Kosovo Albanians’ daily attacks against Serb returnees in Kosovo and Metohija send a message that differs from formal claims of the Pristina authorities that they support the building of a democratic multi-ethnic society in Kosovo where all the rights will be guaranteed to Serbian citizens. After the recent stoning of 26 returnee Serbian families in the village of Zac, near Istok, the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija has asked the international community and the peacekeeping missions in Kosovo to prevent further violence of extremists. Ivana Subasic has more.

The security situation in the province is relatively calm, but still fragile, warned UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his quarterly report, which was distributed in early April to members of the Security Council. Meanwhile, in Belgrade, the Military Intelligence Agency announced that there is no reason for concerns for the time being and that the situation is being monitored on daily basis, especially in the north of the province, so that warnings of possible deterioration of the security situation could be issued in timely fashion. Terrorist threats are not particularly prominent in the region, but they should not be excluded as a latent danger, said the advisor at the Military Intelligence Agency Snezana Vukadinovic Sundrica.

Professor of the Faculty of Security in Belgrade Zoran Dragisic agrees with such assessment and opinions that reduction of the number of KFOR members will not affect the security of the Serbian population in Kosovo at the moment. However, our collocutor warns, in case of large-scale incidents, such as was the pogrom in March 2004, 10 thousand troops would not be enough to successfully operate. If it happened, additional forces would be needed, says Dragisic, while reminding that the EULEX Police and the Kosovo Police Service do not have enough capacity, because their activity primarily aims at the fight against crime. According to him, the security situation in the region is much better than before, because there are no political circumstances that would affect the stability in the Balkans. The organized crime groups are still present in the region that have so far engaged in terrorist activities and that have the capacity to carry out terrorist attacks, but at the moment there is no political trigger that would lead to increased terrorism, underlines Dragisic. He, however, does not exclude the possible activities of these groups if there is a change of political situation in the region. If something goes wrong for the Albanians in Kosovo in the field of foreign policy, potential terrorist attacks can be expected, not only in the province, but in other parts of Serbia, as well. However, at this point there is no indication that such a thing could happen, underlines Dragisic.

In this context, it is quite  understandable that the UN Secretary General called upon Belgrade and Pristina, but also the wider international community, to show more flexibility and to focus on finding solutions to practical issues regardless of the status of Kosovo.

Source: http://glassrbije.org/E/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10686&Itemid=27

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