The ‘Awakening’: American Right-Wing Extremist Finds Allies in the Balkans

It was a week after Orthodox New Year in January 2021 and a group of Serb children in Kosovo was opening presents.

In a photo posted on Facebook, the faces of those who brought the presents were blurred, but the flags of the organisations they represented were not. One of them featured the brand name Will2Rise, part of an organisation led by a notorious US right-wing extremist called Robert Rundo.

A few weeks later, media reports in Serbia said Rundo had been deported to neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Yet for a year before, and a year since, Rundo has collaborated with a number of far-right groups who undertake 'humanitarian' activities such as delivering presents to Serb children in Serbia's majority-Albanian former province while targeting migrants and refugees for intimidation and abuse and expressing anti-Roma and anti-Semitic sentiment.

His activities raise serious questions concerning the response of authorities in Serbia and Bosnia, which have not replied to enquiries about Rundo's whereabouts.

Rundo told BIRN he was free to be interviewed in February this year in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, but failed to turn up, saying he was banned from entering the country. Bellingcat reported in December that he was back in Belgrade.

Marko Milosavljevic of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights Serbia, YIHR, which monitors the activities of right-wing organisations, said it was little surprise.

"In some ways, apart from being a safe-house for war criminals, Serbia is also a safe-house for hooligans," he told BIRN.

"With him [Rundo] being present here, an international link has been established between those groups in Serbia and other racist groups in Europe."

Kosovo as far-right rallying...