7/31/2023 0 Comments Safari nation facebook![]() But in November of last year, due to disagreements between Pristina and Belgrade on a number of issues, Serbs pulled out of Kosovo institutions entirely. They've served in the multiethnic Kosovo police force. SIMONOVIC: Should they belong to Kosovo or should they belong to Serbia? At the end, these citizens - I mean, Serbs in Kosovo, they're deceived from both sides.īEARDSLEY: Since 2013, Serbs have been members of Kosovo's parliament and judiciary. Still, he says, Kosovo Serbs feel like pawns in a bigger game. But they've also been participating in Kosovo's institutions for the last 10 years, and things have mostly been working. And we both have some solid evidence to back it up.īEARDSLEY: Simonovic says the Serbs here feel loyal to Serbia. ![]() SIMONOVIC: They claim that Kosovo is Albanians' country, and that is their truth. Simple as that.īEARDSLEY: Srdjan Simonovic is a political analyst with Kosovo civil society organization the Human Center. We have Serbian truth and Albanian truth. SRDJAN SIMONOVIC: Here, we have two truth. Serbia, which considers Kosovo the birthplace of its religion and culture, does not recognize Kosovo's independence. We would never vote for an Albanian, especially not in any Serbian community, especially not here.īEARDSLEY: Twenty-four years after NATO intervened to stop the persecution of ethnic Albanians by the forces of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, they're still needed to keep the peace in this corner of the former Yugoslavia. STEVANOVIC: This was quite a shock for all of us. And being forced to accept these mayors, elected by a tiny sliver of ethnic Albanians, was a step too far. Stevanovic says Serbs feel unfairly targeted by the government in Pristina. Many Serbs still have Serbian plates on their cars, and Kosovo's government began fining them for it. They boycotted it on orders from Belgrade after a dispute over license plates. And then you just go out into the street.īEARDSLEY: Stevanovic, an ethnic Serb, says the reason they protested is because they didn't vote in this election. And then whenever something happens, you just hear it word of mouth. MARIA STEVANOVIC: I mean, it's a small place. Schoolteacher Maria Stevanovic (ph) was in front of the municipality building in her town of Zvecan. More than 30 NATO soldiers were injured trying to keep the peace. UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).īEARDSLEY: The mayors were soon met by chanting crowds. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley recently visited and sends this report.ĮLEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: At the end of May, four newly elected mayors, all ethnic Albanians, entered the town halls in their districts in northern Kosovo, which is populated mostly by ethnic Serbs and is contiguous with Serbia. And the stakes are high because that peace is being threatened now for a young European democracy that declared its independence from Serbia in 2008. The United States has spent decades trying to keep the peace in Kosovo, in Europe.
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