Ace in Mitrovica

One of the unforgettable scenes from the cult film series „Tesna koža“ is when the main character of the film, Dimitrije Mita Pantić, listens to a radio broadcast of Yugoslav football league matches and awaits a victory for Radnički in Niš that would bring him a huge fortune at the sports betting shop.

Mita Pantić lived in a 40-square-meter apartment with his wife, elderly mother, two unmarried sons, an unmarried daughter, and a lodger always ready for an argument. His life was a real nightmare, and the only way out of this hell he saw was in an „ace in Niš“.

What an ace in Niš represented for the poor Mita, the murder of Oliver Ivanović represents for the current Serbian political regime and President Aleksandar Vučić.

The murder of Oliver Ivanović in Kosovska Mitrovica came as an ace up the sleeve for Vučić and his regime.

After an unknown perpetrator killed Ivanović in northern Kosovo, the Serbian leader convened an emergency session of the National Security Council and announced that Serbia was withdrawing from talks on the dialogue about Kosovo.

Vučić characterized the act of Ivanović's murder as a terrorist act and demanded Serbia's participation in the investigation. He blamed everyone who saw the murder of Ivanović as a politically motivated assassination.

Oliver Ivanović was a man who strongly disagreed with Aleksandar Vučić's policy on Kosovo, which he did not hide in his public appearances. In an interview for the Belgrade weekly Vreme in September 2017, Ivanović stated that Serbs in northern Kosovo were not threatened by extremist Albanians, but by Serbs, and that Serbs were emigrating out of fear of such individuals.

In the last few years in Mitrovica, we have had over fifty cases of car burnings, hand grenade attacks, and two unsolved murders. All of this is happening in an area of two and a half square kilometers, which is completely covered by security cameras. It is obvious that the police are afraid of offending the perpetrators, or the perpetrators are connected to the security structures – Ivanović told Vreme at the time.

The Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Đurić, stated before the elections in Kosovo that a vote for Oliver Ivanović was a vote for breaking Serbian unity in Kosovo, only to say yesterday after Ivanović's murder that it was an „attack on the entire Serbian people“. It is clear from these two completely contradictory statements that this is Đurić's attempt to gain political points on the back of the deceased Ivanović.

The opposition in Serbia, civic activists, members of non-governmental organizations, and the few remaining media outlets that have not fallen under Vučić's influence, such as Danas, Vreme, Insajder, are united in one thing: Vučić's regime may not have killed Ivanović, but it certainly put a target on his back.

The murder of Ivanović is nothing more than an ace in Mitrovica for Vučić and his regime.