(Pristina) A week after the deadly clashes in Kosovo which triggered one of the most serious escalations of tensions in years, the possibility of a rapprochement between the Albanians and the Serbs seems to be more remote than ever.
The murder of a Kosovar Albanian police officer, killed on Sunday in an ambush by a paramilitary commando, and the shooting which followed all day, leaving three dead among the commando – Kosovo Serbs -, brought back to the surface of years of distrust and bitterness.
The bodies of the three Serbs killed in this clash were handed over to their families on Saturday in Pristina, according to Serbian State Television (RTS).
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A Kosovar police officer takes part in a search in Mitrovica on September 29.
On Friday, the United States warned of “a significant Serbian military deployment along the border with Kosovo” and called on “Serbia to withdraw (its) troops.”
On Saturday, in the region of Raska, a town in southern Serbia near the border with Kosovo, no particular movement or increased presence of Serbian armed forces was visible, noted an AFP journalist.
At the same time, the authorities of Serbia and those of its former province – whose independence Belgrade does not recognize proclaimed in 2008 – have engaged in a war of words and accusations which risks further distancing their positions in a dialogue desired by Brussels.
Fear
This violence took place in the village of Banjska, in northern Kosovo, an area where Serbs are the majority.
A third of the approximately 120,000 Kosovo Serbs (1.8 million inhabitants) live in this region bordering Serbia. Supported by Belgrade, they refuse all allegiance to the government of Kosovo.
In the Serbian part of the divided city of Mitrovica, its residents now say they fear an increased presence of Kosovar police special forces.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Pedestrians stroll through the streets of Mitrovica.
“I am afraid of the repression we have already experienced. A police officer was killed and it’s terrible. Now I can only imagine what will happen next,” a 38-year-old Serb told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“I just want a normal life, and this isn’t a normal life. I think that, after what happened, the whole community will be stigmatized,” he adds.
“Dream of freedom”
During the operation against the commando who had holed up in an Orthodox monastery, the Kosovar police arrested three suspects and seized a quantity of weapons and ammunition, sufficient, according to Pristina, to equip “hundreds of fighters”.
On Friday morning, police notably searched the properties of a local Serbian politician, Milan Radoicic.
The latter, who is believed to be in Serbia, claimed Friday, through a lawyer, to have organized the commando without Belgrade’s knowledge, with the objective “of creating the conditions to realize the dream of freedom of (his ) people in northern Kosovo.
The mainly Albanian inhabitants of the capital, Pristina, reject, like the Kosovar government, responsibility for the latest violence in Belgrade.
“Serbia is responsible for what happened. Reconciliation with the Serbs in the north is possible. Why not live together? But they don’t want to,” denounces Mevluda Hoxha, a 64-year-old Albanian.
The last discussions in Brussels in September ended in failure.
Months of tension
While the Serbian side wishes to obtain a form of association of Serbian municipalities in the north, namely a certain autonomy, the Kosovar side demands, before any discussion, recognition by Belgrade of the independence of Kosovo.
In the regularly shaken north of Kosovo, tensions were significantly heightened in May when Pristina decided to install Albanian mayors elected in four Serb-majority municipalities in an election boycotted by the Serbs.
The Serbs then took to the streets to prevent the new councilors from carrying out their functions. Dozens of members of the NATO force in Kosovo (Kfor) were injured in clashes with protesters.
“Reconciliation will be possible if the repeated provocations stop,” says Agim Maloku, 60, an economist from Pristina, who adds that a possible partition of the territory to cede the north to the Serbs and make peace is not possible.
“The north is part of Kosovo and will remain an integral part of Kosovo.”