Opposition Leader: Serbia Will Not Become a Mine

Dragan Djilas (BETAPHOTO/EMIL VAS/EV)

On March 31, Freedom and Justice Party leader Dragan Djilas told the Dezurni Krivac (i.e. Usual Suspect) podcast that “Serbia will not become a mine for Europe.”

Europe needs to understand that, even with the current media situation, over 80 percent of the Serbian public are against exploiting the country’s lithium reserves, Djias said, adding that, were the media to operate professionally, opposition to the mines would surpass 90 percent. No government, he stressed, can go against such clearly expressed will of the people.

The opposition party leader went on to question Europe’s longstanding support for Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who has spent the past many years “robbing Serbia with his cohorts.” “Some European Union countries participated in this robbery of the Serbian public, primarily France and Hungary,” Djilas claimed.

Once the regime is changed, said Djilas, his party will demand that the EU hold a donor conference to gather at least EUR5 billion, to partially mitigate the damage Serbia has suffered.

Djilas also commented on Vucic’s statement ahead of the March 15 massive protest rally in Belgrade, when the president claimed he would stage “the largest gathering in Serbian history” on March 28 and that “the only thing” that could stop the event would be his own murder.

“March 28 has come and gone. Vucic is, of course, alive, yet the gathering, of course, didn’t take place because the president of Serbia got scared when he saw that half a million people took to the streets of Belgrade on March 15,” Djilas stated, calling Vucic “a liar and coward.”

The opposition leader further invited Vucic to organize his own rally, newly-scheduled for April 11, under the same conditions March 15 took place – with no organized transportation for supporters, no hundreds or thousands of hired buses – and then see how many people actually support him. “I’m convinced that a gathering like that would bring Vucic less than 20,000 people,” Djilas concluded.