Popovic: Arrests in Kosovo Pomoravlje are pressure on Serbs to intimidate and displace them

The arrest of five Serbs that took place early yesterday morning shows that the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government are exerting significant pressure on the Serbian community in Kosovo Pomoravlje with the aim of intimidation and displacement, says Igor Popovic, Deputy Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, to Kosovo Online.

"The arrest of Mr. Dragan Cvetkovic, Dragan Nicic, Milos Sosic, and Slobodan Jevtic from Pasjane and Mr. Nenad Stojanovic from Bosce, where the police stormed their homes early in the morning and pointed automatic weapons at the household members, demonstrates that the goal is yet another political pressure on Serbs, especially in Kosovo Pomoravlje," states Popovic.

He adds that Kosovo Pomoravlje has so far been spared from the mass arrests that have occurred in the north and central Kosovo.

"However, we see that the regime in Pristina periodically exerts pressure on one Serbian community and then another, in order to uniformly terrorize the Serbian community in Kosovo and Metohija with the aim of their displacement and intimidation," he says.

Furthermore, our interlocutor assesses that the arrests show that Kurti's regime aims to pressure the Serbian community during the election campaign.

"He wants to score points with nationalist voters and show how he has dealt with the Serbs to cover up all the problems that the regime in Pristina has related to population emigration, the lack of economy, and the overall lack of any perspective for that regime. Unfortunately, the Serbs are collateral victims of this pressure, as demonstrated by yesterday's arrests," Popovic is adamant.

He reminds us that the Serbs were immediately given a 30-day detention after the arrests.

"This, along with the previous arrests of individuals in northern and central Kosovo, as well as the police investigations and pressures in Strpce, shows a continuity of terror against the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija," he adds.

He emphasizes that the Office for Kosovo and Metohija will address representatives of international missions in Kosovo and Metohija, the Quint countries, and embassies.

"Even during previous arrests, we sought intervention, primarily from those missions that have established their presence in Kosovo and Metohija with the mandate to establish the rule of law and to protect human rights. We appeal to them to fulfill their mandate. I fear that so far this has not had any significant effect, as politics is again interfering. They are afraid to offend the Albanian political community, afraid to intervene, and justify this with some sort of independence of judicial proceedings of the Pristina institutions," Popovic says.

On the other hand, he assesses that the Pristina institutions are "essentially just an instrument aimed at ethnic cleansing" and that they primarily implement the policies of Albin Kurti's regime.

"We will also ask the Quint countries to have their diplomats intervene to exert the necessary pressure on Pristina to release our people, to allow them to defend themselves while free. Arresting people 25 years after the war, people who have lived in Kosovo and Metohija the entire time, who stayed there to live, in Kosovo Pomoravlje where there were no armed conflicts in 1998 and 1999, arresting these people, householders, people over 50 years old, and sick people like Dragan Cvetkovic, who is 90 percent disabled... Arresting them, dragging them in front of their families, and sending them to prison in Podujevo in Gerdovac is primarily a significant pressure on the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija," he says.

The Assistant Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija emphasizes that they will provide legal, financial, logistical, and all other possible assistance to those arrested, as always.

"We will reach out to everyone, continue to help these people to ensure that our community, especially in Kosovo Pomoravlje, is maintained. We hope that the pressure will bear fruit and that these people will be released," he says.

He underscores that if Pristina wants to investigate war crimes, it should first investigate the crimes against Serbs, especially the unresolved crimes in Kosovo Pomoravlje.

"Who attacked the Serbs in Cernica? We had a four-year-old boy who was killed in May 2000 in front of a store in Cernica. We had multiple terrorist attacks and numerous victims in that martyr town of Cernica. We had the victims of the Livadak Lake, who were victims of ethnic cleansing in Gnjilane immediately after the war. We primarily had victims of the ethnic cleansing on March 17 and 18... So if someone wants to investigate war crimes and post-war crimes against the Serbian community, they have the opportunity to do so," Popovic is adamant.