Serbian Minister Snezhana Paunović is facing a lawsuit for inciting discord and impatience in Kosovo, as well as a request for dismissal in the Serbian Assembly, due to her statement a few days ago about “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo.
Snezhana Paunović – the Serbian Minister for Public Administration and Local Self-Government – declared on Saturday for the Serbian Kurir television that, if she had been in place of the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 1998, “she would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo”, inciting reactions and punishments in Kosovo and beyond.
Because of this statement, the acting Minister of Justice, Donika Gërvalla, announced on Thursday that she has filed a lawsuit against Paunović for inciting hatred and intolerance.
Gërvalla wrote on Facebook that he has asked the chief prosecutor of the State of Kosovo to undertake “all investigative actions and proceed further with an indictment and a request for the imposition of a sentence by the competent Court”.
Meanwhile, the only Albanian deputy in the Assembly of Serbia, Shaip Kamberi, announced on Thursday that 53 opposition deputies have submitted a request to the Serbian Prime Minister, Gjuro Macu, for the dismissal of Paunović.
They asked Prime Minister Macu to, “without any delay”, propose to the Assembly of Serbia the dismissal of Minister Paunović – who was declared an “undesirable” person in Kosovo.
It is not clear whether Macut will make such a proposal in the 250-seat Serbian Assembly.
Kamberi emphasized on Thursday that Prime Minister Macut has a political and institutional responsibility to react and prove that there is no place in the Government of Serbia for a minister who defends the idea of deporting people on the basis of their nationality and who promotes actions outside the law and judicial procedures.
“If Macut refuses to propose her dismissal, he will take responsibility for the continuation of her mandate in this function and for the normalization of such a policy within the Government of Serbia,” he said.
reaction
Paunović’s statements were condemned by the European Union and Kosovo, while the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, said that her comments “do not reflect my will, nor that of the Government of Serbia”.
On Thursday, the Commissioner for Enlargement of the European Union, Marta Kos, repeated her condemnation of Paunović’s statements and expressed surprise as to why she continues to remain a minister.
Observers from Kosovo and Serbia told Radio Free Europe that Paunović’s statement is part of a political model of Serbia against Kosovo, demanding that the international community not be satisfied with just reactions, but take concrete actions towards Serbia.
Her statements touch old wounds in Kosovo, since hundreds of thousands of Albanian civilians were expelled from Kosovo during the 1998-1999 war.
That war took the lives of over 13,000 civilians, mostly Albanians, while thousands more remained missing.
Over 1,500 people, most of them Albanians, are still missing.
Gërvalla emphasized that Serbia still has not apologized for the crimes committed against our people during the war in Kosovo.
“These were the consequences of a systematic campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbian regime in Kosovo, accompanied by murder, deportations, sexual violence and inhumane treatment,” Gërvalla wrote.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague described the then leaders of the FRY as key participants in a “joint criminal enterprise” aimed at forcibly expelling hundreds of thousands of Albanian civilians from Kosovo in 1999.
According to the verdicts, the goal was “to change the ethnic balance in order to maintain Serbian control over Kosovo.”
The main accused, Slobodan Milosevic, died in custody before the end of the trial, while the former president of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, was declared innocent./ REL
