Ratko Mladić

After the recent arrest of Ratko Mladić, I was asked by someone: 

"What are you hearing about the arrest and trial of Mladić? This seems an important time to be in Serbia."

The answer I ended up providing was longer than I expected, so I figured some others might be interested. It goes as follows:

"...the reactions are quite varied...It really depends on what end of the political spectrum you are on. The ladies (and one man) at Theatre DAH were absolutely ecstatic about the arrest. However, there were also very nationalistically charged rallies the same day. I don't, however, feel endangered here. I can keep my head low enough that in the open, even near a rally, its not an issue. Though I hesitate to conclude what would have happened had any of us made a scene about being Americans that day.

One of the lessons that was pressed into us the most is to not take anyone's crap about being American. If they start to talk about the NATO bombings, for example, we have been told to, basically, tell them to stuff it, that we were not involved, and didn't make the decision. The people here respect a show of strength.

Additionally, I know that after we leave there is an anti-NATO protest or something from 13.6-15.6. We saw posters for it today, not sure exactly what it is about. The website is antinato.in.rs - I plan to take a look at it later with a translator."

Anywho, updates to come soon...We've been so busy I haven't had much time to collect my thoughts onto paper.