Uzice After SNS Rally: Two Versions of One Square

Uzice is quiet this morning, but the town has woken up to two entirely different accounts of what happened at City Square the day before. Two gatherings had been announced for the same square on August 29: a citizens’ protest at 3 p.m. and a Serbian Progressive Party rally after 6 p.m. Both went ahead, and in between them came a police cordon, clashes, and an Interior Ministry statement that describes the day quite differently from witnesses and reporters who were there.

In brief:

• Citizens gathered at City Square in Uzice at 3 p.m.; the SNS rally, “United Serbia,” began after 6 p.m.
• Police in riot gear held a cordon while the crowd chanted “Arrest Vucic”
• SNS marshals beat one person; N1 reports two people injured and one detained person now in hospital
• MUP says no coercive measures were used and that around 150 people tried to block a lawfully registered gathering
• The morning after, according to city councilor Vladan Sindjic, the town is calm

The cordon before the rally

Riot police held a cordon around City Square from early afternoon and, according to Nova.rs, kept citizens from reaching the area where Aleksandar Vucic was due to speak that evening. The crowd chanted “Arrest Vucic.” Accounts diverge on whether tear gas was used: Nova.rs writes that many of those present say it was, while N1, in a live blog filed from the scene, states that tear gas was indeed used.

At one point, according to N1, SNS marshals beat one person, and a group of 20 to 30 people in black T-shirts charged at the gathered citizens. N1 reports that two people were injured in the incident and one was detained and is now in hospital. Students in blockade said in a statement issued on August 29 at 7:25 p.m. that the attackers chased, punched, kicked and threw a chair at one citizen, who sustained serious injuries.

“According to witnesses, one of the attackers was identified as a local thug from Bajina Basta,” the students in blockade said.

The rally and Vucic’s address

The SNS gathering began shortly after 6 p.m. Sources disagree even on when it ended: N1 puts it at around 6:45 p.m., Nova.rs at around 6:47 p.m., after an address by Vucic that lasted about half an hour. From the stage, Serbia’s president said that only 230 people from across the country had turned out to protest the rally in Uzice, led by Srdjan Milivojevic, and repeated that the country would vote on October 18 or 25.

Tensions did not ease once the rally ended. Police in riot control gear kept two groups apart as rally participants headed back to their buses. Petar Holik of the “Bravo” civic movement says local residents shouted back at SNS supporters, who then threw bottles and stones.

Who attacked whom?

This is where the accounts diverge most. B92 reported that blockade protesters attacked citizens over T-shirts bearing the image of General Ratko Mladic, attributing that claim to the Youth Initiative for Human Rights. The Youth Initiative itself, in a social media statement that B92 quoted, said the opposite: that citizens were being beaten by people wearing Mladic’s image on their jackets.

“While the police stay silent, people wearing jackets with Ratko Mladic’s image are beating citizens on the streets of Uzice. Think about that the next time someone tries to convince you that glorifying a criminal is patriotism,” the Youth Initiative for Human Rights said.

That same evening also saw an attack on an RTS cameraman, who was struck by a stone and received medical treatment, and the confiscation of a phone from a reporter with the Masina portal, even though he was wearing a vest marked PRESS and visible accreditation.

The Interior Ministry’s official version

The Interior Ministry published its statement on the events in Uzice on August 29 through the website of the Government of Serbia, and Tanjug carried it the same day at 5:25 p.m. The statement came from Ivica Dacic, deputy prime minister and interior minister, who said the gathering at the central City Square in Uzice had been registered by the Uzice Municipal Board of the Serbian Progressive Party, and that a group of around 150 people had tried to prevent that lawfully registered assembly.

“The Interior Ministry informs the public that a public assembly on the central City Square in Uzice was duly and lawfully registered by the Uzice Municipal Board of the Serbian Progressive Party,” Dacic said, adding that “no coercive measures have been used by police officers in their actions so far” and that “Interior Ministry personnel in Uzice are acting fully professionally, responsibly and strictly in accordance with the law.”

According to the statement, police issued warnings to people disrupting the gathering to move to a safe distance from the square. Independent sources see it differently: the European Democrats said police remained passive during the events, while the ministry insists the opposite, that officers acted professionally and lawfully. SNS leader Milos Vucevic backed the official version and accused the other side of violence.

“A rock at an RTS cameraman, a bladed weapon at police, banned instruments against citizens,” Vucevic wrote, adding that “that is who they are, and that is what their campaign will look like. But just as we did not back down from violence last year, we will not this year either.”

The morning after

While the official account and the witness accounts collided through the evening, the morning in Uzice, according to Green-Left Front councilor Vladan Sindjic, passed quietly.

“The whole circus has left, and it’s just us Uzice residents left in our town again,” Sindjic told N1. He described the town as having been under a three-day “siege,” with trucks, planes and stage equipment brought in, and said about two-thirds of rally participants arrived in Uzice on buses from outside town and left within an hour of the gathering’s end. He also noted that opposition councilors in the city assembly had earlier proposed forming a committee to welcome the president, but SNS councilors voted it down.

Students in blockade closed out the night with a short message: “They are leaving. Students are winning.”

Two versions of the same square, the media and witness account on one side, the Interior Ministry’s and SNS’s official version on the other, remain unreconciled. The next test for Uzice, as Vucic himself announced from the stage, comes at elections set for October 18 or 25.