Pristina, Belgrade – After last week’s student protests, the Rector of the University of Pristina, Ibrahim Gashi over the weekend has resigned, and was replaced by acting Naser Sahiti.
Gashi shift came after the students’ announcement that protests will continue and today with a new requirement – the removal of Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. Some members of the Governing Board of the University argue that Sahit’s appointment was illegal and was “politically motivated” and students cancelled protest announced for today, with the warning that they will “monitor the situation”.
Regardless of the number of injured protesters and KPS members, as well as those arrested in protests in Pristina in recent days, interlocutors of Danas deputy of the United Serbian List in the Kosovo Assembly Rada Trajkovic and political analyst from Pristina Azem Vllasi estimated that for time being there are no threats of reprisal riots from BiH in Kosovo and Metohija. However, they disagree over the cause of student riots in Pristina – Vllasi argues that the reasons are purely academic, as Rada Trajkovic warns of the economic and social discontent of the citizens.
– The whole area of the former Yugoslavia is on the agenda of the events in BiH, because all elites are deeply corrupt, and people are kept isolated, trying to replace the subject of ethnic boundaries with social justice. Despite great poverty and discontent of former KLA fighters the Albanian population in KiM hardest launches social unrest, as they are occupied with the national projects and hatred toward the Serbs. At the last session of Kosovo parliament deputies of Albanian opposition parties have dealt with the events from the time of the late Slobodan Milosevic, not with current events in Pristina, where all the schools are closed – says to Danas, Rada Trajkovic.
She believes that “interesting period yet awaits the Albanian society in Kosovo, because the criminalized leadership created poor people that can be recruited for a variety of projects, including the mass exodus of young Albanians to al-Qaeda.”
– In KiM only 20 percent of the population is not existentially threatened, of which five per cent live the luxury life. Kosovo Albanians fight poverty in two ways – as students, with requests to change the corrupt government and by going to al-Qaeda, where from they send video messages with terrible hatred towards the United States that the Government of Kosovo promotes as its main ally. The government fights against protesters with the use of force and arrest, and against other with normative acts trying to pass a law against the participation of Kosovo citizens in foreign armies – says Rada Trajkovic.
Azem Vllasi believes that the protests in Pristina have “no similarity with the events in BiH, because it is a strictly students’ demands. He notes that “the reasons for the economic and social discontent of the different layers of society exist always and everywhere, including in Kosovo, but that Pristina events are nothing more than a justified revolt of academics.”
– Here students are justifiably revolted because it was disclosed that the Rector of the University used illegal acts for promotion in an academic titles. They want real people to teach them, not those who were involved in forgery. Resignation of the rector Gashi partially met their demands, as students seek and to examine all the promotions and acquired academic degrees, as well as to abolish the Board of Directors of the University, who they consider as an extended arm of government. If the protests continue, it will only be for the fulfilment of the second part of the students’ demands – explains Azem Vllasi.
Dacic and Thaci today at UN Security Council
The UN Security Council today for the first time in 2014 to discuss the situation in KiM. The session will attend resigning Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and President of the Government of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci. In the regular quarterly report the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki -moon, said that last year “marked important progress in implementing the Agreement and substantial steps towards normalization of relations ” between Belgrade and Pristina .
Reacting to insults
On charges of “assaulting an officer on duty”, the director of the Kosovo Institute for Policy Research and a former adviser to the President of Kosovo Ilir Deda, and a member of the Self-determination movement Ilya Hoxha yesterday were supposed to appear before the Serious crimes Court in Pristina, reports portal Koha net. They were arrested last Friday on the protests in front of the Rectorate of Pristina. Vlora Citaku, Kosovo’s minister for European integration, reacted against the “racist insults on account of ethnic origin of Deda’s mother” that could be heard in Pristina public. Professor at the Faculty of Journalism Milazim Krasniqi called Deda’s mother “skinja,” which is a derogatory term in Albanian for a Serb.
