Suffocation of Serbia

Serbia has never seen such protests before. There were more mass and organized protests, the protests had a list of demands, opposition, mascots, speakers, program, security. Some people died.

The protests from last week, whose tails are still dragging at the beginning of the new week, are not particularly massive, they are completely unorganized, scattered, ideologically mixed, without defined demands, without opposition in any function and anyone's responsibility. Exactly like that, they boiled like milk, according to Murphy's law, in that hundredth of a second when you look away and stop blowing into the pot. And the citizens who took part in these protests, leftists, rightists, interlopers, spontaneous, hooligans, plainclothes policemen, horses, dogs, those for special actions, special forces, gendarmes and the opposition that appeared in the capacity of citizens, therefore, all of them succeeded together. previously unthinkable: to internationalize the violence that Aleksandar Vučić is carrying out in Serbia. Those thousand, two, five, ten or it doesn't matter how many thousands of dissidents who gathered in the cities of Serbia - they pointed the spotlight at the violence carried out by this regime and sent the image of the terrible, brutal beating of people to the world. And that is the biggest capital of these protests.

THE HIGHEST GROWTH IN THE FIRST QUARTER

And Aleksandar Vučić agrees with that: "Today in Europe and the world, when Serbia is mentioned, everyone talks about riots and riots, not about the highest growth in the first quarter, but senseless riots." "About the highest growth in the first quarter" maybe for some on another, less frustrating occasion, but the man said something much more important. That the state is weaker today, not him, but the state. So that no one thinks that he is the state.

God, he's weaker too. Since that video of the young man being kicked in Terazije, the whole world has seen it. Several dozen gendarmes in Terazije kick and beat the young man who is lying curled up on the road. After that, they picked him up and put him on the sidewalk a few meters away. The other one was thrown into pathos, a plainclothes officer choked him with his knee like that police officer of George Floyd in Minneapolis when the Americans set fire to half of America. In Serbia, there was no such reaction to the political racism of this regime, except that some people remembered and distributed photos and videos of the beating, mistreatment, strangling of demonstrators with the message: "Serbian lives matter." In Novi Sad, a policeman brutally kicked a boy with with autism who was riding a bicycle through the center of Novi Sad where there was a protest and a conflict with the police. Every day, new videos of brutality and bloody confrontations between the police and protesters and bystanders during last week's riots are shared on social networks. Igor Šljapić, Vladimir Mentus, Mario Marković, activists of the United Action Roof Over Your Head, were arrested, more than 150 people were arrested in the protests, some of them were sentenced, according to a "shortened procedure", to one, two or three months in prison. And without the right to defense, without a lawyer, and the only witnesses in the proceedings were members of the police. On Monday July 13, citizens protested in front of the Central Prison and demanded the release of political detainees; on Tuesday, lawyers protested, demanding to "judge in the name of the people, not the government" and annul the June 21 election, which they say was falsified. On Tuesday afternoon, a dozen students were released from CZ, although just a few hours earlier, the Minister of Police, Nebojsa Stefanović, announced that the release of those detained was out of the question, as it would be contrary to the rule of law.

photo: vladimir paunović / for enlarged image right click and »view image«

STATE HOOLIGANS

In Serbia, in other words, such repression was not remembered, or at least there were not enough cameras to record it, interpret those who remember police violence in the service of Slobodan Milošević. And that's why these protests are unique. They imposed a very important task on the opposition. If she has the idea to organize mass protests, to invite people to them, because inviting people is also taking responsibility for broken heads, she should not enter into the business without 150.000 people on the streets, as well as without serious organization and security of the protest, because only what is called critical mass - defense against hooligans and plainclothes policemen, gendarmes, SAJ, OPA, truncheons, tear gas, water cannons and everything that the regime could do on streets.

These protests, thanks to the journalistic footage of men with hooded hats and hoods and the text published by ex-policeman Vladimir Savić on his Facebook account, have rekindled speculations about state hooligans, the so-called. parapolice forces or special units that are used to create incidents, so that citizens and regular police are victimized: "The police last night did not want conflicts, that's obvious, I'm only interested in who are the characters on the stairs who deliberately caused the incident." The citizens did not want an incident, the police did not want an incident. That group on the staircase attacked Vuk Jeremic, you saw that there was a break between the clashes and then suddenly everything turns into general chaos", said Savić.

After all, somehow it is always worth reminding again and again about the author's text in "Politica" of the deceased Miodrag Miki Rakić, the former head of the Bureau for the Coordination of the Work of the Security Services, who was succeeded in this position by Aleksandar Vučić. In that text dated January 16, 2014, Rakić describes Vučić as a "political authority" for a million activists of "various political and non-political organizations." Those million activists, writes Rakić, are ready "to respond to the call for any gathering: fans, right-wingers, opponents of European integration. A political agreement with Vučić is a political agreement with them," wrote Rakić at the time, explaining why the Democratic Party should support Vučić. In short, A. Vučić is able to pacify both fans and criminals and the extreme right, to appease the workers. But also to start all of them, if at some point he has to.

Well, now it doesn't matter if the right-wingers gathered around Srđan Nog and that group around the excommunicated Pope Antonio "took over the protests" from the so-called left-wing, civic groups that withdrew because of Kosovar and nationalist songs and slogans, justified fear of infection or beatings, whatever. Or did Vučić take over the protests personally? It's happening. When there is no one to lead the protests, when everything is so spontaneous, and the opposition does not know how to redirect the anger of the citizens into political demands, there is always someone to redirect both the anger and the crowd into demands that suit them. And the president of Serbia and the leader of the progressives, who again began to wave his resignation from his position in the party, is known for the fact that he turns every situation, be it an affair, a flood or a corona virus pandemic, and even a protest against himself, into his own. benefit.

photo: vladimir paunović / for enlarged image right click and »view image«

That's what he tried to do, but these protests turned into something completely different in front of the whole world: the regime showed astonishing weakness and paralyzing fear by using so much police force against protesters and actually a few dozen rioters. And even more important - in just one week, the president of Serbia retracted his decisions twice, which is almost historically important data in his reign, which entered its ninth year. The first decision he gave up was to close student dormitories and send students home due to the suppression of the corona virus - backing down in front of students on the streets. The second time, again after stormy demonstrations in Belgrade, he left the announced introduction of a three-day curfew for the weekend to the Crisis Staff and Ana Brnabić, whom he delegated to waive the curfew instead.

"KOSOVO IS SERBIA"

The day after that first protest, on Wednesday, July 8, Vučić "outlined" his version of the events of the previous night and all the following, briefing both his police and his media on live TV, while also issuing a statement to the domestic and foreign public. According to Vučić's drawing, foreign services are also involved in everything, therefore, there is no rebellion because of the curfew and corona, it is an organized action to weaken the position of Serbia before the negotiations in Brussels, Ljoticians who believe that the country is a flat plate entered the Assembly , chanted about the betrayal of Kosovo, these are the ones who fear the 5G network, vaccines and migrants. Demonstrators who came in the largest number to express their rebellion against the management of the epidemic as a lever for strengthening the government, gave him his right, the shedding began from evening to evening, leaving space to be filled with religious symbols, Kosovo songs and slogans "Kosovo is Serbia ", "Treason" and the like.

But, despite the increasing number of right-wing symbols, it seems that the protest in the corona era was marked by the emotional statement of the protester recorded by TV N1 on the first night of the protest: "Cale, this is for you, who died in the Zemun hospital because there was no ventilator for you . Hello, I love you very much, Ljubiša Đurić, I love you." In his address to the public after that first protest in Belgrade, Vučić stated that Petar Đurić lied, even though a medical report was published stating that the painter Ljubiša Đurić died while waiting for a ventilator. . Regime tabloids, of course, were harnessed in time to support Vučić's version of the case, "revealing" the alleged mafia past and violent behavior of Petar Đurić.

Instead of Wednesday evening, the President of Serbia flew to Paris on Thursday morning and recorded a video message from the plane to the citizens, but also to his Western friends, in which he wanted to assure everyone that the protests in the cities of Serbia are ultra-right, that they are led by hooligans and criminals. that the state will deal with and that "Serbia will win", as well as that he is going to Paris to fight for "our Serbia".

There is no doubt that Vučić's answer is that the protests in the middle of the pandemic in Serbia are understood by his Western friends as right-wing, nationalist and, ultimately, dangerous for the stability of both Serbia and the region if there is a rush to sign a legally binding agreement that would imply the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina. At the same time, Prishtina does not deviate from the agreement, the ultimate goal of which would be the mutual recognition of Serbia and Kosovo. It seems, however, that Vučić's two-thirds majority in the parliament, as well as the excellently equipped and trained police forces, whose brutal actions the whole world could see at the demonstrations, will not give him the right this time. The responsibility of President Vučić, which he himself says is his middle name, lies in the power he has secured for himself.

It could be said that the press initiated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron gives a clear message that, as far as Brussels is concerned, the official representatives of Pristina and Belgrade have sufficient capacity to reach the final stage on the platform of the Brussels Agreement - a legally binding agreement on Kosovo. and most importantly - its application. Whether Vučić will have sufficient capacity to continue accession negotiations with the EU is another question. Deutsche Welle, for example, writes that "Serbia is not a democracy, and until it becomes one, it should not be considered a potential member of the EU", as well as that negotiations on its membership should be suspended as long as Aleksandar Vučić is in power.

"The President of Serbia prefers to believe that foreign forces are behind the mass demonstrations, rather than to admit that they are an expression of dissatisfaction with his government," Deutsche Welle said in a commentary (Nova.rs reports).

Any deal with Pristina, however, at a time when he controls everything in Serbia, from the media to the police, could be presented as a victory by Vučić and try to turn it in his favor, just as he does not doubt "the highest growth in the first quarter". or that "we beat the corona once" and "we will beat it again". At the moment of the biggest health crisis in the world in the last 100 years and the economic crisis as a result of the pandemic, the president of Serbia has too much responsibility, especially because of the two-thirds majority obtained in the elections and the almost one-party system into which he dragged Serbia, but also the distrust of the citizens towards his authoritarian rule which culminated in corona protests in the cities of Serbia.

He has two paths ahead of him: an agreement with Kosovo, in which his Western friends would most likely help him, or to let the genie out of the bottle: right-wingers and extremists, which could be a serious threat to the entire Balkans.