Belgrade | 17 March 2010 | Bojana Barlovac

A Serbian Orthodox Church burns during the 2004 riots in Kosovo

Six years after ethnic Albanians attacked Serb enclaves in Kosovo in what became the worst single attack against Kosovo Serbs since the 1999 war, reconstruction of damaged property is ongoing but Serbian officials believe that conditions for the return of the Serb population have not yet been established.
In an interview with Tanjug news agency, Serbian Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Goran Bogdanovic said that Serbia wants a prosperous, multiethnic society to be established in Kosovo, but that one of the prerequisites for that is the return of about 220,000 refugees and internally displaced citizens.

“You can’t just declare that you support the return of Serbs, multi-ethnicity, and legal protection without doing something to make it happen on the ground,” the minister explained.

After UNMIK police found the bodies of two Albanian boys in the Ibar River in the village of Cabra in northern Kosovo, massive protests by Albanians who accused Serbs of the deaths broke out in southern Kosovska Mitrovica on March 17, 2004.

The protests then spread all over Kosovo, eventually resulting in the deaths of eleven Albanians and eight Serbs. Approximately 4,000 Serbs are believed to have been driven from their homes as a result of the riots.

More than 800 objects, including 35 churches and monasteries, were heavily damaged or completely destroyed. According to UNMIK, about 60,000 Albanians took part in the riots. More than 100 members of KFOR and UN police were injured, while 72 vehicles of the international forces were set on fire.

Oliver Ivanovic, State Secretary in the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija, said that those who had created the pogrom scored a goal as most of the people did not return and negotiations on the status of Kosovo were opened.

“[Kosovo] Serbs do not feel safe, especially if they return individually, and there is no way to persuade them to return collectively,” broadcaster RTS quoted Ivanovic as saying.

Bogdanovic said that he was afraid that something similar could happen after the planned KFOR mission scale-down.

As for NATO’s announcements that it would scale down its presence in Kosovo with the removal of 2,500 soldiers, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in December that it was a “gradual transition of KFOR units toward a conflict-deterring force”, which came as a “natural result of increased and sustainable normalisation of the security situation on the ground in Kosovo”.

At the site of the historic Battle of Kosovo, Gazimestan, KFOR will hand over on Thursday the security of the Gazimestan monument to the Kosovo police after the decision was adopted by the NATO Council. A monument to the Battle of Kosovo was built in Gazimestan in 1953 and was mined and demolished by Albanian extremists in 1999.

“The transfer of security tasks from KFOR to Kosovo police is an important cornerstone in the process of transferring the main responsibility for protection of cultural and religious sites in Kosovo to the Kosovo police,” official KFOR statement says.

While the Kosovo government marked the five year anniversary of the March riots last year, no official reaction has been seen from the government today.

Serbian Patriarch Irinej held a memorial service to victims of the March violence at the Cathedral Church in Belgrade on Wednesday.

“We can never give up Kosovo and we pray to the Lord to remember all the innocent victims from that terrible date,” the head of the church said during the liturgy and memorial to victims of the March violence. He added that relics were destroyed, but there will be time to renew them.

The Serbian communities in Kosovo also marked the sixth anniversary of the March pogrom with a minute of silence and the laying wreaths and flowers at the memorial sites.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/26677/

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