by /VOA/KultPlus.com. Translation Petrit Latifi
Summary
An international report by the European Stability Initiative (ESI) rejects Serbian claims of “ethnic cleansing” of Serbs in Kosovo, stating that no international organization has found evidence to support them. The report highlights how Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has repeatedly used inflammatory rhetoric, warning of pogroms and possible military intervention, despite a lack of verified facts. International missions in Kosovo, including KFOR, EULEX, UNMIK, and the OSCE, have not observed systematic violence against Serbs. The report also criticizes the use of inconsistent and unproven statistics, warning that false narratives risk escalating tensions and violence in the region.
The European Stability Initiative (ESI) said that no international organization, including security ones, has seen evidence for Belgrade’s claims that there is “ethnic cleansing of Serbs” in Kosovo, but the lack of evidence has not put an end to the inflammatory claims.
In a report titled “Fabricated Pogroms – Statistics, Lies and Confusion in Kosovo,” the organization recalls that in July 2023, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić declared that NATO and the UN had fourteen days to disarm Kosovo’s police forces and protect Kosovo Serbs from the ongoing “pogroms and ethnic cleansing” of Albanians. Otherwise, “someone else” would have to do it.
The report notes that warnings that Serbia may need to send troops to Kosovo to protect Serbs are not new, referring to a statement by Serbian President Vučić in August 2018, in which he described Kosovo as a powder keg.
“Everyone will wait for an opportunity to hit the other to achieve an advantage on the ground. And every day we will worry if they will attack us in the north, where they will hit us, with whose support…”, the Serbian president had said.
However, the 2018 statements argued that if Serbs are attacked in Kosovo, Serbia will protect them. Since 2023, the statements argue that Serbs are now under attack and must be protected, according to the report by Nisma, which in late July 2023 had said that this is a serious threat to peace in the Balkans.
A few months later, Serbian paramilitaries attacked Kosovo police in the north, the report recalls, the September 24, 2023 attack by a group of armed Serbs that killed a Kosovo police officer.
“It is time to take seriously what is currently being said by politicians in Belgrade. If pogroms are invented, then violence will follow. If these false claims are not challenged, the situation will escalate further,” the report says, underlining that “it should not be difficult for international organizations to refute false, misleading and dangerous claims about imaginary massacres whenever they are made.
None of the many international observers with personnel on the ground in Kosovo, from KFOR to EULEX, from UNMIK to OSCE, have seen or described ‘ethnic cleansing of Serbs’ or Albanian ‘terror’ in recent years. But the lack of evidence has not stopped the inflammatory claims.”
The initiative emphasizes that one of the tools in this battle of narratives has been statistics. On October 5, 2023, President Vučić said that as a result of “Albanian terror,” 11 percent of Kosovo Serbs have left Kosovo since the beginning of 2021. On February 8, 2024, speaking at the UN Security Council, Vučić increased the number of Kosovo Serbs who had left in just one year to “14 percent.”
No evidence has been provided for the alleged pogroms, systematic violence, or “ethnic cleansing” in recent years, the 18-page report says, comparing statements and statistics presented by the Serbian authorities themselves.
Reference
Balkan Academia 