Arkan

Željko Ražnatović
File:Arkan - Croatia 91.jpg Arkan posing with his fighters The "Tigers"
Nickname(s)	Arkan
Allegiance	Serbia
Years of service	1991 – 1995; Croatia and Bosnia (operative leader of volunteer troops) 1998 – 1999 Kosovo and Metohija (only as figure of front's supervisor)
Rank	Supreme Commander of Serb Militia (Arkan never held an official military rank or title in the JNA or VJ)
Unit	Serb Volunteer Guard

Željko Ražnatović (Serbian Cyrillic: Жељко Ражнатовић), widely known as Arkan, (April 17, 1952 - January 15, 2000), was a Serb mobster, war criminal and paramilitary leader during the Yugoslav Wars.

Early life and problematic start

Arkan was born in Brežice, a small town in the Styrian region of southern Slovenia. His father Veljko was a Montenegrin Serb, serving as a high ranking officer in the Yugoslavian air force. Arkan had lived with his mother Slavka, a communist activist, and three older sisters. His parents divorced in his youth. Arkan's father often beat him when he was young, and treated his family harshly as with his army subordinates. As a child, Arkan often ran away from home, to visit his more welcoming family, the head name which was known as 'Nikolic'. He also ran away to cause mischief, eventually ending up in a delinquents' institution. He became a petty criminal in his early teenage years, before graduating to more serious offences as an adult.

In 1972, at the age of twenty, he illegally emigrated to Western Europe, hoping to find respect and fortune through a criminal career. Abroad, he met many well-known criminals from Yugoslavia who were later killed. He took his nickname, "Arkan", after a comic strip character. As an armed robber, assailant and murderer he had convictions or warrants in Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy. He was imprisoned in Belgium in 1974, escaped in 1977, rearrested in the Netherlands in 1979 but escaped again in 1981. At one point, he was wounded in a clash with police. He fled from dozens of European prisons, including the compound which is today a high security prison for war criminals in the Scheveningen suburb of the Hague. Ražnatović was even on Interpol's ten most wanted list.

In his youth, Arkan was a ward of the Slovenian politician Stane Dolanc, his father's friend. Dolanc was chief of the secret police and a close associate of the Yugoslav strongman Josip Broz Tito. Whenever Arkan was in trouble Dolanc helped him as a reward for his services to the Yugoslav secret state police (UDBA). Arkan worked as an undercover agent from 1973, whose job was to carry out assassinations of various terrorists, political emigrants and opponents of the ruling regime.

Arkan was forced to learn the main European languages because of his undercover work in Europe. He spoke fluent English, French and Italian, and was also familiar with German, Swedish and Dutch.

He returned to Serbia in 1981, and continued his criminal career, opening a number of illegal businesses. In November 1983, two federal policemen ambushed Arkan at his house in order to have him arrested and interrogated over some of his activities. He resisted, pulled out his gun, and shot and wounded both of them. An intervention from Stane Dolanc effected his release from prison only two days later. This incident increased Arkan's criminal reputation in Belgrade.

Role in Yugoslav wars

As the political, ethnic and religious situation in the former Yugoslavia in the early nineties became tense, on October 11 1990 Arkan created a paramilitary group named the Serb Volunteer Guard under the auspices of the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) general staff. Arkan was chosen as the leader of this newly founded unit, which was primarily made up of the supporters of his favorite football club at the time, Red Star Belgrade (Crvena Zvezda)

In November of 1990, Arkan traveled to Knin for a meeting of the council of war of the Krajina uprising. On the way back to Belgrade, he was arrested for gun-running by Croatian police at the border crossing between Croatia and Bosnia Dvor na Uni with five other Serbians on November 29, 1990. His group was charged with conspiracy to overthrow the newly formed Croatian state and the attempted assassination of the then newly elected Croatian president Franjo Tuđman. He was released from prison on June 14, 1991 under unclear circumstances, after a sensational political trial in Zagreb, the Croatian capital.

Arkan's Tigers, a paramilitary force he created, set up their headquarters and training camp in a former military facility in Erdut. His volunteer army saw action from mid 1991 to late 1995, initially in Vukovar region of eastern Slavonia, in current Croatia. It is reported that his irregular army consisted of 10,000 well-trained fighters equipped with modern weapons, including a few tanks and helicopters. Casualties of his militia were estimated to be one thousand men. His units were supplied and equipped by the reserves of the Serbian police force during the war in Croatia and Bosnia.

When war began in Bosnia in April 1992, he and his units first moved to Bijeljina, Zvornik and Brčko where they along with other Serb units owerpowered the poorly armed and trained Bosniaks. After they took over a town they committed atrocities that ranged from murder, rape to looting. His forces were linked with the Vukovar hospital slaughter, Srebrenica massacre and other acts of Ethnic cleansing. On their first mission in Bosnia in the town of Bijeljina they allowed Israeli photographer Ron Haviv to accompany them. Haviv took several pictures of their atrocities. [1] After the photographs were published the Serbs started to keep the photographers out.

In autumn 1995 his troops fought in the area of Banja Luka, Sanski Most and Prijedor where they were routed. Arkan personally led most of war actions, and rewarded his bravest officers and soldiers with ranks and medals. He was known for his rough behavior toward his soldiers during wartime, and he is also said to have been associated with looting, plunder and smuggling. While his units were known to be highly disciplined, they nevertheless committed acts of unseen brutality against non-Serbian population in Bosnia. In particular, the "Tigers" were known for executing captured prisoners.

Arkan was regarded by Western nations as a terrorist and extremist, and was proclaimed a notorious warlord for committing alleged atrocities against civilians. His troops were also stationed in the Republic of Serbian Krajina to fight against the Croatian army, and he had a dispute over military operations with the Serbian regional leader Milan Martić [2]. Arkan was a confidante of Zoran Đinđić and occasionally met with him during the war. During the NATO bombing campaign, Arkan warned Đinđić to leave the country because his life was in danger. Arkan also had friendly contacts and political plans with Russian ultra-nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Power and influence in Yugoslavia

"If NATO troops will come with ground forces, I will be the first volunteer in the Yugoslav army to defend my country, my family, my children."

--Željko Ražnatović, 1999

Arkan was a powerful man with high-level connections in the state apparatus. He had significant influence over public spheres of Serbian society. For his public image, Arkan presented himself as a defender of Serbs and fighter for freedom and justice. He was known for his multiple personalities, being a strong, often brutal leader in public and more caring and reserved in private. Arkan also organized and financed humanitarian aid for poor families and war orphans. He gave pensions to his crippled volunteers and the families of slain soldiers.

Arkan was glorified by part of the Serb population as a war hero, and was the subject of war songs. Others despised him because of his playboy lifestyle and enormous wealth gained through shady means. There were all kinds of rumors and gossip about his life. He owned a voluminous mansion in the elite Belgrade neighborhood of Dedinje where high-ranking politicians and foreign diplomats reside. Despite being raised an atheist in a family of communists, Arkan made a point of showing public respects to the Serbian Orthodox Church, especially its head Patriarch Pavle. Additionaly, he observed and celebrated various religious holidays, often publicly. Many questioned the motives behind these public displays of his newfound religious spirituality and saw it as shameless self-promotion ploy in an attempt at ingratiation with the Serbian public.

On November 3, 1993, Arkan and his followers founded the Party of Serbian Unity, and he became its president, but the party lost parliamentary elections and failed to win seats despite an energetic promotional campaign. In the 2000 election, however, the party received 200,000 votes and won 14 seats in the Serbian parliament.

In the postwar period after the Dayton agreement was signed, Arkan returned to sport and private business. The Serb Volunteer Guard was officially disbanded in April 1996 with the threat to be reactivated in case of war emergency. In June of that year he took over a second class soccer team Obilić which later under his tutorship advanced and became national champion for one season. According to a book by Franklin Foer, "How Football Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization", Arkan threatened players on opposing teams if they scored against Obilić. This threat was underlined by the thousands of veterans from his army that filled their home ground, chanting threats, and on occasion would point pistols at opposition players during matches. One player told the British football magazine Four-Four-Two that he was locked in a garage when his team played Obilić. The Union of European Football Associations prohibited Obilić from participation in Europe because of its connections with his alleged war crimes. But Arkan stepped away from the position of president of the club and gave that seat to his wife Ceca, and his club played matches against FC Bayern München and Atlético Madrid. Arkan was also a chairman of the Yugoslav kick-boxing association.

Arkan's "business" was initially based on controlling protection rackets, money extortion, and the smuggling of oil and luxury items. Later he pursued more legitimate business, and had about four hundred people working for him. He owned casinos, discos, gas stations, pastry shops, stores, bakeries, restaurants, gyms, as well as a private security agency.

Arkan had fathered nine children by five different women and was a great womanizer. His eldest son Mihajlo was born in 1975 from a relationship with a Swedish woman, Agneta. Mihajlo went to war with his father. Then followed two daughters, one from relations with a Belgian woman and other with a Belgrade actress – all three with his acknowledged paternity. Arkan's first wife was Natalija Martinović, professor of Spanish, with whom he had four children. Arkan later divorced her and married the much younger Svetlana Veličković "Ceca", a popular and attractive folk singer ("turbofolk"), on February 19, 1995. They functioned as a prestigious and glamorous couple often appearing in public. Their children are son Veljko and daughter Anastasija.

His father Veljko was in charge of the liberation of Priština as army colonel during the Second World War. Arkan's paternal uncle Vojislav was executed as a notable partisan by Italian soldiers. Arkan's grandfather Jokelja reputedly fought against the Turks in the Balkan wars.

Arkan was unofficially allied with Slobodan Milošević, and moved under his control, although he was completely independent in front's actions and decisions. Contacts between them were done through the mediator Radovan Stojičić "Badža", police chief and Milošević's close associate, who was killed in April 1997. Arkan and Badža together organized the territorial defense of Eastern Slavonia. From Stojičić's state funeral there exists a famous photograph where Arkan after brief conversation with war weary Milošević stands right behind him and watches him rather discerning. It was used for proving their close relations, but both Milošević and Arkan were very careful to distance from each other in public.

In August 1998, when tensions over Kosovo had already began, Arkan tried to get close to the West. He wrote a letter of support to U.S. president Bill Clinton over the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In the letter he expressed condolences for the victims that died in the attack, and warned Clinton on the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism. An excerpt from his letter reads: "Mr President… do not allow that terrorism continues in this part of Balkan in the Serbian state, which is forever a friend of your state." Clinton ignored him and never responded to the letter.

Role in the Kosovo war

"They have been waiting for eight years to tell me that I am a war criminal and now they do it."

--Željko Ražnatović, 1999

When war broke out in the unstable Serbian province of Kosovo in the summer of 1998, Arkan ordered his officers and soldiers to join the army and police in the fight against the Albanian rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, but he personally did not go there to supervise the front situation. Before the worst unrests began, Arkan visited Kosovo on several occasions as a government official, trying to pacify Albanians and to give a sense of security and hope to local Serbs. He also played an important role in the Kosovo war. His center of operations for Kosovo was in the Priština hotel "Grand" where he also owned a bakery "Kruna". After Serbian forces withdrew, his hotel was confiscated by NATO troops in June 1999.

He was indicted on a secret list for the tribunal's chief judge Richard May by ICTY, branch of Hague Tribunal of international justice on September 30, 1997 for war crimes of genocide, killing civilians, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the Geneva convention of 1949 for customs and traditions of war. The warrant was kept sealed and was not made public until March 31, 1999, when a joint NATO operation against Yugoslavia had already started week earlier. Arkan's indictment was made public by Louise Arbour, then U.N. court's chief prosecutor. The publication of Arkan's indictment was interpreted as a maneuver aimed at preventing him from deploying his "Tigers" paramilitary unit in the escalating conflict in Kosovo. He decisively denied all war crime charges against him in interviews he gave to CNN, BBC stations and other foreign reporters during bombing of Serbia. Arkan blamed NATO for bombing of civilians and creating refugees of all ethnicities, and stated that he would deploy his troops only in the case of NATO direct ground invasion.

During the time of the NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia, Arkan made a number of appearances via satellite link as a guest on news networks across the nations involved in the attacks. In the U.K he was interviewed by both BBC and Sky and other groups, and in one of them he famously quoted a rather biblical response to the question "Why did Milošević cancel the autonomy of the Kosovar Albanians a few years ago when tensions were high?" when he stated (fluently in English), "The president giveth, and the president taketh, Blessed be the name!"

There are claims that the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in which three journalists were killed, and which led to a diplomatic row between the U.S.A. and China, is alleged to have been a result of precise and deliberate targeting because the office of the Chinese military attaché was being used by Arkan to communicate and transmit messages to his "Tigers" in Kosovo. NATO also bombed the Hotel Yugoslavia where Arkan had a casino because of information that it served as his staff for military operations in Kosovo. There were reports that NATO commandos planned to kidnap and kill Arkan. No objective evidence exists to substantiate these rumours.

Murder and post-mortem fame

"I'm not going to hide, I'm not going to surrender."

--Željko Ražnatović, 1999

Arkan was assassinated, on January 15, 2000, at 17:05 GMT in the lobby of the elite and fancy Intercontinental Hotel, Belgrade full of hotel guests. The Assassin, Dobrosav Gavrić, was a 23 year old junior member of police mobile brigade. Gavrić had ties to underworld and at the time was on sick leave. He walked up alone toward his target from behind. Arkan was seated and chatting with two of his friends. Gavrić waited for a few minutes and used calm and surprise to sneak unnoticed to them and rapidly fired bullets from his duty pistol "CZ 99". Arkan was shot from behind three times in back of the head and lapsed into a coma on the spot. His bodyguard put him into a car whose driver took him to a hospital. Doctors tried resuscitation for over one hour in vain, although they managed to revive him for a moment. Death was officially concluded at 18:50.

His companions Milenko Mandić, a business manager, and Dragan Garić, police inspector, were also shot to death by Gavrić. Gavrić was shot and wounded immediately after by Arkan's bodyguard Zvonko Mateović and fell unconscious while one woman was seriously wounded in a further shoot out between them. After complicated surgery Gavrić survived but remained disabled in a wheelchair as result of a spinal wound. Gavrić pleaded innocent and never admitted that he committed the crime. He was convicted guilty and sentenced to 19 years of jail. His accomplices received from 3 to 15 years each, after a one year trial. However the original court verdict was overturned recently because of a lack of evidence and the vagueness of the first trial process. A new trial is being conducted.

However, the orderer of the murder and the background remained unclear and subject to speculation. Marko Milošević, president's son, was said to have a harsh quarrel with Arkan himself over oil-smuggling control. Allegedly, Rade Marković ordered his outside operative Andrija Drašković, to find killers and coordinate the rest of the mission. Drašković hired his fellow gangsters Dragan Nikolić nicknamed Gagi, and Zoran Uskoković called Skole. Dragan Nikolić mixed his friend Dobrosav Gavrić and relative Milan Đuričić, in the secret mission. They were people in whom Gagi had full confidence. Đuričić was his first cousin while Gavrić was his best man. Together with Skole and his gang they secretly planned and organized Arkan's murder in his apartment. There is also rumour that Borislav Pelević, close Arkan's associate and his successor as president of Party of Serbian Unity, served as inside man for the plot against Arkan. Security services also wiretapped Arkan shortly before his murder. For four months the group followed Arkan's movements and whereabouts, learning his habits.

After Arkan's violent death many concluded that he "got what he deserved" and "died in the same manner as he lived". Some stated that they preferred to see him on trial in The Hague. One part of Serbs were shocked while others felt relief. Pro-west oriented Serbs consider Arkan a shame for their nation. For them, he reflects an insane bandit and erratic warlord. For others, Arkan represents a ultimate patriot and heroic legend.

Željko Ražnatović Arkan was buried with military honors by his volunteers and with an orthodox mourning ceremonial on January 20, 2000. Around 20,000 people attended his funeral. There are still speculations and doubts among Serbian public concerning his fascinating life and the shady legacy he left.

External links

• BBC News | Arkan: "I'm not going to hide."
• BBC News | Witness to Balkans bloodshed - Ron Haviv
• Blood and Honey | A Balkan War Journal by Ron Haviv
• npr | 'Blood and Honey — A Balkan War Journal'