Where Karadzic Drank ‘Blood’
Tomas (Misko) Kovijanic has been drinking all day, which may help explain why he sounds a touch maudlin as he recalls the fugitive who had become a regular at the Mad House, the tiny café Misko runs in New Belgrade. Nearby, in one of the neighborhood's identical socialist-era apartment towers—in Block 45, Building 267—Radovan Karadzic had lived for at least the past year. Not only had he been hiding in plain sight, the ex-president of the Bosnian Serbs had adopted a disguise so outrageous it turned heads wherever he went. With a huge gray beard, spectacles the size of saucers, and long locks tied up in a topknot, he looked more like an aging hippie who'd dropped too much acid than one of the International War Crimes Tribunal's two most-wanted. "It was impossible not to notice him," Misko says, speaking slowly, either so every word could be written down, or to keep from slurring them, or both. "I said, 'Who could this strange person be? Maybe a saint who came down from the mountains, or a white magician, or even a prophet'."
For a man who was always a moth to the limelight, it's not surprising that Karadzic would be drawn to the Mad House, a nationalist hangout where pride of place is given to Karadzic's own picture, along with pictures of fellow war-crime indictees Gen. Ratko Mladic and ex-dictator Slobodan Milosevic, who cheated justice by dying at The Hague. Although Karadzic had disguised himself with a new persona as an alternative-health guru named Dragan Dabic, slimming down on nonfat yogurt and macrobiotics, he remained the serious drinker he had always been, quaffing glass after glass of Bear's Blood wine, which Misko is drinking now in his honor. The café is an uncomfortably intimate place, a service bar and four little tables, crammed with as many as 20 drinkers, all men of Balkan-war age. "One educated Serb is more precious than a million educated Americans," Misko says passionately, adding, "No offense."
In their cups, habitués of the Mad House often turn to the gusle, a single-stringed fiddle used to accompany Serbian epic poetry. Some of these poems celebrate Karadzic's own exploits. Despite that—or perhaps because of it—one memorable recent night Karadzic himself picked up Misko's gusle, carved from a single piece of maple, its headstock in the form of an eagle. "In his hands the gusle was playing the most beautiful sounds we ever heard," Misko recalls, splashing another dollop of Bear's Blood into a glass. "He said, 'My children, listen to me, you are the future of Serbia. Our epic poems will preserve our past and proclaim our future'." Misko caught sight of a tear in the war criminal's eye (there's one in his, too, at this recollection). "I could see happiness on the face of Radovan Karadzic, a.k.a. Dragan Dabic, that night."
That happiness would prove short-lived. Last week three Serbian secret policemen were already aboard the Route 73 bus when Karadzic climbed on, presenting a bus pass he got using the ID card of a dead Serb from Bosnia. "Old man, come with us," they said, and ignored his feeble protests of innocence as they manhandled him into a waiting car, en route to The Hague after 13 years on the run. Misko says he and his friends will be waiting for him to come back, this time to play the gusle under his own name. "History is not written in one single day, and eventually it will show us who really was Radovan Karadzic." After a few more glasses, at the Mad House, that may even seem plausible.
© 2008
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Member Comments
Posted By: a1109 @ 08/13/2008 2:09:09 AM
Comment: Majority of serbian leader has been prosecuted only because of politics of a NATO countries which is implemented on Balkans.The simply like it that way . The way that they can very easy restore conflict any time.Simply , no love, no justice. When you come to counting bodies it`s a end of a complex proces of investigaton of a crime . There is a cause as a very important part of it if any body is interested in justice anyway.But we are not judges we can only question our self as a common people.So, ask your self for example , would have been Srebrenica hapened as it was , if there wouldn`t happened , previous , a masacre on serbian civilians on a ortodox Christmas.What they were expected after that? I don`t justifying anythyng , but just trying to put things in order. Everything has it cause and now they with a all sorts of propaganda , judging before trial, double standards,... trying to cover these causes . After all I think that we are all some kind of a play ground for a great forces. We have reached a terminal phase of a globalisation, so god help us small ones!
Posted By: lala86 @ 08/12/2008 11:11:55 AM
Comment: Im not saying you are denying it ....majority of Srbian leaders have been prosecuted because of the fact that many Bosnian Muslims were actually butchered ...and there is complete proff ...once agian i dont deny maybe what happened on the Serrbian side ...but look at it this way if the outside countries took a look at a figure of 8,000 pepople i mean who will they look at as the main insitigator ... lets put all differences aside....plus minues many many in other villages and smaller cities...just like karadzic made a statement ...." nemojte mislit da Muslimanski narod mozda dodze i do nestanka "...through the entire war as i remember because i was in it nobody really mixed into the situtation ...yes there was some help toward the end because the entire world realized what was going on and finally the US steped in ....after maybe 3 or 4 long years ...heres an example ...Sarajevo ...surounded for 3 to 4 years bombings daily ...Grbavica taken over mass rapes , killings etc....no electricety, water not food supply ..schools being bombed ...my school was bomed while i was in it ...so when outside countries take a look at all the facts and what was actulaly happening during the war ....Serbs looked and were the main instigators....im sure on yr sides things happened but to the extent it happened on the Muslim ( Bosnians ) side you cant compare ...now lets put our diff. aside ....this war was a waste ...a waste of lives and a waste of differences that today all 3 sides can not resolve because of this war ...because polticans such as Karadzic wanted THE GREAT SERBIA ....where everyone would be a minority ... if things could have possibly been left the way the were and if politicians were not pigs that they are ...this would never have happened !!!
Posted By: a1109 @ 08/12/2008 3:43:11 AM
Comment: Read carefully , I didn`t deny .The ones , responsible for it will be prosecuted even if somebody think`s they are heroes.But , it`s obvius intention of west (read :US) to put all of guilt for a war on on one side Serbs.It is not a justice it is somebodie politics.When you recapitulate , statistic is inevitable : the Haague tribunal , were prosecuted , almost whole Serbian state authorities from those times along with people who actualy did the atrocities. Name the leaders, politicians of muslim and Croat side prosecuted for commandship responsibility.Not any one relevant , they even can`t put behind bars a well known butcher , the one who is probably responsible for a later hapenings at Srebrenica