Haunted by history
Serbia is a country haunted by its past, bogged down in its history and struggling to find its way in the 21st Century. Emerging out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century, caught up in the horrors of two Balkan wars and the First World War following which it became the dominant part of the newly created Kingdom of Yugoslavia which only lasted until the start of the Second World War and German occupation.
The new Yugoslavia, largely dominated by Serbia that emerged at the end of the war led by the charismatic Marshal Tito was absorbed into the Soviet sphere of influence. But Tito refused to toe the line, developed reasonable relations with the West and created the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries which survived until his death in 1989.
Dreaming of a Greater Serbia
With the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Yugoslavia disintegrated into civil war in which Serbian nationalism and the desire to create a Greater Serbia played a major part. The Dayton Peace Accords in the mid-‘90’s brought an end to the civil war, but not to the dreams of a Greater Serbia. A union with Montenegro (another of Yugoslavia’s six constituent countries) was short lived. And then in the late ‘90’s, the ultra-nationalist Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic launched an assault on Kosovo which had been one of Yugoslavia’s two provinces. Kosovo’s population was predominantly Albanian Muslim but with a sizable Serbian Orthodox minority. Greater Serbian nationalists considered Kosovo to be an historically integral part of Greater Serbia and Milosevic’s forces embarked on a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing with the goal of eliminating ethnic Albanians.
This was brought to an end in 1999 by US-led NATO bombing of Belgrade which today still dominates Serbian psyche. Unlike in Kosovo where then President Bill Clinton is a hero, in Serbia he’s hated. In contrast Donald Trump is very popular among Serbs - I’ll not comment further! Perhaps it’s no surprise then that a partnership headed by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner and the Trump-era US ambassador to Serbia, Richard (Rick) Grenell, have acquired a 99-year lease on the building in downtown Belgrade badly damaged by NATO bombing (and until now left as a “monument” to that event) with the intention of building a luxury hotel on the site.
So Kosovo remains an emotional and contentious issue for the people of both countries. President Vucic made clear to us that he acknowledges the sovereignty of Kosovo but expressed frustration that Kosovo hasn’t lived up to its side of the 2023 Ohrid Agreement which calls for an “appropriate level of self-management for its ethnic Serb community”.
Sitting on two stools
Rather as in Tito’s time, the present-day government of Serbia led by the former nationalist-turned-democrat, President Aleksander Vucic is trying to carefully steer a middle line between the US and EU (which Serbia is desperate to join) and Russia and China. Russia remains popular with ordinary Serbs, there are many Russian language TV stations and newspapers and Russia uses Serbia to feed propaganda and misinformation into other Western Balkan nations. But despite a newspaper headline in February 2022 declaring “Ukraine Invades Russia”, Serbia condemned the Russian invasion at the UN, supplies weapons and other support to Ukraine (Vucic has met a couple of times with Zelenskyy; Vucic’s wife has visited Zelenskyy’s in Kyiv) although has not signed on to Western sanctions on Russia. Serbia is also now home to tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees and tens of thousands of mostly young, well educated Russians (particularly in the IT sector) who fled their country following the invasion.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
So said Winston Churchill and never was this in any place more applicable than the Western Balkans. What is consuming a lot of President Vucic’s attention now (apart from the never-ending stand-off with Kosovo) is an impending UN General Assembly resolution that would declare July 11 “The International Day of Reflection and Remembrance of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide” to be voted by the 193 member states of UN General Assembly rather than the Security Council (where it would be inevitably vetoed by Russia and China) as proposed by President Vucic The resolution is being developed by a group of countries including Rwanda, Germany, France, and the USA. It has provoked fierce Serbian reactions, both from the Bosnian Serbs of the Serbian “Republic” in Bosnia Herzegovina and President Vucic. The leader of the Bosnian Serbs said on a recent visit to Belgrade that "Bosnia and Herzegovina may not survive" the UN resolution. Additionally we hear that President Vucic is worried that demands for reparations from Serbia may follow. Western nations have made it clear that an attempt by the Serbs to break up Bosnia Herzegovina in defiance of the Dayton Accords will not be tolerated.
We’re not here as tourists, high-level meetings in Belgrade are really the highlight of our visit to the Western Balkans.
US Embassy
- Christopher Hill, the very distinguished, experienced and highly regarded Ambassador in Belgrade since March 2022. Hill served as the U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia from 1996 to 1999, Special Envoy to Kosovo in 1998 and 1999, Ambassador to Poland from 2000 to 2004, and Ambassador to the Republic of Korea from 2004 to 2005. Ambassador Hill was part of the team that negotiated the Bosnia peace settlement, the Dayton Accords in 1995, serving as deputy to Richard Holbrooke. In February 2005, Hill was named as the Head of the U.S. delegation to the six-party talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis
- Political Counselor, Public Diplomacy Counselor, Economic Counselor and several locally recruited members of their staff
- Evening cocktail reception hosted by the Ambassador and his wife Julie in the lush grounds of the US Ambassador’s residence who also joined us for a lavish “last night” dinner at Belgrade’s only Michelin rated restaurant
Government of Serbia
- The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić since 2017. A member of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), he previously served as the president of the SNS from 2012 to 2023,[3] first deputy prime minister from 2012 to 2014, and prime minister of Serbia from 2014 to 2017. He was also a minister in the government of Slobodan Milosevic in the late’90’s when he had been a member of the far right Serbian Nationalist Party!!
- A lady whose name we didn’t catch who held the fort while we were waiting for the President to arrive. She gave a presentation accredited to the Minister of Finance describing the economic growth and potential of Serbia (by far the largest economy of any nation in the Western Balkans) highlighting “Expo 27”, the Worlds Fair in 2027 which will be held in Belgrade
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Political Science - Center for the Studies of the United States of America
- Dragon Simic, Dean and Full Professor, University of Belgrade. He teaches international relations, national and global security, grand strategy and strategic thinking, geopolitics, foreign and security policy of the United States and Serbian – American relations. The presentations and discussions focused on Serbia’s foreign policy priorities which should be viewed in the context of history and regional geopolitics among which:
- Preservation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country
- Achievement of full membership in the EU
- Development of good neighborly relations and regional cooperation
- Several faculty staff
Youth Initiative for Human Rights
- Sofija Todorovic, Director who described what her youth focused organization is doing to try to encourage forward thinking in Serbia, particularly among the younger generation as the only way for the country to move forward rather than the obsession with history of the past hundred plus years. She introduced us to several young interns from Kosovo as a good example of looking to the future and not the past
Asylum Protection Center
- Rados Djurovic, Executive Director who painted a vivid picture for us of the refugee crisis that Serbia is facing as a transit country for refugees from the Middle East crossing from Turkey and Bulgaria trying to get into Hungary and the Schengen Zone