Opposition on Kosovo Says Survival of Serbs in Kosovo Key, Calls for Alternative to Serb List

Dragan Djilas (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Freedom and Justice Party president Dragan Djilas said on Sept. 28 at a conference of the opposition and a delegation of Serbs from Kosovo that his party would never accept Kosovo as independent or as a member of the United Nations.

"The survival of Serbs in Kosovo is key. If they are not there, the fight loses all meaning," Djilas said, listing a series of measures to strengthen the Serb people in Kosovo. These measures include reopening production plants, buying up agricultural products, additional investments in the Mitrovica University -- as, he said, one could feel a different "bloodflow" when young people started coming in, while ensuring that the diplomas were accepted everywhere and hiring the best teachers from the country and abroad which the state would pay.

He said the opposition had "shown maturity" by jointly demanding a parliament session on Kosovo, and that Zdravko Ponos, president of the SRCE - Serbia Center party, had participated in drafting a law on Kosovo that was submitted to the parliament by the New Democratic Party of Serbia.

Democratic Party president Zoran Lutovac stressed that a political alternative to the Serb List needed to be created and that the conference was the "germ" for forming that alternative. "The chain of corruption leading from Belgrade to the Serb List must be broken. Money set aside for years for people in Kosovo and Metohija has ended up in the wrong pockets -- it did not arrive where it should have," Lutovac said.