Wrote: Endrit Berisha
The Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia (OKS) has continued with the narrative that Kosovo Serbs are facing ongoing violence in Kosovo.
On May 7, the director of the Kosovo Security Agency, Petar Petkovic, reacted to Prime Minister Albin Kurti, after the latter described Serbia's narrative regarding the security of Kosovo Serbs as propaganda.
WHAT DID KURT SAY?
Prime Minister Kurti, on May 6, through the X platform, made a summary of murder cases in Kosovo from 2021 to 2024, citing official data from the Kosovo Police.
"Official police statistics show that from '21 to '24, there were a total of 86 murders in Kosovo: 81 Albanians, 3 Serbs and 2 other ethnicities. 3 Serbs were killed in '22; 2 in the municipality of North Mitrovica and one in Gracanica. For all three murders, there are only Serb suspects.
In North Mitrovica, a Serb is suspected of killing his father and brother. In Gracanica, a Serb is suspected of killing his brother.
The Banjska case is unique, where 3 Serbian paramilitary members died in a shootout with police after the killing of police officer Afrim Bunjaku on September 24.
"Every person in Kosovo, local or international, knows: Serbian propaganda about violence against Serbs is just that – propaganda. The facts speak for themselves, dispelling the insidious lies and revealing the lengths to which an authoritarian regime would go to sow chaos.", was Kurti's statement in X. (see here)
WHAT DID PETKOVIĆ SAY?
The Director of the Kosovo Serb Organization, Petar Petkovic, responded to Prime Minister Kurti, saying that the latter is attempting to justify physical and legal violence against Kosovo Serbs.
"By criminalizing the north of Kosovo and Metohija, Albin Kurti is constantly trying to find justification for physical and legal violence against Serbs, deliberately overshadowing this according to official statistics, kept by the Police in Pristina, that the north of Kosovo and Metohija was the safest part of the province.
The deterioration of the security situation in northern Kosovo and Metohija is a direct consequence of Kurti's occupation, which we witness every day, because his phalanxes terrorize, shoot at Serbs, and even beat our children!
Kurti fails to mention that his member of the so-called KSF shot the brothers Stefan and Miloš Stojanović, that ROSU shot D. Galjak, M. Jovanović and S. Sofronijević on his doorstep, and 3 Serbs were brutally murdered in Banjska, and the autopsy findings are still hidden!
"The terror we are talking about is not an incident, but a continuous sign of Kurti's policy, and we recall that since he came to power, more than 500 ethnic incidents have occurred against Serbs, the KOS and their property," stated Petkovic in X. (see here)
WHAT DID THE SERBIAN LIST SAY?
Me REACTION The Serbian List also emerged, saying that Prime Minister Albin Kurti is obsessed with expelling Serbs and that to achieve this goal he has ignored the needs of Albanians. This parliamentary party in Kosovo accused Kurti of militarizing the north and seizing private property of Serbs.
"The ongoing institutional violence and ethnically motivated attacks against Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija are not propaganda, but unfortunately the cruel reality in which our people live under the regime of Albin Kurti, whose obsession with expelling Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija has reached such a level that he has neglected the needs of the very Albanians who voted for him.
Kurti marks his mandate with the information that over 500 ethnically motivated attacks have occurred against Serbs, a good portion of which directly by members of Kosovo institutions, the police and everyone else, and during his reign of terror there has been blood on the hands of members of the Kosovo police and Kosovo security forces, of young Serbian boys like Stefan and Milos Stojanović from Gotovusa, who were shot on Christmas Day.
Unfortunately, these are the facts that Kurti wants to mask with his lies and propaganda and present himself and his regime in a different, more beautiful way, and he does this for two clear reasons, to justify the seizure of private Serb lands and the militarization of the north, as well as all the violence that is continuously exerted against the Serbian people.
Albin Kurti has created a kind of criminal circle for the persecution and oppression of Serbs.
This is best seen in the example of Srecko Sofronijevic. Kurti's phalanx initially shot at him without any basis or reason and caused him serious bodily injuries. And then no one conducted any investigation or decided on the responsibility of those who shot the citizen and civilian, and when they realized that this was not enough for Srecko to leave Kosovo and Metohija, he was arrested in front of his family and is being held in custody to this day.
There are examples of honorable Serbs who did not want to sell the inheritance of their fathers and grandfathers, so after two decades they were declared war criminals and without any evidence are being held in prisons throughout Kosovo and Metohija.
There are dozens and hundreds of such examples, and they are the real and cruel lives that Serbs live because of Kurti's regime, not anyone's propaganda.
On the other hand, Kurti can request statistics from his assistant Sveçla, in order to see that in the Northern region, while Serbs were in the police, there were the fewest crimes committed and the most solved of all regions in Kosovo and Metohija., it is stated in the reaction of the Serbian List (see here)
Analyze:
Hibrid.info has also dealt in the past with the narrative of the Government of Serbia, namely the Office of the Kosovo Serbs, regarding the security situation of Kosovo Serbs. In many cases, this office describes cases of violence involving Kosovo Serbs as cases with the aim of expelling them from Kosovo, without relying on any facts. (see here, here and here).
Even in the last claim, most of Petkovic’s response is not based on facts. He says that Kurti is criminalizing the northern part of the country, without supporting this claim with any facts. He also says that Kurti is trying to find justifications for “physical and legal violence” against Serbs, but he does not base this claim on any facts either.
Petkovic also says that the “deterioration of the situation in the north” is “a direct consequence of the occupation carried out by Kurti.” This claim is not based on any facts either, while he continues to claim without facts that “his phalanges terrorize, shoot at Serbs, and even beat our children!”
Even the Serbian List, a parliamentary party in the Kosovo Assembly, repeated Petkovic's claims, without any facts.
Based on the working methodology, hibrid.info evaluates these claims of the Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia as "Conspiracy Theory".
Reasoning:
"Conspiracy theories" are media reports that disseminate a false or unverifiable description of a phenomenon, event, or person, presenting it as part of or the result of a secret plan ("conspiracy"). A characteristic of these reports is that they present a series of claims, presented as facts, between which cause-effect relationships are established, without providing any credible evidence.