Talk:Nataša Kandić

...
Only an idiot could write something like that! There is no neutral point of view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.216.253.16 (talk) 16:28, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 06:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Controversy section must remain
The editing of 201.26.96.216 is regrettable, though rectifiable. Being a controversial figure in Serbia, a section on why she is so must remain. 220.245.209.55 (talk) 02:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

If the Controversy section is to remain it should reflect the different sides of the controversy. I've included various mentions and references of some of Kandic's actions in pursuit of the truth over the last fifteen years or so that have made her so controversial in certain circles. Opbeith (talk) 21:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The other side of the controversy section is the action which provokes the controversy in the first place!! Not the prating by the same indidual "oh I'm right, oh I'm right!". Typically Kandić will attempt to console a person who may have witnessed his relative killed by gunmen from the opposing faction by telling him his own forces were responsible and this in turn provokes anger and that is what the controversy is about. It isn't about "providing evidence", over the years there have been hundeds of testimonies and documents to have promoted certain accusaions and other counter-publications to refute it. That's politics, that's the way of the world. That isn't a matter for ordinary nationals, it is for those better placed to provide information. In the end, conflict is ubiquitous and citizens choose their own versions of events from the coctail of sources available to them. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 22:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

There is a big problem with this article, providing only one part of the story about Natasa Kandic. On the other side there are mere political analysts that mark her as a paid tool for propaganda, to justify 1999 bombing of Serbia by NATO, by slightly increasing deaths on Albanian side and reduce deaths of NATO bombing. It's too late now in EU, but later I can find reliable sources for it.--46.240.146.100 (talk) 07:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Inflammatory Characterization of Mesic
Calling Mesic a Ustashi suggests that he is a follower of the wartime fascist movement. This is an incendiaty accusation and I suggest it be toned down. It reflects one point of view and has no proof to back it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.9.199 (talk) 02:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Please DO NOT Debate the Balkan Wars and its reasons on Kandic's page
This article is NOT the most appropriate forum to debate the Yugoslav wars - it is an article about Natasa Kandic.

Further, edits that have removed references to the Stolic family etc are not welcome - this is part of Kandic's history, and must remain on the page unless someone can disprove the two Danas articles and say it never happened.


 * I've removed this section for now, as we don't seem to have a working link to the Danas articles anymore. As soon as we have a full reference to these again (the original was just a link and title, not the full web cite template), let's add it back in. But as this is a topic of controversy that portrays a BLP in a negative light, I suggest we leave it out until we have reliable references for it again. (I apologize that I can't do a better hunt for it myself-- I don't speak Serbian, which makes it difficult.) -- Khazar (talk) 01:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Seselj's libellous accusations
It seems to me that irrespective of Seselj's customary foul-mouthed insensitivity, the accusation that Kandic would be involved with Ustashe is libellous, so I've moved this section from the Article text to here for discussion of its deletion.


 * "Vojislav Šešelj, incarcerated at the Hague's ICTY after being indicted on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and torture, has written a book concerning Kandić's support for Ustashi forces in Croatia during the 1990s war entitled Afera Hrtkovici i Ustaška Kurva Nataša Kandić (translated in English: The Hrtkovci Affair and the Ustasha Whore Nataša Kandić). "

The fact that Seselj has written the book is meaningless. The fact that Serbian Radical Party members sold and gave away copies of the book in the Serbian Parliament as part of what a group of NGOs alleged was a campaign of harassment of Natasa Kandic and others, aimed at distracting attention from Serbian Radical Party involvement in ethnic cleansing in Vojvodina during 1991, is meaningful. http://www.yihr.org/index.php?id=251 Is there any other significant reason for mentioning this book? Opbeith (talk) 22:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Controversy section
I propose the following revision of the "Controversy" section to bring the text together a bit more coherently and to render the directly expressed criticism in a more neutral reporting style. She is a controversial figure in Serbia and I trust this wording provides an adequate account of the controversy, reflecting her fairly uncompromising views and the intense response they often provoke.

"== Controversy ==

In her native Serbia, Kandić has remained a highly controversial figure. Kandić has been described as being "like an annoying itch nationalists can't quite reach," having "been there at almost every step, listening and scribbling". Her view is that "if you want to establish a certain system of values where the rule of law is paramount, the law must be applied to those who broke it. The truth must come out." .

This truth, it is claimed, is particularly discomforting for Serbs, as Serb forces were responsible for most of the civilian deaths during the 1990s from "ethnic cleansing" operations in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The discomforting truth included the "smoking gun" video" obtained by Kandić that showed Serb paramilitaries executing six Bosnian Muslim prisoners near Trnovo, providing proof of Serbia's role in the Srebrenica genocide, the worst massacre in Europe since the second world war.

Throughout the war in Kosovo, she travelled back and forth across Serbia, providing information to the outside world about massive human rights violations being committed by police and paramilitary groups. The evidence she gathered has been vital to the preparation of indictments by the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague. However her Serbian critics accuse her of ignoring the plight of hundreds of thousands of Serb refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP) from the Yugoslav wars while campaigning energetically for the rights of refugees and war victims of other ethnicities.

Antagonism towards her in Serbia and among Serbs elsewhere has been exacerbated by the perception that opponents of the Serbs and other unsympathetic organisations and media have drawn attention to her and her work for "propaganda" purposes, for example when Time Magazine declared her to be one of their 36 European Heroes of 2003.

Her opinions as well as her work have aroused controversy. In June 2003, she told relatives of the murdered Stolić family, Serbian residents of Obilić, that "the crime was not committed by Albanian extremists, but by extremists on both sides", and was ejected from their property.

In an opinion piece in The Guardian on May 9, 2007, she blamed the departure of the Krajina Serbs from Croatia on orders from their leaders on the territorial designs of the Serbian political elite rather than on the Croat military Operation Storm. Her support of Croatian President Stjepan Mesić, whom she described as a "proven anti-fascist in both word and act", was also unpopular.

In February 2008 she attracted considerable criticism in Serbia for attending Kosovo's declaration of independence, viewed by many Serbians as a unilateral declaration of secession from Serbia.

Nevertheless Kandić insists that she does not feel that she is in a minority, citing the many highly professional police officers who have provided her with most of her information. In 2005 she observed that "one day it will be different", but those responsible for the very things she spoke about had the loudest voice.

"

Opbeith (talk) 08:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Can you make these changes, whatever they are, in the form of normal topical edits with summaries, so that we can simply read the differences? --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 08:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I didn't want to make a substantial change that some contributors are liable to find contentious object to without pre-consultation. I don't know how you can show something on the Talk page that shows the differences from the preevious version of the Article text. Opbeith (talk) 13:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, does anyone know how to contain a reference list within a specific section? Opbeith (talk) 08:25, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Why would you want to do that, IOW what's wrong with using a common references section? --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 08:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, they don't appear here on the Talk Page, do they? I can't see them. Opbeith (talk) 11:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Ohh, that. Here: --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 11:25, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks - "the curly brackets Reflist curly brackets" method was just what I wanted - I didn't know that it was able to work across the boundary from the main article. I wanted it for inclusion with the proposed alternative version, so I'll delete the extra section.Opbeith (talk) 13:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I removed the statement "Serb forces were responsible for most of the civilian deaths during the 1990s from "ethnic cleansing" operations in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo" because the source, an interview by Ed MacKenzie of Kandic, actually contains the quote "Serb forces were responsible for most of the 250,000 civilian deaths in the 1990s from "ethnic cleansing" operations in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo." The source's claim of "250,000 civilian deaths" has been seriously discredited. See, for example, the ICTY's own study on the number of killings and disappearances from the Bosnian War, which concludes a total of 42,000 civilians from all sides of the conflict were killed or missing. The conflicts in Slovenia, Croatia, and Kosovo had significantly fewer casualties than the Bosnian War. The claim of 250,000 civilians killed is way off, and casts doubt on the entire statement as a statement of established fact. --76.193.18.34 (talk) 17:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Sourcing in controversy section
Some of the claims in the controversy section appear to be thinly sourced or not sourced, and I'm working to modify that section accordingly. Can someone with knowledge of Serbian language (and also which Serbian press agencies WP considers reliable sources) add better sources for these claims? I don't want to "whitewash" the controversy here, but I hate to leave in negative claims about a living person without sources. Thanks all! -- Khazar (talk) 02:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Since this looks to be a controverisal article, I'll be more specific about what I've modified or temporarily removed:


 * "...the founder and executive director of Humanitarian Law Center (Fond za Humanitarno pravo) which she formed in 1992, an organisation financed directly by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy . Issue: One dead link, one link to Slobodan Milosevic's homepage (not a reliable source).


 * "...Many of the accusations made against Serbia during the 1990s are not universally accepted, and Kandić is viewed by those outside the circles of Serbia's opponents of the 1990s as part of a propaganda machine to discredit the nation: this includes dismissal of the "smoking gun" theory . Issue: sourced only to blogger for non-reliable source.


 * "Her presence at Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008 also attracted criticism in Serbia. " Issue: Source appears to make no mention of criticism.


 * "Kandić was found guilty on charges of defamation in February 2009 after she failed to provide any evidence for her 2006 statements that Tomislav Nikolić killed elderly people in Croatia during the war. She was fined 200,000 Serbian dinars (around 2,000 EUR at the time). " Modified to mention that international human rights organizations broadly condemned this trial and that Kandic was found not guilty on appeal. Also deleted the claim that she "failed to provide any evidence", which does not appear in the given source.


 * I don't know Kandic from Adam, so I have no horse in this race; if reliable sources can be found for these claims, I'll be glad to help put them back in. But I think to write negative info about a living person, we do need to be careful and make sure we have sources. Thanks all. -- Khazar (talk) 02:38, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I edited much of the information listed above. I was merely trying to tidy the section which had mixed Kandić's bad coverage with her work itself. Previously it had also been skilfully contrived to pit "Kandić's professional findings" vs "Serb nation's resentment of facts" (an irritating itch). Not only is that original research but it is not even remotely true. Firstly, there is no mixing politics with truth. When a member of a nation involved in a war suddenly learns that he was subject to false information from his leadership, the natural emotion is to be disheartened but ready to revise his own thoughts now he is more enlightened. Throughout the world there is and has been a lot of conflict and such "revisions" caused by a new wave of information once state-owned propaganda is ousted is never decisive in that it "ends myths" and "spreads truth". As with Nagorno-Karabagh, Armenians have one version of events and Azeris a separate one, and both backed up by the same propaganda and counter-propaganda from every institution and individual to get involved in affairs there. In other words, ordinary people live on one plain and the high profile figures (politicians, army, reporters, activists, envoys, journalists, analysts, etc.) live on another. Controversy - if people feel is worth mentioning - is precisely that. You make a remark about one party being a perpetrator of crimes whilst praising political figures from opposing factions. That is undeniably controversial. Of course the author of the comments will back himself to the hilt on why he said it but any promotion of one politician over another is dubious. Then there is the information itself, again this is not countered by the public but by similarly placed individuals who are of equally high profile. The incidents that composed the Yugoslav wars are all debatable because never has both sides of any particular battle/aftermath agreed on "what happened, how it happened, who done it, how many?", and this is substantiated by worldwide propaganda machines that support one of the two parties. Not to go off-topic, I never wanted to introduce new information to the article, I just wanted to tidy it which is why I presented an intro to the Controversy section based on what was to come. Perhaps you're right about the link of the Humanitarian Law Centre being attributed to an unreliable source but it would be interesting if anyone knows better to correct its origins should better sources be found. To be honest, I have heard that it is a U.S.-project from western press but there is very little coverage and it can be hard to find. Not to worry, it can remain off the article. I also accept that how I phrased things did go in a direction that discredited Kandić which also was not the full intention. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 06:28, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Evlekis, Thanks for being so understanding. I agree that if the HLC is funded primarily by the US, that's information worth putting in the article, as long as we can find some reliable sources for it. (Same for all the rest of the controversy). Cheers, and Happy New Year! -- Khazar (talk) 16:19, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Remark

 * “You make a remark about one party being a perpetrator of crimes whilst praising political figures from opposing factions. That is undeniably controversial.”


 * No, this is not controversial. This is logical. Everybody outside Serbia and Russia knows that the perpetrator of the Yugoslav Wars and most of their war crimes was Serbia and the separatist forces with used its army hardware — Krajina and Srpska. Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo wer much more victims than perpetrators of aggression, and this is FACT acknowledged by practically all serious scholars (outside Serbia and Russia) and by the United Nations’ ICTY and International Court of Justice.


 * This discourse that “in the Yugoslav Wars, all were equally criminals and victims at the same time” is an outright LIE. Is like to say that “in the World War II, all were equally criminals and victims at the same time” when everybody knows that the mastermind behind the big plan of aggression was Germany under the command of Adolf Hitler. Even when there are polemics about things like the bombing of Dresden, no sane scholar goes to say that “the United States and Britain were as murderous villains as Germany and Japan”.


 * The “doubt” about the role of Serbia as a perpetrator or as a mere victim of the circumstances exists today basically only in Serbia itself… and maybe Russia and some parts of Bosnia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.81.239.129 (talk) 06:58, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
 * War by its very nature comprises belligerents, and there is no logical argument to suggest that one party carries more guilt than another. Concerning your so-called "sources" (U.N, ICTY, ICJ). You criticise Serbia and Russia as though these nations are mere mouthpieces and do not produce scholars and you ignore the fact that your named loose confederations are nothng more than collective governments replete with their backers and sponsors; the so-called "serious scholars" who lay the blame at the door of Serbia for the Yugoslav Wars invariably plagiarise the whimpering that has come from their oponents during the conflicts. So it is irrelevant how many peole argue one thing vs how many oppose it, what is relevant is the quality of the arguments - and anyone to blame one side for a raft of conflicts can only be biased and his argument unequivocally negligible. First of all, anybody who knows anything about the conflicts that took place on the territory of the former SFRY from 1991 to 2001 will know that three of the wars did not even involve Serbia or the local Serbian nation. Where do "Serb perpetrators" come into the 2001 conflict between the Macedonian government and the KLA terrorists? How did Belgrade influence the 1993 bloodshed between Croats and Muslims in Bosnia? Or how about the conflict between the rival Bosniak factions within BiH that time? Or have you been reading books that treat these events like they never happened? There is no question that Serbia presided over more casualties than any other faction - but then its nation was involved in more conflicts than any other nation and this is down to the nation itself being more populous and more widespread than anyone else. Where any nation has deemed the situation appropriate, it has waged war on its territory, whether this be transnational Croats in BiH, Albanians in Kosovo or Albanians in Western Macedonia. So ask yourself what would have happened if Albanians were double the number and formed a 90% majority in the Lika region of Croatia too. Imagine they had been there centuries, would they have winked at the Croatian constitutional amendment of 1990? Would they have sat back and relaxed at being a non-constituent nation? If so, what was so different for them in Kosovo? Apart from everything else, your precious U.N and the NGOs have very much acknowledged atrocities committed against Serbs by their opponents. Although there is widespread disagreement as to just how low these figures are with people accusing the organisations of playing down these statistics, I say it is irrelevant. If you scream murder because your opponent has committed a massacre and then you respond by killing one member of the opponent civilisation, then you are kidding yourself that this somehow makes your nation "better" and "prasieworthy". I do not comprehend the mindset of someone trained to kill but I can tell you this much, no idiot in his right mind can slaughter three families and then stop at that, saying "come on, let's show some compassion! Only the Serbs go further than this!". But only an imbecile can believe that this is so. Every faction was guilty of besieging settlements populated by a rival ethnicity and shelling it, I don't care if you try to argue that where Serbs were victims, it was only villages; that might be more to do with the rival not having been able advance farther at the time. Or in your case, I suppose you just deny that there was a single Serb victim of the Yugoslav wars just as you deny the Allies having committed war crimes during and after WWII. They did, and that is the end. You can scream and pull your hair out but it won't make a blind bit of difference. What German people in particular suffered after WWII especially in countries where they were minorities was horrific, and anyone like you wishing to block his ears and scream to pretend that such things never happened should also cast out atrocities committed by the Axis powers. And am I supposed to feel sorry for a warlord whose population is reduced after a war with a rival nation? And is one supposed to be influenced by the fact that this so-called "liberator" may also be the preferred party for western governments? And does something change because he came out victorious despite losing more people due to rival aggression? In your dreams. Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Albanias and Macedonians all fought whilst they were at war. If at any time one of these nations or their leaders suddenly felt that the venture is too costly, what was stopping them from surrendering unconditionally? Intead they proceeded to fight. Well, when you wage war against an opponent, YOU take your blame for the atrocities that happen to your people as a result. I don't care who you are and which side you represent. So the above remark is correct, Kandić has blamed one party for its part in a conflict, and has praised opposition figures. Well this is supposed to be the voice of neutrality in spite of the many that have equally criticised everyone, and it is done with no sensitivity for the party being blamed and no caution towards the party being praised, and you scratch your head wondering why she courts controversy and attracts criticism. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 09:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Get a grip. Kandic knew terrible things were happening.  She tried to do something about it.  Anyone who wants to gripe about her needs to show that they had a quarter of her guts and commitment to the truth and human rights. Full stop.Opbeith (talk) 23:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I know what you're saying Opbeith and I am not attacking the article. We all knew terrible things were happening, it's just sometimes you get IPs like the one who posted above my reply who make off-colour remarks so you need to set them straight. Apart from that, Kandić is who she is and that is that. The world is full of similar such figures and controversy always follows them. Only yesterday I was listenting to a BBC radio report telephone interview with a Syrian knucklehead. To listen to him, you'd have thought he were a Free Syrian Army spokesperson - kept slamming the government with his liberal references to "Asad regime", referred to all opponents of the government as "friends of Syria" - using Syria with the language of official sanction - criticised the British government for their pledge of £5 million in non-lethal aid not being enough because it was arms that the FSA need, and rebuked the "international communtity" for not stepping in militarily. Then when the interview finished and final greetings were exchanged, his role was revealed: Human Rights Activist! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I chose the former in the end. I've never known a human rights figure so overtly back one side in a conflict, especially when considering that human rights per description are even extended to those in combat and their masters - it is not the case that these things stop applying to you per convention once you're involved in conflict even if your actions are primarily being scrutinised. So what passes on this talk page in that sense is not worth worrying about; you edit the article freely and anything that needs amending, we'll discuss there and then. Thanks. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 04:43, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

BLP sourcing
The accusation that Kandic "outlandishly focused on Serbs" obviously needs a high-quality source. Even then, it's questionable whether it belongs in the lead paragraph. Is this the way most sources internationally report on Kandic? It didn't seem to be when I did my research.

You can read Wikipedia policies about sourcing at WP:BLP and WP:RS. Please note that Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source for purposes of citation. Also, please don't mark important edits as minor; minor edits are mostly for correcting typos and other noncontroversial material. Thanks and all best, -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:09, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

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