School classes throughout Serbia this morning started with a story about the pogrom of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija on 17 March 2004.
Following the screening of a movie about the pogrom in the ‘Banovic Strahinja’ primary school in Belgrade pupils asked questions such as: ‘Was anyone held accountable for what happened?”, “How many Serbs returned?”, “Has anything been rebuilt?”, “What did the great powers say about it?”
It is not sufficient to say that Serbia will never recognize Kosovo, instead it should be shown to the world that Kosovo is Serbia, through action.
Chambers of Commerce of Serbia and Kosovo have strongly condemned last week's acts by supporters of radical Albanian movement ‘Self- Determination’, who overturned two Serbian trucks carrying commodities from Serbia to Kosovo. Chairpersons of both chambers will send a joint letter today to the EU institutions in Brussels and in Kosovo, requesting their active participation in finding solutions to this problem.
The Interior Minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Federal Republic of Germany, Lorenz Caffier, promised Germany’s engagement in Kosovo’s INTERPOL and EUROPOL membership. He made these comments after a meeting with Kosovo’s Minister of Interior, Skender Hyseni, during which they discussed the repatriation of Kosovo emigrants. Minister Caffier said that Kosovo has continuously supported Germany on repatriation. “Now repatriation will depend on the work of the Federal Office for migration in Germany.
It has been long known that supporters of the ‘Self-Determination’ movement are against the distribution of Serbian products in Kosovo. Their activities have escalated from placing ‘Boycott Serbian products’ logos on traffic lights in Pristina, the only municipality run by a ‘Self-Determination’ movement, to overturning Serbia trucks.
Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister, Branimir Stojanovic confirmed to Dnevnik that the upcoming elections for the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia will be held in Kosovo. It means that the elections will be organized in all Serbian areas in coordination and with the assistance of the OSCE and other relevant international organizations.
The recently established Inter-Ministerial Commission for Communities that will work on implementation of regulations related to the protection of communities and amendments of laws that insufficiently or inadequately protect rights of communities, held its first meeting yesterday.
The main community issues that this Commission will deal with are better representation in institutions, protection of property rights, language use rights, improvement of working conditions and security.
Yesterday the Minister for Communities and Return Dalibor Jevtic met with Svetlana Stevic, the chairperson of the ‘Majka devet Jugovica’ humanitarian organization that operates under the auspices of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and discussed the ways the Ministry could help this organization, which provides food for returnees and the vulnerable through six soup kitchens throughout Kosovo.
In a special operation of the Montenegrin police in the vicinity of Niksic, a Serbian citizen, Zoran Vukotic was arrested on a warrant from Interpol for the crime of "war crimes against the civilian population," police confirmed to the Podgorica daily Dnevne Novine.
According to unofficial information, the red Interpol warrant, published on the official website of the international police organization, was issued upon request of UNMIK, to conduct criminal proceedings in Kosovo.
Lumir Abdixhiku considers that Hashim Thaci’s election for president, comforted one individual while holding the fate of an entire country hostage. He says that political clashes in Kosovo have become so deep, that giving up would be perceived as a political weakness, mistake or defeat. On the other hand, he notes, international voices have started to show the first signs of some kind of mediation, “Public proposal of the German Ambassador for creation of a mediating commission, makes a good start,” writes Abdixhiku.