01.12.2021.
Minister Stefanović on Đilas's monstrous lies about his own country
A statement by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Nebojša Stefanović, PhD:
"Dragan Đilas has once again told a series of lies about his own country. His readiness to denigrate his own country, for the sake of his own interests, this time in an interview for the Austrian “Die Presse”, and the level of hypocrisy in everything he said is difficult to even comment on.
People did get killed in Serbia because of their different political views, like Ranko Panić, who was killed in 2008, during Đilas’s rule. It is a disgrace that neither Đilas nor anyone who was part of the then government has claimed responsibility so far, and it is particularly scandalous that Ranko Panić’s family had to wait for the change of government in order to seek justice. Journalists were also killed in Serbia for critical and investigative journalism at the time when Đilas’s political option was in power.
Also, when Dragan Đilas speaks about media freedom, I am sure he has Studio B in mind from the time he managed this television. Namely, during its four-year activity as an opposition party, the Serbian Progressive Party could not get a minute of air time to present its programme and activities, apart from obligatory pre-election air time defined by law, although it was stronger and had more representatives than Đilas's Party of Justice and Freedom has ever had.
Thousands of pages of the most shameful moments in the history of our politics have been written so far about the absolute monopoly over national broadcasters, writing texts and front pages from a single government office, monopoly over and trade in television advertising airtime and the enormous wealth and influence of Dragan Đilas and his private companies.
These words are not an unfounded attack on Đilas, which is clearly evidenced, among other things, by millions of dinars worth of damage inflicted on RTS and the money that has accumulated in the accounts of Đilas's companies, which is why lawsuits have been filed against those RTS executives who signed harmful agreements, as well as against some executives of Đilas's companies. Some of Djilas' directors are still evading justice by fleeing abroad, and it does not occur to them to stand trial in the courts of our country for the crimes they have been charged with.
Đilas uses the “evil China” narrative, because he is convinced that such words will win him affection of the opposite side. He cares about the workers in Smederevo whom he had left on the street, but also about the workers in Bor with whom they did not know what to do after the price of copper on the stock market had dropped below mining profitability limit. After all, he treated all other investors and all factories in the same way – he either closed them down or tried to discourage them from coming to Serbia. That is how we reached a record unemployment rate of 26%, 45% among young people.
It is also disgraceful that Dragan Đilas disrespects health workers and their efforts, but also his country, which provided all vaccines available on the market in sufficient quantities at a time when no one else in this part of the world could. In addition to that, three Covid hospitals were built in Serbia in record time, the construction of a vaccine factory began and health workers’ salaries were increased. When Đilas and his fellows made decisions, health workers’ salaries were twice as low and the same goes for soldiers, policemen, teachers and everyone else who was lucky enough to have a job in Serbia at the time.
And when the whole world recognizes and praises Serbia's fight against Covid-19, which cannot be denied even by those countries that have never spoken nicely of Serbia, Đilas is trying in the foreign media to undermine and belittle the efforts of a huge number of people to make Serbia healthy and economically strong.
Neither Đilas, nor Jeremić, nor anyone else in their coalition was bothered by the election conditions in 2020, because they were the same ones they had left us in 2012, and they have been significantly improved since then. The only thing that bothered them was that their research and work in the field clearly showed that the people did not want to bring back to power those who had destroyed our economy, brought us to the brink of ruin, and who had grown incredibly rich.
That is why Aleksandar Vučić bothers them, because they know that they cannot even compare to him, let alone beat him. This fact will not be changed by 10,000 interviews in foreign or local media. Because the citizens of Serbia know very well who is who. "
