Kosovo Serbs protest against the Serbian List, call Aleksandar Vučić a traitor: We don’t want your Association, you sold us

In North Mitrovica – a municipality inhabited by a majority of Serbs – there was a protest on Sunday against, as the organizers said, the “high treason” of the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, and the “torture against the Serbs and the occupation of the north”, by the prime minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti.

About 200 citizens gathered at noon on January 8 in front of the building of Srpska Lista – the largest party of Serbs in Kosovo, supported by official Belgrade – where they protested against the official policy of Serbia in Kosovo and the attitude of “Kurti towards Serbs.”

Prime Minister Kurti had repeatedly stated that he was not against Serb citizens, but against “Serb criminals” who break the law in Kosovo.

Protesters unfurled a banner reading “Vučić, Kosovo does not want you. You have betrayed us. We don’t even want your Association. You sold us out!”.

In addition to Vucic and Kurti, the Serbian list was also criticized there.

One of the organizers of the protest, Ivan Miletic, said they gathered because “the last hour has come and the people of Mitrovica and Kosovo will not stop and will not surrender, they will fight until the end.”

He said that during the erection of barricades in northern Kosovo, they had believed that Vucic would stand behind the Serbs and support them, “but that did not happen.”

He also called on Kurti and the international community to withdraw all Special Forces police from northern Kosovo and close the bases there.

In early December, the Kosovo government said that there were order police in the north, but that there were KP special forces.

Miletic said that they have nothing against the Albanian people and the people who are of good will.

It was also said that no one is against the state of Serbia, but that they ask the leaders in Serbia not to “protect them in this way” because in their opinion no imposed Serbian list represents them, and they asked the official Belgrade “to listen to the people who live here, who are blackmailed and afraid.”

Another organizer of the protest, Nebojsa Jovic, said Serbs have a problem with Kurti’s policies, but Vucic is obligated to ensure the safety of Serbs in the north.

He said Srpska Lista could no longer represent Serbs because, in his opinion, “the fate is decided by failed businessmen and politicians.”

Twenty days in a row, in December 2022, barricades were erected in the four northern municipalities on the roads leading to the border points of Kosovo and Serbia.

The barricades were set up as a sign of protest against the arrest of a former Kosovo police officer by the Serbian community, who, according to the Kosovo authorities, is suspected of having organized an attack on the offices of the Central Election Commission in the north.

Serbs decided to remove the barricades after Dejan Pantic security measures were changed from detention to house arrest./REL/