In the triangle between Pristina, Belgrade and Brussels

The process of negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, during the last ten years, went through a series of stages that significantly affected the socio-political life of Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. Although the dialogue has been conducted all along in the name of the common man, under the slogan of making his life easier, that man, from whatever community he comes from, does not feel any of the benefits of the agreement. During that time, the lives and fate of those ordinary people are traded on the political level, and nationalistic poison is spilled through the media close to one side or the other.

Serbs from northern Kosovo, police officers, judges, a minister and members of parliament from the Serbian List formally resigned on Monday, just two days after doing so at a press conference in which police officials took off their uniforms in a demonstration. This situation has a huge impact on the Serbian community south of the Ibar, which fears for its safety.

Numerous examples of threats to basic human rights and freedoms show that the Serbian community is on the margins of society. Kosovo law guarantees us equal right to work, but in practice, south of the Ibar, there are very few Serbs in public institutions. The right to language is guaranteed by the Kosovo constitution, however, in practice even journalists cannot get a translation. Returnees are guaranteed support, but in practice, when they return and recover their property through the courts, they are immediately accused of war crimes.

RECIPE FOR ACHIEVING POWER

The pressure and suppression of the right to a normal life culminated during the absolute rule of Aljbin Kurti, who ignored all possible invitations to talk with the Serbs in Kosovo.

For this reason, one has the impression that even the biggest critics of the politics of Belgrade and the Serbian List in the Serbian community in Kosovo welcome the exit from the Kosovo institutions, and believe that this should have happened earlier precisely because of all the disenfranchised citizens.

With the radical slogan that the Brussels dialogue is against the interests of the people, that there will be a revision of many agreements, the leader of the Kosovo Albanians, Albin Kurti, convinced his compatriots that this is the biggest problem of Kosovo and won absolute power in the last parliamentary elections. It seems that Kurti copied the recipe for coming to power from Aleksandar Vučić, who a little over ten years ago promised the citizens of Serbia that he would cancel the signed agreements with Kosovo and thus came to power, and then changed his political direction.

Unlike the president of Serbia, Kurti managed to disintegrate the entire north of Kosovo and question the entire Brussels dialogue with his political ideology in the short time he was in power, especially in the last few days.

At the urging of Belgrade, the Serbs in the north agreed to everything they had refused for years, only to form the Union of Serbian Municipalities, and ten years later Kurti says that the ZSO is not valid, thus slapping the Serbs from Kosovo. While in public he is questioning what was agreed upon, accusing Serbia of genocide, frequent arrests of Serbs are taking place. Even when the international community insists on implementing the Constitutional Court's decision to return 24 hectares of land to the Visoki Decani monastery, the authorities in Pristina find a way to dispute it.

On the other hand, Belgrade has been serving its public "victories" ever since the famous 5:0 in favor of Serbia, which, as they claim, continued even after that. During that time, the general impression is that problems and inter-ethnic tensions only piled up. It is not clear to the common man how the Serbian negotiating team literally dropped out of the competition after winning 5:0 today?

THE ORDINARY PERSON IN GORAŽDEVAC IS COMPLETELY DISENfranchised

Colored by nationalist narratives, and occasionally by mute observation, passivity, indecision of international mediators, the Brussels Dialogue, instead of blessings, has brought an even greater burden and uncertainty on the shoulders of the common man, in whose name it is conducted.

For the Serbian community living south of the Ibar, the most important thing at this moment is that there is no major escalation of tensions. Events in the north of Kosovo are always reflected in terms of security and on other Serbian communities, so this time in the village of Kišnica, next to Gračanica, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the house of a Serbian family, and that at the moment when the representatives of the Serbian List were speaking at the national assembly big words.

Accustomed to being excluded from all the processes of Brussels favors, what is happening in the north of Kosovo is followed with attention by all those who live in majority Albanian municipalities such as Goraždevac, Osojan, Velika Hoča or Orahovac. The skin of these people became resistant to various blows from all sides.

In addition to not being part of the Union of Serbian Municipalities plan, the residents of these villages were not part of many other negotiations, such as those on mobile telephony. Even today, we do not feel the benefits of the daughter of the MTS company, because Metohija is not covered by the signal of these operators, so conversations with our friends in central Serbia have foreign tariffs.

They felt the agreement on freedom of movement on their skin back in 2012, when Belgrade started scoring the first goals against Pristina in the Brussels match. Politicians from Belgrade and those from the Serbian List assured us that it was all for our good, that we should integrate and continue to win.

At that time, while huge investments were coming to the north of Kosovo from the Kosovo, Serbian and of course the European budget, no one cared about the disenfranchised Serbs south of the Ibar. The fact that we cannot return the usurped property, even young people born in Goraždevac cannot obtain Kosovo personal documents, which are necessary to live there, the fact that we cannot use our language when we go to institutions, as well as many other rights, they are still not in the focus of the representatives of the Serbs or the Kosovo authorities.

Belgrade's neglect of the Serbs south of the Ibar is reflected in the fact that Belgrade imposed on them Milan Radoičić, the master of life who questions all personnel decisions.

The last protest in Kosovska Mitrovica in terms of civic unity was made meaningless by Igor Simić, once the first on the right of Oliver Ivanović, and now the one who is mentioned in the context of his murder. "Greetings for brother Milan, who bears the greatest burden", said Simić to the people gathered at the protest and caused a chilling feeling among many who know the conditions here.

Perhaps the burden is that Milan Radoičić managed to stifle the public speech of the intellectual class of Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija, or perhaps that he appointed obedient directors of the school administration for Kosovo and Metohija, in health care or at the faculties in Kosovska Mitrovica, where for the first time the the third enrollment period because even the children of the leaders of the Serbian List will no longer study there.
During that time, the discrimination of Serbs south of the Ibar continued, the sale of Serbian land and the destruction of Serbian cultural heritage continued. An ordinary man's hands are tied, he remains without hope.

SLEEPING SERBIAN DIPLOMACY IN BRUSSELS

The European Union did not prove to be a good mediator in mediating the dialogue process, many times it did not want to interfere in its work and to react concretely when necessary.

Despite the fact that we have been waiting for almost seven years for the implementation of the decision of the Constitutional Court in the case of the return of 24 hectares of land to the Visoki Dečani monastery, the European Commission has assessed that the rule of law in Kosovo is at a good level, regardless of the fact that in addition to this there are numerous cases of discrimination and rights violations Serbian community.

The fact that important positions in the European Commission know very little about the violation of basic human rights completely defeated me during my recent visit to Brussels and Strasbourg. After numerous conversations, I realized that, for example, the case of Dragica Gašić, who is not accepted by the local Albanian community in Djakovica, the fake accusations and other problems serve exclusively for internal use and gaining political points through media close to the authorities.

Everything that happens to us seems to be for internal media use, to fill the minutes of the national TV Pink and the pages of the Belgrade tabloids.

It is not realistic to expect the Kosovo authorities to talk about how they discriminate against their own citizens, but it is bad that Serbian diplomacy in Brussels seems sleepy, in contrast to the very alert director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petković, who acts as if he is still the spokesperson of the DSS. and, well, he is at war with Kurti with announcements.

It seems that, while Belgrade is asleep, the office of the European Union's special representative in Kosovo is amortizing many political-legal blows to the Serbian community and not fully informing its superiors in Brussels. It would be devastating if we were divided on ethnic grounds in this and other international offices.

And while this negotiation war is being waged in the political-media field, the common man is increasingly anemic, disenfranchised in the process of establishing rights and rules, he is left to himself to adapt and find his way in the given circumstances, accustomed to adapting to them, so how long hold on.