Part Two: Radovan Karadžić: The Genocidal Dictator Who Became a New-Age Guru

Behind the Bastards

This episode concludes the saga of Radovan Karadžić, tracing his evolution from a psychiatrist and environmental activist to a genocidal dic

Key takeaways

• Karadžić used his membership in the Yugoslav Green Party to tap into anti-communist, counterculture sentiments.
• The politics of 'alternative medicine' served as a haven for right-wing anti-communists in a failing communist state.

Main topics

• Radovan Karadžić
• Yugoslavia's breakup

Notable quotes

It is never too late to pivot and be a dictator.

Conclusion

A chilling look at how political opportunism and the manipulation of c

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:01) And we're Speaker 2 (0:06) back. This is part two of Behind the Bastards on Radovan Karadzic. And I know what everyone's been asking, at least everyone watching on the Netflix since the first episode, probably on the subreddit, who's been going crazy over like, Robert's in a new room. Why is Robert in a new room? And like, guys, look, it's nothing crazy. I'm not on the run from anywhere, right? Obviously, I haven't committed a series of horrible crimes like Jamie that I've had to go into hiding over. I'm just in a different room. Speaker 1 (0:32) This is okay. Speaker 2 (0:33) You're Speaker 1 (0:33) deflecting. You're deflecting. And now and what happens when you deflect and accuse me of your crimes is that I don't hear the end of it for I think this might be for Speaker 2 (0:45) years. Speaker 1 (0:46) Decades. Not a week goes by that there isn't some neckbeard side eyeing me in the grocery store. Speaker 2 (0:55) Because that ass thing. Speaker 1 (0:58) And I love each and every one of them. And I'm so nice. Speaker 2 (1:02) Oh, man. I Speaker 1 (1:05) think I weirdly got it the worst in Pittsburgh somehow. Yeah, that makes sense, actually. I got a lot of Pittsburgh Speaker 2 (1:11) fans. A lot of people standing up for the show in Pittsburgh. The Yinsers were Speaker 1 (1:14) really shaking in their boots when I came around. So where's your secret room at? It's underneath the Denver airport. Speaker 2 (1:27) Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I bought, actually own the Denver airport now. Power bills are eating me alive. Yeah. It was a lot cheaper than you'd expect. Yeah. Love your horse. Speaker 1 (1:37) Love the horse. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I do. Speaker 2 (1:39) That's, that's, that's what really sold me on it too, actually. Yeah. Speaker 3 (1:46) This is an I Speaker 4 (1:47) heart podcast guaranteed human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Iwano. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGiulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of New Shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (2:22) Hi, this is Kylie Brakeman, Angela Geratana, Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald, and we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists podcast, the improvised character comedy podcast, where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. He gets right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You've never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (3:03) I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Speaker 2 (3:15) Ooh, I scammed him. What? I could talk to you for an hour. Speaker 3 (3:18) You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (3:33) Self-care September is your reminder to slow down, check in with yourself, get off your phone and maybe ask. Why am I like this? I'm Gemma Spegg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, and this month we're helping you make sense of the person that you are becoming, from setting boundaries and navigating friendships, to understanding anxiety, confidence, relationships, and attachment. Sometimes our biggest decisions, without us even realizing it, aren't driven by what we truly want, but by what will prevent us from feeling lonely or being alone. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 6 (4:14) So like by age 11 or so, at Speaker 4 (4:17) least 70 % have a phone. Speaker 5 (4:19) I'm Dr. Joy, and this is Therapy for Black Girls. We spend our surviving middle school run getting into what's happening inside your kid's brain, their group chats, and their friendships, and what you can do about it. Speaker 6 (4:30) Your child is not doing this on purpose. Speaker 5 (4:32) That's the kind of perspective we've been pulling from the psychologists and psychiatrists who study this for a living. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 7 (4:44) Hi, I'm Michael Imperioli. I want to tell you about my new podcast, Underground Zero. We're Speaker 8 (4:49) looking at the opportunity of a lifetime for us and the other families. Speaker 7 (4:52) It's about the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. Speaker 8 (4:55) What's in the tunnels? Gold bars, silver ingots. It could be worth half a billion. Speaker 7 (5:00) Starring Steve Schirrippa, Ray Abruzzo, and me, Michael Imperioli. How far are you prepared to go? Depends how far you are. Listen to Underground Zero on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Speaker 8 (5:14) it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, Here's the Thing, I talk to actor Stephen Root. Speaker 5 (5:20) I'm a people watcher. You see that guy going down the screen, go, yeah, I can use that. Speaker 8 (5:24) And Open Igloo co-founder Alia Mohammed. Speaker 6 (5:27) I love staying on top of what is going on in our city, what is on renters' minds, and taking all of that knowledge to build a platform that hopefully is going to make New York City better in the long run. Speaker 8 (5:39) Listen to Here's the Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get Speaker 2 (5:45) your Speaker 8 (5:45) podcasts. Speaker 2 (5:50) We've been talking about Radovan Karadzic, who at this point in the story is a psychiatrist who has been slightly disgraced for his criminal activity, maybe informed on his friends for the regime. And yeah, is is is eyeing the the coming disillusion of Yugoslavia and being like, how can I make this work for me? Right. It Speaker 1 (6:11) is interesting that he he ends he ends part one basically just as kind of like a white collar criminal. Speaker 1 (6:19) He's starting to get some ideas. Shitty dad. Speaker 2 (6:22) Yeah. Speaker 1 (6:23) He's like flopped Speaker 2 (6:25) at Speaker 1 (6:25) a couple things. I'm curious. He's a fed, but many such white-collar criminals. Speaker 2 (6:31) He's a little bit of a fed. Yeah. Speaker 1 (6:32) But, yeah. Speaker 2 (6:34) If you had to guess what political party in our system, a guy like this who like believes some weird things about like natural healing and like magic. and has committed a series of white-collar crimes and may be informed on people for the government. If you wanted to guess what party in the U.S. he would join to start his political career, what would you guess? Speaker 1 (6:58) Oh, gosh. There's I mean, there's a strong whiff of upper middle class centrist to that kind of behavior. Not a centrist. Well, I know. Well, yeah, he's a dictator. What's the Speaker 2 (7:10) kooky? What party? Is he like a Speaker 1 (7:13) libertarian kind of guy? Speaker 2 (7:14) No, no. I'm getting Speaker 1 (7:16) like Maha vibes. Speaker 2 (7:18) He joins the Green Party. There's an actual Green Party. It is the Green Party in Yugoslavia that he joins. And it's kind of the same as our Green Party, as far as I can tell. And that it's all the people who are into weird woo bullshit, right? They love trees and not taking medicine that works. Those are the two big uniting factors of the Green Party, both here and over there. Speaker 1 (7:44) Knowing that he loves trees is kind of the one sincere thing I feel like I truly know about this man. He Speaker 2 (7:50) loves Speaker 1 (7:50) trees. Speaker 2 (7:50) Yeah. He was pissed about those Speaker 1 (7:52) oaks. And you know what? I think he was right. Speaker 2 (7:54) Yeah. And he would have been a Jill Stein voter. So I don't know why having a nutty Green Party is endemic to democracy, but as soon as Yugoslavia starts to get the slightest bit of democracy, they're like, well, we got to have a party for the kooks, right? Speaker 1 (8:08) We got to have our crank party. They got to go somewhere. They got to go somewhere. And it's Speaker 2 (8:14) going to be a fucking Green Party. So he joins the Green Party first. Okay. Now, as historian Robert Donia explains, in the late 1980s, before communism fell, Yugoslavians began experimenting with political parties. And this, quote, represented more of an artistic performance than a practical party. Because, again, you don't really have democracy yet, but people are allowed to play act it. And it is kind of play acting at this point. There's sort of in the same way that like kids play with guns before they're old enough to join the army. Right. Like they're playing with politics before they get to have their first elections in Yugoslavia a little bit. Right. Speaker 1 (8:49) He's getting, I mean, he's not super young at this point, right? Like, I mean, he's a middle-aged man. He's had a full Speaker 2 (8:57) career, pretty much, and done some crimes. I was like, Speaker 1 (9:00) Eddie's served time. Yeah, he's done some time. There's a really depressing, like, one of those, like, memes in there where it's like, it's never too late to pivot and be a dictator. Speaker 2 (9:13) Julius Caesar was just some... dipshit like fucking side act in Roman politics until he was a middle-aged man. You know, there are late bloomers out. What I'm saying is if you're 45 and you're thinking life has passed you by, you could still commit a genocide, my friend. I believe in you. I believe in you. Probably don't, but you could is what I'm saying. I'm not saying you should, but Speaker 1 (9:37) you Speaker 2 (9:37) could, you know? You Speaker 1 (9:39) could. I mean, look. Did we think 10 years ago you would own the Denver airport? Certainly not. But here we are. Speaker 2 (9:48) Anyway, so yeah, the Greens become this holding place in early party politics in Yugoslavia for the counterculture. They were environmentalists first and foremost. One of the first activist campaigns Radovan participated in was they go out and they cover the limbs of acacia trees with plastic bags as like a protest against plastics. Right. It's a very 80s environmentalist campaign. Speaker 1 (10:14) That's kind of sweet. Sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 (10:18) Hearts are in the right place. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 1 (10:22) Yeah. Speaker 2 (10:23) So far seems pretty far from genocide. Radevan and his fellow greens were also bound together by an interest in what we might call folk medicine, right? This includes a mix of like these traditional remedies that people like the Karajiks grew up with in the mountains, as well as weird spiritual beliefs about like... nature that were pretty rooted in Serbian identity. But in a failing communist state, belief in what I prefer to call quack remedies was also political. So the people who believe in natural medicine and shit are also kind of dissidents to the communist regime, because that's very much not a communist sort of thing. period of time, right? I want to quote from a 2009 New York Times article by Jack Hitt, who writes, quote, in communist Yugoslavia, alternative medicine was suppressed, along with all anti-science superstitions, including, in the eyes of the communists, the Serbian Orthodox Church. In Serbia, then, the politics of alternative medicine became a haven for right-wing anti-communists, an expression of ancient Balkan heritage, right? So... The fact that they're into this stuff does, I mean, we've seen today that there's a lot of interplay between our fascists and the alternative health movement. Because if you're willing to discard a big chunk of modernity, you might be willing to discard other parts of it, right? Speaker 1 (11:38) And it's interesting how, you know, for at least the people at the top of that movement, they'll always have access to modernity when it suits them. When they really Speaker 2 (11:47) want to, when they need a vaccine, yeah. Speaker 1 (11:49) How unfortunate that we could sort of like tell the story of American fascism, at least in the last 25 years, through the lens of Gwyneth Paltrow. We don't love to think about it this way, but it could be done and it's on the table if you just have a loose three years to write that dissertation. Speaker 2 (12:06) And this also is there's kind of a dark. lesson in here for some of us on the left because i hear a lot of like people talking about what is to be done about maha and like all of the hot the millions that are going to die because this bullshit and like well this needs to be the government needs to crack down more on this and i i agree like you shouldn't be able to market things as medicine that aren't medicine but the story of yugoslavia shows even when you've got a really like very strong like state that is capable of repressing stuff like this, it doesn't last. As soon as the repression ends, people go right back to it and it becomes stronger than it had been before. So it's, there's not an easy fix in terms of people believing nonsense. We've never really figured out how to make people believe in reality. You can't force it. So I don't know what we're supposed to do, actually. Speaker 1 (12:52) No. So I wish I knew. How many more family members would we have if we knew that answer? Speaker 2 (13:02) Yeah. Speaker 1 (13:02) But so in Yugoslavia, they're very against this. So this is counterculture, basically. Counterculture. And Speaker 2 (13:09) it's specifically anti-communist counterculture, right? I see. Speaker 1 (13:12) Okay. Speaker 2 (13:13) Karadzic begins bringing in, you know, while he's in the Green Party, he starts organizing with them first, but he also starts gathering with some of his friends, some of the people who hadn't. you know, cut bait with him after the 1968 protest movement. I guess the guys who didn't think he'd been an informer. And he starts gathering together some of these Serb nationalists to him too. And they start talking about like, maybe the Green Party isn't going to take us all that much further. And the thing that binds these guys Speaker 1 (13:38) - Speaker 2 (13:38) How Speaker 1 (13:38) many times Speaker 2 (13:38) have we Speaker 1 (13:38) had that conversation? How many Speaker 2 (13:39) times has that happened? The thing that kind of binds all of these- Guys, I don't think Jill's going Speaker 1 (13:43) to make it. Speaker 2 (13:44) Yeah, yeah. I don't know if this is going to do the trick. Wait, Speaker 1 (13:47) guys, I don't know if this is going to work. Speaker 2 (13:49) The thing that kind of binds them all together is a rejection of Yugoslav nationalism and of communism. And these men are Serbian ethno-nationalists, or at least that's what they become over the course of the next several years. Maybe they don't fully start there, but they are going to get really pilled on that. I think as they all start hanging out and realizing the things they have in common, they get increasingly violent towards the idea of anyone else existing in the area, right? And increasingly, they start getting angry again, too, about World War II. They never stopped being angry about the genocide in World War II, right? But there's a lot of, we never paid the Muslims back. We never paid the Croats back for what they did to us, right? That's also bubbling up here. So there's some ugly stuff being discussed. Speaker 1 (14:35) In that way, was it like the time that Tito was in power? Did that sort of like stave back that sort of eventual processing? Okay, that makes sense. But Speaker 2 (14:45) again, it suppresses it. It doesn't get rid of it, right? Yeah. And Speaker 1 (14:50) now it's like you're a generation removed from that as well. Yep. Speaker 2 (14:54) Yep. So in 1990, a group of Bosniak, these are again the Bosnian Muslims, center-right nationalists formed the SDA or Party of Democratic Action. And this is a majority Muslim party, the SDA. But. They're also a secular party, right? They get described a lot as like Islamists. They were not, are not, because they're still around. They support a broadly secular state, and they support an independent Bosnia, right, that wants to get closer to NATO and to the EU, right? That's sort of like what the SDA wants. So they're supportive of the right that Bosnia has to secede from Yugoslavia. And they are Muslim, but they're not looking to start a strict theocratic regime. Now, Radovan would not interpret things this way. He would later claim to his biographer, Jessica Stern, that the SDA were, quote, a bunch of Muslim extremists creating a militant Islamic party. Again, that's not really true, right? There's some bits of that at the edges, but that's not... really largely accurate. But it is true that a lot of Serb nationalists believe that. And for the same reason that a lot of a lot of people in Texas think that like Sharia law is right around the corner if they let there be a mosque in town. Right. Right. Racism. Yeah. Yeah. There's a Speaker 1 (16:14) word for that. Speaker 2 (16:15) Yeah. There's a word for that. It's also true that like Radovan is working tirelessly at this point to convince them. that the SDA are radical Islamists, right? And he is successful in creating what he called a sense of paranoia that allows him and his friends to leave the Greens and create a new political party, the SDS, which Jessica Stern describes as not only pro-Serb, but anti-Muslim and anti-Croat, right? So now we've got a party that's not just, you know, in favor of some of these like traditional Serb values, but we're specifically hate the Bosniaks and the Croats, right? How quickly Speaker 1 (16:49) is this happening? Because it's like this is, yeah. Because Speaker 2 (16:54) they're, I mean, they're, part of what it is, is they're looking at what's going to happen next when we all split up. And if you're a Serb who lives in Bosnia, and you see these Bosniak Muslims creating a party that represents the majority of the people in the area, and they're not Serb, you're like, well, they're going to oppress us, right? Maybe there'll be another genocide. Like, so we have to get ready to take power to stop them. from fucking us over, right? Right. There's a lot of that going on, a lot of that in the air, not just with the, and there's other ethnic groups. I'm very much simplifying the breakup of Yugoslavia. Speaker 2 (17:27) And this is where I get into an issue I have with Jessica's book, My War Criminal, beyond the title, because it is the source of more detail on Radovan's family and personal life than anyone else has. Right. But she also, by her own admission, falls for his spell several times and she does not push back on him enough. She doesn't really push back on Speaker 1 (17:45) him. Consider Speaker 2 (17:45) the title. Speaker 1 (17:46) Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 (17:47) She spends a lot of time talking to this guy. She doesn't push back on him describing the SDS as an Islamist party. And she also describes him as such, writing, Karadzic did not seem to have a personal animus to Muslims prior to the war, even though by his admission, the party he formed in 1990 was framed in opposition to Muslims and Croats. It's also true that he was, as she points out, the godfather to the son of a celebrated Bosniak poet, and that pre-war he had extensive personal connections to Muslims. But my read is that by the end of the 80s, he has decided the road to Serb political power requires framing Muslims as the enemy and as the other, right? He just tries to keep this hidden at first. And so he's not fully admitting to this, but it seems pretty clear to me. I feel like the follow-up Speaker 1 (18:34) questions kind of write themselves. Right. Yeah, Speaker 2 (18:37) and there's Speaker 1 (18:39) a Speaker 2 (18:39) couple of issues I have with some of her framing. She does this because there will be this claim that like, well, you know, Al-Qaeda got started. There were like proto early Al-Qaeda offshoots in Bosnia. And the truth is that like, well, some Mujahideen wound up fighting there because of the things that are going to happen during this genocide. And people mistakenly believe the Mujahideen were the, it's the same thing people. wrongly state about like Afghanistan, like, oh, you know, we actually really like funded and built Al Qaeda. And it's like, no, we built a different group of people who got overthrown by the Taliban and then invited Al Qaeda in. It's more complicated than that. Right. It's not it's not that. Right. Hey, everyone. Robert here. And at the risk of being accused of like being an apologist for stuff, I wanted to make sure I made it a little bit more of an extensive note about some of the extremist Islamist groups that that swarmed into Bosnia because a number did, including Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda had like a regional franchise in Bosnia as a result of the war and the genocide. Although even some of these guys who are with Al-Qaeda should not all be seen as like the same as the Al-Qaeda that would come later. One influential person who's in Bosnia during this time fighting with the Mujahideen is a dude named Ayman Deen. So Dean was part of a Mujahideen brigade that is accused of a number of pretty horrible war crimes after the battle for Vazooka. And after the war, he was recruited by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and wound up going and being a part of Al Qaeda. But then he got sort of pilled against Al Qaeda as a result of their justification of attacks that killed civilian bystanders. And he became a double agent for MI6 and spent years infiltrating Al Qaeda before he was exposed. You know, even when we're talking about some of these extremist figures who do come to Bosnia, they're all not, you can't all paint anyone who is like an extremist Islamist fighting against a genocide as the same as the different kind of extremist groups that came after because they're just not identical. Speaker 2 (20:41) But there are some people who are also like Islamist, like Mujahideen types who wind up fighting in Bosnia because Muslims are being slaughtered. Right. So there is it's messy, but it's wrong to say that, like, well, you know, the Serbs were trying to stop Al Qaeda because they fucking weren't. But that is how some people will like depict that today. Right. OK. So he does try to keep things hidden, his biases hidden initially in the summer of 1990 when he's he's organizing and still trying to reach political power. He tells the journalists the Serbs and Muslims do not have conflicting interests and he denies the existence of Islamic fundamentalism in Bosnia. But within his party, anti-Muslim rhetoric is already prevalent. And after Yugoslavia holds ill-fated elections in November of 1990, and the Bosniaks start pushing for Bosnian independence, Karadzic starts holding large public speeches warning about the coming Islamic threat. Now, because we're talking about the Balkans, shit's a lot more complex than this. One thing that's happening is that over in Croatia, there's also a nationalist movement. The Serbian Democratic Party had been created in Croatia by a Serb nationalist who was also a psychiatrist named Raskovic. What is with this Speaker 1 (21:52) psychiatrist? Speaker 2 (21:53) I don't know. Block Speaker 1 (21:55) of Speaker 2 (21:55) power. And they form like... identical parties, one in Bosnia and one in Croatia, right? And Raskovic and Radovan Karadzic are like friends and are very much like working together. These are movements that are allied, right? And the SDS, as it came to be known, was born under the guns of the thing that they're protesting in Croatia is this fascist adjacent Croatian nationalist party has risen up in Croatia to advocate for Croatian independence. And they're using a lot of symbols and like, Like even like repeating some of the politics of the old fascist Croatian state that had existed in World War Two, which scares a lot of Serbs for reasons that are very understandable. Right. Speaker 1 (22:37) Well, yeah. Yeah. To recent history. Yeah, that makes sense. Speaker 2 (22:41) And so this is not just a matter of like, oh, Radovan's inventing stuff to scare them. No, they lived through a genocide. A lot of the survivors are still alive and they see people organizing in Croatia who are trying to. like using like the logos and shit of the old fascist party. And that provides a lot of fear and a lot of motivation to believe, oh, we may have to clear them out of all these areas, right? To defend ourselves, right? So there are real reasons to be afraid. And he is very much drumming up additional fear, right? You know, in what would always have been any time a country is breaking apart and going to be dividing along ethnic lines. There's going to be a lot of fear of horrible ethnic. I don't know of any case where something like that's happened. And a lot of people haven't died. Look at the partition of India. Right. In Pakistan. You know, like it is always a pretty fucked up thing when shit like this goes down. So it's not weird. And nobody I don't want to I don't want to act like the Serbs have no reason to be like on it. Right. There's a very good reason to be on it. Speaker 1 (23:42) Like, yeah, Speaker 2 (23:43) one Speaker 1 (23:43) ish generations removed from. Yeah. a quarter of the population being wiped out. Yeah, Speaker 2 (23:50) yeah. Speaker 1 (23:50) I, too, would be on edge. Yeah. What I, what sounds, and it's, maybe it's, like, me not understanding the region well enough, but it's just, it is fascinating that, I guess so, but, like, Speaker 6 (24:03) but Speaker 1 (24:03) that it ends up being this guy feels very, like, you know, this is a role that was going to be taken by someone, and it ends up being him. Because it's like it's more of a like a circumstance that requires a bad actor like this. Yeah. Speaker 2 (24:19) And my read is that he knew someone like this is going to wind up existing. It just has to happen. It's inevitable. It might as well be me because then I can make a buck off Speaker 1 (24:28) it. Speaker 2 (24:28) It Speaker 1 (24:28) might Speaker 2 (24:28) as well be the sports psychiatrist. Right. Right. And Raskovic, the other psychiatrist who's organizing the Serb nationalists in Croatia, is a bit different, right? And his argument, because he has a real fear. He's trying to stop, he would say, he was trying to stop ethno-nationalist violence. Because his belief was that the years of communist rule had just suppressed the trauma left over from the war. which I think is accurate. And he feared that if the state suddenly fell as it was about to, there would be