VZCZCXRO8417
RR RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHBW #1362/01 2782213
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 052213Z OCT 07
FM AMEMBASSY BELGRADE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1554
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BELGRADE 001362 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958:N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL KPAO SR KV
SUBJECT:  NAZIS AND VOJVODINA 
 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Leaders from Serbia's Vojvodina told the Ambassador that 
the appearance of a Nazi Movement in the province was a reflection 
of the changes in the delicate balance of the multi-ethnic, 
autonomous province as a result of the population migrations in the 
1990's.  Demographic changes enabled extremists on both sides of the 
political spectrum to undermine tolerance and support for democratic 
values, they said, suggesting that local groups were subject to 
infiltration and manipulation of outsiders.  They also raised 
concerns that alleged efforts of the Serbian Government to 
centralize authority threatened both Vojvodina's autonomy and 
democracy in Serbia, as a whole.  Officials dismissed press 
speculation of a rift between Novi Sad's mayor and the Radical 
Party, which she helped found.  For now, Vojvodina's democratic 
forces are hanging on.  End Summary. 
 
Nationalists, Extremists, and Neo-Nazis 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (U) The Ambassador visited Vojvodina province October 7 where he 
met with the democratic spectrum of the province's politicians.  The 
most dire development was an emergence and growing popularity of a 
Nazi Party.  The Nazi Party is scheduled to hold a demonstration 
October 7. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Nenad Canak, LSV founder and National Assembly MP, said 
nationalists in the Serbian Government, particularly within the 
Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), used Vojvodina extremists as a 
tool to consolidate their power.  He noted that this was not a new 
phenomenon and that he had observed the rise of extremism throughout 
Serbia prior to every election.  Canak said the GOS nationalists 
secretly supported local neo-Nazi groups planning a rally on October 
 
SIPDIS 
7 in Vojvodina's capital, Novi Sad. (Although the police denied 
permission for the event, the organizer has announced his intention 
to hold the rally in a different location in the city, and a second 
neo-Nazi group is seeking permission to hold a similar rally on the 
same day.) 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Putting local events into a broader context, Canak said 
outsiders hoped to portray Vojvodina as a contest between fascists 
and separatists in order to justify greater central control or, 
worse, to destabilize the country.  Neo-Nazis targeted Novi Sad 
because of its tradition of multi-culturalism.  Nationalists 
manipulated the neo-Nazis, in the name of Serb national unity, to 
counter the province's purported anti-Serb autonomy.  Canak told the 
Ambassador that he would hold an anti-fascist rally the same day as 
the neo-Nazi rally, to counter this image and to demonstrate that 
most citizens in Vojvodina supported tolerance and autonomy, not 
separatism or fascism, and that people could peacefully coexist in 
multi-ethnic areas. 
 
Hanging onto Multi-Ethnic Principles 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Bojan Kostres, President of the Vojvodina Assembly and a 
Vice-President of the League of Vojvodina Social Democrats (LSV), 
said that Vojvodina remained multi-ethnic, but he worried about the 
changing political values of the local population.  Kostres 
attributed the growth of extreme nationalism in part to the influx 
of Serb refugees from the republics of the former Yugoslavia who had 
 
settled in the province since the 1990s.  He estimated between 
150,000 and 300,000 urban, educated people had left the province 
during the same period.  The current population was, he said, less 
civic-minded and, with few opportunities to travel outside Serbia, 
isolated from foreign democratic influences.  Despite these 
challenges, Vojvodina maintained its strong tradition of democracy 
and tolerance, Kostres and others assured the Ambassador.  Tamas 
Korhecz, a member of the Vojvodina Executive Council and a senior 
party official in the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM), said 
Vojvodina's multi-culturalism and adherence to rule of law were 
advantages for the province and provided a model for the rest of the 
country.  As an example of the province's progressiveness, he 
described an Executive Council project to educate Vojvodina youth, 
the aim of which was to present multi-culturalism as excellence. 
 
Centralization Threatening Vojvodina's Autonomy 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Kostres, Korhecz, and Canak commented on Belgrade's 
stranglehold on local government, highlighting specifically central 
control of all public land, taxation authority, and judicial 
appointments.  Kostres said Vojvodina's leaders were trying to 
regain elements of autonomy that the province had lost during the 
Milosevic era and had only a short window of opportunity to do so. 
He worried that nationalists would react to Kosovo independence by 
limiting or even eliminating Vojvodina's autonomy, to head off any 
independence movement in the North.  Korhecz said that such 
restrictions would be anti-democratic.  Vojvodina's autonomy was 
currently unique in the country, but municipalities everywhere could 
 
BELGRADE 00001362  002 OF 002 
 
 
benefit from increased local authority, he said. 
 
Novi Sad's Radical Mayor still Radical 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Countering recent media portrayal of Novi Sad's Mayor Maja 
Gojkovic as something of a maverick Radical Party (SRS) member, 
Canak told the Ambassador that the ambitious SRS founder remained a 
party faithful, despite attempts by Canak and others to drive a 
wedge between her and the SRS.  He said Gojkovic had only spoken out 
against the neo-Nazi rally because the SRS did not want to be 
identified with fascism. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Assurances from the province's leaders that Vojvodina's 
unique atmosphere of tolerance and multi-culturalism persists was 
reassuring.  However, the province clearly faces challenges that do 
not bode well for the country as a whole, particularly after the 
resolution of Kosovo, when the electorate will be most susceptible 
to messages of hate in the name of Serbian unity.  End Comment. 
 
BRUSH