Byzantine Blog

"Democrats" and "Hooligans" — Who's Who

On February 21, a group of young Serbs split from the Belgrade rally which gathered at least half a million people protesting against unilateral declaration of independence by Pristina separatists, and attacked the US embassy, managing to torch one of the offices before riot police dispersed them. The incident received a wide coverage in the West, aimed at overshadowing the incomparably bigger and much more significant peaceful gathering in front of the Parliament building and, later, at the prayer service held in St. Sava Church.

While the official West was "outraged", "stunned", "shocked" and "appalled", one Russian TV commentator was reminded of equally violent demonstrations eight years earlier, orchestrated by CIA and led by Zoran Djindjic, which were directed against FR Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic. But unlike the latest outbreak of violence, the Djindjic-led torching and looting of Serbian Parliament was praised and welcomed with enthusiasm among Western leaders and in the mainstream media, as an expression of a "democratic will of people":

“Today the people of Belgrade surely remember other public gatherings. They remember the madness of the crowd that brought down old man Milosevic. The same football fans, by the way. How a country intoxicated with liberal promises cried at the funeral of the Western puppet Zoran Djindjic — the man who destroyed the legendary Serbian army and secret services, who sold the heroes of Serbian resistance out to The Hague for abstract economic assistance, and who got a well-deserved bullet for it,” Konstantin Semyonov said.

“This Serbia voted for Tadic who, on a day of national mourning, had nothing better to do than travel to Romania. And after all, it is possible to come up with a thousand excuses as to why nothing is being done, but in the end, it's all really very simple: either you stand up or you are submissive and quiet,” the journalist said.

Serbia's Pimps Annual Rituals

Russian journalist's comment induced purple rage in a particular segment of Belgrade elite, the very same transition bourgeoisie which, riding on the wave of Djindjic's wholesale of the country, earned positions of power, luxurious villas in the capital's perversely rich uptown areas Dedinje and Senjak, along with millions of dollars in pocket cash from smearing Serbian people, pimping Serbia's wealth and lording over the black market economy in collusion with various crime syndicates.

This very same clique of Serbia pimps embarks on ritualistic marches every year on the anniversary of Zoran Djindjic's death, ceremoniously sulking over fresh flowers and wreaths in hope of succeeding to posthumously turn Djindjic from a coldblooded, greedy opportunist to a saint, from quisling to hero. On and around the key date of their year, March 12, this seething conclave of idolaters, a brotherhood of moral lepers and traitors produces endless poisonous rants, fart-tirades filled with righteous indignation and soaked in acid tears of dictators-in-waiting, forced to stew in the dark background, being despised by the greatest majority of Serbs.

Djindjic, an Ultimate Immoral Political Thug

They get much help and support from the Western officials, who keep using Djindjic's death anniversaries to remind the world that only a dead Serb is a good Serb, and to reiterate the main imperial mantra: only those who are willing to trade the last bit of national pride, wealth and dignity are the "democratic choice" West backs.

This year such reminders came from two of Serbia's erstwhile enemies who dedicated the last decade of their careers to dismemberment and further humiliation of Serbia: French FM Bernard Kouchner and Swedish FM Carl Bildt. Their oily ode to late Djindjic was sent to Soros-backed tabloid Blic with widest circulation, to make sure it gets attention of the masses. Read it with the barf bags ready, for one could hardly find more sleaze, dishonesty and greasy banalities squeezed in the fewer words — Djindjic must be tossing in his grave.

Despite his tragic death, and although commonly praised by the Serbian worst enemies as "a pragmatist", Zoran Djindjic is far from a hero to Serbs: he was a merciless man and a quisling of the worst kind, who urged Western governments (from the safety of Germany) to continue bombing Serbia, promising Milosevic will "cave in" if they keep pounding his country without respite. Djindjic was an ultimate immoral hyper-ambitious, greedy, opportunistic, aggressive political thug for whom nothing was sacred and nothing worthy of attention except raw power, money and prestige, regardless of the ways it is acquired.

The Quisling of Belgrade

March 14, 2003 article by Neil Clark, Guardian

Tributes to Zoran Djindjic, the assassinated prime minister of Serbia, have been pouring in. President Bush led the way, praising his "strong leadership", while the Canadian government's spokesman extolled a "heralder of democracy" and Tony Blair spoke of the energy Djindjic had devoted to "reforming Serbia".

In western newspaper obituaries Djindjic has been almost universally acclaimed as an ex-student agititator who bravely led a popular uprising against a tyrannical dictator and endeavoured to steer his country into a new democratic era.

But beyond the CNN version of world history, the career of Zoran Djindjic looks rather different. Those who rail against the doctrine of regime change should remember that Iraq is far from being the first country where the US and other western governments have tried to engineer the removal of a government that did not suit their strategic interests. Three years ago it was the turn of Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia.

In his recent biography of Milosevic, Adam LeBor reveals how the US poured $70m into the coffers of the Serb opposition in its efforts to oust the Yugoslav leader in 2000. On the orders of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a covert US Office of Yugoslav Affairs was set up to help organise the uprising that would sweep the autocratic Milosevic from power.

At the same time, there is evidence that underworld groups, controlled by Zoran Djindjic and linked to US intelligence, carried out a series of assassinations of key supporters of the Milosevic regime, including Defence Minister Pavle Bulatovic and Zika Petrovic, head of Yugoslav Airlines.

With Slobo and his socialist party finally toppled, the US got the "reforming" government in Belgrade it desired. The new President Vojislav Kostunica received the bouquets, but it was the State Department's man, Zoran Djindjic, who held the levers of power - and he certainly did not let his Washington sponsors down.

The first priority was to embark on a programme of "economic reform" - new-world-order-speak for the selling of state assets at knockdown prices to western multinationals. Over 700,000 Yugoslav enterprises remained in social ownership and most were still controlled by employee-management committees, with only 5% of capital privately owned. Companies could only be sold if 60% of the shares were allocated to workers.

Djindjic moved swiftly to change the law and the great sell-off could now begin. After two years in which thousands of socially owned enterprises have been sold (many to companies from countries which took part in the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia), last month's World Bank report was lavish in its praise of the Djindjic government and its "engagement of international banks in the privatisation process".

But it wasn't just state assets that Djindjic was under orders to sell. Milosevic had to go too, for a promised $100m, even if it effectively meant kidnapping him in contravention of Yugoslav law, and sending him by RAF jet to a US-financed show trial at the Hague. When a man has sold his country's assets, its ex-president and his main political rivals, what else is there to sell? Only the country itself. And in January this year Djindjic did just that. Despite the opposition of most of its citizens, the "heralder of democracy" followed the requirements of the "international community" and after 74 years the name of Yugoslavia disappeared off the political map. The strategic goal of its replacement with a series of weak and divided protectorates had finally been achieved.

Sometimes, though, even the best executed plans go awry. Despite the western eulogies, Djindjic will be mourned by few in Serbia. For the great majority of Serbs, he will be remembered as a quisling who enriched himself by selling his country to those who had waged war against it so mercilessly only a few years earlier. Djindjic's much lauded reforms have led to soaring utility prices, unemployment has risen sharply to over 30%, real wages have fallen by up to 20% and over two-thirds of Serbs now live below the poverty line.

It is still unclear who fired the shots that killed Zoran Djindjic. The likelihood is that it was an underworld operation, his links to organised crime finally catching up with him. But, harsh though it sounds, there are many in Serbia who would willingly have pulled the trigger. On a recent visit to Belgrade, I was struck not only by the level of economic hardship, but by the hatred almost everyone I met felt towards their prime minister, whose poll ratings had fallen below 10%.

The lesson from Serbia for today's serial regime changers is a simple one. You can try to subjugate a people by sanctions, subversion and bombs. You can, if you wish, overthrow governments you dislike and seek to impose your will by installing a Hamid Karzai, General Tommy Franks or a Zoran Djindjic to act as imperial consul. But do not imagine that you can then force a humiliated people to pay homage to them.