Summary of the Week 93

In a week marked by new encounters — and some repeated ones few had hoped for — old dilemmas resurfaced. Unresolved issues and wounds that have never healed came back into focus. Who boasted of what, and who expects solutions from these renewed meetings?

This week, the past and the truth met face to face. The accused confronted the expectations of the victims. Understandings of justice, however, remain decades apart — and they will not converge anytime soon.

Attorney Dragan Pesic followed the closing arguments of both the prosecution and the defense in The Hague. Speaking to Kosovo Online, he said: “It is undisputed that crimes occurred — both on the territory of Kosovo and in northern Albania. They do not deny that. But they claim that Thaçi, Selimi, Krasniqi, and Veseli did not participate in them,” Pesic stated.

After months of avoidance, the time came for another meeting — between authorities and the opposition, between ambitions and constitutional constraints, between regulations and plans, between promises and obligations that must be fulfilled.

“These events and votes unfolded almost mechanically,” political scientist Ognjen Gogic observed. “In that way, they essentially covered up the fact that they were not consistent and that they voted for Slavko Simic even though they had said they would not,” Gogic said.

At the crossroads of pessimistic expectations and political reality, not everyone is satisfied. Still, analysts believe there is no more time to stand still, and someone had to make the first move.

“Most of the Constitutional Court’s decisions,” said Professor Nexhmedin Spahiu, “have been criticized by Self-Determination, but they have nevertheless adhered to them. That was the case this time as well,” Spahiu added.

As it turns out, they have also adhered to certain other principles from the very beginning. That was noted at the constitutive session by The Serb List MP Igor Simic:

“If you listened carefully to this exposé, there are no Serbs in it,” Simic said from the podium. “We were not even mentioned, as if we do not exist in these areas. And yet, we have been here for centuries.”

Some meetings are better avoided. Others will soon become more difficult — or entirely impossible. Faced with new definitions of foreigners and their rights, local residents are already expressing concern.

“Pristina seeks, through the implementation of this law on foreigners, to bypass all the agreements it has signed so far — and, if you will, even its own Constitution and legal framework,” historian Aleksandar Gudzic said, commenting on the impending implementation of the new legislation.

In the week behind us, history and the future met. Pride and defiance were on display. There was remembrance of those who are no longer here — and anger from those who would prefer to erase those memories and the past itself.