Talk:Arkan

message: This article offers no sources for its claims. Some of them are obvious anti-Arkan lies (e.g. convicted murderer). The rest consists of hardly checkable allegations and rumours( e.g. father beat him, met criminals abroad etc.).
Though his role as a national hero is mentioned it remains totally unclear how a person characterized in that way can become a hero. None of the war crime allegations had been proofed in a trial. Allegations of war crimes and even investigations against other politicians exist (e.g. Sharon). But it is not the task of Wikipedia to comment, improve or substitutes court procedures.
You have to be nuts to believe that Arkan did not commit such atrocities. First, I can cite the US Defense Department, US Department of State, and Richard Holbrooke. A few years ago there was a special History Channel documentary covering Arkan, providing pictures and video of Arkan and his forces comitting the listed atrocities.
I have seen the History Channel "documentary". Unlike many people who are editing this page I've lived in Serbia during the 90s and I've even had the chance to meet Arkan and years later his widow. Now the History Channel should be ashamed of how bad, and unacurate their documentary was or how misinformed the so called experts who got to talk were. I've seen it a few times and I was I was to start making the list of the lies they said I'd just get bored.--212.200.204.254 17:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: I'm not trying to be rude here, but am i the only one that thinks the 2nd half of the article has a certain pro-Arkan bias? (by Timon 2004-09-10 10:23:14)
This article presents myth as a fact, the following example is highly dubious. It is more likely that arkan was freed as his father was a general in JNA
"Arkan was unnoficialy employed as an undercover agent from 1973, assassinating political emigrants and opponents of the ruling Communist regime." (by 24.85.62.165 2005-03-21 05:49:42)
The second part of the article has no objectivity whatsoever. It is simply the worst wikipedia biography I read about such a controversial figure. The article simply treats Arkan as a hero, as the most admirable Serb ever lived. Every sentence is soaked with a fanatic admiration for Arkan, the way he killed his prisoners, the way he slept with so many women. The personal quotes section is full of idiotic remarks that would appeal to a 5 year old. Seriously, this article is a joke, and should be removed.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.147.6.97 (talk • contribs) 
: I Agree, this article is a shame of wikipedia and Serbian people, what disgousts me most is the fact that Ivo Andrić article is 3 thimes shorter then arkan article.
:I did some cleanup, removing the most egregious theories. It's difficult to separate the truth, myths, and conspiracy theories, especially when the article is so unsourced, and I'm really not passionate about the subject to do the research.
:I wasn't sure what to do with all those quotes, so I removed them entirely. A few could be preserved to illustrate his state of mind, but I didn't feel like doing the selection; we have :wikiquote for that anyway. They're still in the edit history, so if anyone feels like it... Duja 09:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Objectivity 

message: Željko Ražnatović was never indicted for his alleged criminal life so I don't think an encyclopedia is a place where he can be named "war profiteer, mafia supreme boss, black market businessman..." To me it's almost as if someone took a dictionary and looked for the English translation of all the bad adjectives/words they could remember.
  Of course he was not going to be indicted by the govrnment he worked
  for. Officialy he does not have a criminal record between 1992-2000,
  but one can not say that he was not a 'war profiteer'. It does not
  have to be documented in any way to be named such, but his increased
  financial wealth after the Bosnian war, did contribute to this. 
OK, so he wasn't indicted by the government he worked for (although as I've mentioned he was only and only to some extent responsible to the National Security Agency), but he was never convicted in the Hague so what happened with "innocent until proven guilty". It's not "innocent until caught." He was never convicted and that's a fact. Now we can say that he was elegedly a war profiteer but that's it.
  
  Since we are talking about times when Serbia was in economic and 
  political chaos, it was hard to document illegal activities, being
  that government at that time did numerous illegal activities on
  their own.
  
I think this article should be deleted and written again by the credible, objective people dealing with historical facts, not just claims from the Western propaganda. 213.244.195.24 01:20, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Badly Written Article 

message: The edit which I made concerns Arkan's brutal torture on a non-Serb population. I know this to be untrue, the Tigers had long included Macedonians, Montenegrins, Slav-descended people from the smaller minorities from all republics who did not declare themselves Serbian, as well as a smaller number of Croats and Slovenes. 
His ultimate role was not to break Serbia away from the federation but to maintain the federation as Yugoslavia, as such, some of the people who lost their lives were Serbians suspected of the same motives - wishing to break away. Ragusan 15 October 2005
Nobody is saying that Serbia wanted to break away from the federation. But at the same time his ultimate role was not to conserve the federation, since he was not an official member of the JNA (Yugoslav Peoples Army) nor his unit was an official affiliate to the JNA. His presence in Vukovar before, during and after Vukovar Hospital massacre is not an accident.
As I said before, during the war time, many dubious agreements were made involving official army and para-military forces. Since all of 1990s were murky and chaotic, it is very difficult to trace back via documents and written statements who was where and what they were doing at times. Arkan was a protege of the government for years, before being eliminated himself, and therefor it would be unlikely to find something damaging, since they probably made sure that not too many things we'll be linked back to them.
But based on various witnesses' accounts, it is highly unlikely that Arkan chased non-Serb population around with cookies and milk.
130.111.248.43 20:27, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of "Arkan" name 

message: I've listed this page for cleanup for the reasons listed above, as well as the complete lack of sources and the weasel terms that pass for NPOV.
Quinnanya 04:46, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: Someone should put that in.
:I agree this is important, however, it should also be mentioned the film is a largely fictional, dramatized account and serves to execute a general anti-serb bias. NEMT 02:56, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vinnie Jones to play "Arkan" in "The Filthy War." 

message: Two questions, why were all of the photos of Arkan removed from the article?  I know some were not freely usable (from the famous blood and honey photography series) however I'm pretty sure some of them were.  Also, perhaps some mention of where the nickname "Arkan" came from, all said now is some obscure reference to a yet unnamed comic book. NEMT 02:56, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Photos and "Arkan" name origin 

message: This article is still full of NPOV violations and a lot of the information is uncited, I have begun to add  tags where references and sources are needed, and I encourage others to do the same. --NEMT 14:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV and uncited facts

message: Personally, I've never even heard of Željko Ražnatović, but if the article repeatedly mentions that he is known to have been involved in attrocities, shouldn't that be included in the summary paragraph at the top? -- TheMightyQuill 11:29, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary: Attrocities? 

message: An annon keeps on inserting the funny but unencyclopedic list of Arkan's achievements:
:and also folk hero, nationalist politician, assembly representative, war profiteer, chief mafia boss, black market businessman, private proprietor, manager of a soccer club and caterer. Prior to that he had been a juvenile delinquent, street rowdy, wandering adventurer, bank robber, mobster, secret police agent, hitman, gambler, soccer fans leader and ice-cream shop owner.
"War criminal and mobster" pretty much summarize it all. Nothing of the above stands out of that simple profile. Duja 12:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: right, that's exactly what "paramilitary" means: "a group of civilians organized in a military fashion, especially to operate in place of or assist regular army troops."  And being "allowed to do some things that he usually wouldn't be allowed in return for the actions he took under the orders of the Serbian National Security agency" is a perfect description of government corruption facilitating criminal activity, thus the completely accurate perception that he's a mobster.Ossicle (talk) 23:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro 

message: Once a Citation Needed tag is entered, a decent time should pass before the statement is removed. Nevertheless, the burden is on the original poster of the statement to provide a source. If there is no source, then basically the statement in question can be deleted with no further ado. That is my opinion, and I am stuck with it. Sincerely, and with great good faith, your friend, GeorgeLouis 15:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources needed 

message: Okay, would someone change them into normal section? Or edit out altogether - I don't think anyone really needs a golden thoughts from a warlord mobster. --HanzoHattori 22:24, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotes 

message: As mentioned earlier in the comment on Arkan's involvement in atrocities, I'm aware that this cannot be used as a true reference in regards to the mystery of Arkans death, but its an interesting read that confirms the rumors of UK involvement in the story.
Just an excerpt, to read the rest of the story follow the link below.
"Eight years later Arkan and I were to met again, this time in a Belgrade Hotel Lobby. That Saturday afternoon he breathed his last.The UN investigators found it strange that his assassins had placed a small gold ring with a red stone in his mouth. They assumed it was a gangland hit."
http://garystapleton.blogspot.com/2006/12/blood-fire.html
--82.152.200.103 13:30, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who Killed Arkan 

message: In English, this phrase is ambiguous - meaning either "traveled along side his father to the war" or "warred against his father."  Which is it?
67.180.76.224 (talk) 07:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably the first meaning. Admiral Norton (talk) 14:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Mihajlo later went to war with his father." 

message: Introduction says "was a Serbian career criminal". How can one be a career criminal? There's no such term. I guess the phrase was "was a Serbian career officer" or "was a Serbian career serviceman" and probably changed as an act of vandalism. Netrat (talk) 08:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I introduced the term. The concept of career criminals exists and is well-known and used in the scientific and legal community (See e.g. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/835/Criminal-Careers.html. Arkans's life and deeds fully warrant the term: Committing dozens of burglaries and then robberies per year for decades on end (for which he was proven guilty in the courts of several countries) certainly qualifies as a criminal career -- even if we leave his later crimes against fellow Yugoslavians in the 1990s out of it... -- Marcika (talk) 20:42, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: What's the correct etymology of Arkan? a Serbian name? a Turkish word? It sounds like "arcane" from Latin arcanus (= "hidden", "secret"), arcanum (= "deep secret wisdom") and arcana Böri (talk) 12:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a nickname, derived either from a cartoon character (Arcanus) or a surname from his forged passport. An etymological study would really be out of context.--Zoupan 16:30, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arkan 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: He  came as a volunteer to help Army of Republika Srpska krajina but fled.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.252.238.33 (talk) 19:39, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Operation maslenica 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: :The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 
The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Sceptre (talk) 08:58, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Arkan →  – Articles have to have name and surname for biographies and not nicknames. 5.43.74.120 (talk) 22:37, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 8 February 2022