Serbia’s ‘Sore Loser’ Policy on Kosovo
As the last kingpins (Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić) have moved to the Hague to face their trials, many Serbian’s expect a fast-track development in EU-Serbia talks. Tadic’s democratic party is currently facing a time window in, which it must act before the natioanlists hit the ground running by reeling in frustrated voters who are fed up with the indefinite situation in Kosovo and the equally indefinite staus of Serbia as an EU member state.
As Serbia battles the recession, organized hooligan factions such as the “Grobari” or “Chetniks” continue to find a breeding ground on which to cultivate their anti-government, anti-establishment and anti-EU rants. Future violent outbursts are to be expected if Belgrade fails to decisively solve the Northern Kosovo question and continues to be put on hold concerning its EU accession.
Examples of such organized politcal violence are the first ever Serbian Gay parade in 2001, in which homosexuals were given a heavy beating by the soccer hooligan groups of Belgrade. Recent events also include Serbian soccer “fans” staging a pyromaniac festival in Genua in 2010, disposing of smoke bombs, flares and their plastic seats onto the pitch. What seems like random testosterone driven aggression is in fact carefully orchestrated chaos just like most of Serbia’s football hooliganism. Paired with the bleak violence Serbian fans chanted nationalist rants in turn calling upon the martyr Battle of Kosovo.