"Greater Serbia" is dead

In its editorial the daily Le Monde uses the occasion of the arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić to recall the bouts of "Greater Serbian" fever during the wars in the former Yugoslavia and report on the current shift of opinion in Serbia: "There were three of them. Three men who were chiefly responsible for the terrible blood-bath that spattered Bosnia-Herzegovina with blood in the name of a 'Greater Serbia': Slobodan Milošević, the master of Serbia, Ratko Mladić, leader of the armed forces in Bosnia, and Radovan Karadžić, the self-appointed 'president'. ... Of these three Radovan Karadžić embodied the most orthodox, the craziest Serbian nationalism. While Milošević, the nationalistic Socialist, strove for absolute power, and Mladić, the soldier, dreamed of conquests and blood, Karadžić lived in a world full of epos, fascinated by the idea of a 'race of warriors'. ... The worst thing for Karadžić is perhaps that he was arrested neither by the Bosnian Muslims he wanted to annihilate nor by the Westerners he so despised, but in a Serbia that has emerged from a demonic era, a Serbia that, while still very nationalistic, is ruled by democrats, a country that is gradually making peace with its neighbours and is striding towards the community of Europe."

» full article (external link, French)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Crime and Law, » History, » South East Europe, » Serbia

» To the complete press review of Thursday, July 24, 2008