Demonstrators protest Jared Kushner’s plans to transform former army HQ bombed by NATO into luxury hotel and shopping site.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Serbia’s capital Belgrade to voice discontent over a luxury real estate project spearheaded by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of United States President Donald Trump.
The protests took place on Monday in front of the country’s former army headquarters, which were destroyed in a US-led NATO bombing campaign in 1999 as part of the Kosovo war, and are now being leased by the Serbian authorities to Kushner’s Affinity Partners investment firm, so they can be transformed into a high-end compound.
“It is the 26th anniversary of the NATO bombing. And we protest because this building has been given to someone to make profit,” said Ognjen Pjevac, a 20-year-old University of Belgrade student. “But it should remain here as it is a testimony to NATO aggression.”
Protesters demanded that the site, comprised of two buildings designed by Serbian architect Nikola Dobrovic that were damaged by NATO’s bombing of what was then Yugoslavia, be reinstated as a heritage site and that plans for the development project be scrapped.
Serbia’s architects, engineers and opposition parties have opposed the government’s multimillion-dollar contract with Kushner, which includes a 99-year lease on the prime land in the heart of Belgrade.
The demonstration was the latest in a series of massive protests against the government of President Aleksandar Vucic, who has been in power for 12 years as prime minister or president and is accused by critics of corruption and democratic backsliding.
Last November’s collapse of a roof at a train station in Serbia’s second-biggest city of Novi Sad, a disaster that claimed the lives of 15 people, became a lightning rod for dissatisfaction with Vucic’s administration, bringing thousands onto the streets in sustained demonstrations.
Critics blamed the crash on government corruption, negligence and disrespect for construction safety rules during renovation.
Earlier in 2024, there were also mass protests against the government’s greenlighting of plans for a controversial lithium mine set to serve as a vital power source in Europe’s green energy transition, which opponents say will pollute water sources and endanger public health.
Serbia maintains a balancing act between its historical ties with the European Union and Russia. But has leaned closely to Moscow for decades now.
Earlier this month, Vucic posted on Instagram that Russian President Vladimir Putin had expressed his support for Serbia’s authorities amid what he called the “coloured revolution”, a reference to popular uprisings experienced by former Soviet states.
Monday also marked Remembrance Day for the victims of NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign that started on March 24, 1999.
The US-led NATO air war, launched to stop Belgrade’s crackdown against separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, still provokes strong emotions in Serbia. Kosovo became an independent state in 2008 but some in Serbia still call for its reintegration.
The bombed-out former army compound had become a symbol of Serb resistance.
If transformed by Kushner, it would feature a Trump hotel, luxury apartments, office spaces and shops, along with a memorial for the victims of the bombing.
