Thousands of opposition protesters gathered outside the Belgrade City Assembly on Sunday to protest the victory of Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) over the pro-EU Serbia Against Violence (SPN) coalition in parliamentary elections last week. The protest turned violent with a group of demonstrators attempting to batter down the doors of the building, until they were dispersed by police.
“There is no revolution underway,” Vucic said in a public address. “Nothing will go their way,” he continued, referring to the protesters. “Those who swear to fight against violence have shown that they are real thugs.”
The SPN coalition emerged out of anti-government protests following a pair of mass shootings in May. While the protest movement initially demanded the resignations of Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic and intelligence chief Aleksandar Vulin, it soon called for the fall of Vucic’s government.
Vucic said the protest was sponsored by Western powers who wanted him removed from office over his cordial relations with Russia and refusal to abandon Serbia’s claim to Kosovo, citing reports from foreign intelligence services.
He reiterated these allegations in Sunday’s address, thanking unnamed “foreign services” for letting his security services “know exactly what the thugs were preparing.”
The term ‘color revolution’ describes a protest movement funded and organized by a Western government – usually the US. Aimed at toppling leaders opposed to US interests, these revolutions are typically backed by American intelligence agencies, and organized by a panoply of US-funded NGOs. While the term became widely known following the 2003 ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia, the first successful use of color revolution tactics took place in Yugoslavia in 2000, when a US-backed student movement forced the resignation of Slobodan Milosevic.
The anti-Milosevic movement began with claims that the Yugoslavian leader had engaged in fraud in that year’s election, claims bolstered by Western-funded ‘election monitors’ who were brought in.
“Serbia is fed up with your revolutions,” Vucic said during the initial ‘anti-violence’ protests earlier this year. “Serbia is fed up with the arrival of those under foreign influence and the destruction of everything that is Serbian.”
Also Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabiс has expressed gratitude to the Russian security services, which alerted Belgrade to plans for riots in the capital.
“I feel that it is important, especially tonight, to stand up for Serbia and to thank the Russian security services who had that information and who shared it with us,” Brnabic told TV Pink on Sunday night.
“I can only say thank you, and it probably won’t be popular with those from the West,” the prime minister said, adding, “When we shared that information with everyone else, they said: ‘Well, that’s Russian disinformation, that’s spreading fake news.’”