Byzantine Blog

Public Shock and Outrage

Chief United Nations negotiator for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari drew unprecedented criticism over the weekend from Serbian politicians for allegedly saying that “Serbs are guilty as people” and implying that they would have to pay for it, possibly by losing Kosovo which is seeking independence. The statement, allegedly made by Ahtisaari during Kosovo talks in Vienna on 8 August, was made public Friday by members of Belgrade's negotiating team and immediately provoked a public shock. A weekend [terrorist attack] on a cafe in the northern Serb area of the divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica where ethnic Albanians live to the south of a UN-guarded bridge [followed Ahtisaari's statement].

Ahtisaari, winding up his four-day visit to Kosovo on Friday indirectly confirmed his earlier stance. Asked by journalists for comment he said that “every nation carries a burden for which it has to pay.” He said that the new democratic leadership in Belgrade can’t be blamed for the wrong policies of former president Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo, but “leaders in Belgrade must face a historic inheritance and accept responsibility for the past years.”

(...)

The statement further enraged Belgrade, which opposes Kosovo's independence, and some politicians even called for Ahtisaari’s resignation.

Ahtisaari and, Before Him, Hitler

Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said in a statement that while the UN was seeking “a just and tenable solution for the status of Kosovo” Ahtisaari seemed “determined to do just the opposite.” Ahtisaari has been creating the impression that the negotiations were unnecessary, he said, “because the solution already exists and has only to be implemented - and that is Kosovo independence.”

Spokesman for Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia, Andreja Mladenovic, said that “before Ahtisaari only Hitler had dared to say that an entire people was guilty,” slamming Ahtisaari’s statement as “scandalous, shameful and racist.”

Triggering Terrorist Attacks

Tension was heightened after an attack late Saturday on a Serbian cafe in the city of Kosovska Mitrovica, in which nine people, including a UN policemen and a pregnant Dutch woman, were injured. The Serbian government said in a statement the terrorist act was encouraged by Ahtisaari’s statement that “Serbs were guilty as a people.”

“If something like that is said by a special envoy of the UN Secretary-general in the talks on the Kosovo status, then any violence against Serbs is justified and awarded,” the government statement said.

The cafe [terrorist attack] in the divided Kosovo town of Mitrovica on Saturday, which injured nine people, has fuelled fears of a fresh wave of violence in the UN-run province, where nearly two million ethnic Albanians are pushing for independence from Serbia.

From Aki, the Global Information Gateway

UN Representatives' Irresponsible Behavior

Representatives of the Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo have demanded that international authorities in the province close the bridge over the Ibar River, which separates the town into Serb and Albanian parts, until negotiations on the status are concluded, and called on citizens to remain calm and not to panic “which is obviously what some want.”

Speaking at a SNC press conference, Belgrade negotiating team member Marko Jaksic stated that the most recent tossing of a grenade at a cafe in the northern part of Mitrovica and the wounding of nine people is the consequence of statements by Kosovo status envoy Martti Ahtisaari and newly appointed UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker that the Serbs as a people are guilty and that Kosovo independence is on the horizon.

“By their irresponsible behavior and cover-up of crimes UNMIK and KFOR are encouraging Albanians to commit them. In just six months over 70 attacks on Serbs have been recorded which are, for the most part, classified as public disturbances and criminal acts,” said Jaksic.

Encouraging Terrorism

Nebojsa Jovic, the president of the SNC of North Kosovo, has demanded that UNMIK, KFOR and the Kosovo police explain “why the name of last night's attacker was not publicized when it is general knowledge that he is an ethnic Albanian Adem Dibrani,” claiming that all the members of his family are known terrorists.

Jovic explained that the closing of the bridge on the Ibar River has been requested in order to ensure the safety of Serbs in the northern part of Mitrovica.

The Serbian Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija sharply condemned the bomb attack in Kosovska Mitrovica and accused the international community of being responsible “at least as much as the Albanian terrorists” for Albanian crimes against Serbs.

“In the last few days Albanian terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija have been encouraged by statements by senior representatives of the United Nations and they have intensified their murderous actions directed against Serbs,” said the Coordinating Center in a written statement.

International Community Shares Guilt

The Coordinating Center points out that only circumstance prevented great casualties “from a bomb calmly carried across the Ibar River bridge by a terrorist and, despite the Kosovo Police Service, UNMIK and KFOR, tossed at a nearby cafe.”

The Coordinating Center's communique notes that the grenade was tossed “immediately following Ahtisaari's statement regarding Serb guilt.” “The international community is at least as responsible for Albanian crimes against Serbs, which are assuming an ever greater and worrisome scale, as the Albanian terrorists,” said the Coordinating Center.

“It has not stopped, arrested or sentenced them in the past, and now Ahtisaari is further encouraging them,” concluded the communique.

Serbs demand bridge closing during Kosovo status negotiations