Official Serbia does have a plan for Kosovo. Part of it is outlined in UN Security Resolution 1244. Unfortunately for the Serb advocacy, there’s strong opposition to it. The official position of leading Western countries seeks to override 1244 with a formal granting of Kosovo independence.

****

“Those who wanted, they simply joined the existing parties and are now high state functioners.”

As per the above quoted, please provide some examples with a background of their current political affiliations.

In Serbia, politics was and is full of opposing to this and that, while finding a strong supportive goal is rather a difficult task.

For instance, Serbs are against independence of Kosovo, and you will hear thousands of reasons why. However, Serbs are not acctually supporting Kosovo’s integration back under Serbia. They will not be able to give too many reasons why.

This is rather a mentality, I would say, than a true political stance.

You should not question importance of Otpor, as believe me, if there was no Otpor, I would not be typing this now. Or I would, but from another country. Otpor managed to fulfill the ultimate goal in Serbia – to be a uniting point for the opposition. They forced the opposition to unite, through an open threat tactics. This worked out fine for Serbia.

After it was all over, a group of Otpor leadership wanted to switch Otpor into a political party. The majority was against it, as sooner or later Otpor would become just another party to co-exist on the political scene.

The main reason why it was never registered as the political party was because we who were there all those days wanted to keep it in the bright history page. Forever. Fortunately these voices prevailed. Those who wanted, they simply joined the existing parties and are now high state functioners.

I recall seeing Belarusian demonstrations with the EU flag. If I’m not mistaken, Saakashvili is frequently seen on TV with that flag in the background.

This is one of the things that bothers me with such movements. They’re good on soundbites ‘Join the EU’, ‘Join NATO’ (whatever), but they don’t really know what this means or what either are, i.e. the nitty gritty and the certain fact that once they’ve done the dirty work, they are much less favorites with special treatment.

The worst aspect is that it is really important that the citizens are properly informed in the Media and by their politicians with substantive information and arguments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor%21

Excerpt:

“The biggest reason for Otpor’s lack of success in the post-Milošević years was their failure to formulate a coherent political program. Acting against Milošević earned them wide praise, but when the time came to channel all that popular support into a clear ideological position – a definite disconnect occurred. In short, it was always clear what Otpor was against, but it was not clear what this movement represented now that the former regime was gone.”

****

I’m reminded a bit of the last scene of the American movie “The Candidate” starring Robert Redford. Upon winning the presidency, the character played by Redford is clueless on what to do in the role of president.

The above Wiki entry notes the turn coating of sorts of some Otpor members from youthful innocents to hired politicos for foreign interests.

The above Wiki entry gives Otpor great credit for Milosevic’s demise.

Otpor’s inital and ultimate goal was to cause a confusion by not pointing out any individual as a leader. Therefore Otpor never had an official leader indeed. This is why it is difficult to find more data on these persons.

However, even Otpor’s web site is no longer active, I would suggest the following resource for very accurate and detailed info on Otpor and its activities (check “Serbian Case” for details).

http://www.canvasopedia.org

As for spelling of Zoran Djindjic last name, you have chosen a correct spelling. The original surname, in Cyrillic has six characters, but correct Latin spelling includes “dj” characters. A relevant and accurate spelling are available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djindjic

However, if you are looking for an official proof, it is available at Serbian Government web site as well: http://www.srbija.sr.gov.yu/vesti/specijal.php?id=2153

Once again, thank you for a brief answers and comments.

The Soros/neocon domino like theory seems to have played out. Recall the last Moldovan presidential election, shortly after the last Ukrainian one. Dick Morris and others backed an Orange like Moldovan party as pro-Ukrainian Orange celebrity Ruslana supported the winning Moldovan Communist Party candidate.

Otpor was at its best when involved with anti-Milosevic demonstrations and getting Western mass media attention. The latter no doubt related to its ties to Soros. In the present, the Soros preferred Serb views of Natasa Kandic and Dragana Solomon seem to get a disproportionate share of coverage in English language mass media.

Otpor reminds me of the criticism levied against Politkovksaya and Kasparov. All three express broad views against tyranny. What they substantively offer as an alternative appears less clear.

A few Serbs privately communicated the view that the Serb equivalent of “John Smith” is usually “Petar Petrovich” and not “Marko Markovich.”

About a couple of years ago, Otpor apparently ceased functioning. As “The New Cold War” notes, political youth activity in the former Communist bloc is no doubt influenced by Otpor. I gather this to be true in relation to the pro-Putin Russian youth movement Nashi. Nashi’s creators no doubt had in mind Otpor and the Otpor assisted movements outside of Serbia.

I came across this review of “The New Cold War.”

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1202

Some additional thoughts on Milosevic’s political demise:

The West initially considered the Milosevic-Kostunica election a farce. The West changed its tune when Kostunica won, with Milosevic deflating the margin of Kostunica’s victory for the purpose of having a runoff. Russia acted clumsily in that episode. Kostunica said as much. In turn, the West has IMO behaved badly in catering to Soros/neocon preferences for the repackaged KLA’s desire to have an independent Kosovo. Just prior to his being assassinated, I got the impression that Djindjic was tilting back to a more Kostunica like line (in the early 1990s, Djindjic was considered a “nationalist”).

Of all the Western NGO involvement of former Communist bloc election/changes in government, I get the impression that Serbia’s changed political situation wasn’t as influenced by said Western involvement.

Someone expressed to me these thoughts about the book:

“More than that, the amount of criticism of the United States was more than I thought it would be, leading me to believe that — including that final passage in the book about the CIA using the NGOs for its own purposes — Mark is actually being very critical of America’s methods. He notes the complete hypocrisy regarding Georgia and Ukraine vis-a-vis countries like Kazakhstan because of the conflict between democracy policy and energy policy.”

The above quoted reminds me of a recent blog entry by Paul Goble:

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2007/11/window-on-eurasia-kremlin-using-russian.html

Excerpt:

“Sergei Markov, a Russian commentator known for his close ties to the security services and the Kremlin, “openly admitted” during an interview with the Azerbaijani news agency Day.AZ that the appearance of negative articles about ethnic relations in Azerbaijan reflected Russia’s displeasure with Baku’s independence in foreign affairs. Because Azerbaijan continues to play an active role in GUAM, an alliance of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova that Moscow does not approve of, Markov said, no one in Baku should be surprised that this has led to ‘anti-Azerbaijani’ attitudes in the Moscow elite and those have been ‘directly translated into the mass media. And Markov’s acknowledgement of this represents ‘a sensation,’ Akhundov said. Hereafter all is ‘a member of the Social Chamber of Russia openly declaring that the Russian elite decides whether or not to promote ethnic separatism in Azerbaijan via the [ostensibly independent] media depends on the policies Baku adopts’!”

Actually, there are two characters with very similar names involved in the story. Ivan Marovic is indeed the Otpor leader. Marko Markovic was a young student who took part in the protests against Milosevic and who later helped use that knowledge to train Pora in Ukraine.

Thanks for your interest in the book.

Likewise elsewhere:

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=Marko+Markovic+Otpor&go=Search&form=QBNO

Kindly note that the most expert of analysts don’t get everything right.

In the book, Mikheil Saakashvili’s first name is spelled in the English transliteration of the Russian “Mikhail.” I spelled it as the Goergian “Mikheil” in my review. Likewise, I spelled Zoran Djindjic’s name different from how it’s spelled in the book (Dindic).

Among many others, Serb commentator Nebojsa Malic agrees with my spelling of Djindjic’s last name.

http://www.antiwar.com/malic/m031203.html

I hope this is a “serious” enough answer for you.

His name is Ivan Marovic, and if you have explored a bit more, such “mistakes” should not be here.

This is yet another example of “collecting evidence” and presenting “a firm proof”.

“Marko Markovic” is Serbian version of Anglo-Saxon “John Smith”. We use this in most cases to “name a person in everyday conversation”, when giving a real name is not of any relevance. In other words, I could say that I’ve been with American writer John Smith the other day. This is how this “wrong” naming becomes even more ridiculous, for a Serbian reader.