UNMIK/PR/1311
PRISTINA – SRSG Søren Jessen-Petersen today said that Kamenicë/Kamenica many ways represents the kind of society Kosovo should strive to be. He said that despite the perception of insecurity and lack of freedom of movement that is constantly fed to the public, “people actually do get on very well” and although there are problems, “the reality is very often different, the reality is that people are moving around, they are getting together, in particular in this part of Kosovo and this is what we’d like to see throughout Kosovo”. He was speaking during a a day trip to Kamenicë/Kamenica in Gjilan/Gnjilane region this Thursday.
The SRSG praised the community for their very positive efforts to reach out to the minorities and bring them into the dialogue and activities of the municipality.
He then visited the Culture House where groups of Kosovo Albanian, Kosovo Serb and Roma schoolchildren staged a cultural performance.
A brick factory in Korminjane was the next stop and the SRSG congratulated the manager of the multi-ethnic workforce [50% Kosovo Albanian and 50% Kosovo Serb] for setting an example of how people can work together. “I believe that the best way to bring people together, to bring ethnic groups together, is to have them work around a common objective”, said the SRSG, adding that with its multi-ethnic workforce working together without any problems, the factory “sets an example of how it could be, how it should be and, I think, how it will increasingly be in many places in Kosovo”.
After visiting the Customs Service branch in Dheu-i-bardh/Zemlja, the SRSG said the trip had been an interesting experience. At the meeting in the Municipal Assembly the Kosovo Serbs had listed the reasons why they feel they don’t want to be part of the dialogue but the experience with the schoolchildren, the brick factory workers and the Customs Services branch told a different story. “After these experiences I’d almost wish that I could send the children to the municipality and let them do the politics, and also the factory manager who has actually shown the way in how to run a multi-ethnic workforce”, said the SRSG, adding that “this part of Kosovo is very representative of how Kosovo should be all over and, when we look for ways to bring the minorities into the mainstream of Kosovo, I think we should look for the examples in this part of Kosovo and not listen too much to those up in the north who are still speaking the language of the past”.
The SRSG then paid a visit to Camp Bondsteel before returning to Pristina.