Vucic's and Dodik's Declaration: Who is endangering Serbs and what should they be defended against?

By: Haris LJEVO

President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic and president of the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik announced for the coming fall passing of a national declaration on the position of Serbs in the region.

Last weekend at the football stadium Veternik in Novi Sad, during the celebration of the anniversary of the Serb persecution in the military action 'Storm', Vucic and Dodik announced that the declaration would be presented on 25 or 26 November, the day marking the 100th anniversary of uniting Srem, Banat and Backa with Kingdom Serbia, or on 1 December, the day celebrating the anniversary of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians. Serbia and Republika Srpska will put together a program of the declaration.  

The talks held in Novi Sad without any media present, involved Serb Patriarch Irinei, president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik and the president of the government of Serbia, Ana Brnabic, the first vice-president of the government of Serbia, Ivica Dacic, the president of Provintial government, Igor Mirovic, the vice-president of the government of Serbia and the interior minister, Nebojsa Stefanovic, the defense minister, Aleksandar Vulin, president of Matica Srpska, Dragan Stanic and the mayor of Novi Sad, Milos Vucevic.   

Also present was the president of the Serb Democratic Party in Macedonia, Ivan Stoilkovic, whose name has been well known to the public since the unrest in Macedonia's parliament in April in Skoplje. The Belgrade web media Krik published an article which alleged that the Serbia's intelligence agency BIA was involved in the said unrest in which Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev was injured.

Milorad Dodik told journalists in Novi Sad that Serbs everywhere in the region of former Yugoslavia are maltreated and that they needed protection.  

After all inflammatory messages that Serb and Serbian regional political representatives have been sending over the past days, the announcement of the declaration may be merely a top of the iceberg.

It is now absolutely clear that, Aleksandar Vucic has never given upon his true politics and his dream of Grand Serbia. He did change his rhetoric over the past few years merely to earn confidence of the international community. However, after he completely neutralized the opposition and nearly all Serbian media, and grabbed power all to himself, he has started returning to his old ways... of giving lectures to his neighbors.

His frequent episodes of nationalism had to do with Zoran Zaev's coming to power in Macedonia, which is slowly getting all the attention of the international community, contrary to the situation of the past years during which Vucic was presenting himself (with the help from the same international community) as the ultimate leader of the region.

The Summit of the Adriatic Charter recently held in Podgorica, also attended by the US vice-president, Mike Pence, confirmed that Vucic was no longer the politician no. 1 in the region. To stay on the top, he is even ready to return to the rhetoric from the darkest days of the nineties.

And even though he underlined that the declaration is not meant to be sabre rattling, but a declaration aimed at protecting the cultural and lingual identity of the Serbs in the region, history has taught us that such resolutions ought to be taken quite seriously.

All the past declarations and memoranda resulted in thousands of dead and persecuted people. The SANU's memorandum (The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art) effected the crimes in Prijedor, the genocide in Srebrenica, the crimes in Vukovar and other places, and the price of the criminal politics from the beginning of the nineties, the Serbs themselves paid by being driven out from Croatia.

Vucic and Dodik now wish to protect them by passing some declaration. It is quite obvious how little aware they are that their politics has brought them to the point where there is nothing to be protected.