Less than three years ago, the President of Serbia, Aleksander Vucic, stated in a televised interview that ‘if we do not accept the compromise solution with Kosovo, we will destroy ourselves and others and more people will leave the areas where we live’. Vucic had expressed his openness to finding a compromise with Kosovo, although he has no will to do such a thing, he had always thrown the ball to the Albanian side. But, the situation has changed ever since the announcement of “Russian World” by Russia and the copy of that by Serbia with “Serbian world”.
The man who once spoke of compromise, today calls for war and for the unity of the Serbs to protect Kosovo. Vulin, his minister of Defence, clearly states similar analogy with Russian “de-nazification” project, that Serbia too, has to “de-nazify” the Balkans.
Days ago, in a speech addressed to the National Parliament of Serbia, for the first since the war in Kosovo in 1999, he admitted openly the presence of uniformed and armed people of Serbian nationality in the north of Kosovo. Vucic said, that Serbs in northern Kosovo ‘are seeking the protection of Kosovo from the aggressor of Pristina’. In his typical fashion, he presented himself as a saviour of the security and peacekeeper while openly supporting and cheering criminal groups who operate illegally in the territory of Kosovo. Such rhetoric, is well used during the 1980s and 1990s by his predecessor Slobodan Milosevic, who also used such victimization and aggressive rhetoric against Kosovo Albanians.
While Vucic says that he is committed to peace for the Serbian community living in Kosovo, the latter are constantly threatened by the illegal Serbian structures in the north of Mitrovica. Few years back, one of the prominent local Serb leaders Oliver Ivanovic was shot. Among suspected is also a member of the “Lista Srpska” a proxy party funded and maintained by Vucic operating in the northern Kosovo also to fill the loophole in the Kosovar Constitution which obliges Kosovo institutions to include Serb non-majority community in the government bodies. Other violent acts such as burning of cars and threats are registered against Serbian citizens who accept Kosovar institutions and register their cars with the Kosovar institutions so they can move freely in the south of the Iber river. Recently, two cars of Serbian citizens were burned as a pressure to stop local Serb accepting Kosovo. Intimidation is another tendency to keep Serbian non-majority community away from integration with Kosovar society and institutions. By, intimidation, Vucic maintains high presence in Kosovo in one way or another.
Vucic has inherited from his former boss all the rhetoric of war and hate towards all non-serb nationalities in the Balkans. He served as Minister for Information in Serbia during the Slobodan Milosevic regime. This period in Serbia is characterized with massive human rights violations and war crimes including two occasions of genocide confirmed by the ICTY. Slobodan Milosevic died in custody before the judgement. Vucic, who is known for his saying in the Parliament of Serbia in the 20th of July 1995 during the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina, that “for every one Serb killed, we will kill hundred muslims”, has adjusted his vocabulary slightly to meet the EU counterparts but pejorative terms of “muslim” for Bosniaks and “Siptar” for Albanians are still in use. Media in Serbia which is very much under control by him, uses the same vocabulary as well to vilify and demonize non-serbs in the region in addition to feeding conspiracy theories, anti-western and pro-Russian narratives. Vucic´s Serbia is the only country in Europe which has a special relationship to Russia in relation to Russian aggression against Ukraine supporting Russian invasion by not subscribing to sanctions placed by US and the EU against Russia.
read also: Can Kosovo sue Serbia for genocide?
Media misuse and control in Serbia is reported by many international organizations. Vucic controls the narratives and news in the whole country. Also, he is using social media to reach further his audience. Recently, in a video posted on Instagram, Vucic appeared to call on the Serbs to overcome their party preferences and unite to protect Kosovo, as he vows in this video that he will not give Kosovo to anyone. By unite, he means his “Srpska Lista”. Few years back, Slobodan Petrovic, a local Serb politician and deputy speaker of the Kosovar Parliament was attacked in broad daylight in Kosovo by supporters of Lista for his positioning with Kosovar institutions. Petrovic was a member of a local Liberal Serbian Party which was not a proxy of Vucic and less controlled by Belgrade.
As the international community is holding meetings with both sides to speed up the dialogue process and a possible final agreement, Vucic is again changing the rhetoric with threats of war to secure Serbia´s position and strengthen in relation to other Balkan countries. Situated between two options, Vucic knows that he has an external interest if he would accept Kosovo’s independence, but his internal interest, and his survival in Serbian politics, depends on not accepting Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state. All he will do is raise the stakes and fire up the situation, so he will appear the peacemaker again in the eyes of the EU and International Community. All this while being the ally of Putin, supporting aggression against Ukraine, not imposing sanctions against Russia and denying genocide.
