IM: Gendarmerie shouldn’t use Kosovo-centered oath

Source: Beta

BELGRADE -- Serbia's Interior Minister Ivica Dačić says the Gendarmerie should stop using the oath which says that there are no Serbia and Serbian people without Kosovo.

Ivica Dačić (FoNet, file)

He believes that one should not give anybody a reason to doubt Serbia’s good intentions.
Dačić said on Saturday that it was not Gendarmes’ official oath and that he had never approved the text.

“Every Serbian police (MUP) unit has its patron saint day and Gendarmerie’s patron saint day is St. Vitus Day, so I assume that this is why everything else has to do with it,” he explained.

The minister assessed that the oath should not be used anymore so there would not be any doubts whether it represents a metaphor or a threat.

According to him, Gendarmerie or any other army or police unit would never do anything that could jeopardize peace and stability without a command from the state top.

Dačić repeated that Serbia and the Serbian government wanted to be a factor of stability and assessed that it was in Serbia’s best interest to have peace and stability in the region.

The Gendarmes’ oath focuses heavily on Kosovo, saying there is no Serbia and no Serbian people without it.