Environmental Protests in Danger of Sabotage, Opposition Warns

Zdravko Ponos (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Serbia’s authorities are on the verge of a full-blown panic over the countrywide rallies against lithium mining and, as such, could opt for “dangerous measures such as inciting violence at the protests, to sabotage the peaceful demonstrations,” Zdravko Ponos, the head of the oppositional Serbia Center party, warned on Aug. 2.

“The staging of a counter-rally in Loznica shows that such solutions are not foreign to [the regime]. It is imperative that the protesters not give in to provocations, that they recognize and isolate the inciters, and especially that they do not allow themselves to be drawn into a staged conflict with police,” Ponos told the Danas daily.

According to him, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic does well “only in staged crises and rigged competitions.”