It would be a crime to leave the elderly, including returnees in Metohija, without pensions, the editor of Radio Gorazdevac, Darko Dimitrijević, commented on the Kosovo Police seizing money from Belgrade intended for Serbs in this area yesterday. In a statement for KoSSev, Dimitrijević warned of a possible mass departure of Kosovo Serbs if Quint fails to take immediate action.
Two employees of the Serbian Post, V.M and V.P, were detained yesterday while they were traveling from the direction of Osojane toward Gorazdevac. The money they were carrying, intended for the pay out of pensions and social benefits, was confiscated. They were transporting Serbian dinar banknotes, the use of which has been practically suspended by the new regulation of the Central Bank of Kosovo on currency, which entered into force on February 1.
Although the police has yet to confirm that the money was seized, the news was confirmed by several sources, including Radio Gorazdevac, which reported from the site.
The Pristina government did not defeat Serbia, but harmed the poorest people
Dimitrijević told KoSSev that with this move, the Kosovo authorities did not defeat Serbia, but harmed the poorest and most vulnerable population group.
„Those who confiscated the dinars that were on their way to Gorazdevac, Osojane and the other fifty villages in the Pec district, did not defeat Serbia, harmed any local politician, no one whose dinars from Belgrade are deposited to a bank account, they are safe. By confiscating money, the Kosovo government has harmed the poorest population group,“ he said.
„The glorious victory of the Kosovo authorities with this confiscation of dinars is that it took the bread out of the mouths of the hungry, those who receive pensions and social benefits, those who barely made ends meet all these years, without the possibility of employment either in Serbian or in Kosovo institutions, the elderly and powerless returnees, who are just staring at their doors to which no one will bring them the January pension they need to pay food and utility bills.“
Until recently he hung out with us, but now…
Addressing the previous action of the Kosovo Police when the provisional authority offices were closed in the villages of Osojane, Vidanje and Gorazdevac, Dimitrijević recalls that in addition to Xhelal Svecla, another minister in the Kosovo government attended this event.
„The paradox of all this is that our neighbor, Kurti’s minister from the ranks of the Egyptian community, Elbert Krasniqi, the minister for local self-government, is participating in it. A neighbor who used to hang out with us until recently,“ he underlined.
According to Dimitrijević, Krasniqi also „did not defeat Serbia“ when he accompanied Svecla „to his neighborhood“.
„He and Svecla did not win. He did not harm a single more affluent resident of Gorazdevac. I think he is aware that he seized very important agricultural and social assistance from the poorest class of citizens. The minister is aware of all this, as someone who lives on the outskirts of the village and passes through Gorazdevac every morning when he goes to Pristina for work,“ adds Dimitrijević.
From good neighborly relations to repression
Dimitrijević stated that Gorazdevac is one of the rare places in Kosovo where Albanians and Serbs lived in good neighborly relations until now.
„The international community encouraged both the local authorities and the Gorazdevac locals, previously we had the cooperation of Pec and Sabac as a unique example of cooperation between towns from Serbia and Kosovo,“ he said.
However, after everything that happened, the Serbs, especially the young ones, „view the whole apparatus as very repressive, as one that destroys its people.“
I perceive everything that happened as a novel in which a ‘great victory’ can be a huge shame for the authorities and the international community, which does not take any concrete action.
Do not allow the destruction of coexistence and the construction of a mono-ethnic Kosovo
Dimitrijević then advised the Quint countries on what they should do if they want to „prevent repression“.
„They should call the mayor of Pec, Gazmend Muhaxheri and come together to Gorazdevac and send a message that they will not allow Kurti to destroy the last positive examples of coexistence in Kosovo and to damage the foundations of a mono-ethnic Kosovo in which the Serbs turned out to be collateral damage in a game of wits between Belgrade, Pristina and the international community that conducts the dialogue,“ concluded Dimitrijević.
He warns of a possible mass departure of the remaining Serbs from Metohija villages.
„If there is no concrete and quick reaction from Quint to solve this problem, there will be no more Serbs in Kosovo. Not because they don’t like Kosovo, but because the vast majority will not have the means to live in a society burdened by the ethnic, national, and war heritage of Kosovo Albanians, in which there is no place for the rich Serbian culture and heritage created over centuries as a universal value.“
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
