Ceca, wife of war criminal Arkan, in Malta concert
Turbo folk queen who rose to prominence during Yugoslav wars as wife of butcher Arkan, sings at Aria Complex
Serbia’s ‘turbo folk’ queen Ceca, wife of the late Yugoslav warlord Arkan, will be playing in Malta at the Aria Complex for the first time, to Malta’s sizeable Serbian community.
Tickets go on sale at €35 but VIP tables will be selling for €770. Recognised as one of Serbia’s most commercially successful artists with sales of around 7 million, between 1995 and 2000 she was married to Željko Ražnatovic – known as Arkan – a Serbian mobster, politician, and head of the Serb paramilitary force called the Serb Volunteer Guard during the Yugoslav Wars.
He was on Interpol’s most wanted list in the 1970s and 1980s for robberies and murders committed in several countries across Europe and was later indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity.
Up until his assassination in January 2000, Arkan was the most powerful organized crime figure in the Balkans.
Arkan the butcher
In 1986, Arkan opened a renowned patisserie and ice-cream parlour near the Red Star Belgrade football ground. He built a house directly opposite the stadium. He was made head of the Red Star Supporters’ Club – with the tacit collusion of state and club officials, who wanted him to rein in hooligan fans that had begun to provide a focus for anti-communist, anti-government agitation.
With the state of Yugoslavia beginning its long disintegration, in October 1990 Arkan officially incorporated his own paramilitary force: the Serbian Volunteer Guard – known as Arkan’s Tigers. The paramilitary unit, which became known as Arkan’s Tigers, was a relatively small force made up of fans from Red Star’s Delije ‘ultras’ group, as well as criminals and ordinary volunteers who admired Raznatovic. It would soon become notorious for killings, rapes and torture, but also for robbery and smuggling goods across war zones":
“We trained fans without weapons. I insisted on discipline from the very beginning. You know our fans – they’re noisy, they like to drink, to joke about. I stopped all that in one go. I made them cut their hair, shave regularly, not drink. And so it began... the way it should be.”
When fighting broke out in eastern Slovenia, Arkan and his 1,000-strong football hooligan army – equipped and controlled directly by the Serbian interior ministry – became shock troops of ethnic cleansing.
The Tigers murdered under the banner of Serbian nationalism – Arkan took control of local sanctions busting, petrol smuggling and war profiteering rackets. They were there at Vukovar in 1991, linked by the Hague war crimes tribunal to the Vukovar hospital massacre, in which hundreds of mainly Croat patients were bussed to a deserted field and summarily executed.
At Bijeljina in 1992, they killed the Muslim populations in the villages. That same year, Arkan was elected to parliament; in 1993, he founded his own political party.
Ceca, warlord widow
Ceca rose to prominence in the late 1980s and 90s as a folk singer who would become the undisputed queen of turbo folk, the Serbian genre of pop that blends folk music with electronica, rock and hip-hop. While performing for Serbian soldiers at a military camp in Erdut during the Yugoslav wars in 1993, Ceca was introduced to Arkan.
As Ceca shot to fame against the backdrop of war and genocide wrought by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, her life would provide captivating entertainment for the population of the unravelling nation. But by the time her husband died in her lap in the back of a car in Belgrade, she was much more than just a pop star with a curious taste in men: she had become the hood ornament of Milosevic’s gangster-state machine. And when she was arrested earlier this year - in the company of Belgrade mobsters connected with the March assassination of reforming prime minister Zoran Djindjic - the rise and fall of Ceca Raznatovic had become emblematic of the forces of greed and anarchy that destroyed Yugoslavia.
Fusing pop, folk and oriental sounds, turbo-folk encapsulated the cultural values of Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia. Milan Nikolic, director of the Belgrade Centre for Studying Alternatives, says the regime actively promoted it. “For years musical taste was destroyed while primitivism triumphed,” he said.
Turbo-folk stars glorified the criminal milieu surrounding Milosevic. They may have wallowed in drugs, but they embraced a mystical patriotism, too. The police investigation into Djindjic’s murder has revealed that their ties to the underground and the “patriotic” milieu went deeper than wailing sympathetic lyrics.
After police arrested Ceca in the grand Belgrade villa built by her husband, Zeljko, they found as many as 88 illegal weapons and items of military and police equipment.
Ceca was also involved in politics, serving as the honorary president of the Party of Serbian Unity before Arkan was assassinated in 2000. He was gunned down in a hotel lobby by a 23-year-old junior police officer with ties to the underworld. Arkan was facing prosecution on 24 charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Following the assassination of Serbian prime minister Zoran Dindic in 2003, Ceca was arrested under suspicion of harbouring the leaders of the Zemun Clan in her house. She was released without charge.
In 2011, she was charged with the misappropriation of millions in dollars from footballer transfers from her husband’s team FK Obilić, and the illegal possession of 11 machine guns. She was convicted for embezzling football transfer funds and illegal firearm possession. She was fined €1.5 million and convicted to house arrest for one year. The criminal case brought the biggest fine ever levied by a Belgrade court. It also proved, lawyers and human rights activists protested, that crime pays: the sentence shows that some are more equal than others before the law in Serbia.
Ceca is officially banned from entering Croatia, being proclaimed a persona non grata.