Vojislav Šešelj

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A poster for the 2004 presidential elections, for which Šešelj himself was not running, due to the fact that he was awaiting trial for crimes against humanity in the Hague. The slogan reads "wisdom, courage, trust".

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Vojislav Šešelj (Serbian: Војислав Шешељ, pronounced /ˈvɔjislav ˈʃɛʃɛʎ/) (born 11 October, 1954) is a Serbian politician, the president of the Serbian Radical Party during the 1990s. He has been indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of laws or customs of war by the ICTY and is currently detained in The Hague and awaiting trial.

Vojislav Šešelj was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and grew up in the Popovo Polje in Herzegovina. He graduated law at the University of Sarajevo, and soon obtained a doctorate in 1979. He taught political science there until 1984. That year the Communist authorities of Yugoslavia convicted him of "counter-revolutionary activities" and sentenced him to eight years in prison, although the Supreme Court commuted the sentence and he was released in 1986.

In 1989, Šešelj went to the United States where pop Momčilo Đujić, a Chetnik leader from WWII, granted him the title voivoda of the Chetniks, although he allegedly revoked this title in 1997 because Šešelj collaborated with the Serbian Socialist Party of Slobodan Milošević.

Šešelj became a leader of the political party Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski Pokret Obnove). Šešelj later split off his faction into the Serbian Radical Party.

They were amicable with Slobodan Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia until September 1993 when he came in conflict with Milošević. Šešelj also landed in jail in 1994 and 1995.

He was the vice-president of Serbian government between 1998 and 2000. During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, he and his Serbian Radical Party were willing to support Slobodan Milošević, and after three months of bombardment they were the only party to vote against surrender to the NATO forces.

In late February 2003 Šešelj surrendered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on the indictment of "eight counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of violations of the laws or customs of war for his alleged participation in a joint criminal enterprise".

As of June 2006, he is still awaiting trial in custody, now over three years. While in custody, he has recently written a book titled „Kriminalac i ratni zločinac Havijer Solana” ("Criminal and War Criminal Javier Solana").

Trivia

Šešelj became a known orator despite the fact he has a rather pronounced rhotacism.

Political opponents have often poked fun at the fact that there are Catholic people with the surname Šešelj, besides the Orthodox ones. Some have thus suggested that he is actually a Croat. Vojislav Šešelj had on one occasion brought news reporters to his native village and showed them the Orthodox Church he was baptized in.

External links

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