Professor Lompar: Protests a Justified Attempt at Undermining the Legitimacy of Government

Milo Lompar(BETAPHOTO/Press centar UNS)

A professor at Belgrade’s Faculty of Philosophy, Milo Lompar, said on Aug. 5 that the ongoing protests over a plan to open a lithium mine in the Jadar Valley constituted a deliberate and justified attempt at undermining the legitimacy of government.

Lompar said in an interview with BETA that the authorities “headed and orchestrated by” Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic were breaking the Constitution “repeatedly” since the Brussels agreement was signed in 2013.

The professor said that the authorities had reactivated the Jadar project for two reasons. “On the outside, it’s simply the promises given to a multinational company. In the background though, there’s a continued process turning Serbia into a colony.”

Lompar believes that political parties, the exponents of people’s sovereignty of civil and nationalist orientation alike, should provide political protection for the protests, ”take the risk of organizing them and, most importantly, refrain from using them to advertise themselves.”

“If the opposition does not find a way to organize the popular discontent, apathy might prevail and the protest will die out. That’s the outcome the government prefers. The key factor of the government’s stability has been the opposition, and for quite a while now,” the professor explained.

When asked how far the authorities are prepared to go with the Jadar project, contrary to the citizens’ requests, Lomar said that depended on foreign actors, too.