Posted on 06/21/2006 4:28:30 PM PDT by Bokababe
Pristina Municipal Court on June 10 jailed 82 protesters for ten days for blocking the main gate of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo in a protest that called on UNMIK to quit Kosovo.
The protest, led by Albin Kurti, head of the Vetevendosje (self-determination) movement, was joined by members of other radical groups and raised fears that the security situation might be worsening.
About 1,000 people answered Vetevendosje's call for a June 8 protest, making it the biggest demonstration of its kind so far.
Supporters, some of whom camped overnight in tents in front of the UNMIK headquarters, rallied to Vetevendosja's call to "stop the evil that is being imposed" on Kosovo. Those evils include "decentralisation, negotiations with Serbia and the process of re-colonisation of Kosovo".
The protest ended when the Kosovo Police Service, KPS, moved in at 3 am on June 9, clearing away the demonstrators from the UN entrance.
The protest occurred as talks took place in Vienna between Kosovo and Serbia on the territory's final status. They are due to end later this year.
Vetevendosja's head, Albin Kurti, was a former leader of the university students’ union and helped to organise student protests in Kosovo in 1997.
In 1999, Serbian police arrested Kurti, who then worked for the political office of Kosovo's Liberation Army, KLA, just as NATO started bombing Serbia. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail for crimes against the territorial integrity of former Yugoslavia .
After his release following the fall of Slobodan Milosevic's regime in 2001, Kurti he returned to Kosovo, working on the issue of missing persons and organising protests against UNMIK, which he labels "an undemocratic neo-colonialist regime".
Vetevendosje became prominent with the slogan "No negotiations - self-determination", which its activists painted all over Kosovo, causing confrontations with the police and the arrest of some supporters.
The latest protest was the first to draw public criticism from the Kosovo government led by Prime Minister Agim Ceku.
"We understand the frustration of Kosovo citizens... but in this crucial period for Kosovo's future... all protests that paralyse institutional life in Kosovo are harmful," Ceku's office said on June 8.
However, the leading opposition party, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, denied the movement posed a security threat, suggesting it was harmless.
Lirim Greicevci, senior advisor to PDK head Hashim Thaci, said Vetevendosje "can't be considered a force that might cause further riots in Kosovo".
Greicevci said the movement's objectives were redundant. "Kosovo is on its institutional way to independence," he said, and "if the PDK had any doubts about this, we would not be in the negotiating team and we would consider fighting for independence in other ways".
Lulzim Peci, head of the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development, KIPRED, agreed. "Albin Kurti has no political capacity to cause a classic revolution," he said.
However, in a TV debate organised by BIRN Kosovo on June 7, Kurti made clear that his agenda included overthrowing the government.
His policy was "to overthrow the government through revolution", he said, after which he would announce a referendum on Kosovo's independence, and "let the people elect a whole new political class three months after the revolution".
Vetevendosje activist Hysen Durmishi said that "the ongoing political process... status talks, decentralisation, [talks on the] extra-territoriality of [Serbian] churches... is leading Kosovo to another war."
"This will be people's war for freedom and Vetevendosje will be there to lead it," he told Balkan Insight on June 13.
In a meeting with Ceku, UNMIK chief Soren Jessen-Petersen said Vetevendosje's actions were damaging the country. "They do not work for the best interest of Kosovo," said the UNMIK chief.
However, Glauk Konjufca, another Vetevendosje activist, said UNMIK is the problem.
"If somebody is harming Kosovo it is UNMIK and the so-called provisional institutions that are denying the right of this nation for self-determination," Konjufca told Balkan Insight.
Konjufca claimed support was growing for Vetvendosja, as proved by the fact that other radical organisations joined the latest protest in Pristina, such as the Organisation for National Unification, OBK.
OBK activists said they supported the protest because of "the right of people for self-determination, freedom and national unification [which] is an undeniable right".
The Kosovo National Movement, LPK, which supports the unification of Kosovo and Albania in one state, was the only party in parliament to support the protest. Its head, Emrush Xhemajli, said Vetevendosje expressed many people's frustration.
Xhemajli said UNMIK's mission should have terminated in 2003 and warned that any extension "would cause widespread riots in Kosovo".
Much to the annoyance of the anti-UNMIK agitators, international forces show no sign yet of pulling out.
On the contrary, KFOR, NATO's military force in Kosovo, has confirmed it is deploying an extra 500 troops in the territory. Colonel Pio Sabetta, KFOR spokesperson, said the extra soldiers were needed for the force's regular military manoeuvre, this year entitled "Determined Effort 2006". They were not being called in to cope with any fresh threat to the security situation, he maintained.
"The security situation is still assessed as stable," Sabetta told Balkan Insight.
Lulzim Peci said that while Vetevendosje did not have the capacity to pose a security threat on its own, the ideas the movement was based on might be taken up by other political actors "if the Kosovo negotiating team does not manage to achieve even their minimal requirements - which is for Serbia to have zero sovereignty over Kosovo".
In the meantime, many Kosovars made it clear they regard the movement with distrust.
Lorik Bajrami, a civil society activist, said Vetevendosje would use any mistake by the Kosovo negotiating team to whip up support.
Blerton Ajeti, a graduate in Pristina, agreed. Vetevendosje was "abusing the social rage of the population for political ends", he said.
"This fury should be controlled and used in the right way, not by rising against the international community or the negotiating process."
LOL... Is this one of the UN success stories that according to the UN's Mark Malloch Brown we in middle America never hear about?
MSM will be all over this! (sarc)
TT
denying the right of this nation for self-determination," Konjufca told Balkan Insight.
And in the meantime Serbs do what they must: defend themselves against the howling hateful horde.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1882361&C=landwar
"This fury should be controlled and used in the right way, not by rising against the international community or the negotiating process."
In other words, "Save it for genocide against Serbs and other non-Albanians"
They did the same thing (hiring paramilitaries) in 1999 to 2000, as some of them remained in certain enclaves until Milosevic was arrested and ousted by Vojislav Kostunica. It's of particular interest that the arrest of Milosevic was conducted while Zoran Djindjic was out of town. In 2003, the man arrested for allegedly assassinating Zoran Djindjic (who was considered to be pro-Western, by the way)ran an elite police unit tied to organized crime and former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The suspect was Zvezdan Jovanovic, a deputy commander of the Unit for Special Operations used by the former Yugoslav president during the 1990s wars in Bosnia and Croatia. The Serbian government later ordered the unit disbanded, saying its 300 members must return their weapons, uniforms and insignia within 30 days of the date set in 2003. It was almost a repeat of history for WWI, when the "Black Hand" assassinated the Archduke, and was disbanded. The Black Hand existed even in 1999 to some date in 2000.
Albanian radicals = the same kind of pigs who killed our guys in IRAQ!!
Albanian radicals = the same kind of pigs who killed our guys in IRAQ!!
Where is there cheerleader hoplite on this thread??????
I wonder if the admin mod knows we have a regular poster from a a pro-Iraqi insurgency web site as a FREEPER???
An gee, what poster might that be?
Aw, shucks.... its...........its..........oh, you take a little guess. LOL
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