(Belgrade) Serbia paid tribute on Wednesday to its “martyrs” who fell on Sunday in Kosovo, members of the commando accused of having killed a Kosovar policeman in an ambush, while Pristina claims to have thwarted the “scenario of bloodshed” .
Flags were at half-mast in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, Wednesday having been declared a day of national mourning, as in the majority Serb localities of northern Kosovo.
In the evening, hundreds of people gathered in front of Saint Sava Cathedral in the center of the capital at the call of a group of Red Star supporters: among the three men killed on Sunday was one of their members , originally from Zvecan, in northern Kosovo. He “gave his life heroically for his people and his homeland,” they said in their appeal.
Among the other two, according to the Kosovar authorities, is a former bodyguard of Aleksandar Vulin, the head of the Serbian intelligence services. Which Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic denied in an interview on Wednesday evening.
“Serbia marks a day of mourning because of the tragic events in Kosovo, because of the deaths of all people. From the point of view of the Constitution of our country, they are all nationals of our country. Serbia marks the day of mourning for the three Serbs and the killed policeman,” Vucic added.
Serbia has never recognized the independence of its former province, predominantly Albanian, proclaimed in 2008.
PHOTO BOJAN SLAVKOVIC, ASSOCIATED PRESS
People light candles in tribute to the three people who died on Sunday.
The three men, “martyrs” for Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic, died in an operation by Kosovar special forces, in pursuit after the death of a Kosovar Albanian policeman in an ambush. After his death, a few kilometers from the Serbian border, dozens of heavily armed men took refuge in the Banjska monastery.
When the Kosovar police took over the monastery, they were no longer there. According to Pristina, at least six of them, injured, crossed into Serbia to be treated in a hospital in Novi Pazar (south).
Three were arrested and placed in pre-trial detention in Pristina for “crimes against the constitutional order and security of the Republic of Kosovo”.
As of Sunday, Pristina accused Belgrade of being behind this “criminal and terrorist” attack. Serbia denied it, in turn incriminating the head of the Kosovo government and his “provocations” towards the Kosovo Serbs.
Bloodshed
Kosovar Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla reiterated his accusations on Wednesday, saying that a senior Kosovo Serb politician, Milan Radoicic, was part of the commando.
Without denying the latter’s participation in the latest violence, Mr. Vucic said that he was in Serbia and that he would be questioned by the Serbian authorities.
According to a list distributed by Albin Kurti, the police seized 150 kg of explosives, dozens of automatic rifles, rocket launchers, an armored vehicle…
“With more than 5 million euros of military weaponry and sufficient quantities for a group of hundreds of fighters, the scenario of bloodshed in Kosovo has been proven,” Mr. Kurti said on Wednesday during a meeting of his cabinet.
“Serbia is totally involved in this terrorist attack,” he added – suggesting complicated days ahead for the “normalization” of relations with Belgrade, already at an impasse.
Around 120,000 Serbs live in Kosovo, a third of them in the north, out of a population of 1.8 million, the vast majority of them Kosovar Albanians.
The Serbian Defense Minister also deplored the lack of reaction from the NATO force (KFOR) during the latest violence.
“We are disappointed by the reaction of KFOR,” Mr. Vucevic said, adding that this force “must react first in such situations, to prevent the bloodbath from continuing.”
For its part, the very influential Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) called on its faithful to pray “for all the victims” […] the Serbs and the Albanians”, and for “peace for all”.
But at the same time she pointed out a “dangerous policy of the authorities in Pristina, whose objective is to entirely drive out the Serbian people” from Kosovo, which is, according to the SPC “the inseparable part of the State of Serbia.