Kosovo Serbs: Humanitarian catastrophe

Beta news agency, 19 November 2006 10:47

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- Kosovo Serb representatives Marko Jaksic and Milan Ivanovic say there is a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Kosovo today.

In a press conference called in reaction to power cuts that lasted for hours and to what he called vandalism toward Telekom's equipment in Kosovo, Jaksic said that UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker was acting like "a Kosovo government member, rather than a high UNMIK official".

"He [Ruecker] is one of those who authored the looting privatization and the economic discrimination against Serbs and Serb-owned companies, and is charged with driving everything that even reminds of Serbs and the Serb state away from Kosovo", Jaksic said.

In his words, "out of 190 privatized companies in Kosovo not a single one is owned by a Serb, which means that the property belonging to one nation is taken and given to another".

Jaksic said that beside the physical violence and persecution that the Serbs suffer at the hands of the Albanians, UNMIK is undertaking "torture on the economic level", and called on Ruecker to "stop jeopardizing Serb interests making the lives of Serbs impossible."

Serb National Council (SNV) president Milan Ivanovic said that the situation in the province has deteriorated and dubbed it a humanitarian catastrophe.

Ivanovic said the Montenegrin opposition leaders would be visiting Kosovo on Monday, as well as that he expected them to, after being acquainted with the situation in Kosovo, "support the only just solution, Kosovo's future as a part of Serbia".