Aleksandar Sekulović, a co-worker of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and vice-president of the Anti-Fascist Association of Serbia, emphasizes that the political elite of Serbia and its branches in Kosovo, especially the branches of the ruling party, bear direct responsibility for creating collective beliefs and the political atmosphere in the Serbian community in Kosovo.

"And the atmosphere they create is full of irrational emotions, fear, hatred and aggressive behavior. When describing the situation in Kosovo and the attitude of the Kosovar elites towards the Serbs, members of the Serbian political elite compete with each other in dramatizing the situation, using the most difficult qualifications when it comes to the Kosovo government and Prime Minister Kurti," he writes in the opinion. "Who makes incidents in Kosovo".

Full opinion "Who makes incidents in Kosovo"

Aleksandar Sekulović

December 10, 2024

It has already become tiresome to expect that through the statements of the representatives of the Serbian authorities, something rational and constructive will be heard when it comes to Kosovo. This also applies to the incidents that have often occurred in Kosovo recently, of which the mining of the Ibërë-Lepenci channel represents a serious attack on the economic and political stability of Kosovo, the perpetrators of which are still unknown. Of course, the president Vuçiq did not miss the opportunity to hold one of his "famous addresses to the public" and to accuse the Kosovo government and Prime Minister Kurti of the incident, saying that he did not want to "rush into action" and that he would wait for the results of the investigation .

Of course, it is to be hoped that the investigation will find the possible perpetrators and instigators, although the Serbian authorities have clearly stated that they will not recognize the results of the investigation carried out by the Kosovo authorities, thus casting a shadow of doubt on the role of the Serbian side in this incident. However, regardless of this and the mutual accusations, it should be emphasized that it is not random and legitimate to claim without evidence who are the authors of that terrorist act. But what is legitimate and necessary is the pointing out of the strategic decisions of the interested parties that have a decisive impact on the situation in Kosovo, and thus on the incidents that are happening there. From this perspective, the following observations can be made.

When it comes to Kosovo, it should be borne in mind that even though it is a nominally independent state, it is under strict monitoring by the international community, which every day monitors its every step and progress towards the standards of developed countries. In that situation, the most important interest and goal of the government in Kosovo and of Prime Minister Kurti himself, as a declared anti-fascist and social democrat, is to break the prejudices about the culturally and politically backward Kosovo and the Albanians themselves, to present the Kosovar society as a normal society and mature European, capable of independent life, in which there is stability and political security and in which multi-ethnic harmony and the rights of national minorities, primarily the minority, have been achieved Serbian, are strictly respected and protected.

It is an entirely different question to what extent the Kosovo authorities manage to realize these goals, but there is no doubt that these are their goals and that they are directed and monitored by international observers.

With such a situation, the least that the Kosovo authorities need are incidents and conflict situations, and especially terrorist acts that would show that the Kosovar society is immature, unstable, conflicted and that it is not able to take care of itself. . From this comes the logical conclusion that the terrorist attack on the Ibër-Lepenc canal greatly damages the Kosovo authorities and their efforts towards the normalization of social life in Kosovo, and portrays those authorities as incapable of leading the country and ensuring basic stability and life peaceful. Therefore, it is hard to imagine that the Kosovo authorities would want to portray themselves in such a negative light.

As for the state of Serbia and its citizens, their interest in peace and stability is the same as the interest of Kosovo and its citizens. However, the same cannot be said for the current government in Serbia and for almost the entire political class of Serbia, deeply imbued with the ideas of Serbian nationalism and with the determined intention of returning Kosovo under the sovereignty of Serbia, while it is often emphasized that this must be done "by all means". Seen from that point of view, the most important interest of the political class of Serbia is to show that Kosovo is not capable of being independent, that it is an immature society that should be returned under the care of Serbia and that its authorities are not able to guarantee peace and security for its citizens, especially those of Serbian nationality. Of course, from the fact that the incidents in Kosovo support such theses and intentions of the Serbian authorities, it cannot be concluded, until the opposite is proven, that they are in any way involved in the mining of the Ibar-Lepenci canal.

However, the political elite of Serbia and its branches in Kosovo, especially the branches of the ruling party, bear direct responsibility for creating the collective beliefs and political atmosphere in the Serbian community in Kosovo. And the atmosphere they create is full of irrational emotions, fear, hatred and aggressive behavior. When describing the situation in Kosovo and the attitude of the Kosovar elites towards the Serbs, members of the Serbian political elite compete with each other in dramatizing the situation, using the most difficult qualifications when it comes to the Kosovo government and Prime Minister Kurti. Complaints are heard every day about the terrible situation of the Serbs in Kosovo, about the violence against them, the terror, the persecution and the ethnic cleansing planned by Kurti.

The fact that this story has little to do with the real situation in Kosovo has no impact on environments and communities where emotions, irrational feelings and traditional ethnic distance and mistrust dominate. That narrative only deepens the irrational thinking and leads it to an explosive state, to the desire for active resistance to those distant plans and to strong vengeful urges against those who "torture" the Serbs. From that heated situation came numerous incidents in Kosovo, among which the most famous is the case of Banjska. At the same time, it does not matter at all whether the Serbian authorities, especially the military, knew about this action and whether they organized and financed it. Their dramatic rhetoric created an atmosphere from which actions against the state of Kosovo can legitimately emerge, actions that should damage its image as a stable state and that will cause great economic damage, as is the case with the extraction of the canal of Ibër-Lepenci. For such actions, there are always enough candidates ready to act on their own initiative, because in every society and ethnic community there are individuals who get drunk on stories about evil enemies and national suffering. But if such stories are repeated over and over and become national narrative, then this is credible evidence that situations, conflicts and incidents are being deliberately escalated, regardless of what is verbally claimed to the contrary.