WHILE Belgrade and Serbia are shaken up with the protests against the regime of the president of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic, who is now amid the delicate negotiations about Kosovo with the international leaders such as the president of France Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, what Vucic can't stop talking about is - Croatia.
Serbian president mentioned Croatia often these days in the context of someone who encourages Belgrade's rebellion due to re-introducing the lockdown.
From all "the conspiracies against Serbia" Vucic relentlessly rambles on about the Croatia theory
From all the possible "conspiracies against Serbia" which are characteristic of the politics of the former Seselj's supporter Vucic, he has chosen Croatia as the key enemy of Serbia: a country that encourages protests in Serbia and wants to perform a violent shift in power in the government, a country whose media, coordinated with the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, "attacks Serbia and Aleksandar Vucic." Jadranka Kosor and Davor Ivo Stier are also a part of the game if we were to believe Vucic.
Vucic also found a way to mention Croatia in his two-hour guest performance last night in the TV show "Hit tvit" on the pro-government commercial TV Pink, presenting all "evidence" against Croatia.
Serbian president concluded that a campaign "more powerful than ever before" was launched against him in Croatia, and he repeated several times that Serbia would be more successful than Croatia in economy and GDP growth.
Vucic claims that Croatia wants to stop the economic growth of Serbia
"They are panicking, and if I were them - I would panic too, because Serbia will surpass them in the total GDP rate by the end of the next year, and it will never, ever be in front of us again," Vucic said and claimed that he would leave that to the citizens of Serbia as an inheritance.
When the TV host asked him why did this matter so much to him, the president answered with a counter-question. "Why wouldn't it be important to me? Shouldn't our economy's success be important to me?" he asked and added that he isn't telling anything wrong about Croatia, as opposed to Croatia.
One more attack on the Croatian media
"I read the worst muck, the worst lies every day. They would be okay with Hitler's followers as long as they were against Vucic because only Vucic bothers them. I have no problem with that," he said.
The TV host commented that it seemed that "there was a special rivalry between Serbia and Croatia, both ways."
"There's no rivalry on our side. Their rivalry is to destroy Vucic and destroy Serbia. And my rivalry is for the Serbian economy to be better than Croatian," said Vucic.
Vucic is spreading conspiracy theories
However, everyone in Croatia knows that the Croatian government doesn't even care who will surpass Croatia because they have dragged it to the very bottom of every EU ranking, and they don't plan to stop. That Croatia is very worried to allegedly be behind Serbia is a story that can only be told in Serbia. The idea that the Croatian intelligence services and the media coordinatively attack Vucic to stop the long-run economic rise of Serbia is way too ridiculous.
Vucic's conspiracy theory about Croatia being a factor of instability in the region, i.e., the country that is behind the Belgrade protest, cannot survive any rational perspective, but no one has been expecting rationality from Serbian president for a long time.
Vucic mentioned Croatia after the meeting with Merkel in Berlin.
He attacks Croatia even in Berlin
"Let them rejoice," he said and added that he is satisfied when they rejoice and believe in the Serbian bad luck because then it's clear to him that Croatia has much bigger problems with Serbia's strength and they cannot stand Serbia's successes, which are bigger than Croatian.
In any event, it sounds better to deal with the imaginary Croatian enemies than having to explain the negotiations about Kosovo, the reason why Vucic went to the European tour in the first place.
Is it all Index's fault?
Actually, a precise date can be set on when the latest conspiracy theory against Croatia was born. It was on April 8, when Index published an article titled: "Vucic is leading Serbia off into destruction amid the coronavirus pandemic."
Index thoroughly dealt with failures and aggressive behavior of Vucic's government in the pandemic, and the article had an exceptionally high readership and was shared on social media in Serbia, where Vucic controls most of the media.
That sparked an extreme regime's reaction and set up a narrative that Vucic is spreading to this day.
Vucic: I understand the hatred
Vucic commented on Index's article when the regime journalist asked him about "the attacks from Croatia" in Nis on April 10.
Vucic said that he didn't mind that Croatia was writing about him, stating that bad mood in that county began because, in his view, Serbia was progressing much faster than Croatia.
"I don't mind. I'm perhaps the only one against whom they lead a permanent campaign. For the first time in decades, perhaps even in centuries, Serbia is progressing faster than Croatia. Perhaps I would also react like that if I were them. I don't say that I justify hatred, but I do understand it," said Vucic.
Vucic is open about his hatred towards Croats and Croatia
"I understand hatred," those words are worth mentioning. Vucic is honest when he says that he understands hatred because he has spent his entire political career openly and publicly hating Croats and Croatia.
He was a fanatic member of the Delije, attended the legendary match in Maksimir between Crvena Zvezda and Dinamo in 1990, and considers Croats as enemies since his phase of a football supporter. He started his political career as Vojislav Seselj's apprentice, who was convicted because of being a warmonger. One of Seselj's most monstrous statements was about Croats and killings with a spoon, but that's precisely what attracted Vucic to the Serbian Radical Party. Then there's Vucic infamous speech from 1995 in Glina, in the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina, when he called Serbs to vote for the radicals and claimed that they would know how to actualize the Greater Serbian borders Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag. A few months later, Operation Storm made that speech particularly comical. In the meantime, Vucic denied the speech, but there's the video of the speech online, which proves that the president of Serbia is lying.
>> How did Seselj's lapdog become the absolute ruler of Serbia?
Croatia became a scapegoat since 2017
Getting closer to Croatia failed due to many reasons, not all of them is Serbia's fault, but it left Vucic resentful.
Since he became the president of Serbia in 2017, Vucic started organizing commemorations for the Serbian victims of Operation Storm, where he compares Croatia to Hitler's Germany. Vucic, Vulin, and Dacic often said that all Croats are the Ustashas and gave lessons about neo-Ustashas in today's Croatia. In doing so, they don't even try to be diplomatic when criticizing; they instead use incendiary nazi speech and "we or them" rhetoric, which was designed to incent the masses.
Analyst Hajric: A standard spin technique
We spoke to Belgrade sociologists and commentator Darijo Hajric for an analysis.
We asked him why Vucic blames Croatia for the protests in Serbia.
"Vucic uses one of his standard spin techniques: he creates confusion. People from his orbit have heard through the pro-government media so far as who is behind the protests: the opposition party, Russian intelligence services, Torcida supporters, Britons, secret agents with Morse code in their pockets, fascists. Of course, not everything can be correct - nothing is correct, but Vucic offers various explanations to feed the paranoia and lets the Serbs decide and choose which answer best suits their outlook. The logic is simple: when there are so many answers, one has to be right. After that, he only has to see which spin is the most popular and then boost it even more. But this time, it seems that Croatia is not in the center of propaganda," Hajric explained.
Vucic will always be obsessed with Croatia
In Vucic's psychopolitical constellation, Croatia remained an old wound because of the unaccomplished Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag border, and an old enemy because of the NDH (The Independent State of Croatia) and Operation Storm. Vucic will always be obsessed with Croatia, and at the same time, filled with hatred, but also with vanity to be the one Serbian leader who will accomplish some sort of historical agreement with Croats. The fact that in this situation he can use Croatia for winning points of its electorate and divert the attention from the protests is just an added bonus.
What would be the smartest move for Croatia in this situation? It's obvious: do not feed the troll.