav writer, famous for his sharp critical wit.