Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Srebrenica denier
Mr. Flick has a new lodger on Vivienstraat, and I have a new next-door neighbor. It is a woman in her 50s, recently widowed, she says. She wears black all the time, with a huge gold cross dangling from her neck. My first contact with her was sitting down to breakfast yesterday to hear her chastize Mr. Flick for the slow drain in the shower.
When she learned why I'm here, she began immediately criticizing the Tribunal as being horribly unfair to the Serbs. She was in the former Yugoslavia during the war, she said, and the media got it all wrong. Milosevic she calls a good friend and "clever, brilliant man" who is being ill-treated during his detention. (She didn't answer my question about whether the Red Cross has been permitted access to him.) The UN won't even let poor Milosevic talk to his four year-old grandson, she says. She also says she counts Radovan Karadzic among her friends. Nobody understands, she says, the historical wrongs suffered by the Serbs, that they have been persecuted since the Schism. I said it didn't matter what happened in the past, that nothing could justify what happened during the 1990s. I pointed out that a Bosniac is presently on trial for war crimes, and not the first one at that. This didn't phase her -- she was onto the next grievance against the Serbs.
What about Srebrenica? I asked. What about the 7,500 Muslim men and boys murdered in July 1995? Didn't happen, she said, taking the official Serbian government line. What about siege of Sarajevo? I asked. What about the sniping of civilians? She claimed to have been in the city at the time, to have been nearly shot herself. But, it was the Muslims, she said. They were sniping as well.
I get the sense over here that some Dutch (and this woman wanted me to know that she was Dutch, not Serbian) are ambivalent about the Tribunal and its work, but it's not everyday one meets an actual True Believer, an official Holocaust Denier, as it were. It amuses me to think how this woman would rage at the comparison.
When she learned why I'm here, she began immediately criticizing the Tribunal as being horribly unfair to the Serbs. She was in the former Yugoslavia during the war, she said, and the media got it all wrong. Milosevic she calls a good friend and "clever, brilliant man" who is being ill-treated during his detention. (She didn't answer my question about whether the Red Cross has been permitted access to him.) The UN won't even let poor Milosevic talk to his four year-old grandson, she says. She also says she counts Radovan Karadzic among her friends. Nobody understands, she says, the historical wrongs suffered by the Serbs, that they have been persecuted since the Schism. I said it didn't matter what happened in the past, that nothing could justify what happened during the 1990s. I pointed out that a Bosniac is presently on trial for war crimes, and not the first one at that. This didn't phase her -- she was onto the next grievance against the Serbs.
What about Srebrenica? I asked. What about the 7,500 Muslim men and boys murdered in July 1995? Didn't happen, she said, taking the official Serbian government line. What about siege of Sarajevo? I asked. What about the sniping of civilians? She claimed to have been in the city at the time, to have been nearly shot herself. But, it was the Muslims, she said. They were sniping as well.
I get the sense over here that some Dutch (and this woman wanted me to know that she was Dutch, not Serbian) are ambivalent about the Tribunal and its work, but it's not everyday one meets an actual True Believer, an official Holocaust Denier, as it were. It amuses me to think how this woman would rage at the comparison.
