http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2009&mm=03&dd=22&nav_id=57996
10,000 Serbs without electricity for 20 days 22 March 2009 | 10:47 | Source: B92 ŠILOVO -- Representatives from several Kosovo Serb municipalities will today hold a joint session. Councilors from Gnjilane, Novo Brdo, Vitina and Kosovska Kamenica will meet in the village of Šilovo, to discuss their next steps, as their communities have been cut off from the power grid for more than 20 days. Ljubomir Stanojković, who represents Šilovo, says that one of the items on the agenda will be to form a working group that will go to Belgrade next week and talk to ministry officials about a permanent solution to the power supply problem. Although they have been convinced that the state is making many efforts, Stanojković says that the Serbs in Kosovo have not felt concrete assistance. "It is our intention to agree on how to act and what to demand from our state, but it has to be more precise and concrete," said he. "The guidelines have been in the sense that the state is making all the efforts in the talks, above all with international institutions in Kosovo and Metohija, to make sure that we have electricity to live in at least some kind of normal circumstances, but their power is in the influence and they do not have a button to help us concretely, and that for now, they have no intention to participate in talks with the Kosovo [Albanian] government." Estimates show that some 10,000 Serbs in the nine villages in the Gnjilane region and central Kosovo have been left without electricity. At the same time, Serbs in Ranilug, Glogovac, Tomanac, Pančela and Malo Ropotovo were reconnected when Kosovska Kamenica municipal vice president reached an agreement with a company distributing electricity in the province, KEK. Meanwhile, State Secretary with the Ministry for Kosovo Zvonimir Stević says this is not a systemic and permanent solution, because Serbia will not accept contracts for the delivery of electricity that have "republic of Kosovo" printed on them.
