First She Fought Milosevic, Now This Serbian Writer Joins Anti-Vucic Protests

BELGRADE -– Anja Mijovic was a young mom pushing a baby stroller when she took part in protests against Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic 25 years ago. Now, she needs the help of a walker to attend anti-government demonstrations that have continued across Serbia for months.

“We were young, we were kids,” the 50-year-old author told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service, reflecting on political battles separated by decades.

25 years ago, she was a student protesting against Slobodan Milosevic. Anja Mijovic is now back on the streets at mass demonstrations.

Mijovic was a drama student in Belgrade in the 1990s, a period dominated by Milosevic’s Serbian nationalist policies and a series of bloody conflicts. She was among the mass crowds who protested when Milosevic refused to accept an election defeat, eventually forcing him to step down on October 5, 2000.

“When he fell…I said: I’ve finished the job. And I returned to a normal life,” she said.

Soon afterwards, the country’s new democratically elected government handed Milosevic over to the international tribunal in the Hague, where he faced charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Mijovic said she and other young protesters never imagined that Serbia would again witness mass street demonstrations. “Now, from this distance, I see how wrong we were.”

The current protests, which began in November last year, are the largest in Serbia since the Milosevic era. They were sparked by the collapse of a railway station roof in the northern city of Novi Sad.

The tragedy killed 16 people and shocked the public amid reports that corrupt practices led to shoddy construction at the railway station, a flagship government project led by Chinese businesses.

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Calls for accountability have morphed over time into a wider protest against the government and may be the biggest challenge yet to the increasingly authoritarian rule of President Aleksandar Vucic. Protesters have demanded his resignation and new elections.

'Belgrade Is The World'

While the situation now is very different to that of 25 years ago, Mijovic argues that today’s students are continuing a struggle that began at that time.

“It’s exactly the same scenario…We stood up and we carried that famous sign, ‘Belgrade is the World,’” she said, referring to a slogan of the time.

The message was that Belgrade was part of the wider world even though it was under nondemocratic rule. It has now been readopted by protesters holding banners saying ‘Belgrade is the World, Again.’

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But Mijovic says the connections run deeper than mere slogans, hinting at Vucic’s previous role as Information Minister under Milosevic, a position he used to enforce draconian restrictions on the media.

“Anyone who was involved in [Milosevic’s] government [should] never be allowed to hold a public position again,” she said.

Vucic has since sought to distance himself from his activities at that time, renouncing previous nationalist positions and promising to lead Serbia into the European Union.

But he has also maintained close ties with Russia and China, and has faced criticism for poor standards of democracy and media freedom in Serbia. Freedom House, a US-based pro-democracy group, says Vucic’s rule has “steadily eroded political rights and civil liberties.”

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Meanwhile, Serbian police have used violence against peaceful protesters, including tear gas and stun grenades. There have been accusations of beatings and police brutality.

This has sometimes been matched by harsh rhetoric from Vucic, accusing protesters of “terrorism” and of trying to destroy the country. For Mijovic, this too is a reminder of the atmosphere of her youth.

“We were all [called] foreign mercenaries, domestic traitors. My grandmother did not believe [the narrative] that I had sold my country, but she latched onto the narrative that we’d been drugged,” she recalled.

In the years since then, Mijovic has gone on to forge a successful career as an author, specializing in thrillers about crime and corruption in contemporary Serbia.

“I remember everything that has happened to us and I archive it…so that future generations understand what kind of a den we live in,” she said.