Tadic: State Could Not Have Prevented 2004 Pogrom of Kosovo Serbs

Boris Tadic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC/DS)

Boris Tadic, the leader of the Social Democratic Party and former president of Serbia, stated on March 17 that Serbian state institutions could not have prevented the pogrom of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija which took place in March 2004, because any military or police operation in the province would have entailed conflict with KFOR i.e. NATO.

Speaking for Prva TV on the 18th anniversary of the brutal attacks against Kosovo Serbs, Tadic said that, at the time, Serbia did not have the capacity for a military reaction but that the country did use military diplomacy, which resulted in NATO’s intervention on the second day of the pogrom.

The former president further stated that violence against Serbs has become “somewhat legalized” since 1999 and the arrival of KFOR in Kosovo and Metohija, citing both UNMIK’s and KFOR’s tacit approval.

Also asked to comment on the events of March 17, 2004, Petar Petkovic, the chair of the government Office for Kosovo and Metohija, said that the date remains one of the most tragic in recent Serbian history. The March 17 and 18 “explosion of hatred and wave of violence by Albanian extremists,” Petkovic explained, took the lives of 19 people, led to the exodus of 4,012 Serbs and caused the destruction of 935 homes and 35 Serbian Orthodox churches, monasteries and monastic quarters – some of which, such as the Church of the Holy Virgin of Lyevish, were on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.