How to Remember Milosevic

There will be no mention today of Slobodan Lazarevic, the Serbian spy who testified that Milosevic used the war in Croatia as a way to divert Serbian attention from dissatisfaction over political and economic matters at home. According to Lazarevic, Belgrade was not interested in solving the “Krajina problem” (which referred to the Serb population in Croatia). Rather, Milosevic wanted the problem to stay in the public eye so that his constituents would remain preoccupied with the “suffering of the Serbs in Croatia.”

Lazarevic described a Serbian “anti-terrorist” unit that was tasked with “dirty jobs,” such as terrorizing villagers and creating disturbances to undermine the peace process. The group’s work included killing Serbs, Croats, and Muslims alike–for instance a local official merely because he called for peaceful coexistence between Serbs and Croats.

No one at Milosevic’s funeral will mention Lazarevic’s description of the murder by Serb forces of over 250 people from Vulkovar Hospital. Nor will they speak of the Serb-Croat body exchange that occurred in early 1994. During his testimony, Lazarevic explained that he needed 100 bodies for a body exchange, but he was 10 short. When he asked for the assistance of a Serbian police unit, he was directed to a mass grave where he found four decomposing bodies, their hands still tied with wire. But he was still six short. For additional help, he turned to members of a Serb paramilitary unit, but they only had live prisoners. Not to worry, they said, come by tomorrow. The next day Lazarevic returned to find more bodies, and they were still warm: The prisoners had been murdered to help improve the count.

This was the Yugoslavia that Milosevic created–a place where prisoners were killed to inflate body counts. But that Yugoslavia won’t be spoken of today. Indeed, it is likely that the war’s greatest crime–the Srebrenica genocide–will not even be mentioned….

At Milosevic’s funeral no one will speak of the lives he ruined or the communities he destroyed. But the final verdict on Milosevic’s legacy should not go to his supporters. Perhaps instead it should go to Witness B-1701, whose words in the courtroom concisely and ably summarize the Serb leader’s role in history: Everything changed when he came to power.