Less than Human

Less than Human

Last week the Bosnian TV screened a set of private videos of the most wanted war criminal in the world, the Bosnian Serb Ratko Mladic. The video scandalized the world, and even us, those few in Serbia who don't live in denial.

We are those who believe their eyes more than their officials, who believe in facts more than in ideology, who believe that peace can come only through justice.  And when I say us few, I refer to the activists, human rights lawyers, the families of Mladic's victims, and those people who, unwillingly, in one way or another, crossed the hidden path of the hidden General.  

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I remember, some years ago, a young human rights activist whose daily job was to hunt for war criminals.  He met Mladic regularly while Mladic shopped in a bakery. My young friend gave up his job.  The impotence of the law and the nonsense of politics made his life senseless.

The war criminal was frequently quoted as a hero of the Serbian people.  Political rallies featured T-shirts with Mladic' s face.  He was a a mythical figure, the  Serbian hero sworn to kill himself rather than surrender to the Hague tribunal.

Was he hiding in the mountains, was he hiding in his Bosnian woods and caves, was he hiding in the dungeons of the Serbian army in Belgrade? Was he hiding at all?

A couple of years ago two soldiers on duty close to these secret military dungeons were found dead. The official explanation was dubious: they either killed each other in a fight or committed suicide. What came out soon after was that they were allegedly witnesses of  Mladic's hideout.   This case is still a very suspicious mystery, since the parents and human rights activists are pursuing it relentlessly. Some time ago, the indicted private persons who supposedly helped Mladic in his hiding in Belgrade were  let off the hook in a Serbian court, officially because of lack of evidence. I saw them leave the courtroom, boisterous and loud, while the witnesses were intimated and threatened.
And now these home videos appear: Mladic is elderly, yet obviously not in hiding. He is our contemporary, living a normal life in recognizable neighborhood of Belgrade. He doesn't not seem hunted but protected.

Less than a year ago another war criminal Radovan Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade: disguised as a mystic alternative medicine guru Dragan Dabic. After his arrest many photos and clues circled in Belgrade: that Mladic might be disguised as a street seller, as a simple retired person in the park, even as a woman. But these videos disperse these rumors: the very last video shows Mladic with a cane, playing joyfully with snowballs. This shot confirms the rumors that he had a recent stroke, and that the footage is as recent as winter 2008.

   Looking at this home movies, as boring and  innocent as all family private movies are, something felt deeply wrong about them. We are looking at the world's most wanted war criminal, who executed in cold blood, in three days, 8000 people just because they were ethnic Muslims in the wrong place: cattle,  less than human, as his soldiers called them.

    In the gaze of the camera, he behaves as if nothing has happened.  He is a simple family man.    Mladic cuddles his newborn grandson with words of endearment.  He hugs his always present loving wife and his devoted son.  He weeps over the coffin of his daughter, who shot herself dead with his favorite gun.   The horror of the vast crime he committed becomes even more gigantic.   This man with emotions and ideas had no doubts about liquidating populations, without explanation, without hesitation.   Mladic was considered a hero for that. From the home videos, you see this faith about his heroic deeds.  He is surrounded by family friends, and even some politicians of his regime.

These people speak my language, they have the body language of my relatives from Herzegovina, but they don't speak my mind. Sincerely, they seem crazy to me.  But in the real everyday politics,  their presence is a shadow over Serbia.  It makes everyday Serbian life seem insane.

These days, the European Community is strongly promising Serbia a  new visa regime.  One of the main conditions for Serbia's integration into te European Community was the  arrest of Ratko Mladic. The public screening of these videos coincides with these new policy talks. It's hard to believe that timing is an accident.  

Maybe we are closing in, maybe there is no other way to tell the Serbian people that Mladic is not a  a superhuman hero of Serbian people, but a tottering old man,  a character whose banality is classically evil.