Belgrade Mayor: My Statements about Serb Nationalist Zeal Had Least To Do with Vucic

Aleksandar Sapic (BETAPHOTO/Milos Miskov)

Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic on Aug. 5 said his critics of Serb Nationalist Zeal during the 1990s in the territory of the former Yugoslavia “had least to do” with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the Serbian Radical Party. 

Speaking at a news conference in Belgrade, Sapic said that at the time Vucic was “20 years old”, while the Radicals “did not have much say or influence.” “I was talking about verbal Serb national zeal, about so many words, so little action. I think that instead of verbal Serb national zeal, actions should be taken. And those who acted, we sent to The Hague tribunal, those who defended our people in those areas ended up the way they ended up,” Sapic said. 

He assessed that the leaderships of Serbia and Yugoslavia during the 1990s “made many mistakes and left our people in the lurch in many regions.” “The most devastating case was in the territory of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (the present-day Croatia),” Sapic said. The mayor added he did not like the fact that the Serbian public was so occupied with Croats.

“They are our neighbors, we cooperate as we must and as much as we can. Throughout history, whenever they had an opportunity, they took it to do what they did. I also said that I could not understand why we were surprised with what happened to us in the 1990s as they had done worse things during the 1940s. It will happen again if they get another opportunity, but I am not interested in them at all,” Sapic said.

Addressing a remembrance event for the killed and displaced Serbs in the Croatian Operation Storm near the St. Mark’s Church on Aug. 4, following a memorial service, Sapic called for less pro-Serb rhetoric and more action, advising that one should always mourn in silence. As he put it, those who mourn too loudly were often seeking “publicity and profit.” “Wherever there was too much Serb nationalist zeal, there would not be too many of us left there,” Sapic cautioned.