Kosovo Serb officers end boycott

03/07/2009

All but 18 Kosovo Serbs decided to return to work in the Kosovo Police Service.

By Besa Beqiri Southeast European Times in Pristina -- 03/07/09

Kosovo Police Service on the beat in the Serbian enclave of Shtrpche in March 2007. [Getty Images]

Late last month, 307 Kosovo Serb police officers decided to end a 16-month walkout and return to the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) on Tuesday (June 30th). They had left their jobs to protest Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in February 2008. For a while, the officers received pay and were offered several deadlines to return to work.

Finally, the KPS gave them a stern June 30th deadline to report to their posts or be fired. The remaining 18 officers might still return. If they don't, however, the government plans a recruitment drive in the Serb community to fill their positions.

The EU rule of law mission in Kosovo -- EULEX -- welcomed the officers' return and praised "the professionalism" of those who stayed in their positions to keep law and order, "despite political pressures".

Serbia's Minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanovic said earlier that intensive talks were under way with the EULEX mission.

"We're very close to a solution, as it's absolutely unthinkable for Serbs in the north of Kosovo to be in the KPS, and the Serbs south of the Ibar to leave the KPS," he said.

Given high security risks in the south, Serbia may soon call on the officers to return if certain conditions are met.

"We've already agreed that UNMIK police should be in all stations and substations. We're close to an agreement for the deputy to be a representative of the Serb community, who that command chain will go through, via the EULEX mission, and I hope that we'll call on the Serbs to return to the KPS very soon," Bogdanovic said, as quoted by B92.

Bloggers were quick to react.

"The deadline is over! What 'intensive talks' and with whom?" asked miri on the Serbian prime minister's news portal B92 blog.

Kosova-USA commented on the implication that the officers' return may be only under a UNMIK chain of command. "Up north they wear Kosovo police uniform[s], and do not tell me they answer to the UNMIK police commissioner either, because there is none in Kosovo anymore," he said.

However, Milan, a Serb, thinks that the only legitimate return is under a non-Kosovo chain of command. "Good job, officers!" he writes sardonically. "You can go back, but to an international commandeered police, not to a police force of an illegal pseudo-state."

AdamSRB also opposes the decision to return. "Any Serb that joins the KPS will be seen as a traitor … hence this will never happen!".

But Drenicaku believes the Kosovo Serb officers had no choice but to return. "There is no other way out for them," he writes.

Finally, kosovaman reflects the Kosovo-Albanian hopes. "I am glad they have returned and I hope all local Serbs distance themselves from old politics and join [the] Kosovo institutions in order to protect their own rights and freedoms."