Letter of the presidents of the municipalities of north Kosovo

TO: Members of the European Parliament
Members of the European Commission

On 14 and 15 February, 2012, the Serbians, Bosnians, Roma, Gorani, Croatians and other non-Albanians of Northern Kosovo will vote in a referendum that will decide whether or not they want to live under Albanian-dominated rule. We write to ask you to support the will of these people should they decide to vote to pursue their destiny as an independent entity.

The Serbians and other non-Albanians have resided in Kosovo since the 7th Century. Kosovo itself has over 1000 Serbian Orthodox Churches and Monasteries, with several of them being UNESCO heritage sites, hundreds of which have recently been destroyed.

Recalling the end of the conflict in 1999, Albanians have dominated most of Kosovo, with the exception of Serbian majority areas; located south and north of the River Iber/Ibar, which are entirely populated by Serbians. Most of the non-Albanians still remaining in Kosovo’s Albanian-controlled municipalities endure constant persecution, without mentioning their basic human rights or freedom of movement.

Thousands of non-Albanians have been killed or have gone missing – many having had their organs harvested to generate funds for the KLA to purchase weapons. The international mediators appointed to help resolve the conflict have failed in their mission. This has resulted in the exodus of over 250,000 non-Albanians from the parts of Kosovo controlled by the Albanians.

This has been reported in every single independent observation by international human rights monitoring report by the EU, Council of Europe, the OSCE, the United Nations and by international NGOs.

It is even more important to point out that Northern Kosovo has never been under the control of the Albanians. It is the place where non-Albanians sought refuge, and have remained there ever since.

Quite frankly, the current Albanian-dominated government in Kosovo has not demonstrated political maturity or a will to accommodate the non-Albanians of the Province. None of the laws that the international community has insitsted be adopted by the Albanians, which would protect the non-Albanian community, have have been implemented. None of the laws that have been adopted by the Albanians in Kosovo have been promulgated by the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations, in violation of the laws recognized by the International Court of Justice.

The North of Kosovo has not/will not allow these new illegitimate Albanian laws to be implemented and we will continue to use our legitimate structures established in accordance to international law and most of all the Republic of Serbia and her constituents to this day.

In the spirit of fairness and democracy, and with vision to reduce tensions, thus encouraging long term stability in the region, we urge you to recognize the peoples will from the results of the referendum, which will clearly reaffirm that we will not allow our community to be subdued or obedient to the minority Albanian-Muslim-dominated government led by documented criminals.