Deputy Prime Minister: On Oct. 5, 2000, Citizens Defeated Dark Policy of Wars and Isolation

Zorana Mihajlovic (BETAPHOTO/MINISTRY of MINING and ENERGY/ZORAN PETROVIC)

A Serbian deputy prime minister, Zorana Mihajlovic, said on Oct. 5 that 22 years ago, on Oct. 5, 2000, Serbian citizens defended their election will and defeated a dark policy that had isolated the state from the rest of the world, guiding it into wars and destroying it economically, Mihajlovic’s office quoted her as saying.

Mihajlovic, a member of the Presidency of the Serbian Progressive Party, said in a press release that “the 1990s filled the darkest pages of Serbia’s modern history.” According to her, the then catastrophic policies had driven the country into several wars and international sanctions, while its own citizens suffered repression.

The Serbian official said she was proud to have attended the protests outside the Parliament of Serbia that day, because she believed in change of a regime failing to work in the best interest of the state and society. She said that 22 years ago Serbia chose to be part of the European family of nations, and that there’s no other path for Serbia but the path to the European Union. Mihajlovic said that Serbia belonged to the West, and that membership of the Union was her country’s strategic goal.