<nettime> Veran Matic quotes

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

Exerpts from 'Liberation' (Paris), Nov 5, 2000. Q&DT by yrs truly.

"The Serbian elite is primarily responsible (for the crimes of the
Milosevic regime, PR). Myself, as a Serbian, and whereas I have always
been a staunch opponent of that regime, I can but feel also responsible
about what happened. But collective responsibility, which is something
cultural and sociological, cannot be translated into collective
culpability, which is an absurd concept in itself." (*)

Veran Matic thinks it is urgent to prosecute Milosevic and his accomplices
as soon as possible, but like many Serbians - some for good, some for bad
reasons - he thinks the trial should take place in Serbia itself, rather
than at the IPT in The Hague:

"If the trial takes place in The Hague, the Serbs will not consider it a
fair trial, but if he stands for a Belgrade court only, Bosnian, Croat,
and Albanese victims will rightly think they are not being given proper
justice." 

Hence, Veran Matic suggests that a full court of justice is installed in
Serbia, with the assistance of the IPT, and with judges hailing from
Sarajevo, Zagreb and Pristina also. He insits that things must move fast
from now on, before memories are burried:

"Before soon, independent media will turn commercial, and this kind of
debates on shared responsibility does not sell very well. Then the page
will be turned, leaving the evil in place."

--------------------------------------------------------------------
(*) ad contrario: "Fuer die Verbrechen des Einzelnen ist das Gesamt
Schuld" (Hans Juergen Syberberg: "Hitler, Ein Film fuer Deutschland")

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net