War In Serbia As Parliament Goes Up In Flames

War In Serbia

OpenLife Nigeria reports that Serbian opposition lawmakers, on Tuesday, threw smoke grenades and tear gas inside parliament to protest against the government and support demonstrating students, with one legislator suffering a stroke during the chaos.

Four months of student-led demonstrations have drawn in teachers, farmers and others to become the biggest threat yet to President Aleksandar Vucic’s decade-long rule, with many Serbians denouncing corruption and incompetence in government.

At the legislative session, after the ruling coalition led by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) approved the agenda, some opposition politicians ran out of their seats towards the parliamentary speaker and scuffled with security guards.

Others tossed smoke grenades and tear gas, with live TV showing black and pink smoke inside the parliament, which has also witnessed brawls and throwing of water in the decades since the introduction of multi-party democracy in 1990.

Politician Hurt

Speaker Ana Brnabic said two lawmakers were injured, with one, Jasmina Obradovic of the SNS party, suffering a stroke and in critical condition. “The parliament will continue to work and to defend Serbia,” she told the session.

As the session continued, ruling coalition politicians debated while opposition lawmakers whistled and blew horns.

Opposition deputies also held signs reading “general strike,” and “justice for the killed”, while outside the building protesters stood in silence to honour 15 people killed by a railway station roof collapse that was the spark for the protest movement.

Protest leaders called for a major rally in the capital Belgrade on March 15.
The ruling coalition says Western intelligence agencies are trying to destabilise Serbia and topple the government by backing the protests.

Parliament was due on Tuesday to adopt a law increasing funds for universities – one of the main demands of students blocking faculties since December.

Parliament had also been due to note the resignation of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic. But other items put on the agenda by the ruling coalition angered the opposition.

Serbia is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Southeast and Central Europe. It is located in the Balkans and the Pannonian Plain.

It borders Hungary to the north, Romania to the northeast, Bulgaria to the southeast, North Macedonia to the south, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west, and Montenegro to the southwest.

Serbia claims a border with Albania through the disputed territory of Kosovo. Serbia has about 6.6 million inhabitants, excluding Kosovo. Its capital Belgrade is also the largest city.

Continuously inhabited since the Paleolithic Age, the territory of modern-day Serbia faced Slavic migrations in the 6th century. Several regional states were founded in the early Middle Ages and were at times recognised as tributaries to the Byzantine, Frankish and Hungarian kingdoms.

The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by the Holy See and Constantinople in 1217, reaching its territorial apex in 1346 as the Serbian Empire. By the mid-16th century, the Ottomans annexed the entirety of modern-day Serbia; their rule was at times interrupted by the Habsburg Empire, which began expanding towards Central Serbia from the end of the 17th century while maintaining a foothold in Vojvodina.

In the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the region’s first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory.

In 1918, in the aftermath of World War I, the Kingdom of Serbia united with the former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina; later in the same year it joined with other South Slavic nations in the foundation of Yugoslavia, which existed in various political formations until the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.

During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro, which was peacefully dissolved in 2006, restoring Serbia’s independence as a sovereign state.

In 2008, representatives of the Assembly of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, with mixed responses from the international community while Serbia continues to claim it as part of its own sovereign territory.

Serbia is an upper-middle income economy and provides universal health care and free primary and secondary education to its citizens. It is a unitary parliamentary constitutional republic, member of the UN, Council of Europe, OSCE, PfP, BSEC, CEFTA, and is acceding to the WTO.

Since 2014, the country has been negotiating its EU accession, with the possibility of joining the European Union by 2030. Serbia formally adheres to the policy of military neutrality.