Insults for Boycott Party; NGOs Asked the International Organizations to Intervene with Government

The Intiative for Boycott of the Referendum on the New Constitution, started by Vojvodina based non-governmental organizations, demanded from the state authorities to start ex officio investigation on the incident in Tuesdays’ rally in Belgrade, accompanied with insults on a whole nation, the NGO and political party activists who support the boycott of the coming Referendum. Last Tuesday, October 24, the Association of Students of Kosovska Mitrovica University and the Youth Organization of the Serb National Council of Norther Kosovo and Metohija organized a rally in support of the New Constitution. The participants of the rally fired a barrage of insults against the political parties’ leaders and NGOs supporting the boycott calling them “Shiptars” and staged a mock award-presentation ceremony. Several hundred citizens took part in the rally on the Republic Square in Belgrade. They carried slogans “Kosovo is the soul od Serbia – Save Our Soul”, and some of them wore t-shirts with the insignia of the disbanded special operation’s unit (the notorious “Red Berets”) with the slogan “Terrorism is illness – call the doctors”. Men in t-shirts of "JSO" at the Belgrade rally Milan Ivanovic, the Leader of the Serb National Council, Marko Jaksic, one of the leaders of Kosovo Serbs, as well as one orthodox priest from Kosovska Mitrovica who wished to remain anonymous, took part in the rally. The Vojvodina NGO Boycott Initiative appealed to the international public to pay attention to events in Serbia regarding the referendum. "We appeal to the international actors to use their influence on Serbian Government and timely prevent the further incitement of national, religious and racial hatred, until it’s to late and the situation spins out of control”, commented the Initiative. At the same time, the organizations involved in the Initiative send a letter to Michael Polt, US Ambassador to Serbia, in which they demanded from him to use his authority in the international organizations and in the Government to support its efforts to maintain ethnic peace and security of all citizens. The letter claims that the constitutional process in Serbia is accompanied by incitement of national, religious and racial hatred. "Such phenomena gain on intensity, threaten to spin out of control and hint at further unwanted consequences for the position of ethnic and religious minorities in Serbia and the security of public personalities who resist ethnic homogenization and the spread of anti-minority, especially anti-Albanian sentiments during the process of finding solution to the status of Kosovo”, adds the letter. The Boycott initiative also accuses the state television of promoting intolerance, as it did in the years preceding the wars in former Yugoslavia.