No negotiation, self-determination

“No negotiation, self-determination”, street walls of Prishtina are covered with this phrase that is the presentation card of Vetevendosje (self-determination), a revolutionary citizen’s movement which opposes the negotiations taking place right now between Kosovars, Serbs and the International Community to decide the final status of Kosova.

Even if it’s getting clearer that the international community and the Serbian government will have to accept some kind of independence for the region, Vetevendosje reminds everybody that Kosova should have the right to decide its own future without negotiating with the government that was its oppressor for decades. They also oppose the “conditional” self-determination that the international community is pushing through resolution 1244, which preserves nominal Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. The movement’s manifesto points out many other reasons to oppose the negotiations. Read them here.

Last Thursday, Vetevendosje gathered around a thousand of people in a protest outside the UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo) headquarters. Their demands were clear: unconditional independence and UNMIK –who they accuse of protecting Serbian interests and limiting Kosova’s right to self-determination- out of the region. The protesters camped in front of the UN building and erected tents blocking the entrance. At 3 am on Friday police violently broke up the protest and arrested more than 50 people, among them the leader of Vetevendosje movement Albin Kurtin, a former student leader and political prisoner. The arrestees have been sentenced with 10 to 15 days of jail and have been sent to prisons all over Kosovo, their families not being informed of their location. Kurtin and his movement Vetevendosje have become very unpopular among the more conservative and pro-UN sectors of Kosovar society because of their calls for a revolution to end up with UN control and corrupt government institutions and their campaign to boycott all Serbian Products.

See Vetevendosje website here (Albanian and English)

See some images of last week's UNMIK protest in Prishtina in Vetevendosje’s weekly magazine here

Read more about ALbin Kurtin here. This page was set up when Kurtin was a political prisoner in a Serbian jail 7 years ago.

Read Resolution 1244’s full text in English here