Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC.

For nearly a decade, the creation of the Association of Serbian Municipalities, ASM, in Kosovo has been blocking any progress in the “normalization process” between Kosovo and Serbia.

The idea was launched following a crisis provoked by the Serbian government of Boris Tadic, and has been a bone in the throat of Kosovo-Serbia relations ever since.

Following a visit to Brussels after a long pause to discuss “the future”, Presidents Hashim Thaçi and Aleksandar Vucic returned home disappointed.

Vucic said they had been having the same “dialogue for precisely 1,600 days”, and that “the Albanians” haven’t been true to their word, since the ASM has yet to be created, while “Serbia fulfilled all of its obligations.”

As we’re used to, the concepts of time, truth and reality in Vucic’s mind don’t necessarily match the true meanings of these notions.

In his mind, Vucic spent the last 1,600 days in Brussels, patiently waiting for Thaçi to come to his senses, while he was only doing what Brussels asked him to do. Serbia had “agreed to everything”, and only asked for a teeny-tiny ASM to seal the deal. But, as Vucic said, “the Albanians are refusing to fulfill their part of the bargain.”

So, after each retreated to his own kinfolk, Vucic and Thaçi decided that it was time for a break and both, on individual secret itineraries, went to New York.

Later, when this was discovered, both Presidents denied having met in NY, since they were there to “stroll the bookshops” (Vucic), and “promote the newest book” (Thaçi).

President of the Republic of Kosovo Hashim Thaci in Pristina, Kosovo, 2017. Photo: EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

However, the regional media speculated that the Presidents went to New York to secretly meet and discuss the partition of Kosovo, which both men, naturally, denied.

Not long before his NYC bookshop tour, Vucic marked the 19th anniversary of the NATO intervention against Yugoslavia. Almost two decades on, the Serbian media, just like in Slobodan Milosevic’s times, portrayed the intervention as the “aggression of the NATO alliance against Serbia”, as the “unjust attack on a barehanded people”, and other empty phrases from Milosevic’s propagandist repertoire.

What happened so Serbia got bombed is the crucial question that, again, nobody posed or answered. Maybe we’ll have more luck next year (We won’t.)

In a nutshell, this is what happened, and Vucic’s misuse of all the victims of the wars that Serbia led will never erase the facts: Serbia was bombed so the creeping genocide against Kosovo Albanians could be finally put to a stop. Despite the intervention, during the 11 weeks of NATO bombing, Serbian forces still expelled more than 800,000 Kosovars and killed more than 6,900 people.

Aleksandar Vucic at the commemoration in Aleksinac, 2018. Photo: Beta

As we bitterly remember, “the West” was incapable of making a decisive move against Milosevic up until 1999. Until then, he and his entourage, using Serbia’s resources, the army and other state tools and mechanisms, were allowed to destroy Yugoslavia, and commit countless war crimes, genocides and crimes against humanity.

In late 1998, however, “the patience” of “the international community”, which had believed that “Milosevic would eventually come to his senses”, finally ran out and NATO intervention began. It is worth remembering, however, that “the West” allowed Milosevic to “clean up” Bosnia, only bombing the Serbs’ positions there in 1995, when it was too late and a series of genocides had been already conducted.

The NATO intervention left Serbia devastated, annihilating much of its infrastructure and installing ever-growing anti-Western sentiment among the people.

This was, of course, largely supported by Milosevic and his successors, who, all of them, together, defeated “the West” over at least one thing – the public perception of what happened and why.

The toxic narratives that still rule Serbian public life leaves Serbia in a perpetual state of lies and self-deception, unchallenged by anyone except for no more than a few dozen marginalized individuals, NGOs and media outlets, which are all targeted on a daily basis as traitors and foreign mercenaries.

The predominant, Milosevic-like narratives received another boost in recent months and years with the blossoming of Russia-sponsored media outlets and organizations, many of which are now mainstream sources of information and whose members, contributors and opinion-makers also serve as elected public officials in different capacities.

Today, we again witness the painful incompetence of those claiming to be “peace-keepers” in the Balkans.

A man walks in front of a mural depicting Serbian General Ratko Mladic, a war-time Bosnian Serb military commander, in a suburb of Belgrade, Serbia, 2016. Photo: EPA-EFE/KOCA SULEJMANOVIC

Let’s take Bosnia as the most obvious example. Milorad Dodik of Republika Srpska, with the fully-fledged support of Serbia and Russia, has been freely running wild for years, eroding Bosnian citizens’ right to a normal life while threatening the fragile peace in Bosnia. The latest episode saw Putin’s paramilitary “Night Wolves” parading through Bosnia.

The Western media portrayed this as an almost laughable event.

As if Bosnia hasn’t suffered enough from Western inability to see what’s right in front of their eyes.

The situation is crystal clear for everyone who wants it to see: According to all available reports, Republika Srpska is heavily arming its people, training its youth for future conflict and threatening to break away from Bosnia with Serbia’s and Russia’s support.

Dodik recently repeated that Bosnia “isn’t even a proper state”, even though, if nothing else, the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords defined Bosnia and Herzegovina as a unitary, independent country.

It is also an UN member, but Dodik doesn’t care about the facts, all he cares about is sustaining Milosevic’s idea in Serbian minds that Republika Srpska is “waiting for the proper historical circumstances” to unite with Serbia.

For how long is “the international community” prepared to let Dodik and Vucic, with Putin’s help, threaten Bosnia’s existence? What are they waiting for, another war?

As the time passes, and as the separatists in Republika Srpska gain strength, resources, popularity and armaments, along with the unprecedented discrimination against the Bosniaks and non-Serbs, I guess they’ll get it sooner rather than later. But then, will it be too late to react?

While we’re at it, allow me to do the counting for you: During the month of March, Dodik visited Serbia at least five times. Actually, he’s spending more time in Belgrade than in Banja Luka, and is frequently interviewed by the local media. In his tiringly long interviews, with no resistance from the media, he is spreading lies and propaganda, serving up his own plan about which he is very open – to break up Bosnia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik, 2014. Photo: EPA/ALEXEY NIKOLSKY /RIA NOVOSTI / KREMLIN POOL MANDATORY CREDIT / RIA NOVOSTI

For how long this will be tolerated is still unclear, but, judging by the latest reports from the EU and the US, nobody thinks this is such a big deal. Isn’t this eerily reminiscent of the early 1990s when the Western credo was: “Oh, they wouldn’t dare!” A gentle reminder: they did dare, a decade of carnage followed, and you should know better.

Back to the Serbia-Kosovo knot. Serbia’s “internal dialogue about Kosovo” started by President Vucic last year has come to an end. It was unclear what this “dialogue” entailed, as well as who the participants were.

It seems as if Vucic was having an internal dialogue about Kosovo – but only with himself. The public was excluded from this process of reckoning and reflection, leaving Vucic as the sole interlocutor in the dialogue that he had initiated.

Vucic went to great lengths to “make things better for our children” but obviously is not prepared to “give up the fight” that easily. So, Vucic decided to do what Vucic does best – throwing everything out of the window by creating a crisis and heating up the temperature in Serbia to boiling point.

After his return from New York, Vucic decided to take action and do a proper shake-up. He sent his lackey, Marko Djuric, the chief of Serbia’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija, to Kosovo, despite Kosovo’s ban on Djuric visiting the country.

Djuric was sitting in “Northern Mitrovica” for hours, patiently waiting for the Kosovo police to “suddenly” arrest him. One Serbian media outlet published the news about his arrest even before it happened.

In, what seems to be a joint stunt envisioned by Vucic and Thaçi, Djuric was “ruthlessly” taken to Pristina and then extradited to Serbia where he, naturally, immediately held a press conference.

Djuric presented himself to the enraged public stone cold, pale in face, spreading his arms and showing his hands in bandages, just as if he was put on a cross, while the media exploded with inflammatory comments about how “Kosovo terrorists harassed this bare-handed Serb.”

Head of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Marko Djuric, speaks during a press conference in Belgrade, 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

(Worth mentioning is another detail: the day after the dramatic press conference during which he explained how Serbia was humiliated through his extreme suffering, Djuric was attending another public event, only this time without bandages, his hands uninjured, the colour of his face back to normal. It seems that “monstrously harassed” Serbs heal really fast. Serbian politicians are famous for their poor acting skills, always accompanying it with unbearable shouting, fake seriousness and chest thumping, but Djuric’s performance was truly disappointing.)

Regardless, Vucic got what he needed: unlimited media space to cry injustice, Putin’s call that lasted “more than an hour”, and the public in a state of mass hysteria. Doing what she believed was expected, the EU’s Federica Mogherini promptly came to Belgrade, without any plan of action, gave a short conciliatory speech that nobody listened to, and left. On the other hand, not risking its almost non-existent support among the Serbian electorate, the “pro-democratic” opposition parties loudly “condemned Pristina’s actions”, so contributing to the noise that Vucic had created.

All of this infused Vucic with more gas, so he sent helicopters to fly over the border with Kosovo, and oversaw a military exercise by more than 900 troops that showcased “the scenario of how the army would react if the insurgent group attempted to secede a part of Serbia’s territory.”

Why all this fuss? Probably because this is his last opportunity to create real problems, so he can “solve” them in the years to come.

It is obvious, isn’t it, that the Association of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo is envisioned as akin to Republika Srpska in Bosnia. ASM would become a proto-state that would serve as a source of constant instability within the borders of a unitary state, always trying to break apart, join Serbia with which it would have “special connections”, and turning what could have become a functional state into a governance nightmare.

This is working just fine in Bosnia, why wouldn’t it work in Kosovo?

All we need for this to happen is a proper conflict, or at least a convincing possibility of one. But, since Vucic is running out of stunts, and they didn’t work out, judging by the latest actions conducted by Serbia with Russia’s support, we’re not far away from a “controlled” conflict, as if something like that never happened in this part of the world.

One spark is more than enough to put the region back in flames, and we should all be afraid of it.

Historically, March has always been the ugliest month in the Balkans. If nothing is done to reverse the dangerous trends in the near future, the month that just passed could be looked back on as the time during which “everything could have been prevented”, if only “the reactions had been appropriate.”

Let us hope that April will bring more informed and decisive reactions from those who could still prevent the Balkan strongmen from inciting another crisis with far-reaching consequences. We’re half a step from it now.

Milos Ciric is a Serbian politologist, educator, writer, media and human rights activist. He holds a BA in international relations from University of Belgrade, an MA in Cultural policy from the University of Arts, Belgrade and Lumière University Lyon 2, France, and an MA in Media studies from The New School University, New York.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.