Former paramilitary chief attacks Serbian opposition leader Tepic on live TV

dragoslav bokan pink
TV Pink/Screenshot

A former war-time paramilitary leader on Monday launched a verbal assault on opposition leader Marinika Tepic, accusing her of being an enemy of the Serb people.

Tepic is an ethnic Romanian born and raised in Serbia’s northern Vojvodina province. She is a language teacher by education and started her political career in the Vojvodina League of Social Democrats (LSV) and has now been chosen to head the opposition election ticket for the coming parliamentary elections as deputy leader of the Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP).

Dragoslav Bokan, leader of the White Eagles paramilitary during the wars of the 1990s, appeared live on the pro-regime TV Pink to comment last weekend’s protest against two controversial laws on referendums and expropriation saying that “a response is needed and not just to say that “they are terrible, they are this or that”. “They are but that is not the issue. Marinika Tepic is a member of a national minority which hates Serbia and the Serb people, who joined (LSV leader Nenad) Canak and his anti-Serb organization when she was a young girl and studied what? The Romanian language! From a Romanian family! Romanian mother, Romanian father, worked in a Romanian organization and she is our enemy! She is a national enemy, not just ideological by also political,” Bokan said.

Several opposition parties condemned Bokan’s attack on Tepic, calling it highly disgraceful and demanding that prosecutors react to the clear inciting of ethnic hatred against Tepic and ethnic Romanians.