Kosovo Serb politician Slobodan Petrovic has accused Serbia of using state security bodies to intimidate rivals, such as himself, of a Kosovo Serb political party that is backed by Belgrade.
In three separate cases in December and January, Petrovic, who heads the Kosovo-based Serbian Liberal Party, SLS, and two party colleagues were stopped and questioned by what Petrovic said were officers of the Serbian security agency BIA at the Merdare border crossing between Serbia and its former southern province.
Petrovic was stopped on December 8, his party deputy and Kosovo’s deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Boban Stankovic, was stopped on January 2, while on January 10 the same thing happened to Nebojsa Jakovljevic, a senior SL member and adviser at Kosovo’s Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare.
All three were released after several hours of questioning.
“In all three cases, the procedure was completely identical,” Petrovic said in an interview with BIRN.
“I don’t mind the [security] services doing their job, but I also expect some explanation for why they are doing it and who ordered them to mistreat people,” he said.
“Each of us is ready to respond to any call from the police, prosecutor’s office and the court if there really is some need for it.”
BIRN wrote to the Serbian Interior Ministry and BIA asking for a response but received no reply.
Speculation over Serbian List posts
Petrovic’s SLS has only one MP in the Kosovo parliament but is seen as chief rival to the main Kosovo Serb party backed by Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party – the Serbian List.
The Serbian List has 9 MPs in parliament, but has been boycotting meetings of Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj’s government since March 2018, when Serbia’s Kosovo pointman, Marko Djuric, was arrested by Kosovo police in the northern town of Mitrovica.
The Serbian List has not given up its cabinet posts, however, which include three ministers and a deputy to Haradinaj. There is speculation in Kosovo and Serbia that the Serbian List ministers may be dismissed, with SLS best-placed to replace them.
Asked if his party was prepared to take over the Serbian List posts, Petrovic said it would not do so “at all cost”.
Belgrade sowing division, says Petrovic
Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albania majority of roughly 90 per cent, declared independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after a NATO air war drove out Serb forces accused of killing and expelling civilians in a brutal counter-insurgency war.
Backed by United Nations Security Council veto-holder Russia, Serbia does not recognise its former province as sovereign, but is under pressure to settle relations with Kosovo if it is to make further progress towards membership of the European Union.
Petrovic described the plight of tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs remaining in Kosovo as “difficult and full of uncertainty.”
“However, over the last four to five years, the situation has deteriorated considerably when it comes to the survival of the Serbs,” he said. “People sell their property every day and entire families leave. Injustice and division are killing these people.”
Petrovic said the blame lay with Belgrade.
“Belgrade, as never before, has divided us between those who think the same and those who think differently, i.e. those who differ with the Serbian List are traitors, even second-class citizens,” he said.
Asked about a potential solution to the Kosovo-Serbia dispute, Petrovic, who was born in Kosovo, said the most important thing was for Kosovo Serbs to remain and to live free, normal lives.
“Which means that for me what would be acceptable is any solution that allows this and on which there is agreement between Belgrade, Pristina and the Kosovo Serbs, whom nobody asks anything right now.
Asked if that might mean acceptance of independence, Petrovic replied: “That’s the question for Vucic”.
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