29 July 2010 | More than 800 residents of the Serbian town of Aleksinac have signed an initiative for the construction of a statue and memorial park named after former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.


Slavisa Jovanovic, who is leading the effort, told Balkan Insight that the initiative comes in order to pay honour to the former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia so that "people will never forget all the good things he did." He pointed to the reconstruction of Aleksinac after the NATO bombing in 1999 as an example.

"The goal of this act is also to remind people that after a historic distance of ten years, the work of Slobodan Milosevic has some bright sides which should be seen," he said.

Aleksinac is a town of some 17,000 inhabitants in southeast Serbia, near Nis. It suffered extensive damage during the NATO bombing in 1999.

In the 1990s, Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia, SPS, enjoyed the support of 74 per cent voters in Aleksinac, which is now run by a coalition that includes the SPS and two nationalist parties -- the Democratic Party of Serbia, DSS, and the Serbian Radical Party, SRS.

According to Jovanovic, "during the Milosevic era, the number of unemployed in Aleksinac was 3,500, while the figure stands at 9,000 today. There were 15 state-owned companies in the town back then and after privatisation, only one of those companies remains today".

He went on to say that at the time of reconstruction of the country after the bombing, some 300 Aleksinac residents were given housing. Five buildings were built during reconstruction, he claimed.

Milosevic, blamed for the breakup of Yugoslavia and the wars in the region which followed, was charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY. His trial ended after he died on March 11, 2006 in his prison cell in the Hague.

Jovanovic said that the initiative for a statue and memorial park will be passed on to the authorities of the municipality of Aleksinac once the group obtains 2,000 signatures. They will suggest that the proposed statue and the park be joined to the existing monument dedicated to the victims of the 1999 bombing. "This is only an idea... we would also agree to a different location as the place itself is not the point of this initiative," Jovanovic explained.

The initators do not have a precise plan for the design of the monument and they have not been in touch with any of Milosevic's allies or family members.

"If the initiative gets a green light from the town's authorities, we will make a construction plan detailing who is going to build the monument and how," he said. According to Jovanovic, the group intends to seek funding from the country's Ministry of Culture.

"If the Ministry of Culture has 800,000 dinars [about €8,000] to give for the construction of a Web site for the gay population, I assume they will have some money to support such an initiative," he said.

When asked about reaction to the proposal, Jovanovic said that the only complaints he had received were related to the fact that Aleksinac is not Milosevic's hometown. Milosevic was born in Pozarevac, where he is buried.

This article is courtesy of Balkan Insight, the online publication of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, which contains analytical reports, in-depth analyses and investigations and news items from throughout the region covering major challenges of the political, social and economic transition in the Balkans.

Read more about Serbia on BalkanTravellers.com
Use BalkanTravellers.com's tips to organize your trip to Serbia