Serbs Attacked 186 Times Since Green Light For Kosovo Talks

[Announcer] The [Serbian] Coordination Centre for Kosovo-Metohija's press centre in Kosovska Mitrovica said that barricades made of branches had been set up on the Zvecan-Zitkovac road [where body of Kosovo Serb was found early this morning with three gunshot wounds], adding that a number of 7.65-mm calibre shells had been found at the scene. This is the third serious incident in the area in the past month. Before that, a vehicle carrying a Serbian Orthodox Church priest with his family had been fired at, and then two ethnic Serb youths were gravely injured in an armed attack at a petrol station.

The Coordination Centre for Kosovo-Metohija chairwoman, Sanda Raskovic-Ivic, today most harshly condemned the incident in the vicinity of Zvecan, describing the event as a tragedy. In a statement for Kontakt Plus radio, Raskovic-Ivic recalled that there had been 186 incidents since 24 October 2005, when the decision was taken to begin talks about the future of Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija].

[Raskovic-Ivic] I made a point of mentioning this date because it was the date set for the beginning of negotiations about the future status of Kosovo. In this way we see that in Kosovo, nothing has changed in practice. We see that the police are not doing their job, that the Albanians attacked the Serbs 186 times before the very nose of the international community, incidents in which we had two fatal outcomes and over 20 persons suffering grave injuries. All this provides very serious cause for concern, a two-fold concern. The first is what happens when the international community leaves Kosovo-Metohija, and the other is that the police are not doing their job, whether it is the UNMIK [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] police or the Kosovo Police Service [KPS].

[Announcer] Raskovic-Ivic concluded that the latest incident near Zvecan was yet another story whose ending is not yet known.

Source: Kontakt Plus, Kosovska Mitrovica, in Serbian 1400 gmt 1 Jun 06

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