The privatization process of Ski-Centre ”Brezovica” is coming to an end, and the local Serbs believe that this will be the hardest blow for them since 1999.
”If they take mountain from us, we’re done,” repeat the Serbs in Brezovica, in the Sirinicka parish, municipality of Strpce, the utmost South of Kosovo. The privatization process of Ski-Centre ”Brezovica” is coming to an end, the Franco-Andorran consortium ”Company di Alpi” and their representative Pascal Roux offer 410 million euro of investment in the mountain, which they would get through expropriation.
It is about 3 500 hectares of state and private ownership, that is subtracted now with one paper and one decision. It is not about the expropriation for highway, airport, hospital, a school, but it is about subtracting the land from the old owner just to give it to another – the new one, and he will build hotels, aqua park, ski resort and he will earn money.
It is about the most violent legal method of ownership changes – expropriation. The government in Pristina brings a decision on the expropriation of the Serbs’ land and so introduces a ”stranger ” into possession of the land. Current owners have received two times from the Kosovo’s authorities a decision on the expropriation, and they cannot wonder about their property.
Similarly happened in 1979, when the then Municipality of Urosevac/Ferizaj tried to do the same, except that communist, majority Albanian elite in Pristina, tried to seize the mountain from its owners and municipality. Fortunately, the Constitutional Court of the then SFRY declared the decision as unconstitutional. Who today can oppose the authorities in Pristina? Formally, the only one Bratislav Nikolic, Mayor of Strpce/Shterpce. His one signature is enough for the Serbs to disappear from the Sara Mountains. What is the extent of his power and what are his options? The night before public, basically a local debate about the fate of the Sara Mountains, Kosovo police brought him for an interview, as it was said, because of the suspicion that he misused his official position.
Mayor Nikolic, who performs duty and by system of Serbia and Kosovo, has three options: Not to sign and to end up in jail, in the best possible case; to sign and to destroy the Serbian compact ghetto in the Sara Mountain; and to resign and escape from Strpce/Shterpce. He was not in the mood to talk with Politika, and how we unoffcialy learn, he is under enormes pressure of several foreign embasiess in Pristina to sign the surrender of Brezovica, while the official Belgrade is trying to protect it.
Director of the Ski Centre Brezovica, Sladjan Nikolcevic, says that they will never let it happen. On question of Politika, what should be done than, he says:
-We should wait for the formation of Community of Serbian municipalities (ZSO), and in accordance with the interests of the Serbs, municipality of Strpce and competencies of the ZSO – that must be the guarantor of the process – take the final decision on the Ski Centre Brezovica. What’s the rush when 15 years it worked as it is working today? One of the powers of the Community of Serbian municipalities is and the spatial planning and economic development.
