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Serbs Begin to See the Once-Hated Chetniks in Rather a Different Light by Laura Silber in Belgrade

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Serbs Begin to See the Once-Hated Chetniks in Rather a Different Light by Laura Silber in Belgrade Serbs begin to see the once-hated Chetniks in rather a different light By Laura Silber in Belgrade YOUNG MEN in the centre of Belgrade, policemen were killed. ernment is certainly Ustase," says a Bel- the Serbian and federal capital, hawk However, their growing prominence has grade journalist. theiir wares - from cassettes of mournful further divided Serbia. To some, the popu- Leaders of Serbian ultranationalist par- war ballads to T-shirts bearing the image lar acceptance of the Chetniks revives ties claim thousands of volunteers have of General Draza Mihailovic, leader of the nightmarish memories of the war. "When already joined the Chetniks. Their battal- Chetniks, Serbian royalist troops in the I see them in Belgrade's city centre, I ions recall Serbian war heroes with second world war. nearly scream. The Chetniks slaughtered names such as "Dusan the Strong". But Until last year, the word Chetnik con- three of my relatives and now they have the surge of mass support, including an jured up images of wartime brutality and become heroes," says a 32-year-old evident lack of criticism by the socialist- betrayal among most of Yugoslavia's English teacher. controlled media, has led critics to charge 23.5m citizens. But now the Chetniks have Marjan, an 18-year-old who has joined Serbia under President Slobodan Milos- surged in popularity and many Serbs see the Chetnik guard, says: "Under commu- evic of using the Chetniks and their lead- thenn as the saviours of Serbian interests. nism the Chetniks were painted as the ers to whip up nationalism and mobilise The Chetniks were an elite guerrilla enemies, although they originally had the youth. uniit in the Serbian royal army. They Allied support. After the war the process fought against the Nazis, and were backed of eliminating the enemies began. Chet- Mr Stojan Cerovic, a Belgrade journal- by the Allies until 1943 when the British niks were then portrayed as the merciless ist, says: "The question remains how and Americans switched their support to butchers of women and children. many of these volunteers will actually go the communist partisans under Marshal "I don't know whether or not the Chet- - for three years extremists have Tito. Gen Mihailovic was executed as a niks actually slaughtered innocents. But demanded arms to defend Serbs against traitor to Yugoslavia in 1945. it was during both a civil war and a the Albanians in Kosovo, although in the Yet now mothers buy their sons Mihai- national liberation war. Those were bar- end nobody went," he says. lovic mementos and teenagers proudly baric times." Most Serbs agree the republic must claim they are Chetniks. The leaders of Serbia and Croatia, the form its own army, as the federal army Mr Vojislav Seselj, a self-proclaimed second biggest republic, have revived threatens to collapse and divide along eth- Chetnik vojvoda, or duke, who won a memories of the brutal civil war of 1941. nic lines. A Belgrade history teacher says: by-election to the republic's national Serbia says the Croat government is fas- "After the war in Slovenia, even moder- assembly last week, takes his seat in the cist, or Ustasha, after the Nazi-backed ates now believe in the necessity of a parliament this week. Mr Seselj, who independent Croatia. Serbia's propaganda Serbian army to protect Serbs. They may habitually carries a pistol, heads the is matched by Croatia, which warns of an disagree with Seselj and the Chetniks, but ultra-nationalist Radical party and has impending attack by the Chetniks. they see the Yugoslav People's Army is a boasted that 14 of his Chetnik volunteers "Serbian nationalists think the Chet- phantom. Croats, Slovenes and Serbs can fought in a skirmish in Borovo Selo in niks are the only appropriate answer to no longer fight on the same side in one eastern Croatia in May in which 12 Croat the Ustashe, and for them the Croat gov- army." A Yugoslav woman praying for peace yesterday .
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