Retired police general Bogoljub Živković says he is not surprised by the new video footage from the area near the Belgrade City Assembly and Pionirski Park, the so-called Ćacilend, recorded on election night. He agrees that a bloodbath was avoided, but remains optimistic about the fate of those involved, believing that the “Ćacilend case” will be resolved fairly and without difficulty.
The video, published on social media by Serbialive, shows the area between Ćacilend and the City Assembly at around 9:30 p.m. on election night. It is filled with large numbers of police officers from various units, civilian and police vehicles, as well as an unusually high number of people not wearing uniforms.
Serbialive just posted a video on IG from election night, around 9:30 p.m., in Ćacilend, in front of the City Assembly https://t.co/NPekB84Tdd
— Vlada T (@VladaT8) November 8, 2026
Ćacilend, a Breeding Ground for “People Who Shouldn’t Have Been There”
Retired police general Bogoljub Živković told IZLAZ.com that he had watched the footage and that it came as no surprise. As he put it, in keeping with “old habits,” we saw various police units gathered in one place, including riot police and gendarmerie units, alongside individuals who had absolutely no business being there. “But now it is clear why things were the way they were and why they were carried out like that.”
“The police were placed on an equal footing with criminal structures. The police were not guided by professional standards and expertise. Things were not done in accordance with the law, but on the basis of orders and demands from political centers of power. And perhaps from other, informal centers of power as well. I recently joked about this when the Students’ List victory was announced and they started running away. I asked why the police officers didn’t at least take two people each with them, whoever they managed to catch there – they wouldn’t have made a mistake,” Živković said.
Živković agrees with the assessment made by political analyst Aleksandar Ivković in our film “People by the Canopy”, according to which bloodshed was avoided on March 15, 2025, and October 25 this year, thanks to the effective response of students and citizens.
According to testimony by security worker Momčilo Marjanović, featured in the BIRN film “Confession from Ćacilend,” numerous civilians in the informal tent settlement were armed with firearms, and some are suspected of having links to organized crime.
“Only through the wisdom of the other side, by not giving an obvious pretext for it, was violence avoided in both cases, violence that was orchestrated by the regime. They had no other participants in their planning and assessments because violence never came from this side. They knew how to carry it out: by planting provocateurs or members of criminal gangs who would pose as citizens and students and provide a pretext for clashes. This has long been recognized as their modus operandi, and thank God it has finally come to an end,” Živković said.
The IZLAZ.com interviewee does not want to speculate about why violence did not break out on election night or why Aleksandar Vučić quickly conceded defeat. However, he is certain that the high voter turnout and the SNS’s decisive defeat played a key role, regardless of whether someone from Europe called the former president and warned him under no circumstances to provoke violence over the Ćacilend situation.
And what should be done about everyone involved in Ćacilend, and how can justice be achieved? Živković believes this is almost a routine matter, provided it is approached seriously.
“That will not be a problem. There will be more than enough facts, evidence, and people willing to testify. For reasons of criminal law and historical accountability, this must never happen to us again. We will easily get to the real truth, and I believe everyone already knows it. We have just been talking about it, and with each passing day, it will be increasingly substantiated by material evidence and statements. We will see where the money used to finance it came from, and we know whose money it was – the money of the citizens of Serbia,” he concluded in his remarks to IZLAZ.com.
Source: Izlaz.com Foto: Ustupljena fotografija
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