SERBIA: ANTI-FASCISTS CLASH WITH NEO-NAZIS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BELGRADE 001400 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958:N/A TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL KPAO SR KV SUBJECT: SERBIA: ANTI-FASCISTS CLASH WITH NEO-NAZIS Summary -------------- ¶1. (U) An unauthorized neo-Nazi rally on October 7 in Novi Sad, Serbia, ended with police arrests, after fighting broke out with counter-demonstrators. Parliament took up the battle in overheated debate. The rally was relatively well-contained and not likely indicative of rising Serbian extremism. The turnout, particularly of the counter-protestors, illustrates Serbians' willingness to demonstrate political conviction and displeasure, in the streets. End Summary. Neo-Nazis Fight with Anti-Fascists -------------- ¶2. (U) Demonstrators clashed with a Serbian neo-Nazi group, Nacionalni Stroj (National Front),that marched through the streets of Novi Sad, Vojvodina, October 7, in defiance of a police ban. The group had scheduled their rally to coincide with the birthday of SS leader Heinrich Himmler. ¶3. (U) The National Front's plan attracted international and national attention to shut it down. On September 20, the World Jewish Congress condemned the neo-Nazi rally in letters to Serbia's President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and urged Serbia's leaders to "take whatever action is necessary to ensure that Nacionalni Stroj does not continue its repugnant incitement." ¶4. (U) The National Front's plan also provoked a response from local activists. Nenad Canak, leader of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV),on September 26, urged "anti-fascists" to rally in Novi Sad against a "neo-Nazi revival." On September 27, Serbian police banned the National Front's march. Canak told poloff that, even should the Nazis not march, his interest was to mobilize people now to prepare them to respond to anti-democratic actions that he anticipated radical extremists and others would organize post Kosovo status determination. Over 4,000 counter-protestors held a service, October 7, commemorating the victims of fascism, in particular the 1200 Serbs and Jews whom Novi Sad's Nazi occupiers massacred in ¶1942. Following the service the counter-demonstrators marched through the streets of Novi Sad, where, according to news reports, approximately 130 neo-Nazis, brandishing swastikas and chanting "Vojvodina Serbia" and "Serbia for the Serbs," attacked them. ¶5. (SBU) Police responded; some say appropriately, others not, and some changed their assessment, depending on the audience. One counter-demonstrator, speaking to poloff from the hospital, said that the neo-Nazis had hurled rocks and bottles and the counter-demonstrators had retaliated. The police responded, rounding up the National Front, breaking up fights, and arresting 56 of the neo-Nazi demonstrators including their leader, Goran "Fuehrer" Davidovic, and a few Slovak and Bulgarian nationals. Television broadcasts of the scene focused on the fray, which resulted in four lightly injured counter-protestors. ¶6. (SBU) Nenad Canak, who had called the anti-fascist demonstration, told poloff, late on October 7, that the police had been entirely professional in managing the confrontation. In a press conference, minutes later, however, Canak and others from the anti-fascist march called upon Interior Minister Dragan Jocic (DSS) to resign for failing to prevent the banned neo-Nazi rally and for the police's inability to protect the demonstrators. LDP leader Cedomir Jovanovic told the press that he was "angry that the citizens were attacked for no reason whatsoever," and condemned the GOS for failing to "prevent neo-Nazis [from stirring] even greater tension and disrupt[ing] order." MPs Cast Their Own "Stones" -------------- ¶7. (U) Members of Parliament (MPs) traded attacks across the aisle, October 8, over the Novi Sad incident. Canak and other opposition MPs suggested that the government and police were soft on neo-Nazism for not enforcing the ban on the rally and for not intervening to break up the fight until stones flew. The Democratic Party of Serbia Caucus chair, Milos Aligrudic, defended the police and accused Canak of extremism as reprehensible as the Nazis'. The exchange was heated enough for parliamentary speaker Oliver Dulic (DS) to suspend the session for an hour. Note on Nacionalni Stroj -------------- ¶8. (U) This was not the first time Nacionalni Stroj had run afoul of the law. In March 2005, the group sprayed anti-Semitic graffiti in Jewish cemeteries and news agency B92's property in Belgrade. In July 2005, during the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre, the group put up posters reading, "Noz, zica, Srebrenica" ("knife, wire, Srebrenica") and "Mladicu, hvala ti za srpsku Srebrenicu" ("Mladic, thank you for Serbian Srebrenica"). In January 2006, the group's leader, Davidovic, was sentenced to one year in jail for BELGRADE 00001400 002 OF 002 assaulting students in November 2005 at a Novi Sad university who were attending a lecture on the threat of fascism. Comment -------------- ¶9. (SBU) Trampled rights to free speech and assembly aside, Serbia kept the lid on a potentially much more explosive situation in Novi Sad. Nacionalni Stroj is vocal but small, and neither poses a threat to political stability nor heralds a rising political force in Serbia. Post has no reason to believe that there is a growing movement in Serbia of neo-Nazis. The presence of these groups in Serbia allows democratic forces to galvanize support to oppose them. We note, however, the readiness with which Serbians took to the streets to express their convictions -- and do so forcefully. End Comment MUNTER