In Kosovo and Metohija, the election campaign of the largest party, Albin Kurti’s Self-Determination Movement, who is serving as prime minister in a technical mandate, continues with actions in the north, by, as the local authorities there say, stripping the competencies of municipalities with a Serbian majority. After Kurti personally opened a museum of an alleged massacre of Albanians in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, without notification and consent of the local authorities, he is now also changing the street names.
The Ministry of Infrastructure from Pristina, with the assistance of the police, changed over eighty street names in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, even though the earlier decision on renaming the streets, made while Serbs were outside the institutions, is in a court process.
“On January 30, the Municipal Assembly of North Mitrovica passed a decision by which it invalidated the previous act on renaming streets, because it was brought in violation of the law, because there was no public discussion, because there was no multi-ethnic commission, because absolutely not a single Serb participated in the work of that commission, so those decisions were against the law and illegal,” said Milan Radojević, mayor of North Mitrovica.
The recent demolition of Serbian private facilities without a decision from the municipal inspection, the usurpation of premises owned by the local self-government for the needs of central institutions, the announcement of building a mosque, and the closure of railway station premises were also done without consultation with citizens and local authorities, again with the support of armed police officers.
“We have been witnesses in the last few months that the Kosovo Police in the north is not just the Kosovo police, but also the construction inspection and everything else it shouldn’t be. It happens that when Serbs from the municipality of North Mitrovica called the Kosovo police for assistance, they did not want to come out…”, Lazar Stević, a journalist and analyst, told Euronews Serbia.
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The walking of Pristina officials through the streets of municipalities in the north is daily, often accompanied by the mayor of the southern part of Kosovska Mitrovica.
“They do not allow Serbs, even their mayors who were elected in the elections, to normally run their municipalities the way the citizens living in those municipalities want,” said Igor Simić, vice president of the Serb List.
The formation of a joint Committee of North and South Mitrovica, without the participation of Serbs from the north, is also in contradiction with the Law on Administrative Boundaries of Municipalities. There is no necessary agreement on inter-municipal cooperation, but there is the possibility to outvote one side, and that is the Serbian side. That is not important for Pristina.
“An Administrative Instruction regulating the organization and functioning of the Mitrovica City Committee has been signed. This committee continues to play an important role in the cooperation between the two municipalities and in the implementation of joint projects that improve the lives of citizens,” Elbert Krasniqi, the minister of local self-government in Pristina, wrote on the social network Facebook.
The Serbs believe that such a committee will not improve their lives with its decisions. And what worries them even more is that the currently ruling and largest party in Kosmet, Kurti’s Self-Determination, predicts Mitrovica as a single city and a single municipality in its party program – the so-called united Mitrovica, in which Albanians would have a vast majority.
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Source: Euronews; Photo: EPA-EFE