Kosovo Serb politician says marchers were blackmailed

The 200 Kosovo Serb marchers are going to Belgrade to attend next Saturday’s gathering of President Aleksandar Vucic’s Movement for the People and the State, mimicking the student protest marches over the past few months.

Serb National Movement leader Milija Bisevac told the KoSSev news portal that he and fellow Kosovo Serbs knows the people in the march. “We realize that this is just another instrument the Belgrade authorities are using for political fighting with their rivals to act like they’re fighting for Kosovo and to show people that they have the support of the people in Kosovo,” Bisevac said.

According to him, most of the people in the marching group “do not believe in what they’re doing”. “Most are being blackmailed. I am sure that there is a small number of people who believe but I am sure that most of those young people are not there of their own free will but have been called in by their bosses,” he said.

The Kosovo Serb marchers have been on the road for 3 days. Social media posts included videos of them getting into buses along the way as well as claims that they could not have covered the distances that they claim to have covered. N1 reporters covering the Kosovo Serb march tried to talk to them but were refused.