Covering Karadzic: A Reporter Remembers

The rise and fall of a genocidal leader Joe Klamar / AFP-Getty Images Bosnian Muslims pray before a cluster of coffins for victims of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica. By Laura Silber | Newsweek Web Exclusive When I first met Radovan Karadžić in Sarajevo in 1990, the psychiatrist-turned-politician seemed to prefer reciting his poems to talking politics. I thought his poetry was bad, but maybe Serbian epic style was lost on me as a reporter covering Yugoslavia. His jowly face was topped by a flying shock of salt-and-pepper hair. Karadžić said he wanted Serbs to have equal rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of six republics in the defunct communist federation which was holding its first multiparty elections. Then, Karadžić fancied himself an urban intellectual. But he was born and raised in Montenegro, and to Sarajevo's elite he... [read full story]