KOSOVO VILLAGE WITHOUT ELECTRICITY AS SERB COMPANY BANNED FROM REPAIRING FAULT
BBC Monitoring International Reports - February 12, 2005

Text of report by Serbia-Montenegrin radio Kontakt Plus on 11 February

(Announcer) Inhabitants of Novo naselje in Lipljan have no electricity for the third day running because a team from the Electric Power Industry of Serbia (EPS) has not been allowed to repair a technical defect.

A Serb house in Lipljan, which has not had electricity for almost two months now, has been sold. Mirjana Milutinovic reports.

(Milutinovic) Novo naselje, in Lipljan where both Serbs and Albanians live, found itself without electricity due to a mechanical defect at a 400 kVA transformer station. The Electric Distribution Company of Serbia provided for a new transformer station and a team to install it. Lipljan deputy mayor Borivoje Vignjevic told Kontakt Plus radio that KEK (Kosovo Energy Corporation) workers stopped the repair work, threatening to report the case to the UNMIK (UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo) police.

(Vignjevic) They said that EPS workers had no right to do so (repair the defect). Despite the fact that there was damage which could have been repaired, because we have a new transformer station, they were not allowed to repair it, but some 140 Serb households with around 500 people were left without electricity, and the temperature is minus 25 degrees.

(Milutinovic) The move by KEK workers shows that pressure against Serb inhabitants is constantly continuing in various ways, Vignjevic said. According to him, the Stevic family sold its house, and several families temporarily moved to surrounding villages where they have better living conditions.

Source: Kontakt Plus, Kosovska Mitrovica, in Serbian 1500 gmt 11 Feb 05

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