In Belgrade, 25 years after the NATO bombings, the Trump clan is interested in the ruins

According to information from an opposition MP and a lengthy investigation by the New York Times, the Serbian government plans to cede the building and land for a period of 99 years - and free of charge - to a company owned by Jared Kushner, son-in-law and former White House advisor to former US President Donald Trump.

In mid-March, Mr. Kushner confirmed an investment project in luxury real estate in Serbia and Albania.

The subject is sensitive in Serbia since it involves selling a building that has become in 25 years the emblem of the NATO air campaign, led by the United States and launched to end the war in Kosovo.

The bombings were launched on March 24, 1999 - without the approval of the UN Security Council, and the intervention ended in June with the withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo, putting an end to a conflict which more than 13.000 dead.

“Leaving it like this for another 200 years is not really a solution,” admits Srdja Nikolic, a retired journalist, “but I am against the idea of ​​giving as a gift to someone – especially to those who have initiated what happened."

Gutted by bombings, the building built in 1965 was declared a protected “cultural property” in 2005 by the Serbian government. However, the Serbian government has not denied the existence of the project - without commenting on the modalities.

According to leaked plans, it would be replaced by three large glass towers placed a few meters from the Serbian ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs.

This ruined building "is proof of the destruction of international law", adds Mr. Nikolic, "destroyed in 1999 by the trampling of the United Nations Charter, with false excuses (...) I am against the idea let the Serbian government give this as a gift to someone.”

Even in ruins, the building “represents our struggle, a difficult period that we went through and from which we emerged victorious,” explains Sanja Handzic, a 28-year-old dental technician.

Memo

Jasminka Avramovic, 66, remembers precisely the day the building was hit by one of the bombings. "I was born in the Senjak neighborhood near here. When they bombed here, I came to nearby Sarajevo Street to collect pieces of glass. I still have these pieces of glass as a souvenir. It was a disaster. These are not nice memories,” she says.

"We have to rebuild it, it's ugly", adds the retiree, "but what a magnificent idea" to give the land to the Americans!", she immediately quips. "They are not really our friends. I wouldn't give them that. If it has to be given, then it has to be given to Russia.”

The memory of NATO bombings is everywhere in Serbia. A quarter of a century later, resentment against NATO is still strong in Serbia where the abuses of Serbian armed groups are often minimized.

The toll of civilian victims from the eleven weeks of bombing has never been definitively established. The figures range from 500 deaths, according to the NGO Human Rights Watch, to 2.500 according to Serbian officials.

“The memory of these 1990s is unpleasant,” explains Zoran Stosic, 83, “but we must leave these buildings as they are so that they remind us of this unpleasant period. We must not only remember beautiful things ".

For him, rather than a luxury hotel, it should be made into a place of memory: "We must preserve these buildings, conserve them, and make them a museum. To remind us of the importance of peace, that these things must no longer reproduce.