Paunović escalates provocative statements, Hyseni warns of international consequences

The stance of Serbian Minister Snezhana Paunović, who said that if she had been in Slobodan Milošević’s position in 1999 she would have undertaken “ethnic cleansing of Kosovo,” has triggered a wave of sharp backlash both in politics and on the international stage.

Instead of distancing herself from her words or offering an apology, Paunović further escalated the scandalous situation. In a statement to the Serbian media, she reiterated that she would “ethnically cleanse Kosovo of terrorists,” while simultaneously claiming that her words were misinterpreted and that they were aimed exclusively at the fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Contacted by “Bota sot,” political analyst Nehat Hyseni considered the statement an action with deep political and institutional implications. He described the reaction of U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson as a clear indicator that patience with the glorification of historical criminal policies is running out.

Hyseni assessed that the Serbian minister’s expression should not be seen as a mere provocation or an irresponsible individual stance. Coming from a member of the Serbian government cabinet, it carries institutional weight and casts serious doubts on Serbia’s political, ethical, and international orientation.

He described the immediate reaction of Congressman Wilson, who called the statement “disgusting” and requested that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly cancel its annual session planned for Belgrade in 2027, as a powerful political message. According to him, this signal shows that Euro-Atlantic democracies are losing tolerance for the rehabilitation of the crimes of the 1990s and for Serbia’s refusal to confront its own past.

Deepening the analysis, Hyseni stressed that praise for ethnic cleansing cannot be disguised as democratic debate, because it concerns one of the most flagrant violations of global legal norms. He clarified that freedom of speech in a democracy does not extend to the glorification of crimes against humanity, and that ethnic cleansing is neither a political opinion nor a historical alternative to be legitimately discussed.

He recalled that the Milošević regime carried out a systematic operation of mass expulsion during the period 1998-1999, forcibly expelling over 800,000 Albanians from their lands, while thousands of civilians were massacred and hundreds of settlements were burned to the ground. These acts, as he noted, are documented by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Therefore, when a minister of the current government expresses regret that this criminal project was not fully completed, she is relativizing and legitimizing a strategy with severe humanitarian and legal consequences.

According to Hyseni, Serbia’s inability to come to honest terms with its past constitutes one of the main obstacles for its society and state. He argued that unlike post-World War II Germany, official Belgrade has not undertaken a genuine process of institutional and societal reflection on the crimes of the Milošević era. On the contrary, the public sphere continues to rehabilitate figures of that system, deny or minimize war crimes, and oppose decisions of international courts.

In this context, Snezhana Paunović’s statement is not a coincidence or a personal mistake, but a symptom of a political culture that remains deeply anchored in the nationalist and chauvinistic logic that fueled the bloody conflicts of the end of the last century. That is why Congressman Wilson’s reaction is considered a turning point. His proposal that Serbia lose the right to host the OSCE Summit in 2027 marks a qualitative step, articulating for the first time the idea that the glorification of ethnic cleansing will be accompanied by diplomatic costs.

Concluding his analysis, Hyseni appealed for a strong institutional response from the international factor, warning of the dangerous precedent that would be created in case of silence. He stressed that no country aspiring to membership in the European Union should allow its ministers to express admiration for historically condemned policies, adding that the glorification of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans should be treated with the same severity as the praise of Nazism or Holocaust denial in many Western countries.

Hyseni concluded by emphasizing that the call for diplomatic sanctions is not revenge, but a defense of the international legal order and of the fundamental principles of human rights, raising the question of how the credibility of the OSCE can be preserved if a state whose representatives publicly advocate ethnic cleansing organizes a session of this organization without any consequences.