Albanian MP in the Serbian Parliament, Shaip Kamberi, has strongly reacted to what he described as the scandalous statement made by Serbia’s Minister for Local Self-Government, Snezhana Paunovic.
Paunovic reportedly said that “if I had been in Slobodan Milosevic’s place in 1998, I would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo.” Kamberi said he would initiate proceedings to seek her dismissal.
“Otherwise, silence and the lack of action will be understood as approval of her statement and as the official position of the entire Government,” he wrote on Facebook.
He also announced that, through an official letter, he had requested a response from all relevant international embassies in Belgrade.
According to Kamberi, such fascist statements by ministers in the Serbian government demonstrate that “Milosevic’s Serbia remains unchanged.”
Calling the statement unacceptable and requiring an immediate institutional response, Kamberi said such rhetoric is the result of the systematic denial of war crimes, the glorification of convicted war criminals, the relativization of international court rulings, and historical revisionism.
“For the Albanians of the Presevo Valley, such statements by representatives of state institutions create an additional sense of insecurity. When a member of the Government speaks about ethnic cleansing, members of minority communities rightly ask what kind of security they can expect from these institutions,” Kamberi said.
As a candidate country for membership in the European Union, Serbia is obliged to respect and protect the rights of minority communities, he added.
“Such statements are in direct contradiction with these obligations and go beyond every democratic standard on which the European Union is founded,” Kamberi said.
