Serbia puts army on combat alert after clashes in northern Kosovo municipality

The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, has ordered this Friday the country’s army to go on combat alert and its units to move closer to the border with Kosovo, according to the Tanjug news agency. Vucic’s orders come after clashes between Serbian citizens and the Kosovar police in the municipality of Zvecan (7,300 inhabitants), in northern Kosovo. The incidents occurred when officers tried to help the newly elected mayor of Albanian origin gain access to the City Hall. The Serb community, the majority in that territory, does not recognize the authority of the councilor of Zvecan and three other municipalities. The actions of the police officers have provoked the condemnation of the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, which demand that the Government of Pristina take a step back to reduce tension and restore calm.

This Friday the mayors of those three towns with a Serb majority were to take office: Zvecan, Leposavic and Zubin Potok. The Serbs of northern Kosovo do not recognize the authority of these councilors, elected in elections in which, due to the boycott by the Serbs, the participation was barely 3%, reports Efe. Local media have reported that Kosovo police fired tear gas into a crowd gathered in front of the Zvecan City Hall building.

“We condemn Kosovo’s decision to force access to municipal buildings in the north of the country despite our call for restraint,” the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany maintain in a joint statement. “We call on the Kosovar authorities to immediately step back, de-escalate and coordinate with EULEX [la misión de la UE en ese territorio] and the KFOR [la de la OTAN]”. The communiqué also expresses the concern of these five governments over the military alert decreed by Serbia and calls on all parties to “maximum restraint” and avoid escalating rhetoric, reports Reuters.

The riots in northern Kosovo coincide with a demonstration that President Vucic and his formation, the conservative Serbian Progressive Party, had called for this Friday in Belgrade. The objective of this concentration was to counteract the two massive mobilizations that have taken place in the capital (markedly anti-government in nature) after a 13-year-old teenager killed 13 minors and the center’s guard in a school on May 3. Two days later, a new shooting took place 40 kilometers south of Belgrade, in which a 21-year-old man killed eight people. In less than 15 days, three protests against the violence that corrodes the country took place in the capital. The president’s response was to call for this Friday what was going to be “the biggest demonstration in the history of Serbia”, according to the official media.

Miguel Roán, director of the Balcanismos association and author of the book Brut Belgrade, believes that it is no coincidence that the incidents in northern Kosovo took place on the same day. “The Kosovar government has taken advantage of the fact that many Kosovar Serbs living in the north traveled by bus to Belgrade with the intention of attending the demonstration. pristine [capital de Kosovo] he took into account that there would be few people in Zvecan, he also took advantage of President Vucic’s moment of distraction and chose this day for the Albanian mayor to take office”.

The entry of the mayor-elect into the town hall was followed by riots and tear gas by the Kosovar police at the Kosovar Serb protesters. In this context, there was a live intervention by the Serbian Defense Minister, Milos Vucevic: “An urgent movement has been ordered [de tropas] to the Kosovo border. It is clear that terror against the Serb community in Kosovo is happening, ”he declared on television.

Florian Bieber, a professor of Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz in Austria, said by phone that he does not expect the Serbian army’s combat alert to degenerate into a warlike situation. “In Kosovo there is always a NATO presence [casi 4.000 soldados desplegados, a través de su misión KFOR]. This is the classic move Vucic makes from time to time: stir up the Kosovo issue to divert attention from some internal crisis. The last demonstration that took place in the capital as a result of the massacre was the largest in the last 23 years. Vucic had become very nervous and now he will take advantage of this crisis with Kosovo”.

The United States condemns the ongoing action by Kosovan authorities to access municipal buildings in the north of Kosovo. Today’s violent measures should be immediately halted.

—Ambassador Jeff Hovenier (@USAmbKosovo) May 26, 2023

The mayor of Zvecan was escorted to the town hall by the Kosovar police. However, the US ambassador to Kosovo, Jeff Hovenier, condemned through a tweet the action of the Kosovar authorities “to gain access to municipal buildings in northern Kosovo.” “Today’s violent measures must stop immediately,” he added. Hours later, it was the United States Secretary of State himself, Antony Blinken, who condemned the action of the Kosovar Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, through a statement. Blinken claimed that Kosovo’s actions go against the advice of the United States and the European Union and “have unnecessarily sharpened and intensified tensions.” “They will have consequences for our bilateral relations with Kosovo,” he concluded.

Florian Bieber believes that the Kosovar government made a mistake by sending the Albanian mayor to the Kosovar Serb municipality of Zvecan. “It has no legitimacy, nor any support in that municipality.” But he warns: “The violence was started by Vucic’s supporters.”

Serbs in the northern region of Kosovo do not accept the territory’s declaration of independence sealed in 2008, nearly a decade after the end of the war, and still consider Belgrade their capital. Serbs are only in the majority in the northern region; Albanians make up more than 90% of the Kosovo population.