The balance sheet of the Kosovo authorities in the north of Kosovo is huge in the last few days. Next to the main bridge over the Ibar in Kosovska Mitrovica, it was opened new bridge, built in less than two months.
Graffiti and murals in North Mitrovica, Leposavic and Zvečan have been painted over, some of which talk about Serbian Kosovo or have Serbian national symbols.
In Leposavic, on Monday (August 25), the Kosovo police detained a minor girl for allegedly writing provocative graffiti on the wall of a house. It is an uninhabited house in the town of Sočanica. The police did not specify what the messages were.
At the extraordinary session of the North Mitrovica Municipal Assembly, the Proposal on the renaming and naming of streets in North Mitrovica was also discussed.
The coats of arms in all four municipalities in the north of Kosovo with a Serbian majority were also changed so that Serbian and Orthodox symbols were removed from them.
Nobody asked the Serbs anything.
Painting at the crack of dawn
On Sunday, at the crack of dawn, the graffiti was painted, the first on the list was North Mitrovica. A mural to Patriarch Pavlo and Metropolitan Amfilohije was painted over, as well as graffiti dedicated to Milan Radoičić, Ratko Mladić, and Marko Rošić.
Further, those with the inscription "Kosovo is Serbia", as well as the one dedicated to the members of the Serbian Army who were at Košare, which was previously painted with black spray.
In Leposavic, a mural dedicated to the tragically deceased young people, created at the initiative of their friends and families as a sign of memory, was repainted.
Marko Milenković from the New Social Initiative (NSI) referred to the mural in Leposavic on the social network "X" and wrote that: "Those murals did not contain messages of hatred or intolerance. On the contrary, they were an expression of togetherness and memory."
Sanja Sovrlić from Leposavic, a journalist who has been living in Belgrade for the past few years, told "Vreme" that there were some murals that were disputed, such as the one with the image of Ratko Mladić. However, he recalls that among the murals there were also artistic ones.
"I don't know how murals with young men who have passed away send any negative message. These are young men, one of whom died in a traffic accident, some of them died of illness, among them a young man in Leposavic who died of cancer. Citizens collected money for that mural, so that their memory would remain", explains Sovrlić.
She adds that she doesn't know how else to see this move other than erasing the memory of those who lived and existed there and, "the erasure of our existence."
"Everything that represented the life of the Serbs in the north of Kosovo is disappearing both physically and symbolically," adds Sovrlić.
Municipal initiative
The whitewashing company was hired by the municipality of North Mitrovica, with the assistance of the Kosovo Police.
Skender Sadiku, vice-president of the North Mitrovica Municipal Assembly, told "Vreme" that he himself was in favor of removing the graffiti because of hate speech.
"The great war criminal Ratko Mladić was punished in The Hague for the genocide in Srebrenica. There were also other slogans that were not good for the city, and which were against other communities, I mainly mean the Albanian and other communities such as the Bosniak one," Sadiku pointed out.
He claims that the municipality had to remove them. "This city does not need fascism, this city does not need hate speech, and that is the logic we followed," Sadiku said.
When asked if they asked the Serbian community what they think about it, our interlocutor says that "unfortunately they didn't". "The Serbian community is paying the price for not having people who should represent them in the assembly. On the other hand, someone in the city needs to distinguish which murals encourage hate speech," he explains.
The Serbian community in the Assembly of North Mitrovica is represented by one councilor, out of a total of 19. This happened after the Serbs left the Kosovo institutions in 2022, and the Central Election Commission of Kosovo then approved the replacement of councilors in the Assembly of the Municipality of North Mitrovica.
The return of Serbs to Kosovo's institutions can potentially happen in the upcoming local elections scheduled for October 12 this year.
He reminds Sadika that graffiti was painted over on the bridge earlier, which sent a negative message towards the Serbian community, and that he was present.
The international community, perhaps, exists
The presence of international actors in Kosovo is still strong, but their action on the ground is almost non-existent. He even perfidiously tries to justify the actions of the Kosovo authorities, says Sovrlić.
"Even when the Albanian mayors came, some said: 'Well, what if they might be better for the citizens'. This is not about that. It's about breaking the principle, because once you break that principle - that someone rules in such a way as to subjugate another, then I really don't see any room for coexistence, for inter-ethnic cooperation. And, these actions are all aimed at subjugating the Serbs in Kosovo," explains Sovrlić.
He goes on to say that everything is done in a "conquering tone". "That bridge is not being built to unite people. No, it is being built so that, as it is perceived by the public, the Albanians would conquer the north of Kosovo, and in such an environment there is no place for Serbs. I do not see that good intention at all."
The newly opened bridge in Mitrovica, right next to the main bridge that was written about as a symbol of whiteness, is the sixth bridge in Mitrovica, and the seventh is under construction.
Belgrade, the will has long been gone
While all this is happening in Kosovo, announcements are coming from Belgrade according to the established pattern, which do not fundamentally change things on the ground.
"At the same time, they are organizing a protest against the student blockades in North Mitrovica. Because as if it is not enough that people are humiliated every day, but they once again decide to humiliate these people as a result of their work obligations, to force them to defend the rule of the Serbian Progressive Party in Belgrade, and not to defend their survival and their dignified life in Kosovo," says Sovrlić.
And he concludes: "Those same people did not invite them to say: 'Come on, feel free to rebel because of these actions coming from Pristina,' but they invited them to such a gathering that shows the attitude of the authorities in Belgrade towards the Serbs in Kosovo."
"So, they are only interested in staying in power. In the end, if they were interested, they would negotiate and carry out diplomatic and other activities properly and in their interest, and they would not hand them over to Pristina on a platter," emphasized Sanja Sovrlić.
