FAMILY OF THE JAKŠIĆS WHOSE HOTEL WAS DEMOLISHED AT GAZIVODE SPEAKS OUT: “Special Forces Stormed In With Long Guns”!

At Lake Gazivode, 17 structures have been demolished one after another. The Kosovo authorities claim they were illegally built, even though many of the owners had ongoing court proceedings. The demolitions were not halted by warnings from foreign embassies or by Belgrade’s muted response. And it was precisely over Gazivode that Serbia’s president vowed ten years ago that he would never give it up, even though the lake has, in the meantime, effectively come under different control.

Where the “Jezero” motel once stood, there is now only rubble. The Jakšić family has lost the motel they had invested in for thirty years. It made no difference that they had filed a lawsuit against the public company Ibar-Lepenac, which requested the demolition, or that the court hearing was scheduled for August 12.

“Special forces stormed in with long guns and pointed their weapons at us, telling us to leave the building immediately,” said Aleksandar Jakšić.

It was at this very location, considered strategically important for northern Kosovo, that Serbian officials were sending very different messages ten years ago.

“I once said in Brussels—talk about anything you want, but we will not give up Gazivode. After that, we did not continue those talks, and our position has not changed,” then-Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić said in 2016.

A decade later, Gazivode is fully controlled by the Kosovo authorities. Representatives of the non-governmental sector point out that the biggest problems are faced by people who built properties between 1999 and 2013.

“People who built during that period generally have only Serbian documents, permits, or purchase agreements. That creates a huge property issue—who is the legal successor to the property and how the rights of people who purchased property in the meantime should be treated, while Kosovo institutions were not functioning here. That legal vacuum cannot be ignored,” said Milica Andrić Rakić, Executive Director of the New Social Initiative.

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“That Vacuum Was Clearly Ignored”

However, the Kosovo authorities have evidently ignored it.

“If there was any possibility of postponing the demolition of those buildings for a certain period, then they should have tried to find another solution so as not to create the impression that someone was deliberately trying to raise tensions between Albanians and Serbs,” said political analyst Behdžet Šalja.

Tensions were also heightened in April when 23 garages owned by Serbs in Mitrovica were demolished, with Trepča claiming they had been built on its land.

“Following the logic that Trepča South is the legal successor to public land that Trepča previously had the right to use, although it was not the owner, or the precedent that Ibar-Lepenac is setting at Gazivode, we could end up in a situation where more than half of Zvečan and a large part of Mitrovica could be demolished in the same way,” Andrić Rakić explained.

This comes as the Kosovo authorities have announced that the demolition campaign will continue after Gazivode.

“When it comes to the north, this cannot be treated solely as a legal issue because, due to the relationship between Kosovo and Serbia, it is more often treated as a political issue,” Šalja emphasized.

Some Structures Were Not Demolished

Some buildings at this strategically important lake in northern Kosovo were not demolished. A villa built without permits, confiscated from Milan Radoičić, is now being used by the Kosovo police. For Serbs in the north, the lack of a stronger reaction from Belgrade is no longer surprising.

“I don’t believe this is currently a priority for Belgrade. I think they would deal with Kosovo only in the event of larger-scale ethnic violence, and I believe that is the only red line,” Andrić Rakić said.

For the students, the authorities’ failure to react is proof that preserving power is more important than protecting national and state interests. They say that this betrayal will remain recorded in history and that future generations will remember those they consider traitors to their nation.