Life in a bubble (Koha)
Koha Ditore’s publisher Flaka Surroi writes in an opinion piece that the proposal of the MPs Ilir Deda and Vjosa Osmani for the overcoming of the political crisis has silenced all leaders and the fact that there was not a single statement on the proposal goes to show the lack of interest on the part of the political leaders to resolve their disputes in an institutional manner. To demonstrate how detached from reality the Kosovo leaders are, says Surroi, just in the week of the 28 November opposition rally and the 30 November Assembly session, President Atifete Jahjaga travelled to Zagreb, Prime Minister Isa Mustafa to Germany while Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci, “the main person responsible for the two disputed documents”, was nowhere to be seen. In Surroi’s view, this detachment becomes even greater when one listens to Mustafa’s statement on the visit of the Serbian army chief of staff, Ljubisa Dikovic, to Kosovo saying that no one in the Government of Kosovo was informed of this. “Most likely Dikovic came from the air, a space which – alike the north – Kosovo has no control over,” remarks Surroi. It is unfortunate, she adds, that the Government has chosen the intimidation and confrontation approach in face of the current crisis and it took two months for Jahjaga to step in and ask for the Constitutional Court’s view on the legality of the agreement setting up the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities. This could have easily been done by the Government of Kosovo the moment it encountered strong opposition to the document. Scared by the possible mass reaction of the people to the opposition rally on 28 November, the Government even went as far as to announce, through the police, that the level of terrorist attacks threat in Kosovo has risen and that the people should avoid crowded areas. However, by far the most scandalous thing that all Kosovo leaders are responsible of, notes Surroi, is how none of them reacted to reports that Serbia is aiming to take control of Kosovo’s airspace. On the whole, it will be interesting to see what future steps the government will take. “With an absolutely selective reflection of justice in Kosovo, political intervention or pressure in certain cases is proving to be a reality” and if the Government’s strategy is to establish order by arresting MPs and protesters, the outcome of this will be violence, even greater than what was witnessed so far, warns Surroi. “The behaviour of these politicians that seem to live inside a bubble is ridiculous. The bubble may burst at any given moment. What then?”