Meanwhile In Balkans...

[blatob]

To be honest, we already have cases of criminals from Bosnia, being used as police, to beat and arrest people. As well as they used Serbs from Bosnia, driven here by a busload last year, to vote on local elections. There are rumors of Moldovans being used, too, but it is unverified. Sadly, what I wrote above is not so far from imagining. I saw so many ridiculous things being done that I wouldn't be surprised.

[Ssnake]

...or maybe the leaders of Serbia are just corrupt and detached from their population, or this is an attempt to score some goodwill points in foreign policy without spending much thought on domestic policy implications.

[blatob]

They are massively corrupted, detached from the population and attached to the organized crime. Be glad that you cannot believe in  worse then that. 

[bojan]

6 hours ago, Ssnake said:

...or maybe...

You really have no clue what is going ATM in Serbia?

[Laser Shark]

12 hours ago, blatob said:

Getting people who can be loyal to the government that pays them, but not connect with the local population

Common practice by kings and nobility for the exact reason. And if the situation gets a bit too heated, then the foreigners can be easily scapegoated and thrown under the bus.

Classic case of divide and conquer.

[glenn239]

2 hours ago, bojan said:

You really have no clue what is going ATM in Serbia?

For me no, so it would be interesting for more posts to be made here on this topic.  

[bojan]

I have posted a vid that explains it at decent level for total beginners. But things have escalated since then, including state sponsored thugs violence, total disregard for law by ruling party and many, many more things.

[urbanoid]

1 minute ago, bojan said:

I have posted a vid that explains it at decent level for total beginners. But things have escalated since then, including state sponsored thugs violence, total disregard for law by ruling party and many, many more things.

Do you consider this 'immigration scheme' as some kind of a weird punishment for the protests, given the high youth unemployment in Serbia? 

[bojan]

Both that and another way of control. Most common way for vote harvesting is to offer employment to people in exchange for their participation in "Bulgarian train" vote rigging, mandatory ruling party happenings participation and other such activities.

But with loads of private companies and certain lack of workers, younger people, especially students were avoiding this, because they could find work, at least shitty one (food delivery etc). Two front were organized against this - more attempt to take over and directly control companies by people loyal to ruling party, then require party membership in order to get a job (or at least get people with party membership employed first) and importation of workers, for two reasons - one is it even further knok down labor price*, and other is to fill such jobs, blackmailing younger people with party membership in order to get even shitty job (because companies controlled by "reliable" people will still employ "right" people even if they are formally "fully staffed".

Which is again combination of desire for control and pure old fashioned greed by (usually ruling party controlled) business owners, same reason why loads of things in local Lidl are more expensive then in Lidl in Germany, despite labor cost and acquisition price of products sourced locally being way lower.

[urbanoid]

7 minutes ago, bojan said:

Both that and another way of control. Most common way for vote harvesting is to offer employment to people in exchange for their participation in "Bulgarian train" vote rigging, mandatory ruling party happenings participation and other such activities.

But with loads of private companies and certain lack of workers, younger people, especially students were avoiding this, because they could find work, at least shitty one (food delivery etc). Two front were organized against this - more attempt to take over and directly control companies by people loyal to ruling party, then require party membership in order to get a job (or at least get people with party membership employed first) and importation of workers, for two reasons - one is it even further knok down labor price*, and other is to fill such jobs, blackmailing younger people with party membership in order to get even shitty job (because companies controlled by "reliable" people will still employ "right" people even if they are formally "fully staffed".

Which is again combination of desire for control and pure old fashioned greed by (usually ruling party controlled) business owners, same reason why loads of things in local Lidl are more expensive then in Lidl in Germany, despite labor cost and acquisition price of products sourced locally being way lower.

Holy fuck, that's USSR/commieblock level - as far as the bolded part is concerned. The 'Bulgarian train' thing is also a third world-tier stuff, but nobody among the 'democratic partners' seems to shit a brick for obvious reasons, quite the contrary in fact. 

As for the last paragraph... well, I'd say we're economically colonized to a large degree, that might be similar - or likely worse, depending on the prices, especially if you take the wages into account. At least we do get something in return with EUbucks, in your case it seems like what IIRC @ink once described, all the drawbacks of the EU(-like) membership (including draining the workforce), but with none of the benefits.

[bojan]

19 minutes ago, urbanoid said:

Holy fuck, that's USSR/commieblock level...

Worse than commie time here - back then director of the company had to be party member. But real power in every company was technical director, who actually ran company day-to-day and was often not a party member. No party membership was needed for any other position, nor was party member given priority if he did not already fulfil all other requirements.

 

[urbanoid]

Well, yeah, on general level y'all had a commie paradise there compared to e.g. us, though OTOH we objectively had it much better than most of the others actually in the commieblock, which Yugoslavia was not really a part of. 

[blatob]

If you will, local brand of socialism back then could be explained, in extremely simplified form, as employees being also shareholders. 

Today's system, unlike socialism, has no ideological background. It is nothing more then kleptocracy in it's unadulterated form. Or, better said, it pretends to have ideology. As it is needed, they will be nationalists, russophiles, supporters of EU, ones who do not surrender Kosovo, etc. All suited to different audience. Real problem is that almost 99% of media are under their direct control. So many people do not even know what is going on. And some of them even live in Belgrade. 

For them protesters are traitors payed handsomely by foreign governments and Soros. I had a family member trying to convince me that students are trained to jump on passing cars, that they should be beaten, arrested or shot at. But our president is all merciful and he doesn't allow that, but soon, soon, the time will come... And such excrement. By the way, Serbia does not have presidential system of government. His role is purely ceremonial and main honcho is PM. But then, who cares about constitution.

 

 

[Roman Alymov]

Interesting take from Yugoslavia history from Russian historian https://t.me/historiographe/22172

"The Kosovo tragedy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of the traditional socialist friendship of the people. 

It was like this. 

After World War II, Kosovo was pretty deserted, as the Albanians staged bloody ethnic cleansing of Serbs in the province, several tens of thousands were killed, and another 80 or 100 thousand fled. 

Stalin would have solved the problem simply: he would have carried out an exchange of the population (Albanians from Kosovo to Albania, Serbs from Albania to Kosovo) and resettlement to Kosovo from other regions of Serbia. 

But Tito was a cunning man and therefore acted in exactly the opposite way. 

He decided to make an Albanian region out of Kosovo in order to be able to absorb Albania on occasion. They established national autonomy within the Socialist Republic of Serbia, restricted the movement of Serbs to Kosovo, welcomed the relocation of Albanians from Albania, and poured federal money into the autonomy. Life in Kosovo was rich with federal money, Albanians moved from poor Albania, but surprisingly it was Albania thy remained loyal to and advocated the separation of the region from the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia and joining Albania. The replacement of the population organized by the federal government was successfully implemented, autonomous Kosovo demanded the expansion of its rights, the federal center gave more and more autonomy,  by 1981 it came to Albanian riots, international friendship between Albanians and suppressed Serbs rose to unprecedented heights, then, seeing that everything was heading towards the separation of Kosovo, the Albanian autonomy was finally decided cut back - and then it came to a full-scale war, with ethnic cleansing and other joys.

The moral of this fable is that a federal state always loses to a neighboring nation-state in cunning national friendship games, even if it is small and weak like Albania."

[ink]

On 7/20/2025 at 11:39 PM, urbanoid said:

At least we do get something in return with EUbucks, in your case it seems like what IIRC @ink once described, all the drawbacks of the EU(-like) membership (including draining the workforce), but with none of the benefits.

Not only none of the benefits, but also (more or less) active EU support for the regime*.

It's a clusterfuck.

 

* the way things are going, even "regime" is too nice a word - "mafia clan" might be more appropriate.

 

On 7/22/2025 at 10:38 PM, Roman Alymov said:

Stalin would have solved the problem simply: he would have carried out an exchange of the population (Albanians from Kosovo to Albania, Serbs from Albania to Kosovo) and resettlement to Kosovo from other regions of Serbia. 

Leaving aside any moral implications of this idea, outside of the wet dreams of nationalists, there has probably never been a time when Serbia/Yugoslavia had the political capacity (without knockon effects it could reasonably deal with) to just make that happen.

Pre- and post-WWII, Yugoslavia was just too delicately balanced for someone to just evict a million people at the stroke of a pen without some other party in the state loosing their shit... Or without otherwise causing an international outcry/war with Albania... or any other calamitous outcome.

Stalin could do a lot of things that small and politically weak countries just didn't have as an option.

[JWB]

Things in Serbia are getting even more complicated.

 

 

[bojan]

"Erupted yesterday"

Clueless people are clueless.

It is 9 months and 13 days since they are going, including two 1/4 million gatherings in Belgrade.

[blatob]

Indeed. Protests are going on in every city and even in villages on daily basis, in one form or another for over nine months now.

Previous week has seen incresed violence from government side, usualy done by masked "loyalists", in fact criminals. Drug dealers, money lenders, people who due to party connection own companies or are set up as manager of public companies allowing them to embezzle money from public funds. We have whole criminal elite that runs everything in the country. 

These people are now send as "honest citizens protecting the party headquarters". They stand behind police line (riot gear) and they fire fireworks  and throw stones at protesters.

Police has been infiltrated through with crimsls, too, during past years. For employment you need three-month course (shorter now, I belive) and party membership. In some cases they are brought from Bosnia. They are sent from their city into other parts and given free reign, to beat people.

 

Our dictatorship has attacted Slovak minority centers in north of the coutry. Last night saw police beating people for no reason, including them storming coffee shops, holding taxi cabs and then hauling people out, beating them and arresting them. People who had no connection with protests and who were nowhere near it. We have videos of juveniles being hancuffed for hanging around the park, as most kids do in summer. Again, no connection with protests. 

Nothing of this is seen in strictly controlled media. The pretestors are portreyed as savages and media presenters call for violence against them.

[bojan]

This.

[glenn239]

What are the core issues?  Economics, politics, cultural?   The article said the government was "pro-Russian", but I thought Serbia was pro-EU?

[bojan]

Corruption and total dictatorship by government in general and president in particular:

Quote

The article said the government was "pro-Russian"

Yeah, sure.

While exporting more weapons to Ukraine than half of the NATO members.

[Pavel Novak]

10 hours ago, blatob said:

...

Our dictatorship has attacted Slovak minority centers in north of the coutry. Last night saw police beating people for no reason, including them storming coffee shops, holding taxi cabs and then hauling people out, beating them and arresting them. People who had no connection with protests and who were nowhere near it. We have videos of juveniles being hancuffed for hanging around the park, as most kids do in summer. Again, no connection with protests. 

Nothing of this is seen in strictly controlled media. The pretestors are portreyed as savages and media presenters call for violence against them.

This is now reported in CZ. But why Slovaks in the first place? Slovak PM Fico is fully supporting serbian government and these attacks are now showing that he is not really protecting national interests.

[bojan]

Because locals had a guts to elect non-ruling party affiliated person for their cultural center director few months ago despite intimidations and attempts on vote rigging, and citizens and new director staged exhibition with a photos of protests at the city center.

Not really ethnically motivated, but as petty as it goes, but that is the way it is, no divergence from Official Truth will be tolerated.

[blatob]

Indeed. They try to put a wedge wherever possible. To produce enemies and connect protesters with whatever enemy of our nation there might be in their minds snd minds of zombies that listen and belive their propagnda machine. 

Past few weeks saw attempts at stirring a confrontation between Serbs and Bosniaks in Raška region. 

Do not forget that our dictator's motto in 90s was "hundred dead muslims for one killed Serb". 

Such attempts will continue. Target might change, but I doubt. When you think of Serbia, do not think of  government. Imagine a country ruled by a narco cartel and maybe you will get a picture. Everything is run directly from one single possition. 

By the way,wanna see video of beaten arestees made to kneel in front of the wall, execution style? "Not even Germans did it" , one said.

[Pavel Novak]

Thank you for responses. I was not aware that it went down this much.