Deserters from Russia in Serbia: Pledge of peace in the fight against terror

The most difficult thing that can happen to them is that the regime of Vladimir Putin demands from the regime of Aleksandar Vučić the extradition of deserters sentenced in absentia to multi-year prison sentences.

In the last wave of emigration, after the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin on mandatory mobilization, Belgrade became a haven for hundreds of deserters, conscripts who, because of their refusal to participate in the war, are threatened with long prison sentences. The fate of these young men, their girlfriends, newly founded families, and there will be more until the almost certain closure of the border, which is unofficially discussed in emigrant groups, is not news for Serbia, an undoubtedly aggressor state with thousands of internal emigrants – deserters in the 1990s.

The deserters worry about their fate, the fate of their close relatives they left behind in Russia, and those who came in February of this year (our interlocutors) highlight the cynicism of the West towards the anti-war movement in Russia. As if, they say, the West wants all anti-war Russians to be arrested, for Russian prisons to be full, but for protests by potential soldiers and their families to stop Vladimir Putin’s conquest intentions. They understand the fear of some countries about the arrival of a large number of emigrants, including Serbia, where they currently live, but they emphasize that Serbia is only a stepping stone on their way to one of the western countries. And they believe that helping people who do not want to kill, for any reason, is fundamentally human, political, religious – true humanism.

Black scenario: From prison to amnesty

In this context, they point out that the real rebels are deserters, those who fled Russia in 2014, and that among the current emigrants there are also those who support Putin, but are running away from the war. The Serbian alternative, which has extensive experience in providing support to deserters, did not differentiate between deserters’ motivation even at the beginning of the Yugoslav wars – it was enough that they did not want to kill and be sacrificed. Russian emigrants will be able to count on the hospitality and friendly relationship of alternative groups, perhaps parties and normal individuals, on modest public support, but certainly not on the benevolent relationship of the xenophobic world and the Russophiles who make up the majority, because there are also militant groups in Serbia that recruit weekend killers to go to the heart of Russian hegemonic adventures.

The most difficult thing that can happen to young Russians – deserters in Serbia is that Putin’s regime demands from the regime of Aleksandar Vučić the extradition of deserters sentenced in absentia to multi-year prison sentences (let’s not doubt that it will be so) and yes – can we imagine the refusal? – the manhunt began, which Serbia was already facing, when it wanted to fill its units in Slavonia, during the siege of Vukovar and after it. When dreams were already breaking that, until morning, ideologues would drink coffee in the “Esplanade”.

Therefore, deserters from Russia could be extradited to Russia and sent to serve their sentence, and they cannot count on amnesty, which, along with resistance and the key word associated with deserter movements, they cannot count on, even while Putin is in power. The amnesty laws of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) were passed under pressure from the European Union, which the Russian deserters cannot count on. And that pressure also has its other side. It did not, as the eminent lawyer and activist Biljana Kovačević – Vučo wrote, enable conscientious objection, refusal to participate in the war for moral and political reasons.

Mobilized became a ‘legitimate military target’

This law, adopted according to the order written in the Dayton Agreement, was consistently applied, according to the European Union countries, so “conscientious objectors who were not granted the right of residence in some of those countries were deported.” “After returning to FR Yugoslavia, and after the start of the NATO bombing, they were mobilized and became a ‘legitimate military target’. Long-term opposition to the war and refusal to participate in it was eventually ‘rewarded’ by their sacrifice and reduction to cannon fodder”, wrote Biljana Kovačević – Vučo.

The fate of the Russian deserters is certainly in the hands of the European Union, but an inglorious end is already looming, in which they will be left to an alternative. Staša Zajović, coordinator of the Belgrade anti-militarist group Women in Black, says that “deserters are a pledge of peace. Desertion should be supported, the fate of deserters who refused to be cannon fodder in Putin’s imperial aggression should be dealt with by all European Union countries, and visas should be given to them. They only need to act in accordance with the Founding Act of the European Union and the Resolution on deserters from 1994”, she emphasizes.

Regarding the protests in Russia, he points out that currently “the greatest moral imperative for the entire citizenry in the aggressor state is to support all men who do not want to go to war. For years, since 2014, we have been in contact with women’s groups and activists from Russia, I admire them and I know that they will do their best to save as many men as possible from going to the front”, says Staša Zajović.

Rebellion against mass murderers

There is, therefore, room for comparison with desertion in Serbia from the beginning of the nineties (resistance to mobilization was also recorded in Montenegro); the difference is that there were no mass arrests of opponents of the war in Serbia; resistance was expressed through non-violent actions, some of which were mass, but the deserters were faced with persecution by the military police, in cooperation with the “civilian”, and a wide network of informers, in Serbian everyday speech – callers, was engaged. These are the civilians who bring the invitations, and if no one receives the mobilization invitation, they write comments on the back of their own discretion (“music is heard from the house”, “seen during the day”, “the neighbor says he is leaving for college in the morning”). Enough for the zealous regime judiciary to sentence – it was not rare – five years in prison.

It was difficult for military deserters in Serbia in 1991, when numerous protests were organized. However, the most effective actions were to help deserters who were not allowed to sleep in their homes, their hiding was done by an alternative aid network. In any case, during the campaign in the summer and fall of 1991, only about fifteen percent of those invited responded to mobilization calls in Belgrade, and even less in Vojvodina. The other reservists were waiting to be in the large opposing group. (“When they attack Serbia – here we are!”)

In the second half of 1991, garrison rebellions began, the largest in Kragujevac, about 7,000 people refused to go to the battlefield, then about 2,000 mobilized from that garrison returned from Slavonia; followed by Smederevo, Kruševac, Arandjelovac, Bač, Niš, Vranje, Valjevo, Velika Plana, Topola, Svilajnac… It is estimated that 140,000 people were mobilized in Serbia in 1991 and 1992, and that at least 100,000 young men fled the country. Criminal proceedings were initiated against about 10,000 deserters. At least 55,000 mobilized took part in the reservists’ revolts. Not enough to end the war, to defeat fear. Enough for everyone to face their conscience.

That’s what Dobrica Ćosić and Momo Kapor said

The deserters were under pressure from their parents and elders, there was fear of condemnation from the patriarchal environment and the public, and regime propaganda created an atmosphere of slander and lynching towards them. The Great Serbian ideologues were inspired, let us not doubt that it is the same in Russia. Dobrica Ćosić, the key creator of Greater Serbia’s hegemonic campaigns, always freakishly creative, condemned pacifism, calling it “lies and cowardice”: “I consider neutrality today, when war is being waged against the Serbian people, to be a lie and moral cowardice. (…) in the days of the Ustasha war against the Serbian people in Croatia (…) ideological and pacifist rhetoric is meaningless (…) it is Serbian anti-Serbism.”

The first one after big boss, among the Serbian immortals will teach the Serbs with words a little harsher among like-minded people: “As Professor Radovan Samardžić says, the Serbs have always had a high percentage of waste. Serbs who are not even Serbs”, Matija Bećković will say, not at all nonchalant, as the Serbian public knew him, the writer Momo Kapor will say (but a little later): “It seems to me that at this moment Belgrade is, unfortunately, a real five-column city, full of troublemakers, cowards, false pacifists, supporters of the opposite camp, but it is not the whole of this country of Serbia, which can even at this moment allow itself that luxury and endure that menagerie on its hump from which it can be shaken off like that boar from Karađorđe’s flag that shakes off annoying fleas.”

There is no one left to shoot people

They did their best, but still the Serbian political and military elite pulled their hair out: “One elite unit of the Guards Division experienced disintegration – it was left without an army due to the departure of conscripts after completing their military service, and the reservists failed to fill it. Only the Third Brigade from Požarevac was successfully mobilized. She pulled the Vinkovac unit out of the blockade. The second mechanized brigade (Valjevci) completely escaped. They are orthodox Serbian nationalists. Now in Šid stands the complete equipment of the Second Mechanized Brigade without the army. Slavonia needed a lot of troops, they don’t have infantry”, notes Borisav Jović in the book The Last Days of the SFRY.

It remains a matter of conjecture what the outcome would have been in Slavonia, the whole of Croatia, and later in Bosnia and Herzegovina, if the response to Slobodan Milošević’s mobilizations had been more significant. What new plans would be devised. Would one publicly and loudly dream beyond Karlobag and Virovitica (as, the truth is muttered, known today). And for a complementary scientific approach, the question is why the able-bodied residents of Serbia until 1996 (until then Milošević did not have to steal) circled the one who sent their sons to the slaughterhouse on their ballots. To kill other people’s children./Al Jazeera