After the statement of the leader of Self-determination movement Visar Imeri, related to the monument to Prince Lazar and chauvinistic character of Association / Community of Serb Municipalities, reacted the mayor of North Mitrovica, Goran Rakić. “Imeri’s statement is given in a spirit of absolute lack of tolerance and understanding for other nations, in this case – Serbian. The ‘colonialist’ policy of Serbia could be seen by most current facts – 250,000 of expelled Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija have not returned to the ‘democratic’ and ‘multi-ethnic’ Kosovo even 17 years after conflict. Serbian citizens who remained in the south of Kosovo remembered very well the ‘peacefulness’ and ‘tolerance’ of its neighbours – they are selling their houses and land which was in their possession for centuries. They are facing never ending series of crimes and offenses from the theft of livestock, illegal logging, burning harvests, shooting at houses and villagers, and attacks on children. They live in the general atmosphere of ethnic humiliation, torture and administrative choking. I suppose that is the colonization Mr. Imeri talks about,” he said.
“Building of Sunny Valley is in the early stage. The project is being implemented on the land from which no one was expelled. In Mitrovica North, people live compressed in one-fifth of the former city, since the Serbs were expelled from the south of Mitrovica first in 1999, and then in 2004. Exactly at the location of future Sunny Valley the expelled Serbs from Prvi Tunel, Svinjare and Srbica initially found shelter. There is no any word about possible return of Serbs to South Mitrovica, Peć, Prizren, Klina, Orahovac, Pristina, Uroševac, Ɖakovica, and dozens of other places. That certainly cannot be colonization, but, unfortunately, the real ghettoization and victimization in which, against our will we, Serbs, live for nearly two decades,” said Rakić.
