If the rally in Novi Sad was a reflection of sadness for the 15 victims, in Kragujevac it was an expression of great unity, and in Niš of general joy, the protest in Belgrade was the moment when we stood before the corrupt government and looked it in the eye. We didn't back down. Bloodshed was prevented by young people barely of legal age, girls and boys who had never fought in their lives. They didn't give anything away when they took off their police vests. On the contrary, that act is an act of supreme responsibility
To paraphrase Duško Radović: we were lucky to wake up that morning in Belgrade. If many were scared, they were. There were even more worried. But on the streets it seemed as if no one had stayed at home.
The evening before, one of the students who came to Belgrade on foot called out: "Has anyone stayed at home?"
"Your house is everywhere", answered the woman who happened to be there. We know and we will analyze later what was being prepared and what happened during that whole day, but the morning of March 15 was perhaps the most similar to January 15st in terms of atmosphere... Everything was bright, bathed, fresh and rested, although objectively, no one was rested. The days leading up to the big student protest in Belgrade called "15 for 9" were indescribably hard and tense. The most strenuous were certainly the students who had been marching and walking towards Belgrade since March XNUMX. It was also difficult for the Belgrade students in the blockade, who did the seemingly impossible: they organized the largest and most numerous gathering in the history of Serbia almost without a single serious incident (and with countless avoided, rather gruesome events). In the end, it was not easy for all the citizens who managed to get to Belgrade that day or the day before from all over Serbia, staying in houses, apartments and private accommodations...
One man, however, was the main manufacturer of fear. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić lied for days before the protest that students and citizens were planning "horrific violence" at the protest in Belgrade. Now, after everything is over, we know that the only ones who planned the violence were him and his henchmen.
FROM ONE TO THE OTHER, FROM CITY TO CITY
From the moment when the Blockade Students announced the protest in Belgrade, we knew that it would not be like those in Novi Sad, Kragujevac and Niš. All the institutions are in Belgrade, Belgrade is the very heart of darkness of the corrupt regime whose fault 15 people died under the canopy at the Railway Station in Novi Sad. Yes, the event that caused us to be on the streets took place in Novi Sad. But the epicenter of corruption is in the Government of Serbia, and it is in Belgrade. Of course, at no point did the students even hint that this was some kind of grand finale in any sense. Quite simply, it was Belgrade's turn.
The first large gathering attended by people from all over Serbia was in Novi Sad on February 1, exactly three months after the fall of the canopy and the death of fifteen people. Belgrade students started on foot and it was the first big student march. Under the slogan "Silence is enough! 1. 2. on all 3 bridges", blockades of the three Novi Sad bridges over the Danube began on February 1 in the early afternoon, and then all the columns converged in front of the Freedom Bridge.
It was beautiful, dignified and people hugged a lot, and the students walked, but somehow there was also a lot of sadness and anger in the air, anger because of injustice, because of impunity, because of students being trampled and beaten at roadblocks, because of cars running into people standing and paying tribute to the victims...
Then came Kragujevac, on National Day and the student protest "Let's meet at Sretenje". All of Serbia celebrated Statehood Day that day, while the reborn government simulated the celebration in Sremska Mitrovica. Students came to Kragujevac on foot from Novi Sad, Belgrade, Kraljevo, Čačak, Užice, Niš and, let's not get angry, the others, but most importantly - Novi Pazar. That sadness from Novi Sad in Kragujevac turned into a community, into a huge embrace of tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people.
Two weeks later, on March 1, the "Student Edict" took place in Niš. More people, more students marching through the villages, more people freed from fear and awakened to hope. If we had sadness in Novi Sad, togetherness in Kragujevac, hope exploded in Niš.
And so, it was Belgrade's turn. No culmination, no finale, just an opportunity to look the monster in the eyes, to face it fearlessly and show that fear no longer paralyzes anyone. It would be incorrect to say that there is no fear, there is, and it is both reasonable and justified, because we have a dangerous dragon in front of us. But no one backed down in front of her and that is the greatest value of the "15 for 15" protest.
OBSTACLES ON THE ROAD
During that time, the reborn regime, led by Aleksandar Vučić, had its own plans and only one goal: to intimidate and dissuade as many people as possible from coming to Belgrade.
President Vučić spoke via Instagram (and still does) two or three times a day. It is interesting that the students have suddenly disappeared from his rhetoric and that of his supporters, and all the aggression is directed at the opposition, some kind of alleged colored revolution and, of course, non-governmental organizations. The main thesis was that "horrendous violence" was being prepared.
Anyone who is literate and can read, and most of them can, understood the message: the regime was ready to cause "horrendous violence" on March 15. The only problem is that every autocratic regime, when its end approaches, and especially the autocrat himself, falls into a vortex of his own delusions, which are not related to beliefs and attitudes, but to facts. Namely, those in the terminal phase, as a rule, deny reality. Vučić went a step further and created a parallel world for himself under the window, in Pionirski Park, with parallel students, parallel blockade and parallel demands.
And that's how "Caciland" was born, a seemingly funny, but actually dangerous creation of a completely sadistic mind. Yes, some young men who don't know the national anthem gathered there, led by that Miloš Pavlović, a third-year medical student. They claimed that they wanted to learn, so they called themselves "Students who want to learn". Yes, it was fun watching ex-radical Nemanja Šarović interview them there and, yes, it was not fun watching Nemanja Šarović get arrested, even though he is a former radical.
Also, it was funny to watch that Miloš Pavlovic struggling for attention, showing a model of Dečan and a pathology textbook, determining where the medical stand would be because he injured his arm in three places while setting up the tent. Because of that graffiti on Jova's high school "Ćaci u školu", Pavlović and the team were quickly called "ćaciji", and the camp in Pionirski Park "ćaciland".
But we have to seriously discuss "Caciland". It is true that there is that foolish moment, which simply calls for ridicule. But it is no coincidence that no organized group went to provoke them, except for high school students, who are forgiven absolutely everything because they are too young to understand what is happening. From the first day, students in the blockade called for ignoring on social networks.
However, "Caciland" is a territory with a double bottom. In front are some who want to learn, and behind are the worst from this society: starting from the "veterans" of the abolished Special Operations Unit, i.e. the "Red Berets", the group responsible for numerous war crimes and the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, to organized thugs and criminals under the command of Novak Nedić, the Secretary General of the Government of Serbia. And let's not forget the tractors, those tractors for which the state gave subsidies to selected farmers, and the government ordered them to bring them to the IMT factory in New Belgrade on the eve of the March 15 protest, and then drove them through the city center two days before the protest and surrounded the "Caciland" with them.
Let's not forget that for nine days Pionirski Park was a gathering place for various members of the Cooperative, criminals and local officials of the Serbian Progressive Party from the interior. How people were mobilized to go to that hell was seen on at least two occasions.
The first one is when the reporter of Television N1, Mladen Savatović, calls a certain Milena on the phone, who doesn't know how to get him in there, because she needs older extras, and Savatović can pass as a student. However, Milena would not transfer him to someone else who recruits fake students, because, it seems, then he does not have a percentage or some other profit for which he works.
Another, far more terrible proof is the message of Dr. Anđelka Stojković, vice-president of the Kragujevac City Assembly, to the parents of children suffering from cystic fibrosis.
In addition to being (was) the vice-president of the Kragujevac city assembly, she is also the head of the Department of Pulmonology, Allergology and Immunology at the Pediatric Clinic of the University Hospital Kragujevac and a full professor at the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Kragujevac.
"Dear patients, I will ask you all to support the students who are in favor of learning and against blockades on Tuesday at 12:XNUMX in our own interest and in the interest of the state of Serbia. Please contact Milica Perić, president of the Association for CF of Serbia, regarding the detailed agreement," reads the message that Stojković sent to the parents of children suffering from an incurable and serious illness.
A few days later, new messages from Anđelka Stojković followed, reminding parents to be aware of how much therapy costs for their children and that they should provide support. Along with the message, she also added a document in which the costs of therapy, including all medicines, as well as the costs of hospital days, were listed.
Cystic fibrosis is a disorder that causes severe damage to the lungs, digestive system and other organs in the body. The fact that the parents of children suffering from this disease decided to report to the media what Anđelka Stojković is doing is proof of the truth of the claim that fear is diminishing in Serbia. But, at the same time, it is proof that this government rules with manipulation, lies and intimidation.
The good doctor tried, probably for the last time in her political career, to do this and simply "drive" the parents of sick children to Pionirski Park.
Therefore, the role of "čaciland" is threefold. On the one hand, it is the performance of an executed leader who wants to convince himself and us that some youth and some students are still for him and with him. On the other hand, "Čaciland" was a carrot on a stick, which was supposed to divert attention from the things that happened in the days before the protest, which were far more important, such as the general strike, the March 8 stoppage of farmers on Brankovo Most and the beating of students at the blockade of Radio and Television of Serbia.
The third and most important role of "ćaciland" is to serve as a hiding place on March 15, from which frantic thugs armed with hammers, clubs and who knows what else were supposed to rush out and cause riots.
BLACK DARKNESS BEFORE THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
It is almost impossible to count everything that happened in just two weeks, between the Niš and Belgrade protests, and it served the regime to intimidate the people. We had arrests of citizens due to verbal confrontations with SNS activists, including with Minister Nikola Selaković. We had a police beating of students on the night when the RTS presenter, while interviewing the president, called them a mob, which caused the blocking of the public service for 22 hours.
But what is more important is what we saw in the night between March 14 and 15, as well as during the whole day in Pionirski Park and around it. And we saw that the surveillance cameras were wrapped in black bags and that around the park, as well as in other places in the city, there were bags with rubble, stones and concrete blocks, that the people in the park had hammers on their belts... We also saw that they themselves fell in half and overturned the subsidized tractors: some who were pretending to be students were filmed breaking the tractor cabs.
The student-guards at the "15 for 15" protest also saw it. Already in the morning hours, there was some commotion, because the original plan was for the entire protest to take place in front of the House of the National Assembly, right in front of Pionirski Park and the "čaciland" belonging to it. Students announced on Saturday morning that part of the protest, i.e. the main stage, was being moved to Slavija. Honestly, a good part of the public expected that miracle to be removed from the camp before Saturday, March 15, hoping that there were really only fake students and not real thugs.
NUMBER ON HAND
It turned out that the students in the blockade were prepared for any possible scenario, including being beaten up. What they did not want to allow was bloodshed. They moved the central part of the assembly to Slavia, but part of them remained at the National Assembly, as well as tens of thousands of citizens.
Everything that happened next, the reconstruction is based on the testimony of citizens and police officers. A little before 19:19, the street lights in the vicinity of the National Assembly were turned off. A few minutes later - exactly at XNUMX:XNUMX p.m. - the commemorative silence began to pay tribute to those who died in the fall of the canopy. Somehow at that time, student-guards notice a commotion in Pionirski Park. They see that the police are leaving the park, and that there is some regrouping and moving of those gathered there. Soon, the first oysters and bottles fly towards them and it is clear that things are moving in the direction that everyone feared.
The security guards, as they later told the media, sent each other the code to end the protest via Motorola, took off their vests, lit blue torches and informed the citizens via megaphone that this was no longer a student protest. With the help of veterans of the 63rd Parachute Brigade, motorcyclists and tractor drivers (who came without anyone forcing them) manage to empty the space in front of the assembly in less than five minutes.
They performed a superhuman feat. Some tried to refute the thesis that they "scattered like mice". Whoever thinks that, should try to divert tens of thousands of electrified people from one place to another, without a single incident. That evening, no glass, not even plastic, was broken in Belgrade.
We later learned that at the moment when the attack from "Čaciland" began, there were only 19-20-year-old security guards in front of the assembly. It is hard to imagine that such young people, without any experience with protests, let alone with the biggest protest in the history of Serbia, were not frightened. That they were ready for anything, including being physically injured, is shown by the fact that they had the phone numbers of lawyers and parents written on their hands with waterproof markers, as well as their own blood type.
We must never forget that. Bloodshed, their own and ours, was prevented by young people barely of legal age, girls and boys who had never fought in their lives. And they were ready to be beaten or... even worse. And it was these young people, for whom adulthood is still new and unknown, who lifted the whole country to its feet, awakened hope in intelligence, reason and goodness. They didn't reveal anything when they took off their police vests. On the contrary, that act is an act of supreme responsibility and the last cry of the desire for everything to pass without violence, with full awareness that they will be the first to be exposed if violence occurs. During these four months, the students in the blockade have, as they themselves say, become completely different people compared to what they were before the blockades began. Although during those four months they were run over by cars, beaten, had their jaws broken, harassed in the tabloids, the Belgrade protest was probably a huge test for them and another "leap in development". They knew what kind of beast they were dealing with, but on that day, in that place, it was almost certain that the beast would try to attack the strongest yet. She failed, they won. And that, literally and without pathos: they won with intelligence, reason, composure and harmony. They defeated both the beast and their own fear.
And no, they are not children, but when you see those hands with "mom" and "dad" written on them, it is clear that they have only recently stopped being children and that, when they are scared, they also need mom and dad. And as many of us as possible on the street, with them. And you can see it at the reception of pedestrians, the evening before the protests. When they cross one hundred and two hundred kilometers, barefoot, crying, with their legs in bandages from heel to hip, they run into the arms of everyone they meet. Somehow they are not children, but they are children. They can and have succeeded in moving the world, but at the end of the day, after a heroic feat, at the end of the path they have set for themselves, they need to see their mom and dad.
SHOT AWAY
If we should remember the protest in Belgrade by something, it is the courage and intelligence of the students in the blockade. That day will also be remembered for the countless columns, for Slavia, which shines even brighter and more beautifully than at the protest on December 22, and we thought it was impossible. We will also remember the insanely large column in New Belgrade and the many-hour wait to cross the Branko bridge... People who smoke, but they don't throw their cigarettes on the ground, but in bags, then in their pockets, and then to the first bin... And we will also remember those garbage cans that are full, but people still leave garbage around them, and not all over the city. Yes, maybe it is an exaggeration and no - we are not Japanese. But even this insistence on leaving no garbage behind has deep reasons: we have been soiled, tarnished and covered with mental garbage too much in the last thirteen years. In addition, the footage of the den in "Caciland" clearly shows who truly cares about Serbia.
But we will remember that March 15 also for what a large part of this issue of "Vremena" is dedicated to: sound attack on peaceful demonstrators. We don't yet know what was used, but we know that something was. Proponents of the collective panic thesis behave like a typical bully: they convince their victim that they were not attacked, but that they misunderstood everything. Well, no, someone did something and, like Moses, parted the Red Sea of the crowd that was standing and silent. Panic does not know direction and direction, what they have done obviously does.
Despite the fact that a large number of people complain about the consequences, despite the fact that doctors ignore the reported ailments or put the "P" mark on the reports, so they send the health data of citizens to the BIA, despite the fact that the First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade announced that it had formed a case on the "sound cannon" case, but it denies that there are citizens who reported health ailments - this was an own goal by the regime of Aleksandar Vučić.
What they turned on or fired, we don't know. But there are a few things we do know. First, that something was fired at people cowardly, the next. Indeed only the greatest of wretches attack the herring. Second, the sound heard is described by many as a plane, car or truck moving at high speed. We should stop there and think about the special kind of sadism that was applied to the citizens. Namely, how many car crashes have we had during the commemorative silence since the fall of the canopy until today? Driving cars into a standing and silent crowd is the regime's most gruesome weapon against peaceful citizens in protest. There were so many of those attacks that it is impossible to stand for those fifteen minutes and not at least once think that this could happen right now. In one of the recordings, a man's voice can even be heard shouting: "Car!" It wasn't a car. With that sound attack, someone decided to play cruelly with the real fear of the gathered people. The same one thwarted the commemorative silence. The meeting had already lasted for almost nine hours when the attack happened. And just then, right during the fifteen minutes of silence for the fifteen victims of the corrupt regime, an invisible blow happened. Someone came up with it, someone else approved it, and someone else implemented it. And everyone in that chain is proven to be morally damaged beyond repair. The cure for moral ills is not in a health institution, but in the judiciary. And that's why this is an own goal: the fight for the healing of society and the recovery of institutions has been going on in the streets for four months. And the regime produces some sonic miracle and shows that it is even worse than we think.
And yet, students and citizens won that day. With all the obstructions, the cancellation of transportation, with the knowledge that the bus carriers who wanted to take the students by bus were detained by the BIA and had their license plates taken away, it seems that everyone found a way to get to Belgrade that day. And that everyone respects the tacit agreement: we all come home alive, even though He wants otherwise. Ours is the last one, or in the words of the students in the blockade: "It's over when we say it's over!"
Spring is coming.
Less than two days of blockade - that's how long it took to see how weak and powerless the public media service is, both from the outside and from the inside. At the moment of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the blockade, and the sixth that RTS is not broadcasting its program. They also seem to be facing a strike inside the house. And the essence of blocking RTS is not in what it publishes, but in what it keeps silent
In the months after the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, the flames of rebellion spread throughout Serbia. The first protests started in Novi Sad right after the tragedy. The authorities responded with arrests, police cordons and intimidation, but instead of calming down the protesters, new protests followed.
The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, has been the target of top state officials and regime tabloids for months, who label him as an insidious instigator of student protests, an opportunist, "the face of evil" and "the leader of the criminal octopus." How and why a rector became "state enemy number one"
"I'm standing in the cordon, and my daughter is shouting at me 'aw, aw, killers'. What should I do? If they ordered me - I would throw down my baton and bulletproof vest and stand on the side of my child," a police officer from the south of Serbia, who works as needed in the Belgrade Police Brigade, told "Vreme"
The recent formation of the Đura Macuta government is part of the regime's revenge and cynicism. This can be seen most in the "black troika" of new ministers appointed to deal with the parts of society that are the leaders and symbols of the big rebellion that lasted for several months, the cause of which was the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, which claimed 16 human lives. Education, universities, unsolicited media and parts of the judiciary that refuse to listen to orders, either publicly, with announcements, or hiding behind legal procedures, should be dismantled. Those who will have no problem doing everything they are told, even reinforcing the orders with their own inventions, are chosen for this.
If in reality the principle of balance is violated - the way the incompetent regime violated the relationship between the concrete elements at the Novi Sad Railway Station - reality will behave like a canopy: it will fail to obey
Ministers often call Vučić a class teacher. There is no joy or critical reflection in his classroom. Everyone has to bow their heads over the benches, hum and listen. What this is about, the reader sees on television every day
RTS is blocked, universities do not work, and threats, insults and calls to the prosecutor's office and the police to arrest blockers, rioters and terrorists are pouring out from the top of the government. The Serbian state has turned into a farce
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