Byzantine Blog

Serbia’s Prime Minister Celebrated New Year in Occupied Serbian Province of Kosovo

Several hundred Serbs rallied to welcome in the New Year in the central square of northern Kosovska Mitrovica on Sunday night, greeting Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

The residents of this town wished their Prime Minister a happy New Year and that he should preserve Kosovo province within the Serbian state, as most of them emphasized.

Kostunica arrived in Mitrovica on Sunday evening, and welcomed in the New Year with the Lazarevic family, who were expelled from Kosovo town of Klina in 1999, along with their seven children.

In a New Year message sent from Mitrovica, Serbian Prime Minister said that “the preservation of Kosovo and Metohija is a second name for the preservation of Serbia.”

“I can say that everything I have done in politics so far with the support of the people is unimportant in comparison with the fate of Kosovo. Serbia on this occasion again sends an unequivocal message that it is for peace, a peaceful and quiet life for all, based on democratic foundations in all of Kosovo,” Kostunica said.

Serbia’s Prime Minister also said that Serbia is an integral state, that it respects all the rules of the world and asks that it should be equally respected as a state.

Serbia’s statehood was completed in the past year, a new Constitution was adopted as its foundations, as well as “the clear, united stand that Kosovo and Metohija is an inalienable and the most precious part of Serbia,” Kostunica said.

Serbian President: Serbia Will Not Accept “Negotiations” Based on Force

WASHINGTON, USA, January 3, 2007 (Tanjug) - Advisor to the Serbian president Dusan Batakovic said on Wednesday in an interview for the Voice of America that Serbia was not going to accept negotiations on Kosovo that would be based on force and fait accomplis which, counting on a wide support from the international community, the ethnic Albanian side in Kosovo was arguing for.

We shall not accept the negotiations that are based on force, because we hold that issues which deal with democracy, human rights, the rights of communities and the protection of cultural heritage of world importance cannot be discussed in such a way which implies threats, force and failt accomplis, Batakovic said in the interview.

At the same time, Batakovic, who is also a member of Belgrade’s negotiation team for the southern Serbian province status, rejected the possibility that UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari imposes his stands on decentralization, minority protection and cultural heritage since Belgrade and Pristina did not reach a compromise on those vital issues.

We do not think that anyone can or is entitled to impose solutions for Kosovo, he said.

The solution can be sustainable, it can be a guarantee of long-lasting peace in the region only in case that there is an agreement, a compromise between Belgrade and Pristina, with the mediation of the international community, Batakovic underscored.

Clashes Between Albanian Muslim Gangs: Another Excuse to Terrorize Serbs

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia, January 3, 2007 (Tanjug) - Members of the Albanian Muslim Kosovo Police Force (KPS) on Wednesday morning sealed off Serbian village of Babin Most, Obilic municipality in Serbian Kosovo province, with the aim of conducting “an investigation into the murder of a police officer on the Pristina - Kosovska Mitrovica road”, the international press center of the Kosovo-Metohija Coordination Center has said.

“The blockade of the village, the search of homes and several hours of harrassment of Serbs were conducted immediately after an ethnic Albanian member of the KPS from Vucitrn was killed on the crossroads with Babin Most in a classical ambush,” a statement said.

The Coordination Center said that, unofficially it was learned that the police officer who was killed is yet another victim of the ethnic Albanian brigand and terrorist gangs whose masked members are freely terrorizing the citizens of Serbian Kosovo and Metohija province.

KPS has used this terrorist crime to harrass the Babin Most Serbs for several hours, although it is clear both to KPS, Kfor and UNMIK that the perpetrators are somewhere else, the statement added.

Now the UNMIK Police Joins the Harassment

OBILIC, Kosovo and Metohija, Serbia, Jan 3 2007 (Tanjug) - The Kosovo Police Service (KPS), supported by UNMIK police, on Wednesday afternoon blocked the village of Babin Most for the second time since Wednesday morning and carried out the search of Serb houses after police officer Avni Kosumi had been killed, Obilic municipality coordinator Mirce Jakovljevic told Tanjug.

“The KPS blocked Babin Most half an hour ago and is searching Serbian houses, now with the support of UNMIK police. This is another pressure on Serbs in Babin Most and the villagers have therefore decided to organize themselves and protest against this mistreatment by police,” Jakovljevic said.

Kosovo Police early on Wednesday searched 11 houses and took in three Serbs, allegedly because of illegal possession of arms.

Jakovljevic said that one of the detained, Radovan Vuckovic, was disabled and nearly blind and that in the past, while he was still able to hunt, he had received a valid license from the Serbian Interior Ministry for his gun.

“Vuckovic now keeps his gun as a trophy and his detention can only be interpreted as another pressure and continuation of harassment of Serbs remaining in their occupied province,” Jakovljevic said.

P.S. 2006 Was Also...

... The 150th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest inventors in the history of mankind, Serbian Nikola Tesla. For the most lucid, coherent and ingenuous report on how it was marked, visit my all-time favorite blogger and get the complete picture in just few masterful paragraphs (speaking of geniuses)!