In these first days of 2024 alone, the Office for Kosovo in the Serbian government (OKQS) has published disinformation about Kosovo on at least three occasions.
On January 18, 2024, the office headed by Petar Petkovic, who is also the chief negotiator in the dialogue with Kosovo in Brussels, issued a statement titled "Two more houses belonging to returnees Marinko Blagojević and Tomislav Radivojević in the village of Lubozhdë were looted" where he claimed that two houses of Serbs who returned to this village, located in Istog, were looted.
The office team accused without any basis or evidence "Albanian extremists" for these works.
Their statement also published two photographs that allegedly showed images of those looted houses.
Photo: Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia (1)
Photo: Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia (2)
"Such frequent attacks on peaceful Serbian people who simply want to live in their homes, especially on our returnees who are the most vulnerable category of the population, is a more than clear message from Albanian extremists that they do not want to build a peaceful coexistence and that they are doing everything to scare and expel Serbs," this office said.
The office headed by Petkovic further said that Kosovo politicians are not condemning these cases, but on the contrary, "in their statements they target Serbs and in this way generate violence on the ground and their every move serves to make the life and survival of Serbs in Kosovo impossible."
This Serbian government agency, which succeeded the former Ministry for Kosovo, claims to deal with the problems of Serbs living in Kosovo. In official website of the Office for Kosovo in the Serbian government (OQS), among other things, it is stated that its team cooperates with the “Commissioner for Refugees in the part that deals with internally displaced persons from Kosovo”. The wording of the sentence in quotation marks is a quote translated from Serbian, taken from the OQS website, and coincides with Serbia’s claims for Kosovo, which it still considers part of itself.
The office in question has frequent reactions to the situation in Kosovo, although in many cases the situation presented by it is far from the truth on the ground, making unfounded accusations and claims that Kosovo Serbs are allegedly being threatened, attacked, beaten and killed by institutions in Pristina. These claims have been consistently denied by Hibrid.info.
Do these claims hold true?
The Kosovo Police have confirmed for the local media that the two cases in question were reported to the police on January 17 in the afternoon.
However, the allegations of forced entry and robbery were dismissed by this institution. Fadil Gashi, spokesperson for the KP in the Peja Region, said that "the competent units went to the scene and together with the house supervisor, they saw that only the windows of the house were open - without force - and nothing was missing in the house."
In addition to the police, the Peja Prosecutor's Office is also involved in the case.
Like the police, Shkodran Nikçi, the information officer for this prosecution, has denied that there was any forced entry into those houses. He said that the damage to these houses was not caused by the human factor, thus denying the claims of the office headed by Petar Petkovic.
"No major damage or damage caused by the human factor has been observed," Nikçi stated.
In addition, the Prosecution confirmed that the owners of those houses are not in Kosovo, thus denying a claim by the Office for Kosovo in the Serbian government, which referred to the owners of those houses as "returnees".
The Office for Kosovo in the Serbian government recently (on January 15, 2024) responded to another case of theft from a Serb's workshop in Plemet, Obiliq.
Once again, this office accused the Kosovo Albanians. He directed the accusation for the crime to the country's executive branch., saying that "this practice of intimidating Serbs has been particularly dominant since Kurti came to power, as we have recorded numerous incidents, which aim to threaten the survival of the Serbian people in Kosovo."
Meanwhile, this theft case it is confirmed by law enforcement. Police spokesman Agron Borovci said that the theft took place in a welding workshop, where two cylinders filled with oxygen and acetylene were taken along with the connecting pipes used for welding.
However, he was unable to say who the suspects are for committing this criminal offense since no one has yet been arrested in the case.
Serbia's False "Truth" About the Recak Massacre
In addition to cases of theft and robbery, this office has also distorted facts about the Recak Massacre.
"The facts preserved for history by Danica Marinković undermine any attempt to fabricate the events in Recak, which served as an incoherent justification and reason for the illegal aggression of a part of the international community against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
This was stated by Petar Petkovic, after a meeting he said he had with former Serbian investigative judge Danica Marinkovic., which, according to him, "on January 15, 1999, conducted an investigation into the events in Racak and, despite numerous pressures, courageously presented the truth to the whole world based on scientific expertise and collected evidence."
However, for The massacre of Recak, where 45 Albanian civilians were killed and massacred, have reported many international media outlets, based on international reports, considered this event a massacre of defenseless civilians. William walker, former head of the OSCE Verification Mission in Kosovo, was the first international official to witness this massacre, and the first to alert the world to Serbian atrocities in Kosovo. (You can read more about the Racak Massacre here.) HERE)
A platform for fact-checking has also been launched with the claims of the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia, Hibrid.info.