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Op-Ed: The Shame of Serbia

JUNE 6, 2011
This is for today's New York Times Op-Ed page, on the arrest of Ratko Mladic, titled "The Shame of Serbia", article online here.    The opinion piece centers around the idea that "Mladic's arrest does not get rid of the mark of shame that has stained the Serbian people for two decades".   The politicians in Serbia want to move on and be considered for membership in the European Union.  But the writer feels that many Serbs still sypathize with Mladic and the ideas that caused the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in towns like Srebernica.  He thinks that the country is losing a "chance to open a painful but necessary debate about the past."  Here is a video news clip that explains some of the history.
These are some of the rough sketches, working with the idea of removing a stain or washing hands

This is another news story that has gone full circle for me.   Back in 1995, after months of atrocities in the Balkans, NATO secured a cease-fire by bombing the Serbian troops which were led by Mladic.   Jane Frey was the art director for the international editions of TIME and she asked me if I had any ideas on the late breaking story.   I did a small sketch, she liked it, and ended up finishing it overnight.   I was 24, just starting out, and it ended up being my first cover for the magazine.
© 2024 Edel Rodriguez