Serbian ambassador walks out of ceremony over support to students
N1 Belgrade
2–3 minutes
Serbia's Ambassador in Croatia Jelena Milic walked out of an event organized by the Serb National Council after an award recipient lent support to the student protests.
Milic was attending the traditional Orthodox Christmas Eve reception organized by the Serb national minority's political body which included an award ceremony. First prize this year went to writer Jasminka Petrovic and filmmaker Radivoje Rasa Andric for the book and movie The Summer I Learned to Fly about the consequences of the war in Croatia.
Petrovic sent a letter to the ceremony expressing gratitude to "young people in Serbia who have been teaching us how to fly and shine". Those words led Milic to walk out of the ceremony.
Milic told RTL TV later that she left the ceremony because the Serb National Council leaders did not react to that part of the letter which, according to her, was a direct allusion to the student blockades of universities in Serbia. "I simply did not like the way the Council reacted," she said and claimed that she wrote on her Facebook profile earlier that she supports young people standing in squares, not blocking institutions and when they demand justice for injustice. "Blockades, calling my country a tyranny, calling my president and the state leadership killers I simply and absolutely do not support," Milic said.
Milic was an opponent of the current Serbian regime as leader of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies NGO. She is also remembered for walking out of a talk show which included then Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.
