Since people make fun of their own crimes, some jokers from Zagreb thought that the police action at Dedinje was also a joke. They proclaimed Milosevic's arrest for some kind of a humorous operetta aiming to fool the people who want to square accounts with Milosevic. He would stay in a luxury suite of an alleged prison only until they get the money promised by the international community, then someone would ask for his amnesty (as Momir Bulatovic already did), and the comedy will be over.
This lasted for days, until the Serbian Police Minister Dusan Mihajlovic made a shocking statement in Vienna. He said that Milosevic was facing the possible death punishment if the police proved his involvement into the assassinations of his political opponents, and the evidence is being collected swiftly.
What have the jokesters in Zagreb been collecting? According to the criteria imposed by the dour Serbs - nothing. The latest police actions have been gathering dust for quite a long time, since they were started under Tudjman. It turns out that the late president was more critical of the crime that was born during his government, than Racan, and especially some of his Ministers. Allegedly, they could hardly wait for a chance to put an end to those disgusting remains of Tudjman's regime, but now, when they finally have the chance, they try to persuade us that things are not that horrible.
Moreover, they have been accusing journalists and some of their party colleagues of irresponsibly spreading misinformation about crime and its infiltration in the governmental services. It might even turn out that someone has made up the problem. It is therefore no wonder that the police action in Belgrade was received in the salons of the Croatian government with such great outbursts of envy. And the only way to hide this envy was to belittle the whole action as much as possible. They try to detect mistakes and flaws in Milosevic's arrest, despite the fact that our heroes don't dare speak of the dead Tudjman as of a potential suspect, let alone a prison inmate. The first objection was that Milosevic was arrested as an ordinary and not a war criminal.
This really was the case during the previous several weeks, so that the first task of the National Bank Governor was to find hidden Milosevic's safes with stolen gold and money. The search seemed so furious, that a cynical Vreme journalist wished it never be completed. "You should be dealing with Srebrenica, and not silver", he said to the DOS agents, who, it was discovered later, at first didn't even plan to arrest Milosevic. They only intended to dismiss the bosses of his security at Dedinje, but then they realized that the knocked down leader was lying at their palm, and that they only need to reach for him.
The true Milosevic's defeat didn't actually happen during the arrest, but before it; when it became obvious that he had only a few senile supporters left, who got stuck somewhere in between communism and fascism. Since that time, they have expected him to do what he is no longer able to do, and that is to give them instructions how on to move on. They are very much alike the fascist-Stalinists from Moscow, gathered in groups such as Pamyat, or HIP in Croatia.
This comparison is not rhetorical at all. Moreover, the nostalgia for Tudjman is so profitable today, that HDZ already plans to use it to return to power, a situation quite impossible in Serbia at the moment. To tell the truth, those plans are so unrealistic that Tudjman junior and his waxen company will probably loose already in the next local elections. But, this is not of major importance, because it is evident that the nostalgia for Tudjman has been growing in the government itself. With their indecisiveness to square accounts with the ideological inheritance of the nineties, the government has actually become its chief protector and promoter.
The probable defeat of Tudjman junior will actually be the crown evidence that Tudjmannostalgia has been developing within the system of the current government, and not his own party. Along with this, a message has been sent everywhere that Serbia and Milosevic are something so inseparable that they will remain the same, even if Serbia arrests Milosevic.
Basically, it is the same type of the Croatian-Serbian relations established by Milosevic and Tudjman. They monopolized those relations completely, so that they could spice them up with as much hatred and cuddling as was necessary at the given moment. The way in which the Croatian Television reported the Belgrade events proves that this logic is still in action. They sent there Mirjana Hrga, one of the leading Tudjman's journalists, while the truly anti-Milosevic inclined Nenad Canak was used only to inform Zagreb whether the thing in Belgrade was over.
The jokers from HTV and their mentors showed with this that they have been unprepared for the definite end of Milosevic, and that they are not very happy about it. Not only because the arrest has destroyed the alibi that the Croatian war criminals may be prosecuted only after the same is done with the Serbian ones, but because Serbia might free itself from the doom of Milosevic much earlier than the neighboring peoples who are still preoccupied, or even obsessed with Milosevic's scepter (Albanians, Montenegrins, Croats...).
Using this event as impetus, Serbia might find its way out from the Yugoslav hatreds and phobias even easier, despite the fact that Serbia was the one who contributed to these hatreds the most. The most important thing is that Serbia would get huge political points with this, and finally move forward. Croatia, on the contrary, would be pushed aside by the mere fact that it didn't understand what was actually going on in Belgrade.
But, the Croatian jokers would suffer the worst punishment. Because of their constant screaming against the Balkans and "going back to the Balkans", they can't hear the biggest bang in the neighborhood, let alone understand what the bang means. This is why such "good hearers" remain in their deep Balkan ravines no matter where they go.