Wife of Opposition Party Leader: Special Ops Unit in Belgrade Park Is Disgrace for Vucic

(BETAPHOTO/AMIR HAMZAGIC)

Danica Draskovic, wife of Serbian Renewal Movement leader Vuk Draskovic, said on March 12 that the arrival of members of the disbanded Special Operations Unit in Belgrade's Pionirski Park was a disgrace for President Aleksandar Vucic and that it was very concerning.

"It is very concerning and threatening for all, not just for those of us who have suffered all kinds of things" and whose family members died as a result of the Special Operations Unit's actions, "rather it is threatening for all of Serbia," Danica Draskovic pointed out in a statement for the Danas daily. Vuk Draskovic survived two assassination attempts carried out in the late 1990s by members of the Special Operations Unit, also known as the "red berets." In the first of those attempts, made on the Ibarska road, Danica Draskovic's brother Veselin Boskovic was killed, along with Serbian Renewal Movement members Vusur Rakocevic, Dragan Vusurevic and Zvonko Osmajlic.

Danica Draskovic further said that "if we are going back to the 'berets,' then this country is completely ruined, then it's the end of everything, democracy, freedom, the system we thought we were living in." "The 'berets' are a disgrace for Aleksandar Vucic because, by using them as his defense, he is showing that he is unworthy of the office he performs and is thereby openly rehabilitating their crimes, the murder of prime minister Djindjic, the murder of Ivan Stambolic, the murders on the Ibarska road, and all the horrific crimes that unit committed in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo," said Draskovic, adding that she was astonished by their presence.

"For a unit that was abolished, that does not exist, and which brought so much death and misery to this country, to appear in the streets now and protect we don't know whom or why, we haven't experienced anything worse in these 12 years," Draskovic warned. A group of Special Operations Unit members in uniform came on March 11 to Pionirski Park in downtown Belgrade, where a number of people presenting themselves as students who want to study and are opposed to blockades of faculties are camping out in tents.