Black-and-white posters showing refugees fleeing through streets
pockmarked with bullet holes and littered with debris are posted
throughout the city. On the side of the placards, a smug-looking
Slobodan Milosevic puffs on a cigar over a caption asking, "Who
is guilty?"
For Tamara Milosevic, a 25-year-old law student who stood outside
of the former president's home to witness his arrest on April 1,
the answer was clear: "Milosevic ruined this country and killed
so many people in his stupid wars. He deserves the worst that can
happen."
Other Serbs believe guilt extends beyond the shoulders of Milosevic
to the citizens who cheered--or silently watched--as nationalism
unraveled the Yugoslav federation. "I feel guilty because we didn't
oppose the regime with enough numbers," says Vesna Petrovic, executive
director of the Belgrade
Center for Human Rights.
Happy to have shirked their pariah status, Serbs still harbor bitter
memories of economic sanctions and NATO's bombardment, and are weary
of cooperating with the foreign institutions they perceive as championing
the destruction of their country just two years ago. Now, with Milosevic
jailed on charges of abuse of power and corruption, and facing a
war crimes indictment in The Hague, a broad spectrum of Serbian
writers, historians, theologians and lawyers are forming a Truth
Commission to delve into the causes and apportion blame for the
horrors that occurred during his decade-long rule.
Many of the politicians and activists who led the struggle against
Milosevic are determined to confront Serbs with evidence of the
crimes against humanity that were committed during Milosevic's rule.
They are demanding a complete account of the thousands who disappeared
or died during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. "We all have
blood on our hands, in a way," says Aleksandra Beric, a longtime
anti-war activist. Beric is organizing a conference that will bring
representatives from other countries with truth commissions to Belgrade
from May 18 to 20. "For our sake," Beric says, "if we're going to
heal as a nation, we have to face what happened."
Commission member Svetlana Velmar Jankovic, a writer, says the
panel hopes to build contacts with similar commissions in Bosnia
and Croatia. "Maybe this is how we will gain a deeper knowledge
about what happened," she says.
There already has been some backroom grumbling about the commission's
inclusion of some Serbian intellectuals who took part in the nationalist
rhetoric. However, members say the commission must represent a microcosm
of the "moral dilemmas" facing Serbian society if it is to be a
real symbol of unity. "How can we expect to contribute to reconciliation
among people whose family members were killed by neighbors if we
decide not to sit at the table with people with different politics?"
asks Vojin Dimitrijevic, an international lawyer appointed to the
commission by President Vojislav Kostunica.
The commission is still in its formative stages and does not yet
have a clear mandate to compel people to testify. Some fear the
commission is being hastily and clumsily mounted to alleviate the
West's increasingly impatient calls for Milosevic's extradition.
Such pressure is "vulgar and counterproductive," says Dimitrijevic,
who was expelled three years ago from his position as dean of Belgrade
University's law school because of his opposition to Milosevic.
Dimitrijevic recently dropped out of the commission, saying Kostunica
had not answered his questions concerning the panel's administration
and authority. "As a lawyer, it irritates me that a government pretends
to respect the rule of law and then demands we extradite an ex-president
without formal rules," he adds. "If people believe the commission
is because of foreign pressure then we're nowhere. We have to change
what people know about the war."

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