Belgrade, Jan 27 (EFE).- Serbia’s president, nationalist Aleksandar Vučić, on Monday called for dialogue with protesters blocking a road junction in Belgrade and insisted that the demands of the months-long protests had been met.
“This situation in society does not suit anyone and does not benefit anyone in Serbia (…). We are in a kind of interregnum, a kind of vacuum in which we are not talking to each other,” Vučić said in a televised address to the country, in which he toned down the harsh discourse he had previously maintained against the protesters, whom he had previously accused of being foreign agents.
“The question is whether all this is enough for them to recognize that all the demands have been met. I hope so, but I am not sure. But at least let’s start a dialogue,” he said.
Thousands of young people blocked traffic on Monday morning at the Autokomanda highway junction, where two major roads from the southeast converge on the way to downtown Belgrade, and which also connects Belgrade with the city of Novi Sad.
For months, the Serbian government has faced a wave of citizen protests in more than 100 cities and towns demanding political and judicial ability for the deaths of 15 people in Novi Sad on Nov. 1, when the cantilever of a recently rebuilt train station collapsed.
The university students leading the movement are demanding that all documents related to the awarding of the contract to Chinese companies and the execution of the work be made public and analyzed.
They also call for the investigation and trial of those responsible for attacks and spying on protesters and, Vučić said on Monday that 925 documents on the reconstruction of the train station in Novi Sad had been published and that all the students’ demands would be met within the next few days at the latest, from the publication of the rest of the documentation to the pardoning of activists arrested during the protests.
Students from the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Belgrade, who are among those leading the demonstrations, pointed out that they are not only demanding the documentation but also that the Prosecutor’s Office conduct a review of the documentation and take action against those guilty of the accident.
In addition, Vučić assured that 37 indictments have been filed in an emergency procedure against alleged aggressors of demonstrators.
He also promised to increase the budget for higher education by 20%.
On Friday, as protesters declared a day of general strike and “civil disobedience” in which thousands participated, Vučić assured his ers that the protests were aimed at forcing him to sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and called on “patriots” to resist internal and external destructive forces. EFE
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