GNZ statement emphasizes that Dragas informed representatives of the civil and military mission of the International Community active in the Prizren region, at a meeting in Pristina, that several days ago bombs were thrown on houses of Omer Jamini and Ibrahim Dehiri from Dragas. "Gorans in Kosovo live in fear for their lives although the situation in Gora is crystal clear, since only Gorans live in all 19 villages in that municipality," said Dragas.
Dragas warned representatives of the International Community that "neither UNMiK not KFOR can by force introduce multiethnicity by violently changing the composition of the population in the region" and repeated the Goran demand for cantonization, as a solution in those places where multiethnic life is impossible.
Before the war the Medvedja municipality had 13,000 inhabitants. About 30 percent of populations were ethnic Albanians. According to unofficial estimates, during the NATO intervention against FRY about 70 percent of ethnic Albanians left the municipality, mostly from Sijarinska Banja and villages of Svirce and Tupale. Albanians have been left without representatives in the municipal council, where the Socialist Party of Serbia holds majority. BETA news agency correspondent talked to several ethnic Albanians in Medvedja. They confirmed that people are moving to Kosovo, but they claimed that there was no direct pressure by the authorities to emigrate. "I haven't been bothered by anyone, and I haven't heard that any ethnic Albanians have had problems with the authorities or our Serb neighbors. Therefore, it is strange and incomprehensible that people are leaving," said Bajram Jahuli, the treasurer in the Medvedja Health Center, who also owns a shop in the center of the town. He added that houses and estates of those Albanians who have left for Kosovo haven't been touched. He emphasized that "no one even wanted to pick apples and pears from their orchards".
Another ethnic Albanian from Medvedja, Osman Ferati, a clerk in the primary school "Bozidar Stojanovic Drenicki" also states that "there are no direct pressures to emigrate", but that there is "a lot of injustice, even though the local Albanians never wanted this war". He was fired from his job as the secretary of the school "because of activities and behavior during immediate danger of war," as the firing notice states.
To the question why ethnic Albanians, especially from rural areas are moving away, Ferati said that the most likely reason is that "all of them have satellite antennas and are probably afraid". All interlocutors told this correspondent that in the last ten years not a single ethnically motivated clash or incident has been recorded in Medvedja.
The conference is organized by several NGOs, led by the Future of Europe Trust and Dragas was invited to give his "opinion about the attempts of KFOR and NATO" to normalize the situation in Kosmet.
"The Gora municipality is ethnically homogenous. Only Gorans live in that municipality and there are between 35,000 and 50,000 of them in Kosmet. Albanians, partly assisted by the German KFOR troops, are trying to change the ethnic composition of the population in the municipality. They are doing that by settling by force ethnic Albanians in Goran villages. The City Hall in Dragas has been taken over by the so-called KLA. They are illegally issuing documents with the Albanian coat of arms and the stamp of the transitional Kosovo government, says Dragas. He emphasizes that "Gorans support multiethnic Kosovo but only in truly multiethnic regions". Elsewhere, Gorans advocate "cantonization" through application of the Constitutional solution from 1974. "That is the way to achieve decentralization of authority which closely reflects the will of the citizens," claims Dragas.
"That is a new organization in this region. We did not know about their existence. They told us that they believe that SNV is impotent to protect the Serb population and that more radical protection measures were needed. Hence they decided to act," SNV representatives stated for journalists on Saturday [December 18]. SNV for Kosovska Mitrovica region emphasized that it "will no longer tolerate provocations by Kosovo Albanians who live in Bosnjacka Mahala similar to those during the opening of an office of the Albanian Republican Party or abuse and threats to the few Serbs who live in the quarter".