by Saker’s Johnny-on-the-spot in Belgrade for The Saker Blog
Alexander Vučić’s tyranny demonstrated its hubris today by finally arresting one of its most outspoken and fearless opponents, the Serbian Savonarola, Orthodox monk Anthony. The monk spoke day in and day out at rallies in front of the parliament building, denouncing the tyrant and all his works. The arrest was preceded by a dirty week-long campaign against the cleric in media controlled by the regime, culminating last night in a public statement by Vučić himself, targeting the monk by name.
The rest of the story followed a recurrent tin-pot dictatorship scenario. The monk was detained by traffic police while driving his vehicle approaching the provincial city of Valjevo, about 100 km from Belgrade. Unphased, Father Anthony turned on his mobile phone camera and managed to record the proceedings. Initially, the traffic policemen, who obviously were “just following orders,” were polite and as considerate as they dared to be under the circumstances. They requested that the monk get into their patrol car to be taken to police headquarters. When Father Anthony flatly refused, demanding they first explain to him the nature of the violation for which he was being detained, the policemen who were obviously ill at ease could not come up with anything. After a stand-off lasting about ten minutes, they called for reinforcements in the shape of secret police officers in civilian clothes, who simply took the monk away without bothering with legalistic niceties. The incident, as filmed by Father Anthony, can be viewed here and is bound to be illuminating not just for Serbian speakers, but also those who are not:
In a matter of minutes, the news of the arrest, which occurred around 10 a.m., spread like wildfire throughout Serbia. Serbs in Serbia and abroad were shocked and the outrage galvanized them to demand Anthony’s immediate release. It is difficult to speculate what the regime intended to do with the monk after taking him into custody, but student protesters are routinely being handed down 30 to 60 day prison sentences for much less. It seems, however, that strong public support for Father Anthony had an impact. After several hours’ detention in Valjevo, in the afternoon the monk was released and in the evening could already be seen milling around with the crowds in front of parliament on the eighth day of protest.
The regime’s incredibly stupid act is bound to cost it dear. Father Anthony was the iconic (no pun intended) image of the protests. He was taunting Vučić literally until the day before, denouncing him for high treason and the criminality of his regime, but publicly expressing doubt that they would be so foolish as to arrest him, for fear of generating huge amounts of free publicity for their determined opponent. Evidently, the good father has been proved wrong on that point. It is always a mistake to underestimate the political idiocy of a cornered, paranoid regime.
It seems that the regime’s debacle with Father Anthony is producing some domino effects.
Only yesterday, the psychopath Vučić was gloating on television about fear being instilled by his tontons macoutes in the young people they had imprisoned. But his glee was short-lived. Today, he was faced with strong public backlash and demand for the release of all prisoners. Such as twenty year-old student Igor Šljapić, who was sentenced last week to 30 days in the Padinska Skela detention center for not displaying a sufficiently humble attitude to the policeman who had stopped him on the street near parliament, with no lawyer being allowed to attend: 
Igor Šljapić in detention
When approached by the police, Igor was holding a sign with “Stop the violence” written on it. It subsequently came to light that he was also an activist for the “Krov nad glavom” (Roof overhead) humanitarian group, dedicated to helping citizens being cast out onto the street by Vučić’s debt collecting squads for infractions such as failure to pay utilities, which earned him additional enmity from the powers that be. But miraculously, this afternoon it seems he is also being released, to placate the public because of the high profile of his case. Undoubtedly another ripple effect of the public outrage over the arrest of Father Anthony.
Next in line for release under public pressure (tyrannies do not do apologies, of course, so none is expected) is the young sociologist Dr. Vladimir Mentus, coincidentally also a housing rights activist who was arrested by the regime and, without the benefit of legal representation, packed off to serve a 30-day sentence.
Dr Vladimir Mentus
The regime really shot itself in the foot, however, when its undisciplined goons in the city of Kragujevac arrested a youth by the name of Bogdan Raonić, a brilliant Serbian mathematician and student at the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris, who just happened to be visiting his family at the time when the trouble erupted. According to his mother, after his disappearance there was no word of his whereabouts for two days. Bogdan was awarded a stipend by the French government to study at the École Polytechnique, where he is currently a top student.
Bogdan Raonić
Once it became known that Bogdan had been picked up by the police, who apparently are too provincial to grasp the consequences of holding such an embarassing prisoner just as their cappo de tutti capi was visiting the President of France, all hell broke loose for the regime. Bogdan’s professors in Paris and the French media reacted with fury. Again, the insecure regime capitulated to strong pressure and Bogdan was released after, according to his mother, spending several days and nights with barely any food or water in its dungeons. „I always cried at the airport when seeing him off to France,“ Mrs. Raović confessed. “But for his return this time, I will get him a one-way ticket. Shame on you, Serbia!”
Indeed, but while a mother’s anguish is perfectly understandable, the shame is not on Serbia but on the criminal gang oppressing it, with the psychopathic tyrant at its head. After eight years of misrule, these pictures, all taken during the last few days, encapsulate the triumph of his policies and political wisdom:
As well as these disgusting scenes in Kragujevac of packs of police bloodhounds chasing down a lone young man:
https://twitter.com/crnasrna/status/1281301719167762434
With all due respect for Mrs. Raonić, her country has many faults but for this it is not to blame. Its deranged ruler is, and the place where he belongs is right here:
The state security services do not work for the their people but for the black-red international. Education and salary are given to them by the people but plunder is a real salary allowed by globalists. Ideology no more exist, global capital has no borders. They control the media, politicians, high-ranking officers, academy, church, fans, mafia unions and workers’ unions.They do not respect the weak, they are a The Force to be respected. That is the key how to change the system not only in Serbia but in the whole world. With God providence. However, transformation of civil services without an army role which become proffesional and multinacional is not possible. Note also that worldwide arms laws are adapting to the globalist system, the individual right is weakening. Every opportunity is get out of line by machinery of globalist planners. You have to admit they thought of everything.
Currently, the biggest concern I have about the Vucic regime is its total unaccountability and lack of institutions in Serbia. Police brutality and the symbiosis between the regime and criminal structures is a direct consequence of decades-long institutional decay.
To be clear, this process did not commence with Vucic, but further back in the past, and is a result of the systematic collapse of Serbian society which, I would argue, had begun back in the 70s during the Socialist era, only to accelerate during the 90s and 00s.
What is the biggest danger in my opinion? Vucic has grabbed all power in the country, there exists no institution which would serve to check his power. We now have serious indications that both he and his puppet Prime Minister have signed secret treaties with foreign powers or foreign centers of power, not necessarily governmental. The Serbian public is kept in the dark about the ongoing negotiations concerning Kosovo status. We have no platform, no goals, nothing that would give us the idea of what Vucic is negotiating about with Kosovo Albanians, Europeans, and Americans. Vucic has not been given the mandate to negotiate, he doesn’t report to the parliament, nor to anyone for that matter, behaving as if the negotiations are his private affair. Everything we know, we know from Vucic’s statements, always vague, and along the lines of ‘The situation is grave’ ‘Difficult times are ahead of us’ etc.
Even if this man had won 99 percent of the votes he has no right to conduct the single most important issue in Serbia for the last hundred years – the status of Kosovo – as his private domain, even less so to trade with state territory.
Kosovo is at the crux of the matter of Serbia’s fate if Serbia is to surrender Kosovo (regardless of whether it would be de jure recognition or a de facto one, I don’t doubt the West and Vucic would be capable of framing it as a win for both Serbs and Albanians and watching up their propaganda apparatus to pressure the public) then Serbia’s defeat will the complete and the fate of its people very grim.
Of course, we have the secret treaty about migrant admission, that we found about from an Austrian minister, obliging Serbia to receive thousands of migrants in exchange for monetary benefits for Vucic and his criminal cabal.
Yet, in the very fact we’ve raised our voice against this regime, I find hope that Serbs are still brave people willing to fight for their future. It’s going to be a long and hard fight but the one we have to fight if we’re to survive.
Well said Marion. Only when it comes to “migrants” – they are not migrants but defeated ISIS headchoppers the type of which we had the ‘pleasure’ having in our midst in the 1990’s courtesy of the CIA. The so-called migrants are all of fighting age and without wives and children in tow.
The Government of Serbia has agreed to rehome hundreds of thousands of those stray lunatics in total disregard of the consequences very similar in nature of those that caused the Albanian secessionist problem who at one stage were too illegal immigrants to Serbia. Vucic even brags how he is going to use this type of migrants to solve the current population decline problem. Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.
Vucic and his political father Vojislav Seselj have been installed there to co-opt patriotic movement and make it unattractive to general masses. But still I always wonder how cowardly you have to be to rise to power like that and betray everything you had promised to the people. In 2012 Vucic’ patty led by the then party head Nikolic won on a strong patriotic and common sense issues. All of which they betrayed.
What sort of person can squander the will of millions? I understand that not everyone is brave when faced with the power of evil such as Deep State but if you feel that you don’t have enough courage find someone who has and step down. But no. An evil person, coward and self hater will do exactly what Vucic has done: continue in the steps of the previous vassals and make Serbia a failed globalist experiment with the wrong macro economic system which is neo-feudal in nature with all the crucial elements owned by countries and multinationals hostile towards the Serbs.
For a nation keen on building political stability and economic well-being for the time being, all of a sudden a few hundred riot-prone protesters emerged and made political demands that don’t seem to have compelling urgency nor specific objectives. And this in the background of a global pandemic where just about all nations which Serbia trades and cooperates with are under strain themselves, making the prospects of external assistance slim and the need for national political unity all the more necessary to find the way out of a economic down-spiral. Now, how did this happen? Is this another color revolution financed by the customary so-called West? How and when did Alexander Vucic turn into one that even Saker’s forum would term a tyrant? I’m admittedly not well informed about east European politics, but this I scratch my head and found really hard to understand. Hope someone can enlighten me.
Actually, I believe there is a very simple way for Vucic to get out of his present political predicament. Just reverse his nascent empathetic disposition vis-a-vis China, he’ll likely see his antagonists back away. His high profile pro-China antics during early days of Serbia’s pandemic struggle ostensibly rubbed someone the wrong way :).
Say something nasty about China; demand compensation for the ‘kung flu’; boom, he becomes darling of the west again just like the Italians.
I really do not understand this nagging. Economic growth is exactly what Serbia needs increase its influence and that is exactly what Vucic delivered, a steady growth of 4% last five years and debt reduction of 20%.
I do not see any tyranny there except that my mother complains her favorite tv shows are being cancelled because he has an announcement.
Yes the growth numbers are good but the poverty statistics are not so good:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Income_poverty_statistics&oldid=440992#Income_inequalities
Serbia has the highest “at-risk-of poverty” rate in Europe at 25%.
Dear Serbian girl, poverty can only be fought by economic growth, this is not something that happens over night since the devastation left by opposition (one protesting now too among other groups) was debilitating. Not to mention that all opposition “patriotic” and “non patriotic” was “patriotically” visiting US embassy for support. Patriotic indeed.
Vucic as an elected president has a mandate to negotiate, play political games, cat and mouse as long as there is no damage inflicted upon the country. These games are played by the management of every company and that is why they are managers, not everyone can become one.
Just so you know, as Noam Chomsky has pointed out ” … economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while *maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.”
Economic growth is all very well and good but its not as answer in itself – as it doesnt take into account how that growth is distributed amongst workers (receiving wages) OTOH, and holders of wealth (dividends paid from profits on capital) OTO.
The economic growth you speak of is pure fantasy. It exists only on paper, just like the great majority of Vucic’s very loudly advertised achievements. These days, living in Serbia feels as if you’re living in a gigantic bubble, between the regime’s carefully spinned web of lies, omnipresent media propaganda and the reality of every day life there’s a huge chasm. I don’t blame many people who, traumatized by the events of the past 30 years, the wars, the poverty, the insecurity, loss of dignity, and ultimately loss of identity, prefer to remain in the bubble created by Vucic.
Most folks in Serbia are confused and find it impossible to trust anyone, not only politicians, and above all they’re scared for their existence and the loss of the few priveleges left to them.
These people, the silent mass don’t trust Vucic, yet they hope he will give them at least a semblance of stability and prosperity they crave. Hence the readines to swallow the regime’s increasingly wild propaganda.
Now a word in regards to the economic progress. Vucic’s idea of an economic policy is to rely on foreign investors to provide employment by using taxpayer money to bring them over. An economic policy such as this enables foreign investors to get cheap labor, govt. subsidies also in the form of tax relief, since tax relief is a firm of government subsidy. Their profit goes out of the country it doesn’t stay here to fuel the development of the national economy. One of the motives behind this blatantly neoliberal economic model as now applied in Serbia is to buy short term social peace and get off some young people from the unemployment bureau. The govt also gets to brag about employment numbers and opening shiny new factories followed by media fanfare.
With the coming COVID economic fallout I believe I don’t need to say what will happen to these foreign corporations operating in Serbia. People working there have very little in term of worker rights as it is, after covid effects spill onto the economics, those who will be fortunate enough to keep their jobs will be forced to relinquish even those few remaining rights just to be able to put food on their table.
Another thong worth mentioning – Serbia’s brain drain. Most capable and gifted people are living en masses. For a young person here worth something, life in Serbia is a Quixotian struggle. One can not win the struggle with the army of half-educated ruling party cadres with diplomas obtained in a suspicious manner. When the alternative is a working for 300 euros in a foreign company, it’s small surprise young folks choose to seek their fortune elsewhere.
If this economic model was so successful as the regime goons claim it to be,why then are people fleeing? We ought to judge the economic system by its results and consequences on daily life and fortunes of the population, not mere numbers which are easy to manipulate for one’s ends.
Brain drain is a problem of the whole EU these days. However there is no other way to prevent brain drain than work on economic growth. Devastation that opposition left behind before 2012 will take at least the same time period to revert and results are already there. The number are REAL regardless of what you wish them to be to prove your point.
There is no need to fantasize, you should really come up with a number instead of wind.
My friend it looks like you’re doing the thing you’re accusing me of – coming up with wind. What you’re saying reminds me of the things we hear on regime controlled media.
‘There is no other way to prevent brain drain than work on economic growth’ this is an empty declaration. I, on the other hand, have shown that the proclaimed economic growth is not giving results. The brain drain had accelerated during the past couple of years, which is a fact. Especially in the health sector with mass exodus of skilled staff to Germany.
People don’t flee a country doing so spectacularly well.
Dear Mairon, in 2011 (opposition time) 90,000 people left Serbia, most of them left between 2009 and 2013 (opposition time), last year 50,000. That is a result of improved situation and I have very specific information about engineering salaries in Serbia.
This is not still not great, but MUCH better than before.
You will probably say those are engineers, yes indeed since there is a need for this branch, however public sector as well as small private sector will necessarily follow. It is not realistic that non profit will grow equally fast as profit generating industries.
Health sector is indeed an important area but not the only one.
On the other side Serbia is not vigorously pursuing “grey market” that does allow people to do additional work without paying state 60% taxes (after mandatory 6 hours), as other states do. Some will leave the other will come in place of the ones left.
Eventually EU is in such a state that, in my opinion, there is no recovery. EU is lagging in every single technology behind China and US, partially because of the mismanagement and partially because there is no policy to identify and protect EU interests (that might change after this crisis).
And as the profit generating industries die off supporting ones will follow.
I don’t divide time before and after 2012. Here in Serbia, we’ve been hearing the exact same rhetoric after 2000, when it would always be ‘before 2000’ and Milosevic being responsible for everything bad that ever happened, so the new governments had to go from scratch.
It doesn’t work like that. In 2008 we had an economic crash, the consequences of which lasted for years to come. That’s not saying whoever governed at that time can blame the economic crash for all their wrongdoings, yet it’s a factor. Also, Vucic has adopted the exact same economic policy of neoliberals from G17, many of his party officials and ministers are from this party, well-known for managing the country’s economy for more than 7 years with a measly 5-8 percent of the vote.
With an open and unprotected economy, Serbia is going to get hit badly when the economic storm begins soon. It will be then when the bubble I spoke of earlier is going to burst and we’ll all be in for a rude awakening.
Most of our most productive and most gifted young people have already left, or are leaving.
The crash was in 2009, Serbia was not particularity impacted since is was growing strongly in 2004 till June 2007, when a certain opposition group came to power with a mini color revolution. After June 2007 Serbian debt increased from 28% to whooping 76% in 2013 without any positive contribution to the economy. Today it is back to 53%.
So basically you do not have a problem with economic growth. What is this then about?
“With an open and unprotected economy, Serbia is going to get hit badly when the economic storm begins soon.”
What does this mean? Is there a proposal actually here?
Economic growth is much more than statistics. Though we can indeed draw parallels with the economic growth of the mid-00s and that during the Vucic era, both were based on direct foreign investments and hence vulnerable to disturbances in the global economy.
As I have argued in the previous post, Vucic and early DOS reformers follow the same neoliberal economic concept. Privatization, deregulation, low inflation, monetary policy maintaining a strong dinar to euro parity, favoring stability over development, and favoring foreign capital over the development of the home economy.
I’m against the economic model itself and I think the results are deceptive. If those major foreign investment sources dry out, then the economy will suffer.
I can agree to this up to a certain point. We should take as an example Chinese economy. Since 1990 China was attracting foreign investments with a goal of technology transfer. It is easier and it goes faster if you build on the top of something that already exists, it is very difficult to build strategic industries from scratch.
Each big industry necessarily creates a local ecosystem of supporting suppliers who in return employ more people than the industry itself. Supporting suppliers in return do not have to focus exclusively on their main industry and may grow in parallel.
Eventually when you have supplier chain you may decide as a state to invest in a strategic project…
We should also understand that free market is utopia, a lot of bla bla, everything is protected, in a fractured and non structural way and there is plenty of politics needed to be able to insure access to foreign markets.
This is where state should help.
We are not inventing hot water, just following the steps. That is the way I see it and that is why I believe that this protest is just an attempt to disturb this process which benefits us all.
Mairon
“These people, the silent mass don’t trust Vucic, yet they hope he will give them at least a semblance of stability and prosperity they crave. Hence the readiness to swallow the regime’s increasingly wild propaganda”. I am afraid your statement cannot be accepted. The “silent mass” do indeed trust Vućić, and not the NGO backed liberals who instigated those demonstrations, hoping for a color revolution. Well, the liberals did not get their color revolution, since the bulk of the population does not support them. Perhaps you might try explaining why the population of Belgrade, which is two million people, did not join the demonstrators. Somebody in the West made a huge analytical mistake. All these demonstrations did was to strengthen the political position of President Vućić. As for the economic situation in the country, I am perfectly happy that I am living in Serbia and not in the US, bearing in mind what the economic situation in the US is. How many people in the US are on food stamps, and how many are unemployed ? The true numbers are always provided by private analysts, and not by the US Government, which likes to play with numbers.
It is encouraging to see that there hasn’t been a successful color revolution since Qaddafi, and every iteration since then seems to be getting weaker and weaker. From Syria where it did a lot of damage but was ultimately a failure, to this latest pathetic attempt in Serbia.
It looks like the Empire is losing its grip.
it seems that every protest is considered a color revolution by some people. The protest was spontaneous, whereas Vucic got clear Western backing, by NATO propagandists, most vocal pro-Western figures and some of the pro-Western media.
Serbia has a colored regime right now. The protests were massive but due to repression, many people were scared. Do you really think the police would be so brutal in handling the protests if the West was behind it?
Mairon
More Bismarckian tactics, this time from you. “The protest was spontaneous” ? Really ? Who participated ? Football hooligans, joined initially by teenagers, who later on backed out, as they grasped that they were being used as stooges. And the whole population of Belgrade ? Where was it ? Answer: It was at home, not wishing to participate in an attempted coup d’etat, a carbon copy of the one pulled off in Kiev in 2014.
“Serbia has a colored regime now”. Indeed. This is an example of Bismarckian tactics, a change of theses, a reversal of facts. You are concealing a Western plot to instigate a color revolution, and you are doing it by claiming that Vućić is under Western control. How many people are prepared to believe such infantile nonsense, including nonsense that the “demonstrations” were instigated by “Russians” ?
The facts are not on your side, so you resort to qualifications of this sort. Outright dismissing protesters as ‘football hooligans’ whereas we know that the great majority of them were younger folks triggered by the President’s hysterical and irrational decisions. It’s the exact same rhetoric of regime mouthpieces employ.
Now, you make some claims which just don’t add up: ‘where’s the population of Belgrade’? many of them were at the protests, or you argue that they aren’t the population of Belgrade?
Maidan involved a far greater number of protesters than we saw on the streets of Belgrade recently. So it doesn’t add up. Maidan had a clearly articulated demand, to force the govt to sign a treaty with the EU. These protests did not have articulated demands, nor leadership.
I’m not concealing anything, but you seem to be very keen on defending the regime for some reason. So, you have no argument to back up the claim about the color revolution, as the pro-Western factor is firmly behind the regime.
https://www.danas.rs/politika/ambasada-sad-osudila-svaku-vrstu-nasilja-na-protestima-u-srbiji/
https://www.ceas-serbia.org/sr/aktuelno/saopstenja/9098-ceas-saopstenje-ocit-pokusaj-slabljenja-pregovaracke-pozicije-republike-srbije-o-formalizaciji-odnosa-sa-pristinom-u-naporima-postizanja-kompromisa-koji-bi-nas-zadrzao-na-evropskom-putu
Vucic has founded his party with Western backing after the leader of the socialists switched sides (not for the first time, he was backing the earlier pro-European governments). Immediately after they came to power they signed the Treaty of Brussels, the main effect of which was the removal of Serbian institutions from North Kosovo, as previously demanded by Germany from the Tadic regime.
On the issue of Russia you’re deflecting from my original point: the media close to the regime have accused Russia of being involved.
I’m yet to hear some real arguments from you. This is the problem with preconceptions: we form a distorted image of reality colored and conditioned by our prejudice. You obviously support the Vucic regime for whatever reason, apriori accepting that any protest against it must be a color revolution. It’s very humiliating for the Serbian people. Willingly or not, you reduce Serbian people, and other small peoples as well, to mere pieces on a chessboard, which are moved either by the good guys or the bad guys.
These protests were primarily motivated by public discontent with the govt. handling of the COVID epidemic and contradictory and erratic behavior of govt. officials who one day claim the epidemic is beaten, then threaten that graveyards won’t be large enough to accommodate those who’ll die.
If you want to have a discussion in a less hostile tone and with more argument, I’d be happy to debate, otherwise, there’s little point in continuing.
Mairon
There is no point misrepresenting these “demonstrations”. There was no public support for them. In fact, the opposite happened, with the public staying home. As I wrote before, liberals, controlled by NGO’s, used football hooligans to attack the police and provoke a color revolution, with more than 100 cops getting injured. The hooligans were joined, for a few days, by teenagers, who later on stayed out of the “demonstrations:, as they realized they were being used as stooges. These “demonstrations” are now history, with the West badly misjudging the political situation in the country.
This is not a factual statement. You tend to reduce all the processes in Serbian society to outside interference, so if there’s an anti-govt demonstration, it must be a color revolution attempt, only because you support the current government.
On the other hand, every single indicator points to Vucic govt. doing the West’s bidding.
Michael’sSon
Well spoken. There is no tyranny in Serbia. This article was written by a liberal, who cannot distinguish wishful thinking from reality. The names he listed in the article pertain to people who are unknown, and their political influence in Serbia is exactly zero.
The title of this article is :”Day 8 – The tyrant makes a cardinal mistake”. The only mistake made was by liberals and NGO’s who control them. They instigated demonstrations, hoping for a color revolution. What they got was one great big failure, and rightly so.
“There is no tyranny in Serbia.” You sound like a true regime propagandist there.
The people of Serbia are going to hold responsible Vucic and everyone who has helped him carry out his satanist employers’ genocidal policies against us. MARK MY WORDS.
There is a special place in hell reserved for flag waving traitors.
This attempted color revolution is about TurkStream and Huawei.
Just to give an indication what this is all about, what is real and what not…
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/economy-finance/tp042_en.pdf
In the first quarter of 2020, Serbia achieved a robust real growth of gross domestic product of 5.0 percent, the European Commission stated in the just published quarterly report on economic trends in the candidate countries and potential candidates for EU membership.
The Commission points out that this year-on-year growth was equally contributed by an increase in gross investment, government and private spending, and changes in inventories.
Growth in government spending reportedly accelerated sharply, to 12 percent year-on-year, while gross fixed capital formation grew by 10.7 percent.
Household consumption growth remained broadly stable, at 3.2 percent year-on-year.
The report also states that the unemployment rate of the population over the age of 15 remained stable at 9.7 percent in the first quarter of 2020, and that it decreased by 2.4 percentage points compared to last year and by about half in compared to the level five years ago.
The commission points out that several short-term indicators had an impact on economic activity in the second quarter, during the period of economic closure, but also that a recovery began in May.
En realidad no entiendo lo que pasa en Serbia. El artículo dice que Vucic es un tirano y que la policía está actuando en contra de la población como si fuera su enemiga. O sea, aquí se defiende la posición de la oposición y se muestra al gobierno como vendepatria y alejado de los intereses del pueblo aunque parece que en cuanto a la economía le está yendo bien al país. Creo que con los índices que muestra la economía y que han sido establecidos por el sistema neoliberal, puede que los números digan que todo va bien pero puede que el pueblo esté mas y mas pobre; eso no es un verdadero estado de bienestar y seguramente que solo los ricos son quienes están ganando. Con que Vucic entregue Kosovo a las garras de los gringos y de la OTAN tiene para que el pueblo lo condene y lo cuelgue de cualquier puente.
Google translation,MOD:
I don’t really understand what is going on in Serbia. The article says that Vucic is a tyrant and that the police are acting against the population as if they were his enemy. In other words, the position of the opposition is defended here and the government is shown as a vendor and far from the interests of the people, although it seems that the economy is doing well in the country. I think that with the indexes that the economy shows and that have been established by the neoliberal system, the numbers may say that everything is going well but the people may be poorer and poorer; That is not a true state of well-being and surely that only the rich are the ones who are winning. With Vucic handing over Kosovo to the grip of the gringos and NATO she has for the people to condemn her and hang her on any bridge.
I would be needed to see proper investigations, proper commentary, without any kind of emotions, morale, about the state of Serbia. Obviously, “unashamed” as it is called these days, the article is propaganda (one just sees that from the images).
The biggest problem we face today is that truth is being eliminated, on *all sides*. Truth has no relation to morale, ethics, whatever of that. Instead we see, on all fronts, the return of the dark ages, where everything said and written was subordinated to morale (call it “ethics” these days) and philosophy (nowadays there are a couple of philosophies to choose from, but that’s it).
The right-wing person sees the madness of the left-wing person, and immediately shouts “communism” (in variations, like “China”, “Stasi”, etc.), erasing all possibility of analysis. The left-wing person sees the madness of the right-wing person, and immediately shouts “nazi” (in the known variations), erasing all possibility of analysis.
In the article, words like “the tyrant” etc. clearly indicate that any relation to truth is likely random. Perhaps it’s worse than “colour revolution”. I see it as a clear possibility, that “the powers” are also without any clue these days — there is local violence, but the master plans possibly evaporated (partially). So well, that’s a plan, “chaos”, perhaps all what is left.
If there shall be a “we”, if there shall be a future, we need to pause any kind of thinking of “good”, “bad”, “evil” etc. But we need, perhaps, maps first, of the various landscapes. Networks of arguments, as they partially strengthen, contradict, attack each other. For Serbia, stating the various groups (as they seem themselves, as they see others, as others see them), their statements, their relations. Logical maps. Maps of facts (as they come from the groups, under various circumstances).
That is definitely not easy, but necessary (and possible, I believe). Otherwise, in the current atomised situation, without horizon and direction, there will be only destruction.
This is propaganda, because of “emotions” and “pictures”? If pictures are authentic, as these are, they are not propaganda but a reflection of reality. These pictures and videos are shocking. Serbia is a European country (not that it would make a huge difference if it were African) where regime thugs have beaten up a peacefully protesting young Ph.D., clubbed the top physics student at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris who happens to be a Serb, kicked in the face an autistic youth who most probably did not even know that a political protest was going on, and where regime judges sentence high school students to jail terms of between 30 and 60 days for pelting photographs of Alexander Vucic with tomatoes. Does that leave you cold and unemotional?
If it does, I suggest you act honestly and go to Serbia to mingle with the protestors and face the consequences that are inflicted on them. If someone takes a picture of your bloodied head, I will call it propaganda. And should you complain, I will tell you to be quiet and stop being emotional about it.
Give us all a break
When it comes to demonstrating in the streets, the laws in Serbia are identical to the ones you have in the West. Demonstrations are not illegal. If you want to demonstrate, then you have to inform the authorities, just like you have to inform the authorities in the West. The liberals in Belgrade did not do this. The demonstrations, in fact, had all the elements of a sneak attack, the NGO backed liberals sending in football hooligans to take over the Parliament building, hoping for backup from the general public. The only backup they got was, briefly, from teenagers, who backed off once they realized they were being used as stooges. The general public did not join these so-called demonstrators, realizing that the methods used were the exact methods used in Kiev in 2014.
You stated “These pictures and videos are shocking”. Are they ? In what way do they differ from pictures taken in France ? I, of course, will be the first to say that they do indeed differ. In France you had the Yellow Vest demonstrations, supported by the general public. We all know how the police responded, and how many demonstrators were injured. In Belgrade you had a bunch of football hooligans trying to take over the Parliament building and hoping to instigate a color revolution. Just to remind you that more than 100 cops were injured by these “peaceful” demonstrators, a little point you and others forget to mention.
Finally, the situation in Belgrade is perfectly normal. Every morning I am passing by the Parliament building. Not a single cop can be seen. People are walking by, cars are being driven by, and everything is peaceful. I will have to disappoint the Western centers of power. A liberal coup d’etat in the form of a color revolution is impossible in Belgrade. This is proven by the fact that the general public did not join the so-called demonstrators.
I read the first Serbian report and was immediately struck by the streamlined, western styled journalistic approach to an eastern bloc country, and for me, the lack of real sense of ‘boots on the ground with the people’ reporting
Easter bloc countries are different to the west, it stands out strongly when the connection to this is missing.
I have been deeply moved by these extraordinary events, and have followed them wherever I could.
This is not a personal attack, I have no reason to believe Johnny-on-the-spot is not in Serbia, and is not doing his very best, but, if possible, may I suggest further and broader coverage on Serbia be included also ? Thank you !
Siberian Tiger
Yes, a broader coverage of Serbia is indeed required, but not by liberals, who cannot tell the difference between wishful thinking and reality.
I have read the following tea leaves and make the following prediction: Serbia’s economic growth is being set up as a typical neo-Liberal cheap labour manufacturing launchpad rather than as a market in its own right; with foreign investment mainly by EU, and Con-fidence boosting by suspect Rating Agencies. Money talks, and that is why Kosovo is being signed off by Vucic: to crown four decades of EU$A plan to invade Serbia and dismember the country to make way for an Albanian pipeline. Note the euphemism for invasion, military takeover and dismemberment of the country: “Serbia’s accession to the EU”.
GDP growth in 2019 continued with strong economic expansion reaching 4% driven by foreign investments. Foreign Direct Investment flows have been positive since 2012. According to the 2020 World Investment Report by UNCTAD, the inflow of FDI into Serbia rose to USD 4,3 billion in 2019, as a result of the country’s improved business climate and equity capital growth.
Serbia is the second largest recipient of FDI among economies in transition. European Union is origin of 70% of investments to Serbia. According to FDI Intelligence, over the past five years, 56% of all greenfield FDI projects to Serbia have been in manufacturing.
Factors favourable to FDI in Serbia include economic reforms as part of EU accession and IMF agreement, its strategic location, a relatively inexpensive and skilled labour force ….
Very insightful of you Dr. N G
And yes you are correct about FDI. https://balkaninsight.com/2019/08/13/birn-fact-check-is-serbia-a-world-leader-for-foreign-investment
I actually wrote a comment about this same topic but it seems to have gone missing. ..No matter…I don’t think any side will change its mind about anything.
Be well Dr.!
Looks like colour revolution to me. What is Serbia’s position towards Russia, China and Iran?
Vucic is trying to distance Serbia from Russia on behalf of his masters.
In pro regime news there are information appearing that the riots were sparkled by “Russian agents”
Marko
I see that you too are fond of Bismarckian tactics, labeling innocents as aggressors and aggressors as innocents. No, Vućić is not trying “to distance Serbia from Russia on behalf of his masters”. This little psychological and political trick will not work, insinuating that Vućić is under Western control, and you are not the only one applying this little red herring. What in fact you, and others, are doing is to conceal the fact that this attempted color revolution was a Western plot, an attempt to remove Vućić and place a Western stooge in Belgrade, another Guaido. It failed miserably.
Riots “sparkled by Russian agents” ? Do you expect people to believe this infantile nonsense ? So far Vućić has been twice to Moscow, Putin has been once in Belgrade and will be coming again in the second half of this year, Russia has provided Serbia with the Pantsir AA missile system, while the S-400 was presented in Serbia, with Putin stating that if Serbia is again attacked by NATO, the S-400 can again be brought to Serbia, and in record time. I think you know all of this.
I’m afraid you have exactly zero proof for your claims. Well-known regime analysts and regime media have openly accused Russia of sponsoring the protests. The Russian ambassador and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have reacted with statements denouncing attempts to sabotage Russo-Serbian relations.
At a press conference when asked by a big mainstream pro-govt media journalist whether there is a Russian hand in the protests, the President said nothing. He could’ve denied it, yet he didn’t.
I think people who are having dangerous illusions about Vucic will one day awake to realize the West did its job well.
Also, during the Vucic regime, the state has massively increased funding of NGO’s with an openly pro-Western, anti-Serbian agenda. These are facts, and that’s only naming a few.
Mairon
“Well-known regime analysts and regime media have openly accused Russia of sponsoring the protests”. I don’t believe this. Russia hiring football hooligans to take over the Parliament ? For the benefit of whom ? For the benefit of Western NGO’s and liberals they control ? Your cynical attitude is remarkable. You have just confirmed everything i have written.
You’re muddying the waters to cover up the lack of arguments. Whether you believe or not that pro-regime media have accused Russia of being behind the protests is immaterial, since we know that as a matter of fact.
Propaganda’s main aim is to distort reality, specifically applied to the issue at hand, an attempt by the regime to blame it on Russia via the media its controls.
So far I haven’t seen you address the argument I made about Western NGOs and ‘liberals’ being in actual symbiosis with the Vucic regime, perhaps best indicated in the fact Sonja Liht is the president of the Foreign Policy Council at the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It’s a clear message about the ideological leanings of the Vucic regime. But then again, you seem to be bent on making this personal, and not using arguments.
PS The great majority of protesters were peaceful. Then we suddenly had a suspicious group of people in masks provoking the police. It’s well-known Vucic and his brother are linked with certain football fan groups who in turn have a criminal background.
Mairon
Lack of arguments ? It was me who has presented all the arguments, while your comments are based on wishful thinking and intentional misrepresentation of facts. This was an attempted color revolution, a coup d’etat, which went horribly wrong. Western government agencies made gigantic miscalculations when Serbia is in question, thinking a color revolution would succeed. There is no way for this to happen. Who in Serbia wants a Ukrainian political scenario in the country ? This is my final answer to you regarding this article.
Mairon
“I think people who are having dangerous illusions about Vucic will one day awake to realize the West did its job well.”
Wake me up when Serbia joins NATO, sanctions Russia, scraps all strategic infrastructure projects with Russia & China and finally recognizes Kosovo.
He signed the Treaty of Brussels, SOFA, and IPAP. Western officials talk of the current negotiations being about ‘normalization’ of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, with respect to respective sovereignty (sic) of both countries.
Would you say in 2005 or 2006 Djukanovic would drag Montenegro into NATO against the wishes of the populace and turn the country into the fiercest anti-Serbian and anti-Russian outpost in the Balkans?
Russia had significant investments in Montenegro only about 10 years ago, but Russians obviously took Milo for granted. And here we are.
Mairon
—Western officials talk of…
Who cares what western officials talk of.
—Would you say in 2005 or 2006 Djukanovic would drag Montenegro into NATO
Yes I would…and long before that. Djukanovic was quite transparent.
—Russia had significant investments in Montenegro
Only if you count buying beach property (by private Russian citizens) as “significant investments”
—And here we are.
Nope. We are somewhere else.
Johny Conspiranoid
Yes, you are right. It was indeed an attempt at a color revolution. However, the Western government agencies, who control the NGO’s in Serbia, made a huge analytical miscalculation. They thought a color revolution would succeed, when in fact it could only have failed, as it did. The general public did not join the “demonstrators”, led by football hooligans. As for Russia and China, Serbia enjoys their support.
Aleksander Vučić meeting and cooperate politically with Soros Open Society Foundations should explain the corruption of government and what is going on in Serbia and Kosovo. The puppets in power.
Alexander Soros meet with pres. Aleksander Vučić about the political situation in Serbia. Alexander Soros is affiliated with the Open Society Foundations of George Soros, and with CEU (Soros University).
Soros thanked Vučić for the support that his NGO has in Serbia.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, talked with the Deputy President of the Management Board of the Open Society Foundation, Aleksandar Soroš, about the situation in the region, the Foundation’s support for Serbia’s European integration and reforms in the field of media and rule of law.
Soros said that the Foundation for Open Society will continue to support the European path, reform and democratic processes in Serbia, and thanked Vučić for the support that this non-governmental organization has in Serbia, the president’s office announced. (translate.google.com)
https://rs.n1info.com/Vesti/a407406/Aleksandar-Vucic-se-sastao-sa-Sorosem.html
Open Society Foundations, George Soros founded, involved in Rainbow Revolutions and fascist organisations like Antifa and BLM (Fabian Socialism, London School of Economics National Socialism, activism, Deep state operations in foreign interventions (White Helmets), revolutions and fascism).
CEU is organized as an American-style institution, governed by a Board of Trustees, with a charter from the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, for and on behalf of the New York State Education Department.[
CEU has campuses in Hungary and Vienna, New York.
“Mr. Orban has long viewed the school as a bastion of liberalism, presenting a threat to his vision of creating an “illiberal democracy,” and his desire to shut it down was only deepened by its association with Mr. Soros, a philanthropist who was born in Hungary. [He] has spent years demonizing Mr. Soros, a Jew who survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary, accusing him of seeking to destroy European civilization by promoting illegal immigration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_European_University
Another meeting between Alexander Soros and pres. Aleksander Vučić about the situation in Kosovo, Serbia and the region.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-8Fflcyl3I
List of members of George Soros founded ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations) that not only meddles in European politics, but direct it by having politicians across Europe as members.
Hungary members of ECFR
Serbia
Milica Delević
Zeljko Jovanović
Sonja Licht
Tanja Miščević
Hedvig Morvai
Ivan Vejvoda
Soros is known to support both sides, in Serbia Vucic and a color revolution against him. The sense: Up to now Vucic is resisting joining NATO, either he does it or he is eliminated by a colour revolution and another puppet takes his place.
Of course Soros’s interest is primarily directed against Russia
So the “victim” George Soros according to wikipedia survived Nazi occupation. The fact, George Soros explained it himself during a CBS interview “60 minutes” programme, that he actually were present at confiscations of jewish properties during the war, and that it was the best time of his life. He feels like he is a God, he further explained regarding his success in life and the position of power he is in.
So, how could a 14 year old George Soros have been present at confiscations of jewish properties, it was well known that the jews were marched off to be sent to concentration camps maybe to the “concentration camps in the east” (related to the text of the Wannsee Conference) that was prepared with gas chambers, in Auschwitz Poland.
KROFT: (Voiceover) And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.
Mr. SOROS: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that’s when my character was made.
“KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.”
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
Mr. SOROS: No.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSyczwuTQfo
According to Soros’ father, as stated in his in his 1965 autobiography, “Masquerade: Dancing Around Death in Nazi Occupied Hungary,” Soros at one point “even helped with the inventory.”
“George also met several other ministry officials, who immediately took a liking to the young man, the alleged godson of Mr Baufluss (Baumbach),” he wrote. “He even helped with the inventory. Surrounded by good company, he quickly regained his spirits. On Saturday he returned to Budapest.”
George Soros’ brother Paul Soros (see Wikipedia) was arrestred as a Nazi officer by the Soviet Army. So maybe that is an indication that there is a cover story at play, and that there are other ways he might have overlooked nazi confiscations and internation of jews.
You cannot be sure of the official story which is bad enough, since the Soviet Army must have acted on intelligence, they would not arrest and march liberated people off to prison.
I do hope you know the old one “Keep your friends close but your enemies even closer”. This is politics.
The article’s opening paragraph is:
“Alexander Vučić’s tyranny demonstrated its hubris today by finally arresting one of its most outspoken and fearless opponents, the Serbian Savonarola, Orthodox monk Anthony. The monk spoke day in and day out at rallies in front of the parliament building, denouncing the tyrant and all his works. The arrest was preceded by a dirty week-long campaign against the cleric in media controlled by the regime, culminating last night in a public statement by Vučić himself, targeting the monk by name.”
Does the author really believe that average Serbs do understand this paragraph?
“… tyranny demonstrated its hubris… “, seriously? A typical phrase average Serbian daily
“..one of its most outspoken and fearless opponents, the Serbian Savonarola, Orthodox monk Anthony…”, who the heck is Savonarola?
“The monk spoke day in and day out at rallies in front of the parliament building, denouncing the tyrant and all his works.”, how come there is no greater coverage of this serious regime opponent in clips provided in articles?
“The rest of the story followed a recurrent tin-pot dictatorship scenario.” Another sentence in pure commoners language.
The phrasing looks like copied from New York Times. Enough said.
From Mairon:”..We now have serious indications that both he and his puppet Prime Minister have signed secret treaties with foreign powers or foreign centers of power, not necessarily governmental….”, another NYT phrase. Having serious indications does not prove anything. Plus, who are you
Link offerred as source of truth, to prove Vucic works for Soros NGOs: “https://rs.n1info.com/Vesti/a407406/Aleksandar-Vucic-se-sastao-sa-Sorosem.html” You are telling us that N1 TV belongs to media dominated by evil regime?
“The Serbian public is kept in the dark about the ongoing negotiations concerning Kosovo status. We have no platform, no goals, nothing that would give us the idea of what Vucic is negotiating about with Kosovo Albanians, Europeans, and Americans. Vucic has not been given the mandate to negotiate, “. So we are kept in the dark about negotiations. Why then the other side, EU, NATO, USA, why don’t they reveal the contents of negotiations. It certainly is in their interest to declare upcoming victory? At least we would not be in the dark.
“Vucic has not been given the mandate to negotiate,”? Again, seriously? Who negotiates in the name of people sabot such important issue? Somehow, the president of the country seems appropriate negotiator. he might be a traitor, we don’t know, since high level negotiations are by definition secret, so we do not know if he really is a traitor, it is still unknown, as long as it is a secret. And who else would represent the country in such negotiations? Monk Anthony? Kid who studies mathematics in french polytechnic? Why not kids who study math in Belgrade School of Mathematics (Matematicjka Gimnazija), they win medals on Math Olympics, in Russia, all the time. Sorry, I forgot, Russia is bad and their math sucks. Certainly education on every level is way better in the West than in stupid Russia which together with Soros helps Vucic tyrannize poor ignorant Serbs. Or perhaps Johnny the Journalist and Mairon and Djole and Marko, who know what should be done and what is good for Serbs?
Please, no need to insult Serbs or patronize them. When Serbs decide that enough is enough, they will deal with tyrants. Serbs have quite remarkable experience in deposing political opponents, domestic or external.
Please do not insult Serbs. You are repeating yourselves, but I guess that is how propaganda works. Repeat a falsehood many times and it becomes agreed upon truth.
We have yet to hear a positive contribution for resolving the issue. If we agree Vucic needs to go, what do we do next? Who replaces him? What if stupid Serbs again vote for a tyrant?
You want to do us a favor and get rid of Vucic the tyrant. Fine. We agree with everything you say, we hear you and we got the message. But what then, immediately after the act of deposition. Do we have a leader waiting to take over? Who would that be?
Come up with a proposal so we can have adult conversation.
N1 TV belongs to CNN. Globalist punks for the deep state. CNN is a Hollywood House. They fabricate the news. Admitting that “we shape the world”. Members of CFR (America).
re: #serblivesmatter. : Thanks for your reporting. It is so inspiring to hear that people are acting in solidarity against the brutality of the regime….And its stupidity. They arrest a burgeoning Tesla. and abuse him ..?
Hopefully, he stays away until the coast is clear on all levels. …no pun intended but it looked nice in his photo!..
The author Johnny conceals _ why actually an Anglicist name as a pseudonym?_ that the so-called ‘Serbian Savonarola’ is a former monk. Antonije, with civil name Dragan Davidović was excluded from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2010.
http://www.spc.rs/eng/communique_3
On this page you will also find some background information about this step. Nevertheless, Dragan Davidović still wears the SPC’s order clothes and holds lithurgies, which he would actually not be allowed to do as a private believer. But up to now there have been no consequences, neither from the side of the ‘tyrant state’ nor from the church. Furthermore, in an enlightened society I do not consider it appropriate for religious institutions to interfere in political processes.
There is nothing to be said against the Church working for a satisfactory resolution of the historical monasteries and churches in Kosovo Metohija. But they must force this in a well-considered way at international level. So far, no satisfactory results can be seen. Wherever the SPC has made common cause with extremists or foreign secret services, Serbian interests have run down the drain. Some members of the SPC as well as Serbs à la Johnny, Mairon, djole etc. should be aware that their actions do not represent internal opposition but serve the interests of foreign puppet players.