“Sarchic or revolutionary message”, what is behind the pamphlet with the image of Vuciqi in the north?

With these words Sasa from Northern Mitrovica has commented on Radio Free Europe Paphones with the image of Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq, with the inscription: “Supreme Commander, we expect you to”.

Vuciq, as president of Serbia, is considered the supreme commander of the Armed Forces of Serbia. It is in the power of the president to command the army, but also to appoint, advance and dismiss the officers of the Serbian Armed Forces.

In addition to North Mitrovica, these pamphlets were shown over the weekend in three Serb majority municipalities in northern Kosovo, Leposaviq, Zvecan and Zubin Potok.

Even though the Kosovo Prosecution has launched investigations into this case for “inciting hatred”, Kosovo Police have told Radio Free Europe that it is still unknown who is behind that act and that investigations are continuing but cannot provide more details.

Let me tell you, let there be peace. I have no comment on posters attached to”, says Vladan, another North Mitrovica citizen.

On the other hand, for Branislav, the new flyer climbing is “breaks down the city”.

Igor believes that new pamphlets with the image of the president of Serbia can be seen in two ways: as a sarcastic message to the current situation or as a call for revolution.

If anything crucial is going to happen now... I don't have a personal opinion, trust me”, he says.

Srdjan Simonovic from the nongovernmental organisation “Heuman Centar Mitrovica”, which deals with security issues, does not rule out the possibility that the leaflet is an expression of satire.

On the other hand, Aleksandar Popov, chairman of the nongovernmental Centre for Regionalism, stresses that the image of Serbia's president with the message “Commandant, is expected to appear in northern Kosovo at the time Serbia is threatened once again by massive environmental protests due to the lithium mines.

Therefore, he believes that the goal of those pamphlets is to sub-x0> under carpet” the current topics in Serbia, which could be negative for the current power, putting the security situation in Kosovo first.

Kosovo's north has been shaken by high tensions in the past two years due to efforts by Prime Minister Albin Kurti's government to establish power in that region.

The exchange of Serbian plates with Kosovo's, the deployment of the special police unit, the Albanian mayors' coming to power due to the Serb community's boycott of elections, the removal of the Serbian dinar are some of the decisions or events facing the resistance of residents in the north.

The situation peaked when an armed group of Serbs led by Milan Radoicqi, former vice president of the Belgrade-backed Serbian List, attacked police in the town of Banjska on 24 September last year and killed a policeman.

Previous Messages and Calls for Resistance

This is not the first time that messages with calls for the return of the Serbian Army to Kosovo are seen in northern Kosovo, or those calling for resistance to the Kosovo government.

In February of this year unknown persons left leaflets calling for resistance at buildings north of Mitrovica, and only two days ago in all four municipalities in northern Kosovo appeared inscriptions such as, “when the army returns to Kosovo”, the North Red Brigade lives”.

Kosovo government declared organisations terrorist Northern Brigade and Civil Protection in late June 2023 because of the belief their members have participated in various attacks on the Kosovo Police.

The North Brigade began writing graphes with the message “Don't worry, we are here, we are waiting for” and similar, from November 2022, when members of the Serb community surrendered from Kosovo institutions in the north at the Serbian List initiative.

Also, ten days before the attack on Banjska last year, X-rays in northern Mitrovica had appeared with the colors of the Serbian flag with the inscription “when the army returns to Kosovo”.

Similar graphs have been written earlier in numerous cities across Serbia and made by football club fans Crvena Zvezda, following a friendly match with the Italian club Fiorentina on 26 July in Belgrade.

What are the competent Kosovo authorities doing?

For the last pamphlet with the image of Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq, with the message: “The Supreme Command, to wait” has no one claimed responsibility.

Kosovo Police Deputy Director for the Northern Region Veton Elshani in a Pronomising REL, There are no suspects at this point. There is no known who previously left messages about the return of the Serbian Army to Kosovo or calls for resistance against Kosovo authorities.

The encryption is continuing, it's not very up to us, it's up to the information on the ground. So far we haven't had any clarifications on these cases, but we have other cases of wrongdoing. It's not like we don't light any case”, Elshani points out.

At the end of April and early May of this year, Kosovo Police placed surveillance cameras in public spaces in Serb-populated municipalities in northern Kosovo. Until then, there were cameras in the north, which police did not know who monitored them.

However, Elshani did not want to show whether those cameras show who posted the pamphlets with Vuciqi's image, because, as he put it, this is part of the investigation.

We'll see. The important thing is for the situation to be calm, not to be harmed, and not to be hurt”, he adds.

He, too, has confirmed that the prosecution has described the case as “causing hatred” and that it has launched investigations. Radio Free Europe has been addressed to the Mitrovica Prosecutor with the question of who the investigation is being conducted, but they have claimed that the Special Prosecutor in Pristina is responsible for that case, which has not responded to the publication of this text.

Simonovic: Citizens in the North Only Want Their Peace

Srdjan Simonovic from the organisation “Heuman centriar Mitrovica” believes that the average Serb “from the north of Kosovo has no time to deal with the climb of pamphlets dedicated to Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq.

The citizens just want to keep their peace. Tensions are over their heads. If these tensions are produced because of a political goal, then it is a turning away from the main topics. I will not label Belgrade or Pristina here, in general there are a range of problems that are more important than brochures that serve no purpose”, he says.

According to him, the pamphlet may in some way be a <x0 comic event that ridicules the president of Serbia, because it is very clear that he may be supreme commander only in war. ”

I don't see that inscription, or whatever it is, can represent some kind of security risk, except that the decaying side can use it for additional research”, he tells Radio Free Europe.

Popov: The flyers love attention from important topics

Aleksandar Popov, chairman of the nongovernmental Centre for Regionalism, believes that he is looking at the image of the president of Serbia, in fact, turns public attention away from the most important topics dealing with Kosovo and events in Serbia.

“Already has become a large number of concessions in terms of implementation of the Ohrid Agreement. On the other hand, the atmosphere is heating up here in Serbia, primarily the elections were stolen, but the opposition failed to revive measures for larger protests. Now attention is moving away from the decision on lithium mines (in Serbia), the last time it faced great resistance, it was almost on the brink of conflict (citizens and authorities) that Vuciq ultimately refused to sign the law on expropriation”, says Popov.

The issue of lithium mines in western Serbia, in the Jadar River valley, was raised again in late June with Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, that the green light for the Rio Tinto project is still possible. The project was suspended more than two years ago by the Government of Serbia due to massive protests demanding that all permits be revoted from Rio Tinto, the Australian mining giant planning to extract ore in Serbia, essential to the production of litium batteries.

In a proposal for Radio Free Europe, Popov says Vuciq is currently building Serbian nationalism”, trying to put the issue of lithium mines in the second plan and the Kosovo issue in the first place.

“After all, it's a continuation. With these slogans in northern Kosovo, a dirty role of the Serbian List is being covered, which he played to get out of Kosovo institutions. Now all this is trying to present itself as here, the president is fighting for Kosovo, but you see what the situation is like. In fact, the fact that Serbs in Kosovo have remained without institutional protection, even police”, says Popov.