Serb War Crime Suspect Surrenders

AP via Philly Inquirer ^ | 4/21/03 | ap

[frmrda]

Serb War Crimes Suspect Surrenders

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro -A former Yugoslav army captain, long sought by the U.N. war crimes court for alleged atrocities in the 1991 Croatian war, surrendered to Serbian authorities, police sources said Monday.

Capt. Miroslav Radic, accused along with two other former officers of a massacre of more than 200 civilians and prisoners of war during Croatia's war for independence, surrendered in Belgrade, the Beta news agency reported. Police sources confirmed the report on condition of anonymity.

Radic was part of an army unit commanded by Gen. Mile Mrksic that besieged the eastern Croatian city of Vukovar in 1991 and shelled it for months.

Radic is expected to be extradited to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, following a routine judicial procedure. Radic had been on the run ever since being indicted by the U.N. tribunal in late 1995.

Mrksic surrendered last year and has pleaded innocent. The third man sought in the Vukovar massacre, Col. Veselin Sljivancanin, remains at large.

The indictment against the three officers alleges that troops under their command removed at least 200 non-Serbs from the Vukovar hospital in November 1991 and transported them to a nearby pig farm, where most of them were shot and buried in a mass grave.

Croats consider Vukovar, located near Croatia's eastern border with Serbia and Montenegro - the successor to Yugoslavia, a symbol of Serb wartime cruelty.

Serbia has been under Western pressure to ensure that all Serb war crimes suspects are brought to justice or it risks losing financial aid and other support.

[frmrda]

I've been reading up on the Balkans recent history (and history since the 1800's) and I always enjoy reading the FR threads on such stories, as each side says the other is lying, and a terrorist supporter, etc.

So have at it guys, is this Radic a war criminal or just someone defending his homeland against the other sides atrocities. I have no dog in this fight, and am not informed enought to make a decision one way or the other.

[frmrda]

Bump

[Hoplite]

not informed enought to make a decision one way or the other

Quality time with multiple sources is really the only remedy.

Sorry, like most things, knowledge doesn't come easy.

[frmrda]

Oh, no doubt about it, that's why I'm reading about it. Still, I can't decide based on what people say here, as there are polar opposite opinions. I just enjoy reading the diatribes. One person will say this guy is a lesser Hitler, one will call him a freedom fighter.

[Hoplite]

Read anything good (recommendation worthy) thus far?

[frmrda]

Yes, a book called "The Balkans, War Nationalism and the Great Powers 1803-199" by Misha Glenny. He also wrote a book called "The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War". Both are great.

The best one I've read though is by Laura Silber and Alan Little called "Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation"

Anyone else got recommendations?

[Hoplite]

Silber and Little pretty much wrote the primer, so you've got a good foundation - I can recommend the following to flesh things out:

The Serbs by Judah
Blood and Vengeance by Sudetic

Judah takes on the macro view and helps explain the historical underpinnings of the war while Sudetic concentrates upon the conflict in Eastern Bosnia around Srebrenica, which turned out to be the turning point of events in the Balkans.

[frmrda]

Thanks. The Glenny book covering 1803-1999 also does a good job of explaining the macro. I'll pick up the Judah book and the other one. Are they written from a particular "partisan" point of view.

Still, the next book in my queue is "Master of the Senate" by Robert Caro, but those 2 will be right after it. Appreciate the insight.

[Hoplite]

Are they written from a particular "partisan" point of view.

There's a whole Orwellian fight for the past being waged over the Balkan conflict - and it extends down into the user review sections of books devoted to the subject on Amazon.com.

Ultimately you'll have to assign your own value to these two books, and decide whether you'd recommend them yourself or not. = )

[PiP PiP Cherrio]

Silber and Little pretty much wrote the primer, so you've got a good foundation - I can recommend the following to flesh things out:

The Serbs by Judah
Blood and Vengeance by Sudetic

Sudetic is a Croatian, his words are worthless and meaningless.

Maybe you should ask why the Serbs defended their land, their property, their people, their culture. The war began silently in 1988 with the Croats cleansing the Serbs from the Western Slavonia region, notably in the Pakrac region. The diatrabs espoused by Sudetic is not reputable, however, Misha Glenny is fair and balanced. Judah- discredited, too many lies as I never bought the book. I perused through the pages and chapters for certain events I know for fact and his makeup of those events are pure rubbish.

by the way, congrats on not bringing up Roy Gutman and/or Martin Sugarman- complete liars. I confronted Sugarman during his lecture with a tape recording of what he said earlier (Without his knowledge), he then ranted "I was out of control" and refused to answer my pointed questioning of his "facts". He did not expect someone there to be as knowledgeable of Bosna as I...:)

[palmer]

"Burn This House". Written by journalists with different perspectives which gives insight into the biases of the various factions.

[PiP PiP Cherrio]

All books are written partizanly, as history is recorded through biased eyes. How we see and hear things as we want to view them as. Anyone doing research that is or was unaffected by the wars/history of that region, conducts research and bases it from there. As for myself, I am clearly neutral in the right v. wrong of the wars.

I felt that the YU Army should have leveled Slovenia when they violated the YU Constitution. If that occurred, we would not have all the Balkan problems. The VRS should have taken control 90% of Bosnia, and leave the rest for the Croatians and also incorporate the RSK into the RS. Position of strength would have left Fikret Abdic in as the legally-elected President and not the self-appointed Muslim Alija Izetbegovic- whom is the largest venal of the region. No scruples.

Ask me and I will tell you the truth from what I've seen or know for fact. Note, I do not discuss areas of the Balkans I am not familiar with. I do not like to waste my time.

[getoffmylawn]

I read a pretty good book years ago called "The Impossible Country". It was written by a travel writer that wrote a travel book about Yugoslavia and then went back to interview many of the same people that he interviewed for the travel book to get their take on the ethnic tensions that were brewing just before the disintegration began. It was the first book that explained to me the origins of the Croatian Ustashe blind hatred of Serbs.

I'd steer clear of Sudetic if I were you. He's a former C.I.A. agent of Croatian heritage. You're not going to find any objectivity in anything he writes. I haven't read Judah's book but a non-Serb friend of mine has and he told me not to bother with it. He claims it's essentially badly written anti-Serb propoganda.

I think you got a pretty good jump on things with Misha Glenny's stuff.

You may also want to check out the documentary listed in my tag line. I worked on it as the assistant to the producer and we bent over backwards attempting to strive for objectivity. You be the judge as to how well we succeeded.

[JMS]

I saw the documentary in New York and it was as brilliant as it was upsetting, I highly recommend it. I brought along a friend who works for ABC news and he had never seen most of the material.

I would also recommend The Rape of Serbia by Michael Lees which is out of print but may be available in a second hand shop or at the library. It is written by a former British agent attached to Mihailovic during WWII. When he was doing research for his memoires he found that communist sympathizers in the British government had actively help Tito achieve power, leading to the weak Serbia strong Yugoslavia policy that resulted in large portions of historic Serbia ending up in other republics.

[Joey Silvera]

Misha Glenny is fair and balanced? He's long time BBC correspondent. Are you on the right site? Why not pump the New York Times next?

[Joey Silvera]

Yes, Free Republic is the perfect site for questioning the accuracy and objectivity of CIA agents. It's an even more ideal forum for promoting BBC journalists. Were you marching in Frisco last Saturday?

[getoffmylawn]

Ummm.... ok.