The case of Hercegovacka Street: Who made the call to tear it down

Even though the representatives of the responsible institutions have claimed no-one from the administration was behind the decision on the Hercegovacka Street demolition, the latest statements by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic reveal the very opposite. By all accounts, someone from the City of Belgrade or another state institution signed off on the night razing in Savamala.

On Thursday, May 19, Vucic said the Hercegovacka Street demolition had been illegal and that he was concerned that someone thought they could take justice into their own hands.

“They didn’t get a paper and come in broad daylight to tear it down; that’s illegal and that is why we’re going to solve it,” said Vucic.

Only the state, that is, a state institution, can have or get such a demolition paper. And only the state has the mechanisms to uncover who did the demolition and on whose orders.

Tacit agreement

In the show Insajder Without Limits – Masked Demolition, which aired on May 10, on N1 TV, Insajder.net reporters analyzed a contract and found that there was a deadline for clearing Hercegovacka Street - June 30, and that meeting this deadline had been in jeopardy due to court disputes mounted by building owners.

In this case, the most important question isn’t who did the demolishing, but who ordered the demolition in Belgrade, at night, violating multiple laws.

The conspiracy of silence that emerged after the demolition can only point to it not having been possible without at least tacit agreement from the state. Had this not been so, the police would have come out to the field or the demolition would have been done by day and according to law.

Hercegovacka Street lies in the area slated for construction of the Belgrade Waterfront project. Only the owners of the project – the Republic of Serbia and the Arab investor, could have had an interest in seeing the lot cleared at all costs.

The Arab investor has not made any statements on the occasion. Belgrade Waterfront said it had no connection to the events in Savamala, while the answer we received from the prime minister was that he was confident that the state was not behind the Hercegovacka demolition.

Who was in a rush?

The reporters of Insajder.net uncovered that the deadline for clearing this part of Hercegovacka Street had been June 30, 2016, but that court proceedings mounted by structure owners had brought the deadline into question.

According to the contract on building the Belgrade Waterfront, clearing the building land is the obligation of the Republic of Serbia.

An analysis of the deal Serbia signed on building Belgrade Waterfront, available on the Serbian government website, lists the deadlines for clearing before the second stage of the project, stating that the clearing must be completed by the end of 2019.

The Belgrade Waterfront company has released the building plan, with the second stage – buildings in Hercegovacka Street, marked in blue.
At first glance, it appears that Belgrade Waterfront does not need this part of Hercegovacka Street right now and it seems true that it had nothing to do with the night-time masked demolition.

However, the listed deadlines for clearing the land indicate that Serbia must complete the clearing of the surface of the so-called pilot development by June 30, 2016.

This portion of the document does not state what exactly is included in the pilot development, as the details are in Appendix 5B.

Analyzing Appendix 5B, also posted on the government website, but in the English version of the contract, paints a completely different picture. Namely, it emerges that Hercegovacka Street, where the razed buildings were located, is part of the pilot development, which must be cleared by the end of June this year.

Though the expropriation of the land has been completed, it is obvious from the analysis by Insajder reporters that the legal procedure had begun to drag out because of the court disputes launched by the building owners.

The logical question is whether, in light of experience of disputes lasting years, instead of speeding up the procedures by changing the law or making the justice system more efficient, the call was made to solve the issue by sending in a group of unidentified men to simply knock down the structures in the dead of night.

When Insajder.net recently asked the prime minister whether it was possible that a state agency had ordered the demolition to get around procedures because some of the structures were the object of a court dispute, Vucic said he hoped not.

“You have clear rejection notices for everything. I don’t know if someone got it into their head to do that, I hope not. I repeat, the person who did it is a complete idiot. If they had come to demolish it in the middle of the day, that would have been great,” Vucic said at the time.