The loans for the construction of the Ibar-Lepecan hydro system were paid off by the state of Serbia, while the Kosovo communist authorities carried out the expropriation of land by equating the value of an acre of Serb-owned land to a pack of cigarettes, the People’s Movement of Kosovo Serbs „Otadzbina“ (Fatherland) said in response to Self-Determination leader, Albin Kurti, who said in a Facebook post that Gazivode is Kosovan land on the territory of Serbia because the expropriation and construction were carried out with the funds of Kosovo.
„Albin Kurti does not know the way the former federation of SFRY functioned, nor is he familiar with the way this expensive facility was built. Albin Kurti does not know that the loan for the construction of this hydro system was taken by Serbia, which paid off all the debts with the London and Paris clubs,“ „Otadzbina” wrote in a statement.
“Otadzbina” also objected to Kurti’s claims that „the lake was not built in cooperation with Serbia, nor did Serbia intend to use the water – only Kosovo“ and that Kosovo „paid a steep price for it“.
„At the 2008 negotiations in Vienna, Martti Ahtisaari suggested to the Serb negotiating team for ‘Kosovo’ to continue with paying off the debts, but the Serbian delegation refused. It is interesting to note that the then Minister of Finance, Mladjan Dinkic was in favor of ‘Kosovo’ taking over the rest of the loan. During 2015, the Republic of Serbia paid all debts related to the Ibar-Lepenac hydro system. Therefore, the Gazivode hydroelectric reservoirs and hydroelectric power plants are the exclusive property of the Republic of Serbia,“ “Otadzbina” underlined.
They also responded to Kurti’s claim that Serbia could have expressed interest in the hydro system 40 years ago „when Kosovo’s interest in designing and expropriating for that purpose was at the level of the federation.“ Although “Otadzbina” admitted that Kurti is partly right, they added that he also made sharp accusations about how the expropriation was carried out, as well as the intentions behind the act.
„He is right in saying that the then Kosovo communist authorities expropriated land owned by Serbs. They did this by equating the value of an acre of Serb-owned land to a pack of cigarettes. In the middle of the winter of 1979, the dam was closed and a large part of the population was saved from the flood at the last minute. At that time, more than 6,000 Serbs from the area of Ibarski Kolasin were literally expelled from their homes and chased off to central Serbia. This is the biggest exodus of Serbs, not counting the one from 1999 when more than 250,000 Serbs were expelled from Kosovo.”
“Otadzbina” claimed that the then proposal of the Government of Serbia – for the artificial lake of Gazivode to be positioned near Ribaric in the Ibar Strait, with a hydroelectric power plant of much greater power, from where the water channel system would lead to Obilic and Pristina – was rejected by the Albanian communist leadership in Pristina, who insisted that the hydroelectric power plant and the lake were situated in the so-called Varas gorge near Zupce, where the number of flooded villages would be twice as high.
„The reason behind this was to force as many Serbs as possible to move out of their centuries-old homes because Ibarski Kolasin cuts through the so-called green transversal. The current location of Lake Gazivode was a middle ground solution,“ they stated.
Furthermore, they urged the chief Serbian negotiator, Aleksandar Vucic, to be aware of these, as they say, facts while negotiating with Pristina, while also warning that he is „the main threat to Serbs in the southern Serbian province“.
“By signing the Brussels agreement, he handed over the institutions belonging to the Serb state to the separatists in Pristina. He also forgot about the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, on which he took an oath, as well as the Resolution 1244 of the SC and international law, according to which Kosovo is part of the state of Serbia. Serbian President confused the terms, if there are no Serbs in Kacanik and Djakovica/Gjakova, that does not mean it is not Serbia,“ they concluded.
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