http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/ 2008/03/04/feature-02
SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN TIMES (USA) Serbs boycott institutions in Kosovo 04/03/2008 As Kosovo Serbs continue to protest independence, hundreds of Serb policemen have walked off their jobs . By Blerta Foniqi-Kabashi for Southeast European Times in Pristina -- 04/03/08 Kosovo Serbs on Monday (March 3rd) stopped a train travelling from central to northern Kosovo. It was the latest in a series of actions expressing the community's dissatisfaction with Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia. The train, heading from Fushë Kosovo to Lesak, was halted at the station in Zvecan, a municipality dominated by Serbs. "It was stopped for a while there and then returned back," said the KPS spokesperson in Mitrovica, Besim Hoti. The Serbian state railway company says it is now controlling a stretch of railway in northern Kosovo. Zeleznica Srbije board chairman Branislav Ristivojevic, who is also an advisor to Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, claims the firm has taken over the 60km stretch of track, which had been under UNMIK's jurisdiction since 1999. Meanwhile, Serbs have set up a crisis headquarters in the enclave of Gracanica, 5km from the capital Pristina. The move came after hundreds of Serb members of the KPS walked off their jobs, refusing to work for the newly-declared state of Kosovo. The chief of the new headquarters, Dragutin Jovanovic, said Serb policemen will not respect KPS orders. "The crisis headquarters calls for urgent meeting with head of UNMIK, Joachim Ruecker, the commandant of police and with the KFOR representative to fulfill the current situation," he said. Serbs in Gracanica created this headquarters because they are not safe in a Kosovo run by ethnic Albanians, Jovanovic said. A Serb KPS member, who did not want to be identified, said he and his colleagues would not return to the KPS "until they understand that Kosovo is part of Serbia". "We cannot work for the Albanian structures. KPS is not ours," he told a local news agency. Another institution that is boycotting the Kosovo government is the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Church told all its priests in Kosovo to suspend any contact with Pristina authorities, the EU police, the judicial mission that has started to deploy to Kosovo and representatives of countries that have recognised Kosovo's independence. Kosovo's president, Fatmir Sejdiu, is laying the blame for the situation at Belgrade's door. According to him, Serbian authorities have been urging Kosovo Serbs to create tensions and boycott the new state. "People can express their concern in the way that they are expressing it, but they must be convinced that Kosovo is theirs as well. I call them to return to their normal life and work in the space that they have because it is a joint perspective," Sejdiu said. Interior Minister Zenun Pajaziti, meanwhile, said the KPS is the only police structure that operates in the Republic of Kosovo. "I appealed to the police to return in their working places," he told reporters. Creating a parallel structure is out of the question when it comes to law enforcement, he told RTK television, even if Serb KPS members receive payment from Belgrade. The mayor of the southeastern municipality of Gjilan, Qemajl Mustafa, said the boycott by Serb policemen was politically motivated. "This action harms the achievements of the multiethnic society of Gjilan, where Albanian community, the Serb community and the international factor have invested," he said. "I hope that very soon everyone will be in their working place, as they were up to now, in the service of law and in setting order in the municipality of Gjilan," he said. This content was commissioned for SETimes.com
