Tuesday, March 8, 2005

Day of Reckoning

2200 CET:  Several hundred students are staging a peaceful demonstration over the indictment of Haradinaj.  In the freezing temperatures, it only lasted about half an hour.  As soon as everyone got excited it was over.  I think after the March riots people have a tendency to get over excited about any gatherings.
1400 CET:  Ramush Haradinaj officially has been indicted for war crimes by ICTY and resigned as Prime Minister of Kosovo.  The SRSG gave a statement calling for everyone to remain calm and thanking Haradinaj for his leadership the past few months.  Haradinaj has said before that if he was indicted he would go willingly to the Hague.  It is a good political step for him and also will hopefully lead to a calm situation.  I do not doubt that there will be demonstrations against the decision to indict Haradinaj but the final result of those demonstrations, peaceful or violent, is the question in everyone's minds.

1000-1200 CET:  The morning started off like any other until UN Security announced that all travel to the Peja/Pec region was restricted.  Then the rumors started going around.  We were told that it was likely that Ramush Haradinaj would be arrested and told to be on alert with our overnight bags ready.  I shot home to pick up my bag and laptop (hate to lose my baby if anything happened!)  The only thing that I worry about in these situations is Smokey because he has to stay at the house.