BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Thousands of protesters rallied in Serbia on Monday against plans to turn a former army headquarters destroyed in a NATO bombing into a luxury complex financed by the firm of U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The protesters in Belgrade demanded that its former status as a heritage site be restored and that plans for the development project be scrapped. The Serbian government last year approved a multi-million-dollar contract with Kushner to build the complex, including a 99-year lease on the land in the heart of Belgrade.
Monday's rally was part of an anti-corruption movement in Serbia that started after a collapse in November of a concrete canopy at a train station in Serbia's north, which killed 16 people. Critics blamed the crash on government corruption, negligence and disrespect of construction safety rules during renovation.
Monday also marked Remembrance Day for the victims of the 78-day bombing campaign that started on March 24, 1999. Serbs are still angry over the U.S.-led NATO air war, launched to stop Belgrade’s crackdown against separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
The bombed-out former military compound has become a symbol of resistance. The development at the site would feature a Trump hotel, luxury apartments, office spaces and shops, along with a memorial for the victims of the bombing.
Serbia’s architects, engineers and opposition parties have opposed the agreement with Kushner, while President Aleksandar Vucic and his government have defended the plan as a way to modernize the capital.
The almost daily demonstrations in Serbia have come to reflect wider discontent with over the decade-long rule of Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party, accused by critics of stifling democratic freedoms and fueling graft and nepotism.
Vucic has been a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump. He has also nurtured close relations with China and Russia and refused to join Western sanctions against Moscow, despite formally seeking Serbia's entry into the European Union.
Ivana Bzganovic, The Associated Press
