[www.ANTIC.org] Serbs Blocking Kosovo

[Miroslav Antic]

Serbs Blocking Kosovo

08/16/2003 17:33

People grieve over a cruel tragedy Over 1,000 people came to the funeral of two young Serbs slain in Kosovo on Friday, Russia's NTV television reports. Pantelija Dakic, 11, and Ivan Jovovic, 20, were killed by Albanian extremists while they were swimming in a river.   Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Coastlands said in his prayer at the service for the dead: "The eyes of these children are closed for the world but they are open for eternal life. They reveal a deep and painful wound of our people."   Serbia's top government officials and representatives of the UN international mission in Kosovo were also present at the funeral. The event finally turned into a mass meeting. People shouted slogans not to yield to provocations and keep holding onto the native land. In fact, over the past 5 years 300,000 Serbs have already left Kosovo. The authorities promise to crack down on those who are guilty of "the useless slaughter", NTV.Ru informs. However it seems that Serbs are not going to wait until the end of an official investigation. As it has been reported, a group of hopeless people is blocking highways leading to Kosovo; some people even threw grenades into a house where Albanians live. The situation in Kosovo is extremely tense. According to Radio Jugoslavija, Serbia Minister of Justice Vladan Batic appealed to Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte and said that the crime in Gorazdevac confirms that leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army must be taken to the Schwenningen prison. The letter says: "This is the only way to establish the truth and guarantee the right for life, happiness and future to children." Batic says that such mean crimes break the principles of universal justice and the UN order. He adds that the Tribunal in The Hague must stop the double standards policy with respect to the confronting parties.

Sergey Yugov Read the original in Russian: http://world.pravda.ru/world/2003/5/14/37/12955_Kosovo.html (Translated by: Maria Gousseva)