Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Who does Serbia hate more - James Lyon, or James Lion?

In a recent article posted on B92.net, the Beta News Agency quotes International Crisis Group's James Lion (though his name is actually Lyon) in his feeling that the will to arrest Mladic is simply not present in Serbia.

Lyons primarily blames the failure to arrest Mladic on Kostunica, who has filled the Security Information Agency with criminal cronies. “Why would they do this now? What has changed? The police, the SIA and the military are not under civil control. That is why I have reasons to doubt that these structures would even issue a warrant, much less arrest Mladić.” Lion (sic) said.

My first instinct regarding the mispelling of his name was that it was a subliminal gesture of disrespect to an analyst that is so constently critical of the Serbian polity. Maybe its just a misprint, they probably forgot to ask him how he spells his name on the phone.

Having spoken about Lyons with several of my Serbian friends, I got a clear impression that the guy is not very popular in Serbian circles. One the one hand, he understands Serbia very well, and tells it like it is, in a way in which almost no other Balkan analayst has over the past several years. (See ICG's excellent reports on Serbia and Kosovo at www.crisisweb.org) On the other hand, Lyons is clearly a representative of the ICG, which has indelible ties to the Western powers, and has, in my opinion, often taken stances on Serbia that are far too incriminating, and do not appropriately take into account the myriad challenges Serbia has faced on their post-Milosevic path towards democratization. Having said that, Lyons is dead on in blaming much of Serbia's woes on the West, which he specifically notes the lack of political pressure to present Mladic and Karadzic to the ICTY. In my opinion, the West's involvement with Serbia has been accompanied by a sort of ex post facto punitive agenda for Serbia, almost to make up for the West's mishandling of the civil war in the 90's.

In the end, perhaps a more fitting question is who is more unpopular for their recent calls on the Serbian Government for failing to arrest, and even protecting Mladic, Lyons or Draskovic? One thing is for certain, either these two figures are uniquely accusatory in their perspective on Serbia's ICTY cooperation, or there is a hell of a lot of dissent suppression going on in Serbia. Whether they are right or not, there is certainly a need for more critical views to be expressed on Serbia's politics, if not only for Serbs themselves.

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