The murder of Željko Ražnatović Arkan 25 years ago marked the end of a decade of internal destruction of SFR Yugoslavia, writes the German weekly “Frejtag”. “Arkan symbolized in Serbia the decade of war, when knowledge, honesty and hard work were associated with losers, while crime and violence enabled the rise of individuals,” writes the author of the article, Frank Vilman. He begins his article in the left-wing newspaper Freitag with a description of the funeral:
“Leaded by a large hearse, on January 24, 2000, thousands of people headed towards the Central Cemetery in Belgrade in the bright sunshine. At the head of the procession was the widow Ceca, a Balkan diva, followed by dark-eyed men, among them celebrities, poets, politicians, gangsters and curious onlookers. Nine days earlier, Željko Ražnatović, known as Arkan, a hired killer of the Serbian secret service, a war leader, a politician, a football club owner and a businessman – was killed in the lobby of a Belgrade hotel on January 15.
“Most Serbs said goodbye to him as a hero and defender of their homeland, while in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia they celebrated his bloody end,” writes the German weekly.
Then, the most important moments from Arkan’s life are listed chronologically and in great detail, from beginning to end: “Željko was born on April 17, 1952, in the barracks in Brežice (Slovenia), in a military family, as the fourth, youngest child and only son. His father was a colonel of the JNA, and the army and the world of partisans shaped his value system: honor, discipline, camaraderie. As a partisan leader, in 1944 he liberated Pristina from German occupation. When Arkan was six years old, his parents separated.”
A decade of robberies in Europe and the beginning of work for the DB
Freitag states that as a teenager, Arkan was arrested for the first time for stealing a purse. “Neither police threats nor beatings at home helped. Even as a young man he ended up behind bars”.
At the age of 20, he went to Italy, where he began his real criminal career. He was arrested in Belgium in 1974 for robbing a bank, sentenced to ten years, but escaped after a few weeks. Robberies in Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland follow – and each time prison and escape, the last time in 1983.
From the end of the 1970s, according to the German weekly, Arkan was in the SFRY state security service: “In a world divided by the Cold War, the secret services had no borders.” Terrorism was considered a necessary evil: on one side were terrorist emigrants, who killed Yugoslav diplomats, planted bombs in embassies and consulates or hijacked airplanes, and on the other was state security, which reacted by murdering emigrants, assassinations and breaking up – from their perspective – enemy of political manifestations.”
Wars of the Nineties: Arkan’s Tigers
The German newspaper continues: “The late 1980s in Yugoslavia were marked by Slobodan Milošević’s famous slogan uttered at Gazimestan on June 28, 1989, ‘No one is allowed to beat you’.”
“The triumph of Red Star in the European Champions Cup in 1991 had a special impact on the atmosphere in Serbia at that time,” the author recalls and states that “state security, in order to prevent the opposition that gathered around football fans from gaining more influence, relied on Arkan’s services. “
Since then, Zvezda fans have become Delije, and from there Arkan recruited members of the Serbian Volunteer Guard (SDG), a paramilitary unit of which he became the commander, writes Frejtag and adds that Arkan’s tigers, about 1,000 people, were engaged from mid-1991 to the end of 1995, and financed and equipped by the Serbian secret police.
Hague indictment for war crimes
“After the outbreak of war in Bosnia, in April 1992, that unit operated on the Croatian and Bosnian fronts, participating in ethnic cleansing, during which Bosnian civilians were killed or forcibly deported. Arkan personally led most of the operations, rewarding his officers and soldiers with decorations and war booty. He gained unprecedented popularity in the Serbian media.”
“When the December 1991 armistice temporarily ended the fighting in Croatia, Eastern Slavonia, with its Serbian autonomy in eastern Croatia, became virtually Arkan’s private state. With his own armed forces and the support of the State Security, Arkan remained the undisputed leader of the Serbian underground until the end of his life and began to expose himself more and more politically.”
After that, the article follows a description of a failed political engagement, and then the “wedding of the century” with the Balkan turbo-folk giant Ceca.
“When the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended at the end of 1995 with the Dayton Agreement, Arkan’s Tigers were officially disbanded in April 1996. And then on September 30, 1997, the Hague Tribunal indicted Željko Ražnatović for war crimes against Bosniak-Muslim civilians, crimes against humanity and serious violations of the Geneva Conventions in 24 counts. Arkan has clearly become problematic.”
Three bullets in the back of the head
The following is a film description of the murder of Arkan on January 15, 2000 in the Intercontinental Hotel in Belgrade: “Dobroslav Gavrić, a member of the Belgrade police, pulled out a CZ-99 pistol from under his coat at 5:10 p.m. and fired three bullets into the back of Arkan’s head.” During the trial, it remained unclear what the reasons were for Arkan’s liquidation, as well as who ordered it. Many witnesses died unexpectedly, disappeared or did not appear at trials.”
The author concludes the article with the following sentences: “For ultra-right nationalists, Arkan remains a Serbian hero. Fans of turbo-folk still sigh over his romance with Ceca and the ‘wedding of the ages’.”
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Source: www.vijesti.me
