Last Weekend in Belgrade

On Friday we visited another NGO called Veritas.  This organization concentrates on war crimes against Serbs in the Krajina region of Croatia.  This eastern region of Croatia is known as the military frontier, and is heavily populated by Serbs.  These Serbs declared their independence from Croatia in 1990, and the first violence of the wars started there.  The organization helped to convict Croats of ethnic cleansing in the region, with 400,000 Serbs leaving Krajina in ten years.  They also didn't have air-conditioning, and we opted not to pursue a thorough Q&A period.

We returned to the Belgrade Lady to meet with a member of the Democratic Party of Serbia, or DSS (note: different from the Democratic Party, DS, of which the two MPs we met earlier were members of).  This party was founded in 1992 as an opposition coalition against Milosevic.  They broke with the Democratic Party after his downfall, with the main issues being those of joining the EU and stance on Kosovo.  Both parties want the same thing: EU membership would be nice, and Kosovo should remain part of Serbia.  They differ on the prioritization.  According to our guest, DS would join the EU, even if it meant sacrificing Kosovo.  For DSS, if all of Serbia can not join the EU, then they will not be a part of it.  They would prefer it to remain a frozen conflict, and keep the status quo on trade relations with both the EU, US, and Russia.  This speaker was refreshingly honest (more open than the politicians could afford to be) and gave us a look at a different position on the issues inside Serbia.

On Saturday, most of us traveled to the museum for Josep Broz Tito, the Communist leader of Yugoslavia from 1945 to his death in 1980.  The museum contained some of his uniforms, as well as pictures of his visits with diplomats from all over the world. The gifts he received, from furniture to weapons, were also on display.  We were also able to visit his resting place.

Today (Monday), a small group toured three cemeteries in Belgrade.  The first was a Jewish burial ground, and was very beautiful.  The second was for Partisans and Red Army soldiers killed during the liberation of Belgrade during World War II.  The third was the cemetery of note since the 19th century, and holds famous Serb and Yugoslav cultural, civil, and military heroes since then, including assassinated Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.