Having Dinner With Nikola Sainovic; Slobodan Milosevic’s former Deputy Serbian Prime Minister By Jill Starr
 Another event in my life occurring in Manhattan in late spring (1999) was chance meeting Nikola Sainovic; Slobodan Milosevic’s former Deputy Serbian Prime Minister. It just so happened I was in the city attending Ramsey Clark’s anti-NATO lectures immediately after NATO’s bombing campaign against the former Yugolsavia began. I was walking up to the main lecture building and paused at the door momentarily to examine how to enter and where to go when Nikola walked up for me , surprising me from behind, he said “hello, are you here for the lecture also“? I replied “yes.” I was shy, but Nikola kept the conversation going as we walked into the building together discussing the horrendous actions the NATO was currently undertaking against his country in Serbia. Although I did not know then who exactly he was, he was handsome, educated and he wore a very sharp brown suit, tie and wore glasses. His identity is unmistakable to me now viewing the photos of him sitting in the Hague currently awaiting his own trial for complicity in war crimes. During the lecture intermission he again came over to speak with me and asked me my telephone number stating he’d like to get together and talk sometime with me while he was in town; I acceded. It was not long
after Ramsey Clark’s lecture that Nikola called me and we agreed to have dinner
together at the Peking House in Butler NJ on Route 23. He met me at the
restaurant and we enjoyed a great dinner and lively conversation regarding
American diplomacy and politics between the United States, NATO and
Serbia. After dinner he asked me if there was somewhere quite we both
could go to continue talking and being shy about men and their intentions, I
told him since it was a beautiful summer’s evening, I suggested we drive up 23
North into West Milford NJ where there was a lovely “rest stop” where we could
sit down on the picnic table chairs and continue our conversation together.  He offered to drive me up to the spot in his fancy brown Jaguar. I had never really been in a Jaguar before and it drove really smooth. Nikola and I spent several hours just chatting about Serbia and the illegal NATO actions undertaken against his country and when we commenced, he drove me back to my car waiting by the restaurant and we decided we would meet again for lunch in about a week; he would give me call soon. I was attending Montclair State University for one semester that summer so when Nikola call me in about a week for lunch I recommended we meet at about 4pm at the 6 Brothers Diner on Route 46 by the university. Nikola never made any unwanted advances towards me and we just like to chat about war and peace. He told me, ‘Jill, I like to come talk with you because I can trust you. I can let down my hair so to speak with you and not worry about you wire tapping me or stabbing me in the back.” I thanked him for his compliment and company. He told me his daughter lived in Tarrytown New York and when we parted that day, he told me this is where he was headed. He gave me his business card bearing his name, Nikola Sainovic. I forget the business it listed, it might have just said Prime Minister but I think it said something else politically related but I can’t remember now. I took it and thanked him. Whomever I did meet, they also gave me photos and showed me a brief portfolio of their news ideas in the space saving architecture and additionally gave me some photos of their work and a business card for what I remember as a German PASSOS company. It had to be be Nikola. We actually had a great chat about what I thought about his new architectural ideas. I loved them telling Nikola I believed he would be extremely successful in his new endeavors. I think we may have had lunch one additional time and then I never heard from him again. ===================================================== FROM MY BOOK READ IN FULL HERE->>  What It’s Like to Chill Out With Whom the Rest of the World Considers As The Most Ruthless Men: Ratko Mladic, Goran Hadzic and Radovan Karadzic (+) Confessions of a Female War Crimes Investigator Retrospectively,
it was all so simple, natural and matter of fact being on a boat restaurant in
Belgrade, sitting with, laughing, drinking a two hundred bottle of wine and
chatting about war and peace while Ratko Mladic held my hand.
Mladic, a man considered the world’s most ruthless war criminal since
Adolf Hitler, still at large and currently having a five million dollar bounty
on his head for genocide by the international community. Yet there I was
with my two best friends at the time, a former Serbian diplomat, his wife, and
Ratko Mladic just chilling. There was no security, nothing you’d
ordinarily expect in such circumstances. Referring to himself merely as,
Sharko; this is the story of it all came about. |