Encounters with a Monster

It's not wise to ask directions from the enemy in wartime. I make the mistake in a Belgrade suburb with a painted-up girl who speaks Italian and pulls up to me in a sharklike Citroën. She offers a proposal. Why don't I leave a message at the home of the world's most notorious war criminal? "It's just up the road," she says, waving a purple fingernail. "You can't miss it. They have good times there." And sure enough, there it is, funded by the proceeds of a decade of ethnic cleansing: a gigantic Greek temple with baby blue pediments topped by a New Age crystal pyramid that is surely bulletproof. A sort of reviewing stand juts out onto the street, where the homeowner can observe his private army on maneuvers.

The owner of the house is a poised, beautifully dressed man who has an easy smile and a habit of murdering people. His name is Zeljko Raznatovic, but he is better known as Arkan. The American diplomat Richard Holbrooke called him a "cold-blooded, hands-on murderer." Arkan appears to consider the accusation an honor. Earlier this year, Arkan was charged with crimes against humanity by the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague. True to form, he laughed at the accusations and then threw a champagne and caviar party. He'd finally achieved status.

So how did Arkan feel about the NATO special forces now hunting him down? I decided to find out.

My attempt began as bombs still fell over Serbia. It took a week of meetings in the charred back rooms of Belgrade cafés with two of Arkan's lieutenants: a six-foot-tall blonde and a shadowy Ministry of Interior colonel called Zoran. Only after the ceasefire was announced did Arkan consent to see me. We agreed to have tea and pastries in the Hyatt Hotel. But when the U.S. unexpectedly announced a $5 million bounty on war criminals, Arkan vanished.

My only option was to leave a message to reschedule our appointment. And that's how I came to be at the top of the hill by that strange house.

Arkan's place is flanked by a cozy bakery and a bus stop where commuters wait like statues for a bus that won't come. The house looks deserted, so I snap a picture and turn to go. That's when the street erupts. Two men in black rush from behind a thicket. One is just a kid, an apprentice ethnic-cleanser. The second man clearly is unhappy about being a thug--you can see it in his eyes. A third man flies down the cobbled street moments later, his black coat flapping behind him like Dracula's wings. He's obviously in charge.

They yell at me and then push me against a wall. When things like this happen, you launch into frantic calculations about the risks of attempting a civil conversation with a war criminal. Scrambling, I decide to engage the vampire on a subject of mutual interest: the defeat of Arkan's soccer squad by Partisan just moments before. He looks at me with eyes like a couple of holes in a brick wall, then grabs my Yugoslav Army press card and rips it up with a sneer: "Now you don't exist in Serbia. Tomorrow you will be gone." Then he fastens on to my camera, hurls it to the ground and grinds it to bits. When all that's left is a dusting of microchips, he methodically stomps on those, too. "This," he says, looking at me, "is what we do to Americans." The whole performance takes about five minutes.

The three men back me into an alley. Behind them, I can see the people at the bus stop hastily grab their bags and shamble away, their eyes riveted on their feet. The last witness is a deaf and dumb tramp, who is inspired at this moment to approach me and ask for a cigarette. "Later," the thugs tell him. "We're busy."

As the attack proceeds, I feel a taste of what it's like to be one of Arkan's victims, stuck in the wrong ethnic group with only a deaf-mute for comic relief. Only my letter to Arkan saves me. I wave it in their faces. The vampire looks it over reluctantly and pockets it. He grunts, "Get out of here," and pushes me down the hill. In the evening, this being Yugoslavia, I think nothing of calling Arkan's young wife to ask for an explanation of my reception. She's sitting at home minding some of his nine children from various women and graciously comes to the phone. "Arkan won't talk to you now," she says brightly. "Come back later."

Such is the state of Yugoslavia that violence and hospitality are inseparable and a man with a private army can lord it over a swath of territory in the middle of a European capital. How did Arkan get his power and how could he elude the West for so long?

In the early Nineties, Arkan recruited soccer hooligans and prison inmates to form his army, the Tigers. Trained and equipped by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Arkan's Tigers quickly became President Slobodan Milosevic's storm troopers during the worst days of ethnic cleansing. Whenever Milosevic needed some dirty work done, the baby-faced Arkan was there--discreet, dependable and ruthless.

To non-Serbs, the sight of the black uniforms and shaved heads of the Tigers was a harbinger of doom. Tiger operations were distinguished by a superior level of discipline and order. United Nations reports speak of mutilation chambers and designated "rape rooms" where quarters were divided for oral and vaginal sex attacks. Arkan's reign of terror in Croatia and Bosnia lasted four years, from 1991 to 1995, and (continued on page 155)Reporter's Notebook(continued from page 50) left thousands dead.

Every psychopath has a defining weakness. Arkan's is his high-pitched voice, so much at odds with his Rambo image. I spoke with him on the phone several times before my disastrous visit to his house. I found him to be a surprisingly good listener. He politely hears out a question and answers thoughtfully in English.

"So, how are you feeling today, Mr. Raznatovic?"

"How can I feel? We have a tragedy, a national tragedy around us."

The war's end has been announced and smoke is still drifting over the horizon from the burning oil refinery at Pancevo. I ask Arkan: Are you disappointed you did not get to kill a few NATO troops?

He responds with a whine. "You people were cowards, bombing us from five kilometers up. That's not a man's war. That's a coward's war. You are lucky you did not have to fight me like a man and a soldier. You would have gone back in plastic bags. And maybe you will."

What about all the evidence of terror in Kosovo?

"It was a war and people die in war. I myself kill people because they are killing my countrymen. But I killed only people who had guns, who were terrorists. It was a fair fight. Maybe some people get too excited, on both sides. But there is no raping, no killing. Serbian people are not Nazis."

So you can live with Albanians? I ask.

"As long as they are loyal to Yugoslavia, they should stay here. But not the terrorists, not the murderers. I tell you I feel sorry for the refugees. I don't hate these people."

He is silent for a moment. "They are indicting everybody as a war criminal who defended Yugoslavia. But what about the Americans who with their bombs killed 600 children? What about the 2000 civilians the Americans killed? I am telling you that your generals are the real war criminals, and no Serb ever forgets it."

The next time we talk, the first of thousands of Serb refugees are streaming into Belgrade. The scale of the Serb defeat is becoming hard to hide and Arkan sounds agitated. How do you feel about NATO troops on Serbia's homeland? I ask him.

"There is a word for the agreement that allows the aggressor on our land: It's called treason. Now I feel ashamed. I was ready to fight to the last Serb before leaving our land, our holy land."

So what are you planning to do in peacetime?

"I build my business and I build my army. We keep training everywhere in Serbia and if Yugoslavs need protection, we will do it. I have people around me, yes. And you be careful of them."

Arkan goes out almost every night. At 47, he lives a high-profile dream life. He is always immaculately dressed and sports a diamond-encrusted Rolex. He is married to a glamorous rock star, Ceca, reigning queen of "turbo folk," a nauseating blend of Asian and Slavic pop. He lives with most of his nine children and a toy poodle. He owns a chain of ice cream shops, and last year was re-elected chairman of the Nationalist Party of Serbian Unity. "Look," he tells me. "I am a gentleman."

Born in Brezice, Slovenia (now a foreign country he can't visit), Arkan was the son of a Yugoslav air force colonel. While in his teens, he left Yugoslavia and embarked on a flamboyant life of crime in Western Europe. He supposedly served as a communist hit man in the Eighties. Whoever his employer was, Arkan left behind a trail of mayhem and corpses.

Arkan today leaves the torturing to his underlings and tends to business. He has built a state within a state, a network of criminal and legitimate holdings that make him one of the wealthiest men in the Balkans. Arkan is merely the most famous and successful of the vultures who profited from Yugoslavia's wars. The worse things got for the Yugoslav people, the richer he became. He made a fortune breaking U.S. sanctions, importing gasoline and tobacco while pursuing illegal currency trading.

Many of Arkan's paramilitaries rampaged through Kosovo for financial gain as well. Nationalism was just an excuse. According to eyewitnesses, the Tigers raced around the country in four-wheel drives with satellite telephones. The local Yugoslav military garrison would identify the richest Albanians in town and then assist in the repatriation of war booty to Belgrade. The spoils were divided between the federal government and the Tigers.

•

I have a chance to ask Arkan about this as he is careering somewhere in one of his seven Mercedes. Did you personally profit from the activities of the Tigers?

"Not at all," he says. "I'm a businessman, and I make my money legitimately. The Tigers were doing their patriotic duty. I cannot stop people from volunteering."

The Clinton administration says that Milosevic exerted control over Arkan through a common tactic known as "commander's intent," by which a leader issues broad orders and allows field officers to interpret them as they wish. Did Milosevic give him instructions?

"He is my president, not some war criminal," Arkan responds.

Do you have any official connection with the Serb government? People say you did Milosevic's dirty work.

The phone goes dead.

•

Among schoolkids and workers, Arkan is more popular than any other public figure in Yugoslavia. Many of these people have no future, and are furious at America. The allied bombings and years of sanctions have wrecked the economy, leaving 40 percent of the workforce unemployed. Arkan speaks to these people. "I don't care how he made his money," says a taxi driver named Branco. "At least he keeps his money in this country, unlike Milosevic. Arkan has rebuilt three stadiums."

I realize the reasons for his popularity: He's Serbia's answer to Hollywood. He lives out people's fantasies of expensive women, fast cars, big-time sports and violence. In a country of squabbling politicos and communist retreads, he grabs people's emotions and gives them false pride and easy answers. "If you think you Americans are going to tell Yugoslavia what to do, you are wrong," he tells me. "We are the last country that's not a slave to America. Your soldiers will go home and we will come back to Kosovo one day. We have no other place to go," he continues. "I tell Serbs in Kosovo not to be scared. We will protect them. I will be in front. My ancestors have been fighting the aggressor for 100 years, you know. Now we all need to be able to look into the eyes of our children and say we left them the native land."

As NATO forces push farther into Kosovo I watch his personality change. We talk again after a $5 million bounty has been offered for his capture. Suddenly, this hero to 12-year-olds sounds almost afraid. His playground is visibly shrinking and Rambo turns sentimental. "You have taken from us the part of Yugoslavia sacred to us. You've taken our soul and history," he says. "I was brought up in Kosovo. That's the place I remember first. It is my home. My country's home."

Only weeks before, he dared NATO to find him and laughed at the bombs. Now, beneath his blustering is a terrorist whose best days are behind him. He is desperate to keep his place on the world stage.

His cool, celebrity gangster image is the first thing he loses. The day after my encounter with Arkan's henchmen, the phone rings. It's Arkan himself and he's screaming like a banshee. "Listen, you motherfucker. Who gave you permission to photograph my house? I'll tell you! The next time I see you I tear your balls off. I'm going to find you and tear your nose off your face. Don't tell me you're sorry then."

Concerned I can't leave the country without my papers, I go to see the Yugoslav colonel who oversees foreign journalists. "Oh, we're sorry. Very, very sorry," the colonel mutters, spreading his hands wide. "But if Mr. Raznatovic has your papers, there's nothing we can do." I realize that in three weeks in Serbia, I've never heard anyone openly criticize Arkan. It's time to leave. I felt sure that if we crossed paths in the sumptuous foyer of the Hyatt, Arkan could spirit me away under the courteous eyes of the bellboys and nobody would lift a finger.

I remembered, too, the scene at the bus stop. Maybe that's the way things will end in Yugoslavia. A mass exodus and a slow-motion implosion of everything decent, until all that is left is a murderous businessman and a deaf-mute mouthing at thugs for a cigarette.