Belgrade's Ill Fated Gay Pride March: Will it Be a 'Brussels' or 'Moscow' Outcome in 2014?

 

                                           

Once again Belgrade Gay Pride has been scheduled to take place on Sunday, September 28th.  And once again, likely obfuscation appears in the guise of a pending police strike, conveniently expected to take place on the 26th.

The fix is in and a lot of people smell something rotten in the Vucic government. LGBT leaders such as Jovanka Todorovic, a leader of Labris, is skeptical and quoted as saying: "We always support all the requirements of the police, but with a certain amount of skepticism I have to ask the question the timing of this strike. This period coincides with pride and why we act as some kind of obstruction."

Belgrade is not only thumbing its nose at Brussels, but no doubt the government will gladly accept a police strike to avoid confronting a violent right-wing contingent of its population and continue to avoid upholding Serbian national law that guarantees the right to free assembly; not to mention the European Convention on Human Rights--a social and political legal compact that Prime Minister Vucic allegedly aspires to ascend and yield to -- just not this year and maybe, not anytime soon.

The stakes for Serbia's path to Europe were raised substantially on September 13th when a German citizen was attacked in Belgrade while attending an international LGBT conference. He was beaten so badly with a glass ashtray by the perpetrators that brain surgery was required (and has since recovered from the surgery). Police are now investigating the attack following the arrests of three alleged assailants. Xenophobia seems to loom as largely the motivation for this disturbing event. Indeed, the German Ambassador in Belgrade, Heniz Wilhelm, was quoted as saying that the attackers’ comments “gave a new xenophobic dimension” to the assault. It remains to be seen if the attack also had a homophobic aspect, but it would not be a stretch to think that gay bashing was also a motivation.  

This is Belgrade after all. Its history is replete with documented anti-gay violence that stretches back to 2001 and despite police protection for Pride in 2010, right-wing nationalist groups launched a broadsided violent attack on marchers and police alike, sending nearly 100 people to the hospital.

And here's the rub: the Serbian government is recalcitrant in its constitutional inability to admit responsibility for past war crimes.  Serbia's political leadership persists in the repulsive assertion that the Srebrenica massacre that occurred in Bosnia in 1995 resulting in the murders of 8,000 men and boys was not genocide, despite the judgement of the International War Crimes Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia. Indeed, Srebrenica is nearly universally recognized as a genocide  with the exception of maybe Russia, North Korea and China, a stellar lineup of human rights abusing regimes. Serbian officials demonstrate over and over again a lack of political will, if not outright refusal to vigorously address an ad nauseum list of unresolved war crimes cases, which includes the cold blooded 1999 execution of the three American Bytyqi brothers in Kosovo, is just one glaring example of dozens of cases yet to be prosecuted.    

Balkan scholar Eric Gordy aptly summed up Serbia's impunity following the attack with a tweet:

Violence against the Labris conference is related to postwar impunity. No justice = continued politics by violence.
— Eric Gordy (@EricGordy) September 13, 2014

Why should Vucic care at all about European standards, when the European Union itself seems less than committed to further enlargement? As Florian Bieber, a noted scholar on the Balkans pointed out earlier this year, the European Commission's enlargement office was moved out of its main building to a nondescript office a block away, perhaps a metaphor for its lackluster policy approach. Jean-Claude Junker, President of the EU Commission has since announced that "The EU needs to take a break from enlargement" but this is somewhat misleading, as Dr. Bieber pointed out, Junker's announcement could actually translate into a significant slow down in enlargement because it already had extended enlargement timelines for candidate states at least five more years anyway. Serbia just undertook the process within the last year and it remains to be seen just when Serbia could actually qualify as a new EU member.

Slowing down EU enlargement is not the right approach for Serbia and in particular with respect to the Vucic government, which has grossly strayed from rule of law practices on the issue of LGBT human rights, let alone its failure to address its macabre past.  

A Serbian consortium of human rights groups announced in June by the Humanitarian Law Centre, will monitor and periodically issue shadow reports on the Serbian government and the EU accession process on the key issues of transitional justice and the rule of law. This is an entirely appropriate role of civil society organizations in the midst of the EU process. Civil society leaders in Serbia have quietly raised questions about the EU accession role and whether Brussels will truly keep Serbia accountable to the process. Serbia has a long way to go toward implementing and demonstrating respect for the "rule of law".  In its most contemporaneous record on these matters, the Serbian government's failure to address an entrenched right-wing and afford rights and protections to its LGBT citizens, is one of its most glaring failures.  So much for the path of accountability on the way to Brussels.

Another deep concern about Serbia and a poor human rights track record is its opportunistic relationship with Russia -- not just your average Russia, but Putin's Russia. Next month, Vladimir Putin will visit Belgrade on October 19 and take part in ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade during World War II. 

Vucic visited Moscow in July and Milorad Dodik, president of the Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been burning up air miles between his Banja Luka outpost and Moscow (dubbed as "Moscow's Man in Banja Luka" by colleague Jasmin Mujanovic) with regularity, garnering Russian honors and soliciting rubles to help bolster Banja Luka's woefully parched economy (since he refuses to participate in the Dayton peace process). These brothers across the Danube are getting a little help from their Slavic friends, while Putin fouls the air domestically and internationally.

Serbia is playing with fire by cozying up to Putin, who has unleashed homophobia, a new round of xenophobia and all out war in Eastern Ukraine during his latest return to the Russian presidency.  A hint of Putin's nasty legacy that is seeping into Europe is evidenced in a previously held  secret meeting in Vienna last summer organized by anti-gay Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeew, for the expressed purpose to take on Europe's "gay lobby" and progressive liberalism. This meeting of right-wing parties in Europe  should be recognized as a burning red flag by Brussels and serves as a cautionary tale.

But Vucic apparently has not received a missive from Brussels, which should read: "stay in your backyard and clean up the mess."

Whether Belgrade Pride is successfully carried off this year, remains to be seen. But whatever the outcome, it remains abundantly clear, the LGBT community in Serbia has a steep upward climb before it can achieve a measure of equality and dignity.  For this nascent movement to succeed, it must join forces together with a broader progressive and inclusive human rights movement, that is animated by respect for the rule of law as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.  The LGBT human rights movement in Serbia and throughout the Western Balkans, is the first political and social movement to emerge post conflict.  Those who identify as LGBT are in many instances supported by heterosexual allies, who also embrace fundamental human rights principles. Together, they must bear the burden and make the case for expanding rights to the Serbian government and the public that LGBT rights are human rights. It will not be easy. It will be a struggle for some time to come. But with engaged and proactive EU support by insisting that Belgrade remain accountable during a likely extended enlargement period, this approach will go a long way toward addressing the crimes of Serbia's past and move into a future that enables LGBT people to live full, authentic and vibrant lives without fear of reprisal and retribution.

Tanya Domi is an Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. She is a faculty affiliate of the Harriman Institute and a Fellow at the Emerging Democracies Institute based in Washington, D.C.  She is currrently wriiting a book on the emerging LGBT human rights movement in the Western Balkans.

UPDATE: How the "Putin Project" is Affecting LGBTI Human Rights in Russia's Near Abroad

Right Wing Watch posted a story after attending the panel discussion:

Russia's ban on gay "propaganda" and copycat laws throughout the region have created a "license to commit violence against" LGBT people, "give the permission" for "street violence" and "create legitimacy for violence," according to human rights advocates working in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Kyrgyszstan who spoke last night at a panel at Columbia University. Russia's spate of anti-gay laws has quickly influenced neighboring countries, part of what Columbia professor Tanya Domi called "the Putin project" of solidifying Russia's influence in the region.  

Read the entire article here.


http://harriman.columbia.edu/event/how-putin-project-affecting-lgbti-human-rights-russias-near-abroad-ukraine-kyrgyzstan-and

I will be moderating a panel at The Harriman Institute, Columbia University, on Monday, April 14th, 6:15 p.m. Joined by Olena Shevchenko, chairman of Insight, and advocacy organization for LGBTI human rights that is based in Kyiv; Anna Kirey, a researcher on LGBTI human rights, Human Rights Watch and Matthew Schaff, a program officer at Freedom House who reports on LGBTI issues.  This is so timely, especially given the xenophobia exacted against the LGBTI community in Russia,which is having a negative effect in the "near abroad" of Russia.  If you are in New York City, stop by the Harriman Institute to hear the conversation by these human rights defenders.

Putin Exacts His Revenge for the "Brothers Across the Danube"; Is Kosovo Crimea Now?

During Vladimir Putin's remarks before the Russian parliament this past week to declare his annexation of Crimea successful in the aftermath of a plebiscite with winning results in excess of 90 percent, he revealed a newly embraced nationalism for a resurgent Russia.  He also announced his exacted vengeance for Serbia's loss of Kosovo in the crudest terms.

Putin mentioned Kosovo frequently throughout his speech; and exacting his revenge for Serbia's loss was apparently a desire he had harbored for a number of years. 

He crudely referenced the American bombing by referring analogously to it as "screwing everyone" but not asking for their permission. According to journalist Masha Gessen in her Slate report, who wrote: "The expression Putin used, however, was "vsekh nagnuli," street slang for having had non-consensual anal sex with everybody, rather than for having everybody agree."

Columbia Professor Kimberly Marten pointed out Putin's unvarnished embrace of Russian nationalism during his Duma speech when he referred to Russians as "Russkii" for exclusively ethnic Russians, as opposed to the customary reference of "Rossisskii" when acknowledging anyone who had a a Russian passport, in other words, a Russian citizen, irrespective of ethnicity.

Marten drew a plausible parallel to Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic nationalism project to violently create a "Greater Serbia" as he led Serbs through a series of wars that slaughtered thousands of people and destroyed Yugoslavia. 

It remains to be seen how far Putin will take his Crimea odyssey.  Will he venture into Eastern Ukraine?  Will he venture further afield to establish a Putinesque Russian empire?

But now a resurgent Russia has fully emerged, led by strong man Putin who appears to be not only omnipotent, but is bent on righting past wrongs carried out against Russia. His paternal declaration of protection for his Serbian slavic brothers was an unparalleled throw down and upends Europe's previous policy overtures to draw Russian into its organizations as a western leaning partner.  

These revelations should be a wake-up call for the Europeans.

Herein lies a defining fulcrum -- that of the historical slavic ties between the Russians and Serbs that runs deep with several centuries shared between them and notable for opportunistic manipulation of one another. Harkening back to the Vienna Congress of 1815, is just one example when Russian Tsar Alexander made clear in a diplomatic note circulated to delegates:

...calling attention to Turkish atrocities in Serbia, Alexander stated that [as] the emperor of Russia [he]was the natural protector of the Orthodox Greek Christians under Ottoman dominion...and the note concluded that Alexander was obliged by his religion and the voice of conscience to go to the aid of the oppressed Serbian people.

Timing is everything in geopolitical affairs.

The Crimean referendum was not the only election held on March 16.  On the same day a new Serbian government was elected that is expected to be led by Aleksandar Vucic, a populist and a political son of Slobodan Milosevic (Vucic was his spokesperson).  Vucic, a former nationalist hawk, ran a campaign that called for Serbia to join with Europe and resolve the Kosovo issue, a sharp juxtaposition with Putin's claims that his violent takeover of Crimea was an action to settle scores over on behalf of Serbia.

Will Serbia now choose to move forward and engage in a series of reforms required of future European Union members? Will they make peace with Kosovo while a resurgent, saber rattling, nationalistic Russia patron is on the move?

On the issue of Kosovo, the Serbs have always been supported by the Russians as evidenced in the UN Security Council during the Balkan wars where the Russians effectively used their veto powers to block action, or watered down resolutions against the Milosevic regime. 

Likewise, Russia has played a similar role in the permanent council of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which operates on the basis of consensus.  Russia has effectively blocked Kosovo's OSCE membership despite years of reform and international oversight that was carried out before its independence was declared in 2008.

It appears that Belgrade is juggling its European agenda while maintaining a friendship with Moscow. 

Over the years, but more frequently since 2012 when Putin returned to the Russian presidency, officials from Moscow and Belgrade have been frequent fliers in a concerted effort to curry favor and deepen their ties. 

Awkwardly at times, Bosnian Serb interloper Milorad Dodik, the premier of the Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina has also been a presence in Moscow.

In the week before the Crimea referendum, Dodik traveled to Moscow where he was presented an award by the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill "for his outstanding contribution to improving the unity of Orthodox Christian peoples and consolidating and promoting Christian values in society." 

Justification for the the award was also attributed to Dodik's leadership of Bosnian Serbs and its relationship to the “Serb Republic [as the only] legal option to ensure safety of the Serbs west of the Drina River, which divides them, or more accurately connects them to Motherland Serbia.”

Not surprisingly, but nonetheless bizarre, Emir Kustrurica, the Serbian film director who is originally from Sarajevo and had once been a secular Bosniak, was in attendance at the ceremony held in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, along with a number of Russian diplomats and officials.  Kusturcia, who converted to the Serbian Orthodox faith in 2005, has made frequent trips to Moscow and attended the May 2012 Putin inauguration.

While many dismiss Dodik as desperate to maintain power and should not to be considered seriously, he nonetheless has the attention of major political players in Moscow. So no surprise that he would issue a solicitous statement of congratulations to the people of Crimea, calling the referendum a "legitimate and democratic referendum in keeping with the Constitution, international law and the UN Charter on the Right of People to self-determination." Russian ambassador to BiH Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko stood by his side as a proud and grateful witness.

None of Dodik's activities with the Russians advances the interests of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina to be improved, or to enhance responsiveness to the needs of its citizens. Dodik is using these meetings and relationships with Russians to affirm Bosnian Serb autonomy while invoking their "frail" position within BiH who must seek protection from their brethren in Moscow and Belgrade.

A more serious meeting between the Russians and the Serbs took place in April 2013 when Ivica Dacic, the prime minister of Serbia met with Putin to agree to become a "neutral" observer to Russia's Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post Cold War organization, viewed as a successor to the Warsaw Pact. Other members include Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The agreement was hailed as a geopolitical advance in the Russian media and forecasted that when Serbia becomes a full-fledged member of the CSTO, the organization could speak on behalf of Serbia on Kosovo issues. 

And while official Serbian soldiers have not been deployed to Crimea, at least for now, Serb Chetnik volunteers have shown up for duty in Crimea.  They were interviewed by Vice media journalist Simon Ostrosky, while working at a checkpoint located on a Crimean highway.  

Ostrosky approached Bratislav Zivkovic (second from the right) who hails from "central Serbia, where he said "Czar Lazar started his campaign for Kosovo" and was in Crimea to help the Russians because "we have been helpful to each other through the ages." He added:  "We have come to help share our experiences from the barricades in Kosovo and Metohija."  Enough said. Apparently Kosovo is Crimea now.  Just ask Vladimir Putin and Bratislav Zivkovic.

Photograph of Vladimir Putin, courtesy of the Kremlin website. Photograph of Serbian Chetniks, courtesy of Twitter.

Tanya Domi is a Fellow at the Emerging Democracies Institute, Washington D.C. She is also an adjunct professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and Harriman Institute.

HRC LGBT Donors to Appear at Davos Economic Forum in First Move to Advance International Engagement

UPDATE:  Politico.com correspondent Maggie Haberman published a story on the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday, reporting that Human Rights Campaign (HRC) donors Paul Singer and Dan Loeb will be organizing two panel discussions at the normally staid Davos World Economic Forum later this month in Switzerland (the panels appear to be  "side" events and are not currently listed in the official program) .  Singer and Loeb, who are the primary donors to HRC's new international LGBT project are not without controversy.  Both made their fortunes from "Vulture funds," and are members of the Republican Party. Nonetheless,  the fact that openly lesbian Masha Gessen, a Russian journalist will be speaking on one of the panels is a good development and should really break the mold at Davos in more than a 1,000 ways.  Good luck to her continued endeavors to speak out about latest oppression underway in Putin's Russia.

The Human Rights Campaign announced in November 2013 a new global initiative, but Laura Belmonte and Tanya Domi raise questions about the priorities and  expertise of America’s largest domestic LGBT organization to engage internationally 

Last November, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) launched a new $3 million international campaign that has generated both cautious optimism and scathing criticism from those involved in the global struggle for LGBT equality. Both responses are well-founded and the bar is set high for HRC to distinguish itself in an arena long ago claimed by other advocates.

HRC’s announcement this week of a $100,000 contribution to support the Russian LGBT movement is a serious illustration of its commitment to this new venture into international affairs. Madonna, Ricky Martin, Dustin Lance Black and Gavin Newsome, the Lt. Governor of California, are among the 63 donors.  The organization’s ability to raise substantial sums of money and to promote such efforts with celebrities situated front and center is one of HRC’s greatest strengths (see celebrity supporters).

HRC unquestionably has money (nearly $39 million in gross receipts in 2012), expertise and connections in U.S. politics and media that could prove invaluable in gaining attention for LGBT issues abroad. If HRC is willing to connect grass roots activists with public officials, corporate leaders, and media outlets that help them make their cases and to provide them with additional resources or training like their new global fellows program, kudos to them.

But that’s a big if.

With many more hurdles to overcome domestically, is going international now the right strategic move, or is this HRC hedging its bets and paying it forward to position the organization for a different kind of future, when ENDA, marriage equality and civil rights have been secured in a vast majority of states in America? Are the aims of Chad Griffin, who assumed the presidency of HRC in 2012, really different from those of his predecessor Joe Solmonese, whose seven- year tenure was punctuated by allegations that he raised a great deal of money, but pursued an agenda with little substance?

In its first move toward international engagement, right out of the starting blocks, HRC was taken to task for accepting funding for this initiative from Paul Singer, a venture capitalist who has profited from the economic distress of developing nations. Pointing out the devastating effects of poverty on LGBT people in impoverished nations, Wanja Muguongo, head of UHAI –the East African Sexual Health and Rights Initiative – told BuzzFeed, “You cannot hurt with one hand and say you’re helping with another. It is not money that should be used by anyone for LGBTI work any side of the world. It’s an insult.”

No matter how well-executed, the HRC initiative inevitably will generate suspicion among foreign activists. From Protestant missionary organizations to public health workers to modernization programs like the Alliance for Progress, there is a long history of U.S. humanitarian intervention that has veered into imperialism. While HRC may not see this initiative through such a lens, many of those abroad will.

As domestic activists of many years, we are familiar with the HRC mode of operation: From Maryland to Hawaii, HRC has been rightfully accused of “bigfooting” local activists, icing out those who are considered experts and running roughshod over people who have toiled away for years, often ignored with little or no support, only to be pushed aside when victory is at hand. HRC classically swoops in, grabs the reins of a struggle and claims another victory, but in the process causes hurt feelings and resentments that have plagued the organization for years.

A recent case illustrating our point occurred when HRC staff members excoriated a transgender activist who was holding a transgender freedom flag behind the rally stage in front of the U.S. Supreme Court last March during Defense of Marriage Act oral arguments. The staff member repeatedly told the transgender activist that marriage equality was not a transgender issue. Although HRC eventually issued an apology, staff members who were managing the stage committed another faux pas by telling an undocumented LGBT activist who was scheduled to speak at the rally, to remain silent about his immigration status. Not willing to accept HRC’s heavy-handed treatment, United We Dream’s Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project issued a video press release condemning HRC’s actions and demanded an apology.

If HRC is this insensitive with transgender and immigrant queers at home, how will they behave abroad, among people who likely speak different languages, have different values, different priorities, and their own ideas about how to advance LGBTI equality in their own countries?

How will they address the “Intersex” political identification which is excluded in America for all practical purposes, but commonly addressed in Europe and other regions of the world?

Indeed, HRC’s entry into international human rights advocacy is quite late and there are many international and national LGBTI groups who have been working for years on these issues, with tremendous experience and expertise. Among them include, Freedom House, The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the more recent and quite effective Council on Global Equality, which HRC financially supports.

International activists are raising concerns about whether HRC will remove more funding than it invests in the nations where they seek to advance LGBT equality. Given the tensions among HRC and state and local activists who have experienced this vacuum effect for years, such anxieties are understandable.

Look no further than the new “Love Conquers Hate” t-shirt campaign HRC is promoting as a means of helping LGBT activists in Russia. Jamie Lee Curtis and others sport the t-shirt in a gesture of solidarity. But one cannot actually buy the t-shirt whose proceeds benefit those working for LGBT equality in Russia without also giving a donation to HRC.

And more to the point, in the case of Russia, where xenophobia is alarmingly accentuated due to the onerous crackdown against the LGBT community by the Putin regime, love between same-sex partners can barely exist, let alone conquer hatred and violence. Such simplistic campaign slogans fall dreadfully short of addressing daily questions of life and death that now confront Russian gays.

It is precisely this type of celebrity-laden self-promotion and resource domination that sends HRC’s fiercest detractors into fits of sputtering rage and opens it up charges of exploitation (or dismissal for a lack of understanding about what is actually happening in Russia for the gay community).

HRC should play to their strengths and continue its financial support to the newly launched Russian Freedom Fund. They should assist groups like RUSA LGBT, Russians working from New York and even consider funding an asylum resettling project for those Russians who will no doubt be seeking a better life in America, but leave it this work to the groups who have worked on international LGBT human rights for decades.

For such reasons, we pose several questions about HRC’s global initiative.

Will HRC actually collaborate with other organizations with much deeper expertise in foreign relations, international human rights, and development? Will this initiative simply export U.S. hegemonic aims, including white privilege and classicism that has undercut many a domestic HRC program? Is HRC cognizant that this global campaign sends an implicit “Game’s over at Home” message to activists in 29 states still working for hate crimes law and protections against employment and housing discrimination? Isn’t it premature to declare victory and go searching for international battles before passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and marriage equality in all 50 states?

The fate of many literally risking their lives for LGBT equality abroad hinges on how HRC and all of us who want freedom for LGBTI people everywhere answer these questions.

Image: HRC Love Conquers Hate Russian T-Shirt via HRC

The original version of this article was published by The New Civil Rights Movement on December 21, 2013

Laura Belmonte is Professor of history at Oklahoma State University and serves on the national council for the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).