Izet Mexhiti, co-chairman of VLEN, reacted to the statement of the Serbian Minister for Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Snezhana Paunović, who said that if she were in Slobodan Milošević’s place in 1998, she would have “ethnically cleansed Kosovo”.
According to Mexhiti, the fact that there was no dismissal, public condemnation, or apology from Serbian institutions and President Aleksandar Vučić constitutes silence that approves chauvinistic rhetoric.
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He assessed that the Serbian minister’s statement violates ethical, moral, and legal norms, while raising serious questions about reconciliation efforts in the region.
Mexhiti also attacked the “Open Balkan” initiative, saying it has been used as a tool for the political, historical, and ideological rehabilitation of Serbia regarding crimes committed in the wars of the former Yugoslavia.
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“If I were Slobodan Milošević, I would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo in 1998!” declared publicly in an interview the minister of Aleksandar Vučić and passed without being dismissed, without public condemnation, without apology, without any expression of remorse or regret from her boss.
When a government official, in the 21st century, publicly glorifies the deeds of the Butcher of the Balkans and, worse, publicly expresses her regret that she left the job unfinished, that is, she did not cleanse Kosovo of Albanians, and for such a scandalous, chauvinist, racist statement passes without punishment, then we can only ask: what has actually changed in the Serbian national-chauvinist mindset that continues to dream of a Greater Serbia?! How can we talk about a new chapter for the Balkans, traumatized by bloodshed, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, if in 2026 we still have state officials who suffer over the “unfinished business of the late 20th century”?! Who can have illusions that we are living in an era of reconciliation and that we share the values of European peoples if a regrettable statement with clear racist and xenophobic premises that breaks every ethical, moral, and legal norm is accepted in silence and faces no penalty as a consequence?
These are the true faces of Open Balkan, an initiative they tried to sell as the best perspective for the Euro-integration aspirations of the region’s countries, but which, now there is no doubt, has clearly been only a framework for the historical, political, and ideological rehabilitation of Serbia for the macabre crimes committed during the bloody wars in the former Yugoslavia.
I remind the Slobo-nostalgic minister that what happened in Kosovo in 1998-1999 was one of the most brutal campaigns of ethnic cleansing on the territory of post-World War II Europe. As a result of the ethnocentric campaign of the Serbian army, police, and paramilitaries under direct orders of Slobodan Milošević, over 10,000 Albanian civilians were killed in Kosovo, around 1,500 of them children. Out of 6,000 missing persons, around 2,000 Kosovar Albanian men and boys still remain unaccounted for today, while the number of raped and sexually abused women and girls reaches up to 10,000!
But today Kosovo is an independent, democratic, and internationally recognized state. Kosovo’s subjectivity is demonstrated by its institutions built and elected through democratic procedures, and guaranteed by the Kosovo Army. This is the Kosovo that makes us all proud and for which entire generations sacrificed and shed blood.
The godfathers of Open Balkan and the lawyers of Aleksandar Vučić can continue to remain silent. In silence they approve the scandalous statement of the Serbian minister.
