Djilas: Change of Government Only Guarantee Lithium Won’t Be Mined

Dragan Djilas (BETAPHOTO/EMIL VAS/EV)

Freedom and Justice Party head Dragan Djilas said on Aug. 19 that only a change in Serbia’s government can ensure that local lithium will not be exploited and that society will undergo significant shifts.
 
Speaking for the Nova daily, Djilas went on to claim that the only option for effecting said regime changes is via elections, while “the streets serve [only] to pressure the government into accepting certain things and making concessions.”

“Regimes are not changed in the streets. Especially not a regime with enormous power in the form of its police, its criminal thugs and hooligans, with unlimited financial means and control of 80 percent of the media, i.e. [sources of] information. For the protests to bear fruit, [the demonstrators] must persevere. They cannot say: ‘This is our third protest march and still nothing [has changed],’” the politician stated.

In an interview for the Aug. 19 edition of the Danas daily, Environmental Uprising leader Aleksandar ‘Cuta’ Jovanovic called on all opponents of lithium mining to unite in a front with a clear program and plan for how to further fight Rio Tinto’s Serbian project.

Rallies against the mining of the Jadar river valley have been scheduled in both Valjevo and Ivanjica for the evening of Aug. 19. Over the past month, more than 50 such protests have taken place across the country, all demanding a legal ban on the exploration and exploitation of Serbia’s lithium and boron deposits.

Meanwhile, the past eight days have seen the authorities take over 40 environmental activists into custody on suspicion of “violently undermining the Constitutional order,” some of which have had their cell phones seized and homes searched.