Attempted theft of cultural property

At the time of writing this text, on the same day, two news were published regarding the General Staff: Volker Tirk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, is in Belgrade, who will discuss the fate of this monument of architecture and memory with President Vučić and Prime Minister Macuta; then, Ministers Nikola Selaković and Siniša Mali were questioned at the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime regarding the General Staff.

Why did the General Staff become a case? In short: the state wanted to have something incomparably more profitable instead of a cultural monument. The General Staff Complex, the work of architect Nikola Dobrović, has been a cultural asset since 2005. And cultural property cannot be destroyed unless its status is revoked, which is not easy. It cannot be sold or given away.

CHRONOLOGY OF VIOLENCE AGAINST THE LEGAL ORDER

However, government is government and has its own laws. That's why, in 2014, he welcomed associates of Donald Trump in Belgrade in order to consider building a hotel on the site of the General Staff; a year later, the Ministry of Defense announces that the hotel will, in fact, be built by the United Arab Emirates; everything will be demolished in order to erect a monument to Stefan Nemanja, said Aleksandar Vučić, then Prime Minister, in 2016.

In March 2024, it was reported that Goran Vesić, the then Minister of Construction, signed an Agreement on the revitalization of the complex of the former Federal Secretariat for National Defense (SSNO) with the company "Affinity Global Development" owned by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the US president. On that occasion, Vesić announced that the Government of Serbia did not sell this land, but "leased the land for 99 years". Three days later, the "New York Times" announced that the investment was worth 500 million dollars and that, according to the proposed contract, the state of Serbia should receive 22 percent of the profit. Given that the construction of a hotel on the site of a cultural monument is not legally possible, it was necessary for the RZZSK to propose the abolition of the protection status of the General Staff. RZZSK experts reject this. That's why the government starts violence against the legal order and intimidation of people who work in protection institutions.

Already on June 3, Dr. Dubravka Đukanović, the previous director of the RZZSK, a distinguished scientist, architect-conservator and full professor of the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, resigned because she did not accept the request of the Minister of Finance Sinisa Malog.

On June 27, the Government of Serbia appointed Goran Vasić as the acting director of the RZZSK, even though it had no basis for this because he did not pass the professional conservatorship exam, which is required by law for that position. Goran Vasić did what his predecessor refused: already in the second week of his new assignment, Vasić wrote a proposal for making a decision on the termination of the status of a cultural property of the General Staff and submitted it to the Ministry of Culture so that it would, according to procedure, submit it to the Government of Serbia for consideration and adoption. That document was written by Vasić on behalf of the RZZSK, although no one authorized him, although when writing it, he did not consult with anyone from the collective, nor did he inform anyone that he would do it on behalf of the RZZSK, and he himself is not even qualified to do such a thing. He wrote a document that looks like a short school assignment and not a study, which would be implied in this case. He submitted the document to the Ministry of Culture. As it turns out, he handed it in privately, to someone in the Ministry, and not to the registry office. However, nobody in the Ministry was suspicious of any of that, neither the form of the letter nor the way it was submitted, so it was forwarded to the Government of Serbia. The government adopted such a proposal on November 14, 2024, and stripped the General Staff of its status as a cultural asset. And still, not a single one of her ministers was suspicious of anything.

photo: m. Milenković

IT WAS AT THE DOOR

The responsible people from the RZZSK immediately reacted and prepared a letter for the Government of Serbia and the Ministry of Culture requesting that the aforementioned decision be annulled so that, as it says there, we would not be the only country in the civilized world that does not respect its own law, "does not respect the service of protection of immovable cultural assets" and "destroys and destroys its cultural assets". They didn't even have time to send the letter, and the BIA visited them to prevent them from doing so and to scare them. They failed.

And then, last month, RZZSK employees accidentally discovered that letter from Vasić, literally in the hand of the Criminal Police officer who visited them. After that, they asked the Ministry of Culture and the Government of Serbia to remove Vasić due to gross violations of professional ethics and procedures related to the cultural heritage status of the General Staff and Ministry of Defense facilities in Belgrade. As before, the Ministry of Culture did not answer them this time either. But that's why the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime took Goran Vasić into custody on May 13, and since then the life of the General Staff has become more and more turbulent.

GUILTY ADMISSION AND JUDGE VUCIC

Goran Vasić was detained on suspicion that, in his capacity as an official, by exceeding the limits of official authority, he committed the criminal offense of "abuse of official position" from Article 359 paragraph 1 of the CC, by falsifying the Proposal for the adoption of a decision on the termination of the status of cultural property of the General Staff, thus causing damage to the cultural heritage of the Republic of Serbia, which he was obliged to protect.

As the media reported, the prosecutor's office acted on an anonymous report. They also wrote that special prosecutor Mladen Nenadić issued an arrest warrant for Vasić, as well as several other suspects, even earlier, however, the police, that is, the Service for Combating Organized Crime, refused to act on that warrant.

At the hearing on May 14, Goran Vasić pleaded guilty, he admitted that he falsified the Proposal. It is not known whether he revealed on whose orders he committed the crime.

And yet, the court did not order custody of Goran Vasić, even though the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime proposed it, and even though he admitted that he was guilty, it already decided on May 15 that Vasić should be released. He was only denied access to the witnesses who should be heard in the proceedings. He is now under investigation. On that occasion, claims Dragan Đilas in his "Dužurni krivac" podcast, Ministers Selaković and Mali were interrogated. According to Insider, so far it has been discovered that Vasić's Proposal was not filed in the RZZSK electronic registry, but only on paper. It was registered under the same reference number with which Vasić officially submitted his application for an apartment, and under the same date - July 10. Vasić first filed an application for an apartment in the electronic office, and then entered the number and date on the Proposal for the General Staff.

After Vasić's arrest, Jared Kushner's company announced that the fate of the project planned at the location of the General Staff is "less clear".

Two days after Vasić admitted that he had falsified the Proposal, that is, after the investigative procedure had begun, President Aleksandar Vučić announced from Tirana that "there was no falsification." It is as if he is conducting the proceedings, as if he has already established the truth, as if the prosecution and courts do not exist. He also emphasized that the plan of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, is an "important project for us", rejecting that any abuse or political trade is behind the process of removing protection from the General Staff complex.

Siniša Mali refused to comment in order not to interfere with the investigation, and Nikola Selaković avoids journalists and acts as if nothing happened.

DEFENSE AND PROTECTION

The public in Serbia and experts, however, do not care about Vučić or the others. The petition, which was launched in March last year, as soon as Vesić signed the contract with Kushner, was signed by about 7000 people on the first day alone. As far as is known, no cultural monument in Serbia has caused such an avalanche of appeals by experts and professional associations, protests by faculties from the country and abroad, as well as resistance from citizens and students in the blockade - as did the General Staff. The highlight was when Evropa Nostra included it in the list of the "7 most endangered" cultural properties in Europe for this year and when this May the European Parliament expressed "serious concern about the growing political interference in the heritage protection system in Serbia, including the cancellation of the protection status of cultural monuments and ignoring the legal procedures that regulate their preservation, as is the case with the modernist General Staff complex in Belgrade".

It is not known whether the Government will promptly cancel its decision, which was made on the basis of a forged document, and restore the status of that facility. But what the laws require is to immediately stop all negotiations and discussions about turning the General Staff into a hotel until the Vasić case is over and the truth is established.

The cry of the experts

The most recent expert forum on May 15, among many that have already been held and will be held, was dedicated to the reconstruction of the General Staff. The forum was organized by the Association of Architects of Serbia, in cooperation with SFERA Forum and Evropa Nostra Serbia, and gathered relevant experts, students, representatives of civil society organizations and interested citizens. "We are considering the next steps and scenarios that will not only save the building from illegal demolition and conversion into construction land for non-transparent private projects, but also possible and sustainable models for the reconstruction of this endangered cultural monument," Vesna Marjanović, secretary general of Europe Nostra Serbia, told Vreme. "The forum confirmed the position that cultural heritage cannot be treated as a building resource for commercial projects, but a supreme public interest, a place of remembrance, a space for dialogue and cultural content. This event represents an important moment in the institutional and civil resistance to the degradation of the cultural heritage protection system in Serbia."

Next month, high representatives of Europe Nostra are coming to Belgrade for the General Staff. They will try to meet with local officials and present to them what it means when a cultural asset is on the "7 most endangered" list.