NATO forces have attacked a group of demonstrators in the majority-Serb town of Zvecan in Kosovo. NATO troops wounded 50 citizens after firing chemical tear gas and stun grenades at these protesters in the Balkans.
Serb demonstrators staged a sit-down protest outside municipal buildings in Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic on Monday morning, preventing ethnic Albanian officials from taking office following elections boycotted by the Serb population as illegitimate.
Kosovo police officers arrived on the scene in Zvecan, backed up by members of NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR). The heavily-armored NATO troops surrounded the demonstrators, who refused to disperse, RT Balkan’s journalist on the scene reported.
KFOR then threw stun grenades and tear gas into the crowd, provoking a riot. The Serb demonstrators pelted rocks at the NATO troops, and received baton strikes and rubber bullets in return.
Fifty people were taken to a hospital in nearby Mitrovica, and two were admitted to the emergency room. 25 KFOR soldiers also got injured in the melee, Italy’s ANSA news agency said. At least 11 of those reportedly hurt were Italians.
The protesters broke up shortly after the clashes, vowing to return and continue their demonstration on Tuesday.
The latest flareup in tensions began when local mayors in four majority Serb towns in northern Kosovo resigned last year after authorities in Pristina announced plans to force residents to switch their Serbian identity documents for Kosovo-issued paperwork.
The Serb population boycotted elections in April in which four ethnic Albanian mayors won with a turnout of less than 4% of the voters.
Nevertheless, the government in Pristina treated the votes as legitimate and the mayors were installed on Friday amid fierce opposition from the Serbs, who view the debacle as a naked power grab aimed at driving them from the breakaway province.
Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 with the support of the US and many of its NATO allies. Kosovo was historically a province of Serbia, and Belgrade – along with many world governments – does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.
While NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and a number of Kosovo’s Western backers have urged Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leader, Albin Kurti, to de-escalate the situation in the north of the province, he has apparently not heeded their warnings.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday that Kurti longs and dreams of being a [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky.
Due to the clashes, Serbia placed its army on high alert, moving some units closer to the region’s border. Defense Minister Milos Vucevic said that it is clear that terror against the Serb community in Kosovo is happening.
RT. com / ABC Flash Point Europe News 2023.
It is interesting that US waited for the outcome of Turkish election to incite the Kosovars against the Serbians, knowing that Erdogan unwavering support to the Muslim Albanian population and their right of self determination, this is no coincidence that this is a planed attacked by the west to sour the relation between Turkey and Russia.
NATO! Is that the best you can do is to use chemical tear gas on unarmed protesters? Tear gas will not work on the battle field in Ukraine or Taiwan!!! GET OUT!!!
NATO has recommenced its war and ethnic cleansing on the Slavs initiated by Clinton and Albright in 1999 to back their Islamic proteges: Serbia must intervene with Russian backing
You are all right complete Hypocrisy – “Bad Putin ” takes over Crimea but “good NATO “-aka USA for taking over Kosovo which it has no rights to grab from Serbia under force.
Reminds me of the times English prisoners were shipped to down under, especially Port Arthur, were they were put into slave labor camps, while being tortured along the way. When they went crazy and couldn’t take it anymore, they were relieved into a mental asylum, where more experiments on the body and mind took place.
Like the same thing happens in Serbia’s Kosovo now, only next door?
Enslaved, tortured and send into a mental asylum, within their own borders.