Since he became Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz was in Belgrade, saw and supported, against lithium mining in Serbia there was a protest on Monday in Arandjelovac, Šabac, Kraljevo, Barajevo, Ljigo, and before that in Loznica, Bogetić, Krupanje, Koceljevo, Arilje, Valjevo, Grocka, Negotin. Proportionate to the number of inhabitants of these cities and towns on the streets A lot of people came out.. In absolute sum, that number has less weight.
People respond to the call for public outcry, worried that their land and water will be poisoned forever and ever, resentful of domestic villains who want to sell their fertile heritage to foreign villains for whatever reason, in which toxic pits will be dug in the feverish search for battery gold.
Citizens are angry because two years ago they were promised that the toxic work with Rio Tinto and lithium was removed from the agenda, and now, miraculously, it turns out that the government lied. The same government that won the extraordinary local elections in December and the regular ones in June without any tangible resistance from the local population in all the cities and municipalities where protests are now taking place and where protests will continue.
Now the citizens are carried away by the new Lithuanian uprising, thinking that it worked once, so why not a second time, they took to the streets, determined to resist the implementation of the "Jadar" project.
Tactical retreat two years ago
This thought gives hope to the inhabitants of the Jadra valley, environmental activists, opposition parties and all citizens throughout Serbia who fear that lithium mining near Loznica would cause an "ecological disaster", "destroy life in western Serbia" and beyond, and are ready to resist the combined ruling forces.
Hope from the previous victory in the lithium battle is also drawn by those who are a little more restrained, who are suspicious of this plan primarily because of those who should implement it - ignorant progressives of various types who are primarily guided by the thickness of their own wallets, and then, according to the official duties, party interests, while public is a long-forgotten category.
The only political defeat Aleksandar Vučić really suffered was from environmental insurgents when, under the pressure of mass protests and road blockades across the country, the Government of Ana Brnbić passed a Decree in 2022 that formally put an end to the "Jadar" project, but essentially only to demonstrations.
The President of Serbia estimated at the time that the charge among a serious number of citizens was so great, that this wave of protests would not, like all the others, turn into foam by itself, and that sending special police units or party beaters against the demonstrators would meet with resistance and lead to to who knows what, so he retreated tactically and the matter calmed down.
A tactical attack in the present tense
In order for the Constitutional Court to play its secondary role two years later, the Government, this time of Miloš Vučević, breathed new life into the "Jadar" project before the arrival of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Belgrade, so everything started from the beginning: representatives of the government led by Aleksandar Vučić recount about the benefits of lithium, and citizens led by environmental activists and opposition leaders begin to take to the streets.
Different circumstances
However, the replay takes place under completely different circumstances than the premiere. At that time, in Western countries, the green Serbian revolution was placed in the context of resistance to autocracy and to a large extent met with the sympathy and support of Western governments and the media, or at least they stayed away. That's why the progressive media magnates were babbling to the point of unconsciousness about the ominous involvement of some Western secret services there.
Now Vučić has received the most open possible support from Šolc for reviving and speeding up lithium operations, to whom the representatives of the European Union and the ambassadors of Germany, the United States and Great Britain in Serbia were seconded.
Back then, in the so-called Europe talked about young, environmentally conscious citizens of Serbia, now the narrative of Maltene is such that those who are fighting against lithium mining are standing in the way of all-Serbian prosperity and progress, like the Indians who wanted to stop the arrival of the iron horse or the dullards who thought that the cows will drop dead of fright if the train rumbles through the field.
Back then, out of fear of reactions from the West, Vučić refrained from using force against the environmental protesters, now there is no such fear; then the elan of a wide spectrum of dissidents was at a high level and spilled over to the ruling parties, today critics of the regime have been put to death after the failed mass protests following the mass murders on May 3 and 4 last year and the devastating December and June elections.
The feeling that nothing can change in the progressive fiefdom that Serbia has turned into has never been so difficult.
What next
This government will allow anti-lithium protests to be held in squares across Serbia, it will allow some streets to be blocked in some cities and traffic to stop for a short time. But blockades of international roads or railways will not be tolerated, nothing that causes international attention.
This time, there is every chance, in that case force will be applied, institutional or extra-institutional, and the culprits will be brought to justice, as in the case of the demonstrative exercise near Loznica, when the police took away the activist "Ne damo Jadar" Zlatko Kokanović and some of his comrades. Everything according to the letter of the law.
This time, Vučić agreed with Šolc, with the commissioners of the European Union, with Western companies, with Rio Tinto that Serbian lithium will see the light of day in European markets in 2028. There will be no government regulations this time to stop it.
If the anti-lithium protests start to turn into something more than venting discontent in the streets and squares, the government will try to cut them off at the root by force. Those who set foot on a railway or an international road must be prepared for insane indictments for attempting to subvert the constitutional order, or something similar that entails several years in prison.
In this country, with this government, everything always boils down to just one thing: are there enough people ready to make a personal sacrifice in order for something to change. In other words: it is a question of whose desire is greater and whose will is stronger, who is willing to go to what lengths.
Because the essential problem is not lithium mining, but that democracy has been killed. If it wasn't, there would have been a public debate on that topic years ago in all the media and in the parliament, so no street protests would have been necessary.
