Free Republic

As Milosevic's intelligence chief, Jovica Stanisic is accused of setting up genocidal death squads. But as a valuable source for the CIA, an agency veteran says, he also 'did a whole lot of good.' By Greg Miller March 1, 2009 Reporting from Belgrade, Serbia -- At night, when the lawns are empty and the lamps along the walking paths are the only source of light, Topcider Park on the outskirts of Belgrade is a perfect meeting place for spies. It was here in 1992, as the former Yugoslavia was erupting in ethnic violence, that a wary CIA agent made his...

Although temperatures in the Balkans are rising, neither budding flowers nor mass protests should be mistaken for the beginning of a Balkan Spring modeled on the revolutions that rocked the Arab world in 2011. The protesters’ main problem is that they’re unable to apply any political pressure on the government by rallying around a candidate that might threaten Vucic’s stranglehold on national politics. The entirety of the anti-Vucic ideological spectrum is represented—from student Marxists to Bosko Obradovic, the ultranationalist leader of Dveri, a far-right opposition party of religious conservatives—sometimes causing scuffles among the protesters. This highlights the fragmented and impotent...

- The Yugoslav Wars started in 1991, but never really ended. - Kosovo and Serbia are still enemies, and they're getting worse. - A proposed land swap could create peace – or reignite the conflict. The government of Serbia has made its peace and established diplomatic relations with all other former Yugoslav countries, but not with Kosovo. In Serbian eyes, Kosovo's declaration of independence in 2008 was a unilateral and therefore legally invalid change of state borders. Despite their current conflict, Kosovo and Serbia have the same long-term objective: Membership of the European Union. Ironically, that wish could lead to...

By April 1992, with its Soviet ally freshly dissolved, Yugoslavia as the world had known it was gone in a bloody and violent breakup, leaving some 100,000 dead, 2.4 million refugees, 2 million internally displaced, and seven independent nations in its place. While those ethnic tensions still simmer in much of the former Yugoslavia, so too is a growing sentimental recollection of life in a country much of the younger generations can only learn about in history books and museums like Milakovic’s Yugodom. A Gallup poll from last year showed that many people in the former Yugoslavia look back fondly...

Four Russian diplomats will be banned from Greece after evidence revealed Russia was trying to foment opposition to a historic deal between Greece and Macedonia that is likely to pave the way for Macedonia’s Nato membership and so weaken Russian influence in the western Balkans. Russia, involved in a wider struggle for influence with the EU across the region, has already been accused of backing a failed coup in Montenegro in 2016. Russia said it would respond to the Greek expulsions by taking similar steps against Greek diplomats in Moscow. The expulsion of the diplomats, revealed in the Greek media...

Federal authorities on Wednesday began legal proceedings to strip U.S. citizenship from two Bosnians, including one living in Oregon, for war crimes including executing civilians during that country’s civil war in the 1990s. The move by the U.S. Justice Department comes years after Rasema Handanovic and Edin Dzeko were extradited and later convicted by courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2011. After serving her sentence, Handanovic returned to Beaverton, Oregon, according to a statement from the Justice department, while Dzeko has not yet been released by Bosnian authorities. The department filed denaturalization lawsuits against the pair in federal courts in...

More than 3,000 Serbs came together on Saturday at the Serbian Orthodox Church’s official ceremony in honor of the victims of the 1999 NATO bombing in Yugoslavia. The victims were remembered throughout the country, but the main ceremony took place in the town of Aleksinac in southern Serbia, often known as “Serbian Hiroshima,” reports the Serbian Orthodox Church. On the day of the 19th anniversary of the tragedy, His Grace Bishop Arseny of Niš served a panikhida in memory of all the victims and offered a homily. The clergy and representatives of the president of the republic laid flowers at...

While First Lady Melania Trump may want to visit "a desert island" for the holidays, her popularity may be inspiring others to flock to her native country, Slovenia. Slovenia reported a 9 percent hike in tourism revenue this year, Reuters reported, with a 23.4 percent increase in tourists from the United States. The first lady was even more popular among Americans than her husband, President Donald Trump, according to a December Gallup poll. Tourists may be exploring the central European country but Melania Trump would rather escape on a tropical vacation. On December 8, she paid a visit to the...

Yugoslav war criminal Slobodan Praljak reportedly died after his 20-year prison sentence was upheld by a UN war crimes tribunal and declaring he had drunk poison. “I am not a war criminal,” Praljak allegedly said moments before drinking from a small bottle of liquid amid gasps during the appeal hearing in The Hague, a city in western Netherlands.

The Mihailovich Monument in Chetnik Memorial Park at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Libertyville, IL on a beautiful Summer evening in Chicagoland. Photo by Aleksandra Rebic June 22, 2017 THE MIHAILOVICH MONUMENT: NO TAKING DOWN OF MONUMENTS TO LEGACYWith all the focus on monuments and statues in America recently forced upon us by people with a political agenda, none of us should be surprised that monuments dedicated to General Draza Mihailovich have become a target. It was inevitable. We cannot be apathetic or take anything for granted. "Initiatives" to "remove" the General Mihailovich Monument at St. Sava Serbian...

The Mihailovich Monument in Chetnik Memorial Park at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Libertyville, IL on a beautiful Summer evening in Chicagoland.Photo by Aleksandra Rebic June 22, 2017 ________________________________ Aleksandra's Note: The following presentation was made on July 26, 2017 by U.S. Congressman Ted Poe from Texas. Following the text is a video presentation published online three years ago reflecting the same theme. On both occasions, the remarks of Congressman Ted Poe were made publicly and therefore saved for posterity. So nice to see an American politician who recognizes the debt this great country owes to the Serbians. Today,...

SEVNICA, Slovenia — It’s a short book, just 42 pages and some filled with photographs. But it goes a long way in explaining the facts about the strong, proud people who carved a small but free nation out of the former Communist Yugoslavia and produced one of the most famous women in the world: Melania Trump. Author Sandi Gorisek doesn’t consider himself a writer, although he admits he is fond of dreaming up fairy tales to share with children. “I’m a storyteller,” says Gorisek, who makes a living as a mechanical engineer in a town just a few miles away...

Aleksandra's Note: On this website you'll find much information regarding Lt. Col. Milton Friend of the USAF, particularly in the way his life path has crossed with that of Serbia's legendary General Draza Mihailovich, both before the General's death and decades after his passing. Lt. Col. Friend has been directly involved in the effort to establish a monument in Washington, D.C. honoring General Mihailovich and his saving of over 500 American airmen in WWII, and in the Mihailovich rehabilitation process in Belgrade, Serbia that ended successfully in May of 2015. I'm reposting a news story here from 2010 in honor...

THIS WAS GENERAL DRAZA MIHAILOVICHThere is no grave site. There is no marker for his remains. It is as if they wanted to remove him not just from the earth but from the history of his country and the consciousness of his people. But they failed. Nowhere is this more evident than in those hills of Serbia they call Ravna Gora. And it is in those Ravna Gora hills where the true soul and spirit of Serbia can still be found. July 17th is an important day for those who knew who he was and what he did. His name...

Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian, O.S.S. and Aleksandra Rebic "Forgotten 500" Halyard Mission Reunion / Michigan June 2009. Photo: Rebic collection.This year, 2017, the world will be marking the 72nd anniversary of the end of World War Two, the era of the "Greatest Generation". For me, one of the measures of a man who dies is how deeply the loss is felt in the hearts of those who knew him, and if they didn't know him personally, were affected by his work or by his existence on this earth in a positive way. WWII OSS radioman Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian was short in...

The Chetnik Freedom Fighters as Immigrants in New LandsSerbian Chetnik immigrants in the UK in 1948. Photo courtesy of Andy Evans"What a difference time makes. Pictured are immigrants to the UK in 1948. These brave men were the first ones to stand up and fight against fascist rule dominating Europe in 1941. They had lost everything but decided to stay and fight for their homeland and democracy against overwhelming odds. For three years the Western Powers hailed the Serbian Chetniks as heroes until the winds of power altered direction and it was evident Communist Russia would be the liberator of...

Serbia's prime minister pledged on Friday that the Balkan country will never join NATO or any other military alliance as Serbia marked the 18th anniversary of the start of NATO airstrikes that stopped its crackdown in Kosovo. Aleksandar Vucic spoke at a ceremony near a railway bridge in southern Serbia where the Western military alliance's missiles struck a passenger train, killing at least 28 people and injuring dozens. "We will never be part of the alliance which killed our children, nor of any other alliance," Vucic said. "They wanted to destroy and humiliate small Serbia and kill its children."

One of those moments you never forget: 18 years ago, before the dawn on March 25, 1999, I stepped outside the door to find The New York Times there on the ground with the headline announcing that NATO had begun its bombing campaign against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999. I remember looking at that front page of the paper before picking it up and thinking - "They are really doing it... It's no longer a threat... It's real... It's real... What a mistake... What a mistake..." Then I picked up the paper and went back...

Victims of Croatia's pro-Nazi World War II regime and their relatives are seeking $3.5 billion in damages in a suit filed in the US.Visitor walks past display at US Holocaust Memorial Museum (Reuters) Victims of Croatia's pro-Nazi World War II regime and their relatives are seeking $3.5 billion in damages in a suit filed in the United States, local media and officials said Monday. The group wants compensation from the Croatian government for property seized from ethnic Serbs, Roma and Jews, as well as for their suffering during the war, state-run HRT television reported. The suit was filed in a...

Melania Trump will become the first foreign-born wife of an American president in almost 200 years. On January 20, her husband, Donald Trump, will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. Most Americans do not know much about 46-year-old Melania Trump. She was born in the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia. It is a small country surrounded by Austria, Hungary, Italy and Croatia. It has a small coastline on the Adriatic Sea. Slovenia also has castles that are hundreds of years old, large forests and clear rivers. VOA recently traveled to the country to learn about Melania...