An ordinary week in Serbia

Serbia had an eventful week: A coup d’état narrowly avoided, a war criminal returning home, a minister of defense dismissed and the minister of interior holding a press conference with masked special police units and a prime minister taking a lie detector test to prove his innocence, followed by a gratuitous attack with the Russian foreign minister of  the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. Oh yes, and of course EU integration and reforms in Serbia are on track.

Headline from Informer

But first things first: The coup d’état that never was, began in November when the popular tabloid Kurir ran the headline “Excuse me, Serbia” written by the owner of the media group that publisher Kurir and numerous other media, Andrija Rodić. In it, he apologized for reporting to uncritically of the Serbian government and thus triggered a major confrontation with the government. Kurir had previously belonged to the loyal media that praised the government uncritically. His very public break with the government appears to be more motivated by business deals gone wrong than by a sincere change of mind. The editor in chief of Informer, the most loyal media, cum junkyard dog of the regime, Dragan Vučicevic began talking about a looming coup against the Prime Minister and pleaded him not to travel to a summit in China. Despite headlines of Informer warning about a coup against Vučić and  [media] snipers  targeting Vučić,  nothing came of it.

Minister Stefanović with decorative policemen (source MUP)

The drama ended when Minister of Interior gave a press conference with a masked special policemen in the background in which he announced that the Prime Minster took a lie detector test and passed it when asked about whether he was putting pressure on the media (An article Psychology Today notes “From a scientific perspective, there is no rationale for administering a polygraph test”–I guess except when you want to prove something that you can’t prove otherwise). Vučić himself ended the speculation by noting in an interview that there was no coup planned and he felt save. The government won the war, the insurgents defeated. Not quite, Vučić showed that the battle wasn’t over when in short press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, only one question was permitted from “Vučić’s own public service broadcaster” Pink about the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović (Honi soit qui mal y pense). Lavrov strongly criticized her work and Vučić took the role of the Prime Minister of a small and helpless country that was subjected to unfair criticism by international actors and was enduring this injustice.

Welcome back. (Source Tanjug)

At the same time, General Lazarevic, chief of staff of Priština Army corps during the Kosovo war returned to Niš after having served two thirds of his 14 year prison sentence to which he was sentenced at the ICTY for aiding and abetting “the crimes of deportation and inhumane acts (forcible transfer)” in Kosovo. He belongs a long list of war criminals who have been released in recent years after having served part of their sentence. They also belong to the increasing number of those who return and receive a heroe’s welcome. While some were welcomed by die-hard fans, some clerics and opposition politicians, like Dario Kordić in 2014 in Zagreb, others such as Biljana Plavšić and Momčilo Krajišnik received an officials welcome reception from Milorad Dodik, president of the RS. Even Macedonia gave Johan Tarčulovski a governmental welcome in 2013. Thus, the fact that Lazarević was picked up by the ministers of Justice and Defense and welcomed in Niš by the minister of Labour and the head of the army is not that exceptional, but just part of a wider pattern of openly defying the judgements of the ICTY (it is arguably qualitatively different to support suspected war criminal than those that have been found guilty and sentenced). Lazarević had continued to make a career in the army after the fall of Milošević and was notoriously praised by Prime Minister Koštunica in 2005 for surrendering voluntarily and given a Škoda by New Serbia, Koštunica’s junior partner for his patriotic act of surrendering.

The week ends after Minister of Defense Bratislav Gašić is forced to resign by Vučić after he commented during a press conference after a female journalist had to go on her knees to make place for a camera that he “likes [female] journalists who easily go on their knees” While he officially had to resign for these sexist remarks, maybe he was just a bit too close for comfort in his views of the media for the broader government approach?

 This week was a microcosm of Serbia today: Cooperation with the EU and seeming reforms of the government, or rather Vučić (the Serbian comedian Zoran Kesić observed in his 24 minutes that the ministers of the government that are placed behind him during press conferences are like ficus trees, decoration and not be asked questions, as a journalist discovered by annoying Vučić for not asking him but the minister of foreign affairs questions) distract from Serbia becoming a mixture of a telenovela (fast pace, a new scandal and twist all the time, but the plot of last week is forgotten) and reality TV (simulated reality).

P.S. I forgot to mention the ongoing court case on the possible rehabilitation of the head of the collaborationist WW2 head of the Serbian government, Milan Nedić. But that is a different story