Na International Day of Remembrance of the Genocide in Srebrenica, Minister in the Government of the Republic of Serbia
"If I were Slobodan Milosevic, I would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo in 1998," said Minister of State Administration and Local Self-Government and SPS official Snežana Paunović in an interview with TV Kurir, which, symbolically or not, was broadcast on July 11, the day of remembrance of the genocide in Srebrenica.
She announced the statement as part of "our shortcomings and our stupidity", probably referring to the state leadership of Serbia and added that "this is the rudest qualification she has ever said in her life".
The statement of the SPS minister can be interpreted as the entry of this party into the pre-election period, and as a rule they address voters who are particularly interested in the situation in Kosovo. Especially after the students published their position on Kosovo on several occasions in the past period. Socialists probably worry that they could take away part of the electorate.
Member of the Committee for KiM, proud of standing up for women's rights
Snežana Paunović has been a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia since 1992, and vice president since 2024. it is stated in the official biography on the website of the Ministry. She was elected to the position of MP for the first time in 2013, and in two mandates she held the position of Deputy President of the Assembly.
She was born in 1975 in Peja, and graduated in economics. She has been a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia since 1992.
She is one of the founders of the Women's Parliamentary Network and was an active member of this parliamentary forum, as well as several parliamentary delegations at international conferences and forums. She actively participated in numerous initiatives aimed at improving the position of women and promoting their rights in society, it added.
In two mandates, she held the position of vice-president of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and president of the parliamentary group Ivica Dačić - Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS).
She was a member of the permanent delegation in the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the president of the Parliamentary Friendship Group with Japan.
She served as the president of the Committee for Economy, Regional Development, Trade, Tourism and Energy, a member of the Committee for Kosovo and Metohija and the Committee for Children's Rights, and a deputy member of the Committee for Finances, the Republic Budget and Control of Spending of Public Funds and the Committee for Administrative-Budgetary and Mandate-Immunity Issues.
In several mandates, she was a member of the Main Board of the Socialist Party of Serbia, and since 2012 she has been the secretary of the Serbian Women's Forum. Since 2017, she has been serving as a member of the SPS Presidency, and since 2024, she has held the position of vice-president of the Socialist Party of Serbia.
Milosevic was tried in The Hague for ethnic cleansing
FoNet/youth initiativePosters with the image of Slobodan Milošević were once plastered all over Belgrade
Paunović added that she would not "liquidate Albanians the way they are trying to ethnically cleanse Kosovo, but in such a way that everyone who feels less like a resident of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, leaves it and goes to his home country".
She added, however, that Milošević and the SPS never had the relationship that she has towards that topic, and that today, "in her mature years, sadness, anger, and disappointment speak from her." She also talked about how difficult it was for Sloba because they declared him a butcher, although, well, he didn't do what she would have done.
Although Paunović says that Milošević did nothing similar, the former president of the FR Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević, was also tried before the Hague Tribunal for war crimes in Kosovo. According to the statements from indictments of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia, Milošević led a conspiracy in Kosovo whose goal was to expel a significant part of the Kosovo Albanian population in order to ensure Serbian control over this province.
The indictment alleges that forces under his control expelled approximately 800.000 Kosovo Albanian civilians, killed hundreds of Kosovo Albanian men, women and children, sexually assaulted many women, and destroyed and looted Kosovo Albanian property. The indictment alleged that forces under Milošević's control systematically committed these crimes throughout Kosovo.
The trial of Milošević did not end with a court verdict, since the former president of Serbia and the FRY died in March 2006 in the custody unit of the Tribunal, as a result of a heart attack. Many others, such as Nebojsa Pavković, Dragoljub Ojdanić, Sreten Lukić, Vladimir Lazarević, were sentenced to long-term prison terms for crimes in Kosovo.
Former President of the Republic of Serbia Milan Milutinović he was legally acquitted on all counts of the indictment.
Without regret
Minister Snežana Paunović made a statement, as part of the opposition and NGOs requested her immediate resignation, due to hate speech against Albanians. In a written statement, she stated that she is not renouncing herself or the Socialist Party of Serbia.
"The public has the right to know, that's why I want to remove any doubt regarding my statements of support for the SPS policy in the 1990s, from which, in different interpretations, propaganda was made about me and the topic itself. Not the first time, and probably not the last time when it comes to the SPS. Serbia is my house, and the SPS is my room in that house. That's how it's always been and that's how it will forever remain," said Paunović.
He says, I am not renouncing SPS policy.
"We are a party that led Serbia in indescribably difficult historical circumstances, a party that made great sacrifices, a party whose name was most often mentioned in The Hague, a party that did not ask anyone for anything in order to remain upright and faithful to its ideas," she added. "I am not renouncing my party's strategies, which were chosen for the circumstances of the armed rebellion in the part of the house called Serbia. At the same time, I am not renouncing my right to talk about the mistakes we made, nor to analyze what could have been different," said Paunović.
Deputy Prime Minister and SPS President Ivica Dacic assessed that the attacks on the Minister of State Administration and Local Self-Government and the official of his party, Snežana Paunović, are shameful and hypocritical.
He pointed out "that those who accuse her of allegedly calling for ethnic cleansing have been silent for years about the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija."
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