Management team: All measures must be taken to protect Serbs

The management team warns all important players, particularly the international community, that all measures must be taken to protect the Serb community in Kosovo. The letter says that last week's “horrifying murder” of a EULEX staff member put the Serb community in northern Kosovo in fear. It stresses that the community “must not become hostage to any crimes,” adding that the adoption of the Kosovo law on amnesty, which has been changed to conform to the Brussels document, left the local Serbs unprotected. The additional pressure on the residents of Kosovska Mitrovica and Zvecan, who were made to cope without water for three days, is seen by the local community as a way to punish the Serbs in northern Kosovo and send them a message about what kind of system of values is awaiting them after integration, the letter says. At the same time, the fields south of the Ibar River are irrigated quite normally, it adds. The management team estimates that a detention extension for a member of the Serb community who was arrested before more than a month for possession of firearms is a double standard in judiciary. “Without an understanding and support from the international community in this most sensitive political and security moment in the last 14 years, the Serb community in Kosovo has no future in the legal system of Kosovo,” the letter states.