The new Milosevic

The handsome Vojislav Seselj, radical nationalist and potty-mouth extraordinaire.This BBC article echoes something I wrote about several weeks ago after my trip to Belgrade:

If Kosovo does, indeed, become independent, the resulting nationalist backlash could well bring the Radicals and their hardline allies back to power.

A host of Western diplomats have already assured Kosovo's independence -- some even say by the end of the year. This means you should keep your eye on one man: Vojislav Seselj, head of the Serbian Radical Party referred to in the quote (if you want to know what this party is all about, read their name). Seselj is currently behind bars for crimes against humanity in the same prison where Milosevic recently keeled over. He has shown the same penchant for using the ICTY as a forum for frenzied rants, albeit with a little extra flair. In preliminary hearings, Seselj declared:

To all you members of The Hague tribunal you can only accept to suck my cock.(...) And you can just go on hampering my Defence, go ahead, but ultimately you are going to have to eat all the shit you excreted. Fuck you all, beginning with Hans Holthius, and so on, including that motherfucker.

Good one, Vojislav. Thankfully (or maybe not, for humour's sake), Seselj has been deprived of further outbursts -- he is still awaiting trial, in custody for almost 2 and a half years now. With Serbian anti-West, anti-world paranoia jolted by Milosevic's death, Seselj's supporters are already warning that he might succumb to the same Hague conspirators who "poisoned" Slobo.

Imagine, if you will, that you are good old Vojislav, enjoying a glass of brandy and a lollipop as you watch the news in your comfortable Scheveningen prison cell. Would it not occur to you that your death, in suspicious circumstances, might just be the jolt that ultra-nationalists need to overcome the fragile democratic movement in Serbia? Your party won 45% of the votes in the 2004 presidential election -- victory is only a martyr away. Thankfully, I think, we can count on Seselj's selfish opportunism to keep him breathing.

But the people of the Balkans have had no shortage of bad luck -- what if Seselj chokes on a twinkie, or trips over his teddy bear and breaks his neck? It is strange to pray for the good health of mass murderers, but such are these delicate times.