Dačić’s Words Seen as a Call for Lynching and Justification of War Crimes

A wave of strong reactions has swept across the region following a statement by Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dačić, who harshly criticized Serbs contributing to the identification of graves where Albanians killed during the conflict in Kosovo are buried.

Miodrag Vlahović, Montenegro’s former foreign minister, responded by condemning Dačić’s rhetoric, which he described as inciting hatred and an attempt to justify crimes committed during the war.

In a post on the X platform, Vlahović asked whether there was any active politician—whether a Serbo-Montenegrin, a Serb of Montenegrin origin, or a Serb and Montenegrin in Montenegro—who would openly condemn this disgusting language of hatred, this call for lynching, and this justification of the most monstrous crimes.

Meanwhile, Kosovo’s Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla also strongly criticized Dačić’s positions. He accused Serbia of continuing to obstruct efforts to establish the fate of people who were forcibly disappeared during the war. According to Sveçla, on the one hand, the country refuses to provide information about the missing, while on the other, it threatens and arrests its own citizens who cooperate in locating the graves. He also stressed that Serbia honors units such as the 37th Brigade with memorials, even though its members bear responsibility for numerous massacres in Kosovo.

These reactions followed an interview Dačić gave to a Serbian television station, in which he harshly criticized Serbs who, according to him, reveal the locations of mass graves to Albanians and Croats. Dačić expressed concern about what would be done with these people, dismissing their statements as various kinds of nonsense.

His words have been viewed by critics as an attempt to intimidate witnesses and obstruct cooperation in clarifying the fate of missing persons. This remains one of the most sensitive and unresolved issues left by the wars in the former Yugoslavia.