“Nate, man, can you please pass me the slivo,” Bashkim said, referring to the bottle of plum moonshine next to me in the backseat of his 1998 Opel Corsa. This wouldn’t have seemed out of the ordinary had my Kosovar Albanian friend/fixer/translator/driver not been at the wheel of the his European hatchback as it braved the Croatian toll road somewhere between Zagreb and Split amid rain and violent winds about 3 a.m.
Bashkim had so far demonstrated remarkable skill and discipline at the wheel, and I, having not slept in the past 36 hours was in no position to argue. Sensing my discomfort with the alcohol enterprise, Bashkim reassured me that he required just a drop of the potent liquor — made by his girlfriend’s father — on his tongue just for the purposes of stimulating his senses.
The hunt for Bosnia’s most-wanted war crimes suspect, Radovan Karadzic, is showing signs of life. Today Bosnian Serb police searched the residences of two former bodyguards less than a week after EU and NATO forces raided the homes of his wife, daughter and aide. However, given that the Bosnian Serb wartime leader has evaded capture since 1995 in an area the size of Vermont, the prospects of nabbing this man and ascertaining the status of his coif seem a bit slim.
Karadzic, for the uninitiated, is a veritable man for all seasons. A poet and psychiatrist, Karadzic is accused of genocide in connection with a slew of war crimes committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian civil war including the massacre of as many as 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebanica.
Unfortunately, he and fellow fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladić — the accused architect of much of the slaughter — are considered heroes by many Bosnian Serbs. Despite the generous bounties on their heads, these renaissance men likely will remain free for some time to come.
Today marks nine years since the start of NATO’s bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to end Slobodan Milosevic’s brutal crackdown on Kosovar Albanians. Belgrade is marking the occasion by proposing an ethnic partition of parts of northern Kosovo where Serbs are a majority.
Creating a Republika Srpska-style zone in Kosovo may prove to be the best short-term solution in order to prevent any further outbreaks of violence like the recent unrest in Mitrovica. But maintaining what is in essence the status quo is not a viable endgame. Maybe things will fester for another five or 10 years with a deteriorating economic condition for the Serbs. That sounds a like a crock pot for ultra-nationalism. Seeing first-hand the state of Serbs in the enclave of Gracanica in 2006, I find it abundantly clear that maintaing isolation will merely add to their frustrations.
So what then? Those in the West who see closure of the Balkan problem in Kosovo’s well-deserved declaration of independence are sorely mistaken. An independent Kosovo is a bitter pill to swallow, even for EU-wanting, nationalist-hating moderates. Not only have they lost the heart and soul of their country, the realization of ethnic Albanian dreams came with the price of fodder for Serb nationalists.
Croatia and Hungary (aka Kolbaszorszag) have joined the growing list of countries that recognize Kosovo’s independence. Naturally, Serbia responded by recalling its ambassadors from both countries. Hopefully this won’t screw over the few hundred thousand Hungarians living in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. At least Magyar State Secretary Marta Fekszi Horvath has their back:
We think it is not in the interests of the Serbian government for the Hungarians in Vojvodina to suffer atrocities.”
While not technically a Balkan country, Hungary is an honorary member of peninsula. This old sausage commercial leaves little doubt. Thanks to Jon for alerting me to this.
Taking the molotovian approach to protest, Serbs in the northern Kosovo flashpoint city of Mitrovica attacked U.N and NATO forces with the explosive cocktails, grenades and small-arms fire after the raid of a Serb-occupied courthouse. It’s the worst violence since Kosovo’s declaration of independence last month, with scores of injuries reported on both sides. The U.S. has reportedly withdrawn and KFOR is patrolling. This is troubling to say the least, and hopefully this isn’t the beginning of a Belgrade-sponsored violent uprising. Such a moronic move, however, would not be surprising.
A meal eaten in lieu of breakfast and lunch, broken up into mutually hostile constituents: This is the dictionary definition of Balkanized Brunch. It also is a Catch-22: Regardless of what hack-job brunch falls victim to, it still remains and delicious and essential meal. Furthermore, the Balkans, the cutting up of which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to the word balkanize, have and always will remain a wonderful, significant region regardless of the forces of geopolitics. Thus, the mission of this blog is to offer frequent servings of all things Balkan, especially the former Yugoslavia. This of course has its own set of challenges, not the least of which is what constitutes the Balkans. But I will do as I do and keep it real.
Balkanized Brunch
’s three-month hiatus has paid off: Former Bosnian Serb leader and accused war criminal 
The hunt for Bosnia’s most-wanted war crimes suspect, 
Croatia and Hungary (aka 
Taking the molotovian approach to protest, Serbs in the northern Kosovo flashpoint city of Mitrovica 
Furthermore, the