After several hours of large-scale protest in front of the General Staff building, citizens and students laid flowers and wreaths on Tasmajdan in front of the "We were just children" and "Why?" monuments. On the day when the NATO bombing began in 1999, they demanded the restoration of the status of a cultural asset to the General Staff complex
Students and citizens gathered in front of the complex General Staff in Belgrade, destroyed during NATO bombing In 1999, on the day the bombing began. After several hours of protest, they held a minute of silence for the victims in Novi Sad, and then in Tašmajdan park they laid flowers and wreaths in front of the "We were just children" and "Why?" monuments.
On the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the beginning of the bombing, students called for a large protest in front of the complex, demanding its protection as a cultural monument, which was revoked.
The status of a cultural asset was canceled by the Government of Serbia in November 2024, due to the intention of the company "Affinity Partners" (Affinity Partners), one of the founders of which is Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, to build the "Trump" hotel there.
Students and citizens gathered at 15 p.m. at the intersection of Nemanjina Street and Kneza Miloša Street in Belgrade.
Changing the walking route
After honoring the victims of the fall of the canopy at the Novi Sad railway station at 19:50, students and citizens headed from the General Staff building to Tašmajdanski Park, where they will lay wreaths at the memorial to the girl Milica Rakić, who died in the NATO bombing in 1999.
It was originally planned that the demonstrators would go to the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, but they gave up because there is no one in that institution at the moment.
Students organized a collection of signatures in front of the building for the preservation of the General Staff.
Traffic in Kneza Miloša Street is stopped, and the police are regulating traffic in the surrounding streets.
On the scaffolding next to the General Staff building, the banner "New generations are coming who remember the murderers of their nation" was unfurled.
Arrival in two columns
A group of citizens and students went from the Ministry of Culture to the Constitutional Court at 13:XNUMX p.m., where they submitted initiatives for the evaluation of the constitutionality of the decisions that revoke the status of cultural property of the General Staff buildings.
"We expect a positive outcome. What happened to the General Staff building is a shame and disrespect for the victims, our people, for everything we are fighting for. We are determined to fight for our history, and thus to fight for our future," one of the students told N1.
Then they started walking to the General Staff, and before the start of the protest walk, students gathered in front of the Ministry of Culture in Vlajkovićeva Street, sang the chorus of Ljubivoj Ršmuović's song "Pull, pull, bubo laziness".
The column was led by drummers, and in addition to citizens, veterans of the 63rd and 72nd brigades of the Serbian Army joined the students as a kind of security.
The students of the Third Belgrade High School also came.
Those gathered carry banners with the inscriptions: "Conservatives support students", "A nation without cultural memory is a nation without a future".
Another group gathered near the Old Fair and the Chamber of Engineers, from where they started a protest walk.
They were wearing a wreath that was laid for those who died during the NATO bombing.
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From 18:19.55 p.m., speeches and a performance by the Faculty of Music choir are planned, and from 1999:XNUMX p.m. there will be a minute of silence for the victims of the NATO bombing in XNUMX.
At the gathering, contacts will be collected for the people's initiative, which will be submitted to the Serbian Parliament, and the goal is to restore the status of a cultural asset to that complex.
The gathered will then walk to the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, and the end of the protest is planned for 21 pm.
The last line of defense
Miljan Salata, a member of the working group for the defense of the General Staff for N1, said that the General Staff is the last line of defense, and that if we allow the General Staff to fall, not only that building will fall, but the entire protection system and mechanisms that protect cultural assets.
"Then we no longer have the Fair, we don't even have the General Staff. Tomorrow someone might think of building some buildings in Kalemegdan or Petrovaradin, so that no cultural property is safe anymore. We have to say enough as a profession and as citizens, we have to preserve our own cultural heritage and we cannot allow ourselves to be erased from our own history," he says.
He pointed out that it is important to understand that the fight for the General Staff is a fight for every cultural property on the territory of the Republic of Serbia and that the Government of the Republic of Serbia violated the constitution in November of last year.
"She violated the Law on the Protection of Cultural Property, by making a decision independently. They could not have done it without the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, and those people who are now doing their job professionally and responsibly are under tremendous pressure from the state security, from the entire state apparatus," said Miljan Salata.
"My oldest memory in life is the memory of the bombing"
Mila Đorđević, an assistant at the Faculty of Law, said that the best students of that faculty are the most active in the blockades, but that they do not want to study in a system where their diploma has no value, and in which, when they graduate, "the director would be some uncle".
Đorđević, who was born in 1996, remembers the bombing well, even though she was only three years old when it happened.
"My oldest memory in my life is the memory of the bombing. I remember that as a small child it was not clear to me why we had to hide under the table and what those ugly brown strips on the windows were for. So actually this building is a symbol of that bombing. This is not just a ruined building standing in the center of the city or valuable land that should be used in a better way, but a symbol of the unjust suffering of our people," Đorđević pointed out.
We don't let our General Staff give away. pic.twitter.com/JsZMK6whXo
- Biljana Lukić (@BiljanaLuki) March 24, 2025
"The last bastion and symbol of NATO bombing"
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She also said that the students in the blockade refuse to remain blind and silent in the face of injustice.
"Our mission is to wake up as many people as possible, to remind them that everyone can contribute to the betterment of society. If the international community was silent then, we will not be today, we are not giving up our fight," said Dunja Stanojković.
She also stated that the General Staff "stands as the last bastion and symbol of NATO bombing."
"Today they want to take that away from us, we won't let them do that," she said.
"We are facing a historic decision"
"Imagine that in one year or two years there will be some towers, casinos, hotels on this place. Will this permanently diminish our memory, our identity and our country? Today at this intersection, standing in front of the General Staff building, we are facing a historic decision - are we going to allow our memory, our identity, our past and our future to disappear permanently?" asked conservator Estela Radonjić Živkov.
She pointed out that on November 14, 2024, the Government of Serbia made a decision in violation of the law on cultural heritage - the decision that the General Staff is no longer a cultural asset, which left the building and the area around it to a new investor in accordance with some secret agreement.
Source: N1/FoNet
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