Angry at the Special Court, Mitrovica shopkeeper “bars” EULEX and UNMIK from his store

Bekim Zeneli was deeply frustrated on Wednesday, when he received the bitter news — bitter for him and for almost all Albanians — from The Hague.

The Special Court, headquartered in that Dutch city, found guilty and sentenced to 81 years in total the KLA four — Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi.

The clothing-business owner from Mitrovica made an unusual decision following this development.

He placed a warning on the door of his shop stating that entry is forbidden for EULEX and UNMIK, two foreign missions in Kosovo. Besides Albanian and English, the sign was also in Polish.

Zeneli told KosovaPress that he did this as an expression of dissatisfaction with the sentencing of the key KLA figures.

“Even so, I put this up more out of frustration and as a kind of symbol; it’s the idea that I felt very disappointed — it feels unfair to me — and I didn’t know what more I could do. Normally we shouldn’t have to do anything more, but something like this, as a kind of symbol, not something big, just to express the dissatisfaction — in other words, the dissatisfaction with what happened there,” Zeneli said.

He fears that the sentencing of the former KLA leaders could have grave consequences for the future of Kosovo as well.

“This idea is not something big, but the frustration is huge; the frustration is that this court — you don’t need to be very smart to know that this court is not a fair and just court — but the problem is that they did nothing to convict them; this is not about convicting an individual. As an individual I think this will have big consequences in the future too, for us as a state. We all read, and even if we don’t read, we watch films — Ismail Qemali, whom we all watch and grew up with that film — and now we hear about Ismail Qemali who was educated in that era; now, when our grandchildren hear that Hashim Thaçi proclaimed [independence] and now they have made him a criminal, a criminal who proclaimed your independence — that is, even 100 years from now, but already in this time, go and talk to someone, tell them you are recognized as a state, or tell them ‘I am Kosovar,’ they won’t take you seriously as a person. That’s how I see it: now they don’t take us seriously as people; it will be much harder for us to present ourselves as Kosovars,” he said.

Zeneli said that despite the ban he posted, members of EULEX and UNMIK may still enter his shop.

“This is only symbolic — it’s not that I can stop anyone; I would feel bad telling someone, even a Serb who comes here, as the person I am, to tell them not to come in. It’s more symbolic; I don’t stop anyone from entering; it’s more symbolic, that I am dissatisfied with what has happened. But that’s it; this paper I put up is like a personal frustration,” Zeneli stated. /Kp/