Military service: Vučić's "splitting of sweaters"

When the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, the self-proclaimed "commander in chief", in September signed the agreement to restore the obligation of military service for men for a duration of 75 days, and the Government adopted it expressly, without announcing the details, he did not expect that the sweater he knitted to start "getting mad".

And that "tearing of a sweater", as with any other knitted item, means that when you pull the thread, everything comes off. It started with its coalition partners - the Union of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM), who immediately publicly opposed it, warning that it could contribute to the departure of members of that national minority from Serbia.

On September 16, the Presidency and Council of SVM announced that they will use the coming months to try to achieve relief that is acceptable to the Hungarian population, given that they cannot prevent the passing of the law, SVM leader Balint Pastor said at the time.

Hungarians are the largest national minority in Serbia, according to the last census there were 184.442 of them, of which 85.526 were men.

Error in steps

Reacting to that, Vučić stated that he would talk to Pastor about the "most painless solution" for the return of mandatory military service.

On October 3, he announced that he would call Pastor for an interview as soon as the "difficult next days" passed. He added that he wants Hungarians to remain living in Vojvodina, but also that "he must be guided by the basic principles of preparation for the defense of the country."

And that's where the confusion begins - Vučić's "difficult days" have passed, and in the meantime, another party of Hungarians in Vojvodina, the Democratic Union of Vojvodina Hungarians, came forward, strongly opposing the return of mandatory military service and accusing Pastor of "misleading" members of that national community.

And what is the essence: the government did not foresee what to do in the case of dual citizenships, because the international regulations it accepted say that someone with dual citizenship does not have to serve military service if it is not compulsory in another country. And in Serbia, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of young men have dual citizenship - Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Croatian, BiH, Slovak..., where military service is not mandatory.

And then what to do with such cases?

Avalanche overhead

Vučić might "combine" something with the Hungarians, give them some advantage, and that will then lead to "ripping the sweater".

Because like the Hungarians, other national minorities, including Montenegrins (that country, by the way, refuses dual citizenship with Serbia), will ask for it, so the government will find itself in a problem - how to rank privileged minorities. Before the Constitution and the law, all citizens are the same, but Vučić is used to breaking those acts every day, because he thinks he is above them, so he will probably try to do the same in this case, believing that an "avalanche" will not follow.

And that "avalanche" could be caused by Bosniaks, who are the second largest national minority, 153.801 of them (of whom 77.555 are men), Roma - 131.936 (67.459), Slovaks - 41.730 (19.593), Montenegrins - 20.238 (10.851), Romanians, of whom 23.044 (10.955). All of them can rebel and ask for relief for themselves.

And we are just getting there when a special problem arises - Albanians from the south of Serbia, of whom there were 61.687 (30.942) according to the census.

The case of Kelmendi

And in the former JNA, after the crime committed by the Albanian soldier Aziz Keljmendi on September 3, 1996 in the barracks in Paraćin when he killed six soldiers, the members of that minority were under the supervision of the military security authorities, they were generally not given duties where they would have contact with live ammunition. They are especially not sent to the first category units, like the military police.

After the NATO aggression, the Albanian soldiers were "forgotten", and they were not called even before that, in order not to train for the "opposite side", which was true. The rebellion in the south of Serbia in November 2000 accelerated this, so that these young men were "invisible" to the military departments and the state. It was considered that there was more benefit than harm from such a procedure, which suited both.

And now the question is how to force the Albanians from the south of Serbia to serve in the army by law, how will their political representatives behave and how will they condition the state? And how will the fathers of young men of Serbian and other nationalities, who served military service in 1996 or later, and know about Keljmendi's crime, react? How will the young Albanians who come to the barracks react to the environment, or their fellow soldiers to them? Certainly not positively, unfortunately.

How, for example, can an Albanian serve in the army with a young man whose family member was killed as a member of the police force or the police in Kosovo. Expecting Albanians to do military service is therefore illusory.

The story of the young men from Kosovo, which Serbia officially considers part of its territory, is special and complicated. Who keeps them in the military records, in what way, what are their obligations, that is a question that the Ministry of Defense has not answered, as well as many others regarding the return of the obligation to serve in the military. And there won't be any in the foreseeable future.