Kosovo Serbs protest against setting up of customs station on administrative border between Kosovo and Serbia

Kosovo Serbs regard the introduction of control over goods crossing the Kosovo-Serbian administrative border and the setting up of a customs station by the UN civil mission last Sunday as a threat and an attempt to resume ethnic cleansing. Vuk Antonievic, a Serbian leader from Northern Kosovo, and Momcilo Trajkovic, who heads the Federal Committee on Cooperation with the UN mission, have both protested that the mission did not coordinate its decision with Yugoslavian and Serbian authorities. According to Trajkovic, neither the federal nor the republican governments ever sanctioned these actions. Having discussed the situation, the Political Defence Committee of the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica condemned UNMIK's actions as inadmissible, and decided to protest by blockading roads and "enlisting the support of politicians, people and the state for all sorts of democratic resistance," announced Antonievic. In accordance with their decision, Serbs will blockade roads in the majority of Northern Kosovo communities. Serbian leaders have announced that the blockade and other actions of protest will go on until the customs station has been removed from the administrative border.

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