Serbs from Kosovo hold protest rally in Belgrade

SOURCE: BETA, TANJUG
BELGRADE -- Serbs from northern Kosovo held a protest rally in Belgrade on Friday, dubbed "We are staying in Serbia", against the implementation of the Brussels agreement.


  

The banner reads, Kosovo is Serbia (B92)
The protest started at 12:44 CET, as a symbolic reference to UN Security Council Resolution 1244, and ended at 15:00 CET.

Around 3,000 people attended the rally in downtown Belgrade.

The northern Kosovo Serbs believe that the implementation of the agreement would integrate them in Priština’s system.

The protesters, who gathered at Republic Square in downtown Belgrade, were chanting “Treason” and slogans against Prime Minister Ivica Dačić, other state officials and the government.

Some were carrying posters of Dačić, First Deputy PM Aleksandar Vučić and President Tomislav Nikolić wearing traditional Albanian hats and banners “They betrayed Kosovo”.

The citizens also carried banners saying “Serbia comes before everything else”, “We will liberate Kosovo”, “Kosovo is Serbia”.

They called on the government to reject the Brussels agreement and called for elections.

The protesters were also carrying Serbian flags and flags of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and Naši movement.

Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral Amfilohije, mayors of northern Kosovo towns, famous rock musician Bora Đorđević, former member of the national basketball team and Basketball Federation of Serbia Deputy President Dejan Tomašević and law professor Kosta Čavoški were up on the stage.
DSS leader Vojislav Koštunica, DSS MPs, Serb Radical Party (SRS) officials and activists of Naši and Dveri movements also attended the protest.

Amfilohije served a "liturgy for the repose" of Serbia's government and parliament.

Zubin Potok Mayor Slaviša Ristić said that northern Kosovo Serbs did not hold Serbia hostage and were not preventing it from reaching the European future.

“We are just one of you, ordinary Serbs who have been forced by world powers, and recently by our own authorities, to fight and defend lives of our children, our homes and holy places,” he stressed.

According to Ristić, the Brussels agreement is a betrayal of Serbia and the loss of Kosovo. He also added that the government was intent on “selling Kosovo and the Serbian people”.

“Today, while we are preventing them from committing treason, we still have our Serbian institutions in Kosovo and Metohija and there is no division between the north and the south and those who want to commit treason are dividing us,” he noted.

Ristić said that the signatories of the Brussels agreement had agreed to shut down Serbia’s institutions in Kosovo and sell Serbs to “the quasi state of Kosovo and Hashim Thaci’s terrorist creation”.

“Our president is wondering and saying that he does not understand how the state leadership can reach an agreement with Thaci but not with northern Kosovo Serbs. President Nikolić, you can only reach an agreement on defense with Kosovo Serbs, not on the handover and betrayal of Kosovo and Metohija,” he stressed.

DSS MP and one of the leaders of northern Kosovo Serbs Marko Jakšić called on all patriots to be united and to come to a rally on St. Vitus Day (June 28) in Belgrade, noting that Kosovo had been attacked in Belgrade.

“A small part of us from Kosovo is today here among you and asking for your help. A greater part of the Serbian people could not or must not come and they are standing eternal watch to defend the Serb door in Kosovo and Metohija. For 14 years we have been holding and defending the door so the wicked would not close them,” Ristić stressed.

Retired Bishop Atanasije said, commenting on the top state officials that “these three men who are in power are traitors who believe in NATO’s guarantees”.

“(Prime Minister Ivica) Dačić says he is in favor of earthly politics, that he is not interested in heavenly one, (assassinated PM Zoran) Đinđić used to say the same and God will be the judge of how he ended up,” Atanasije added.

He stressed that the government did not believe in God but in the “EU’s disastrous policy”.