SERBIA-MONTENEGRO PROTESTS WITH UNSC OVER MURDERS OF SERBS IN KOSOVO
Tanjug - February 23, 2004

Belgrade, 23 February: Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic has sent a protest note to the United Nations Security Council President following the heinous murder from an ambush of Zlatomir Kostic (36) of Kosovo Polje and Milijana Markovic (24) from the village of Staro Gracko in Kosovo-Metohija.

Expressing his deepest indignation over the fact that 22 Serbs have been killed in Lipljan alone since the deployment of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and international peace-keeping forces (Kfor) (Kosovo Force) in June 1999 and that not a single murder had been solved so far, Minister Svilanovic underlined that the proclaimed goals of the UN to secure safety, freedom of movement, respect of human and ethnic minority rights for all the inhabitants of the province have seriously been challenged.

Recalling the still unresolved murder of 14 harvesters in Staro Gracko, the Stolic family in Obilic and two children in Gorazdevac, Svilanovic warned that such inefficiency in Kfor's and UNMIK's work seriously questions both their authority and that of the UN Security Council that had given them the mandate to implement Resolution 1244.

"The latest killings are a tragic proof that all of the statements, condemnation and requests of the Security Council have, unfortunately, not resulted in ending the terror in Kosovo-Metohija," Svilanovic said in his note.

Minister Svilanovic also said that "Serbia-Montenegro expects the Security Council to take this time a resolute and concrete action in order to prevent further crimes and secure safety for all of the inhabitants of Kosovo-Metohija."

"Unless this is done," Svilanovic warned, "instead of a multiethnic Kosovo-Metohija, that we all urge for, we shall soon have in the map of Europe an ethnically clean Kosovo-Metohija."

Source: Tanjug news agency, Belgrade, in English 1829 gmt 23 Feb 04

Copyright 2004 Financial Times Information
All rights reserved
Global News Wire - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire 
Copyright 2004 BBC Monitoring/BBC  
BBC Monitoring International Reports

Posted for Fair Use only.