Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Upcoming Demonstrations

There will be a series of demonstrations this weekend.  The first is set to occur on Friday in the Serbian enclaves.  From what I know, each one of the enclaves will have a demonstration against the Ahtisaari proposal.  The one in Gracanica is likely to interrupt the traffic to Gjilane for the day and if there is a good sized one in Caglavica or Lapje Selo, it may mean that Skopje Highway will be closed down.  The one in Mitrovica will be the most problematic though because the demonstrations usually end up with some sort of damage to UN property...but we will see!
On Saturday, Vetevendosje is calling for massive protests in Pristina.  From previous news articles, I believe that their goal is to again blockade the UN Mission HQ and prevent people from entering/exiting the compound.

There are reports of some rather nasty occurrences around Kosovo following the revelation of the status proposal.  A group of Albanians (unknown affiliation) are reported to have harassed Serbian residents of the Crvena Vodica village.  The group supposedly threatened forced expulsion stating that they were going to send all "Serbs to Serbia".  In Obilic, Serbian residents and police were allegedly intimidated by a group of Albanians whose slogan was "how much more do we have to pay you for independence".

Meanwhile, the round of talks between Belgrade and Pristina have been scheduled for 13 February.  However, acting President Boris Tadic has requested a delay of at least 10 days.  Currently Serbia does not have a negotiation team as it was disbanded due to the expiration of their mandate