Arnaud Gouillon: "Obvious hatred for what I do"

Arnaud Gouillon: "Obvious hatred for what I do"

French humanitarian Arnaud Gouillon, stated that he was used to being attacked from Pristina, but that he was hurt by the writings of the media from Belgrade and Novi Sad that he was "a propagandist and extremist".

When members of the Kosovo Intelligence Service arrested me on September 10, 2018 and put me in a cell in the form of a dirty container at the Merdare crossing, I asked them why they were harassing me like that. They said that this is so because I am spreading Serbian propaganda worldwide, adding that Kosovo is an independent state. After that, they threatened me and my family and banned me from entering Kosovo and Metohija. Recently, the notorious convicted terrorist Albin Kurti wrote on his Facebook account that I am not welcome in an independent Kosovo, because I am spreading propaganda", Gouillon stated on his Instagram account.

He added that for them, anyone who speaks "about the existence of Serbian enclaves, whoever testifies about the violation of basic human rights of Serbs, Roma, Gorani and other non-Albanians living in inhumane conditions in Kosovo and Metohija" is considered to be propagandist.

"If you are still concretely helping them, then they label you an extremist. Unfortunately, I am not the only one in that basket. Much bigger and more respected than me regularly face with such accusations. From Emir Kusturica to Peter Handke," Gouillon wrote.

He pointed out that over time, he got used to such attacks by Albanian extremists and their powerful lobbies.

"It has been going on for 18 years. In fact, from the very day when I founded the humanitarian organization Solidarity for Kosovo and decided to organize a convoy of humanitarian aid for oppressed Serbs from Kosovo enclaves," he said.

Today, as he wrote, he was hurt by the fact that now the Serbian media called him a propagandist.

"The same political attack took place today. Once again. But today I am more hurt than usual. That is why I want to share with you what I think and feel at the moment. Today I was not attacked from Pristina, but from Belgrade and Novi Sad. I was not attacked in Albanian but in Serbian. In two articles, coordinated on the websites of Voice and Balkan Insight, they accuse me of being a propagandist and extremist, emphasizing that Kosovo is an independent state. Those articles, full of lies and insinuations, the narrative of the pro-Albanian media immediately began to be transmitted by Serbian agencies and media cooperating with foreign governments", Gouillon wrote.

He points out that the articles published by the mentioned media are full of random insertion of names, years and numbers, so they look like a "conspiracy theory", rather than a "research article". "The author of the text cannot hide his obvious hatred towards me, so he ideologically attacks everything I have done in my life. Helping Serbs in enclaves is defined as propaganda and extremism, the statement that 'birth rate is the number one problem not only in Serbia but in the whole of Europe' is considered racist... I can somehow put up with all the insults and lies that have been told about me and my humanitarian work, although it is not pleasant to read such things about myself. But the insults at the expense of Serbs and the Serbian diaspora, which are creeping in "along with attacks on me", have crossed the line and are a difficult form of extremist rhetoric. They justify the NATO bombing of Serbia and the Serbian people, with the slogan that the goal was 'to prevent war crimes committed by Serbian forces'," Gouillon wrote.

He added that they were "repeating the Western propaganda from the 1990s that was preparing the local public for war", and that the consequences of that propaganda were air raids and depleted uranium.

"Words kill faster than weapons, and we must not allow propaganda and historical revisionism to spread in our public for 23 years since the aggression against our country," Gouillon wrote.

He also pointed out that "the Serbian diaspora, which consists of wonderful people from different social groups", whom he got to know better since he became the director of the Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the region a year ago, was accused of spreading Greater Serbian nationalism and what's even worse, it was marked as "fascist" and "collaborationist".

Gouillon shared a quote from a text published by the Vojvodina portal VOICE.

"The diaspora that left our country during socialism was practically the only part of the Serbian people that openly propagated Greater Serbian nationalism in that period. That part of the diaspora, formed after the Second World War by local collaborationist forces - Chetniks and Ljotić's, intended for itself the role of the voice of the Serbian diaspora in the second half of the 1980s in the preparations for the war in Yugoslavia. They tried to ideologically transform the part of the economic diaspora that under socialism went to work temporarily in Europe from which it never returned".

VOICE announced today that "the Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region has allocated around 4.5 million dinars for projects of Serbian associations in France during the past three years, but the events they organize as well as activities on digital platforms testify to the open support some of these organizations provide to the right-wing and xenophobic figures".