PRIŠTINA --
The disabling of the mobile networks of Serbian providers in Kosovo continued on Saturday morning.
Landline networks are also being disabled, leaving Serb villages in Kosovo disconnected from each other.
Transmitters in Štrpce were also demolished for the regional Herc
television and radio transmissions. There are 12,000 Serbs living in
this municipality.
TV Herc Director Bojan Mladenović did not
receive any explanation for this, adding that workers cut cables,
violently opened equipment containers and destroyed all the equipment
they could.
The 063 mobile network is still operating in Štrpce.
The Kosovo Regulatory Agency for Telecommunications announced that it
would continue disabling and demolishing the transmitters of Serbian
mobile operators.
On Friday, 14 mobile 063 and 064 network
stations were disabled in other parts of the province. Ambulances and
medical workers cannot work because they cannot receive calls.
Patients can be treated, therefore, only if they come to the hospital or ambulance building directly.
The Kosovo government supports the disabling of Serbian networks,
stating that the action is "establishing legality on the
telecommunications market in the Republic of Kosovo."
It also
supports the new actions of the Regulatory Authority for
Telecommunications (RAT) in “stopping the illegal work of unlicensed
and unauthorized mobile operators in the Republic of Kosovo."
“The legal steps are not directed at any specific nationalities or
countries, but against all operators that are not respecting the
existing laws and norms,” the Kosovo government stated.
PM urges prevention of anti-Serb incidents
PM Mirko Cvetković urged on Friday the
representatives of “the UN peacekeeping missions” to prevent incidents
against Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija.
“The pressure that extremists exert on the returnees
and the disabling of the Serbian mobile service providers by the Kosovo
interim institutions have engendered new pressure and the atmosphere of
insecurity and fear among the Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija,” he was quoted
as saying.
Cvetković underlined that the cutting of communication lines between
the Serb-populated areas in the province and the world represents an
attempt of new isolation of Serbs in Kosovo.
“The Serbian
government insists that the UN peacekeeping missions, UNMIK and EULEX,
should take emergency measures to prevent such incidents and contribute
to the establishment of a lasting peace in Serbia's southern province,”
Cvetković stated.
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