Posted on 07/06/2008 1:08:11 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
BELGRADE - They sit like open sores at the heart of this turbulent eastern European nation.
Long before international fugitive Miladin Kovacevic revived tensions between the U.S. and Serbia, NATO bombs reduced a row of once formidable government buildings here to hulking shells.
The ravaged red-brick and concrete buildings are still standing nearly 10 years after the American-led aerial assault. They represent a wound that, many Serbians say, still runs deep.
"Our people look at America like it's an enemy," said Niko Percovic, 30, a reporter based in the northern city of Novi Sad.
That is one of the reasons, Percovic said, the tale of the monstrous Serb athlete who pummeled Brooklyn college student Bryan Steinhauer and then fled the country received almost no attention here for weeks.
"Nobody wants to say anything about Kovacevic or write anything about him in the newspapers," Percovic added.
But Kovacevic's story isn't going away anytime soon. The U.S. and Serbia are locked in a diplomatic battle over how to get Kovacevic back to upstate New York to face American justice.
A solution could take months - if one comes at all.
International attention focused on Serbia after Kovacevic, a 6-foot-9, 280-pound jock, fled there following a May 4 bar brawl that left fellow Binghamton University student Bryan Steinhauer, 22, in a coma.
The hulking Kovacevic, 20, escaped the U.S. on June 9 with the help of a consulate member, prompting Sen. Chuck Schumer to blast the Serbian government and demand the fugitive be returned. The U.S. ambassador to Serbia this week echoed Schumer's demand.
A month after Kovacevic fled, he remains a free man.
A Serbian prosecutor said the U.S. has still not filed the formal documentation necessary to spur local authorities to act. Even then, Serbian officials have suggested that their law may forbid them from extraditing Kovacevic.
American officials have conceded their best hope is that Kovacevic is persuaded to surrender voluntarily.
One question looms large - why would he?
Kovacevic has been spotted strolling around in a T-shirt and gym shorts near his hometown of Kula, a tiny city in the north with a sinister history.
Located 100 miles from Belgrade, Kula is known as the former base of an elite military unit, the Red Berets, which reportedly carried out political assassinations at the behest of the notorious Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
Residents there continue to view the U.S. with skepticism. Kovacevic's family friends said he was the victim of a conspiracy.
"The most he is guilty of is that he is big," one friend said.
Around Kula's three-block downtown, residents said they were shocked - and baffled - that one of their own had become a headline-grabbing fugitive.
"Was the [victim] somebody famous?" asked a man at an outdoor fast-food shop in between bites of a pljeskavica, a Serbian hamburger made with pork, lamb and beef. "I heard it was just a fight."
Belgrade, Serbia's bustling capital city, pulsates with life in the summer months.
Outdoor cafes remain packed deep into the night with people sipping iced coffees and wine. Hordes of stunning young women stroll past boutique shops wearing eye-catching outfits. Weekend nights don't end until the sun rises.
Questions about the Kovacevic case were often met here with looks of confusion.
"I don't know about it," said a 42-year-old sunglass vendor who declined to give his name. "We have our own problems and they are big ones."
Very big. Beyond the glamour and frenetic nightlife that Belgrade has become known for lies a government in tatters.
A parliamentary election in early May ended with the pro-Western party winning the most votes, but with little hope it could form a united government with its nationalistic opponents.
Two months later, the country is still without a functioning government - a black eye for a nation used to strife.
The police appear to be on edge. On two separate occasions this week, Serbian police ordered a Daily News photographer to erase his photos.
In 1999, Milosevic, intent on driving ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo, sent Serb soldiers and police rampaging into the neighboring province.
Then-President Bill Clinton pushed for the NATO attacks, which killed thousands of Serbs and left several government buildings obliterated. Today many political observers believe the bombing campaign was unwarranted.
In Serbia, feelings are still raw.
Dragana Grujin, 30, said she hates Clinton for the devastation he brought to her country nine years ago.
"I don't like it when people get killed for nothing," said Grujin, a hotel worker from Belgrade. "What America did was not necessary. Everybody here feels the same way."
As for Kovacevic, Grujin's views of the case mirrored many of her fellow Serbs. "There was a fight and the Serbian guy was tougher," she said. "What's the big deal?"
Djujic's units never once fought the Italians nor Germans. In fact, the Germans rescued Djujic's Dinara Division from being smashed by the Partisans in December 1944. The Germans then granted them free access to Istria.
Couldn`t have? It`s like that Italians would stopped them for being that. They were coleagues. Most of atrocities in Dalmatia were done by ustashas not italian fascists. Italians were in rule, but they cooperated with ustashas and domobrani on all the territory of Dalmatia (which was logical, because Croatians were locals).
Um, you do realize that the Ustashi were never allowed in Dalmatia, do you? The Ustashi weren't permitted in the Italian occupied zone of hte NDH and the Italians preferred the use of Djujic's Chetniks as MVAC units (anti-Communist Auxillaries).
Care to discuss the atrocities committed by Djujic’s forces against Croatians and Serbians of Dalmatia?
Actually, Serbia taking a stand against Albanian Jihadists and Fascist Croats is always a good topic.
Choke on it.
Perhaps, but you're somehow more believable when you speak for the National Socialists instead of the international ones.
Keep fighting those imaginary demons as your country continues to shrink.
My country, the Unites States, is doing just fine.
I guess you are still toasting the “kill one third, cleanse one third, convert one third” concept?
Not surprising, really. Still getting over the embarrassment of the Serbs throwing off the Turkish yoke while your Austrian masters grew stronger, eh Tropo?
That's funny...considering that the rebellion in Bosnia in 1875 began in the Croatian village of Gabela in Hercegovina.
At least we stopped the Turks from taking over the whole of Croatia.....unlike you Serbs with Serbia.
Are you still getting over the embarassment of that?
Actually, I’m still laughing over the idea that you think anyone in the US takes a National Socialist seriously.
Good God, you make me laugh!
Are you done embarassing yourself on this thread?
How is it “one sided”? My saying that what happened was basically just a bar fight and that some of the people here were making all-emotion no-intellect knee-jerk statements?
Actually, JimRob did me a personal favour of closing that account after a poster revealed my ID on this forum. The account wasn’t banned, it was deactivated.
Apologies...it was directed at someone else.
“Ratko Mladic the great Serb hero walks free too.”
You got something right for once, Joe.
all of the various groups and faction in this region make the exact same claim, and in some cases they may be correct.
However when any of them (and all of them have done it) target innocent civilians for murder, torture, and rape - that is not responding to aggression - that is being an aggressor.
Such behavior was pretty standard for the Communists just about anywhere they were in power (or attempting to grab power). The Communists have long fled and now the Christian Serbs are being targeted by the current pogrom.
whatever you say.
Anyone buying into this Bravo Sierra? All of the postings from that account were deleted, a sure sign of banishment.
As with everything from Tropoljac, this just doesn't pass the smell test.
So when did "Tropljac" disappear and "Diocletian" appear? Same time, or with a little gap between? And why would you ask that all your own posts under Tropoljac be removed? That does seem pretty odd.
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