1 in 5 Million protest marks anniversary of Croatia military operation

N1

Participants in the 1 in 5 Million Saturday protests in Belgrade paused their march through the center of the Serbian capital at St Mark’s Church to light candles to the people killed in the Croatian military’s Operation Storm 24 years ago.

The operation was launched to take control of parts of Croatia which were in the hands of local Serb forces.

The protest march started at Terazije square after the crowd was told by Belgrade City Assembly member Uros Markovic that the authorities had sent private security guards to the Milan Gale Muskatirovic sports center to take it away from the Stari Grad municipality which is in the hands of the opposition. Markovic called the crowd to help prevent the takeover by the city authorities.

Movement for Change leader Janko Veselinovic repeated the Alliance for Serbia pledge to boycott future elections unless the conditions for free and fair elections set by the 1 in 5 Million protest were met.

The protest march also paused at the Serbian Presidency building where one of the protest organizers said that the meeting between the authorities and opposition happened because of the protests but added that it took 35 weeks for that dialogue to start which, he said, shows that there is no democracy in Serbia.