Serbian member speaks, tells why he left KSF

About 20 members of the Kosovo Security Force from the ranks of the Serb community have collectively submitted requests to abandon KSF. They're all from the Gjilan region.

They don't like to talk about the media, some say the decision was taken for personal reasons, and others say it was “for Serbia”.

One of them, whose identity is known for Radio Free Europe and who for personal reasons insisted on speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was a collective decision by Serb KSF members on this side to abandon this force, so, according to him, he was unable to decide otherwise.

Everybody abandoned him, so did I. At the border, we are not allowed to cross into Serbia, so we had to do this”, said this Serb member who had just decided to abandon the KSF.

He said he had been a member of the KSF for years and that he had never had a problem and that he regularly accepted the salary, and now he says he doesn't even know how to make money to live.

I really don't know how it's gonna be now. We have nowhere else to work, we have no choice. It was not our desire to abandon him. We haven't had any problems. We had to abandon him, but we have family”, he said.

The Kosovo Security Force is a multiethnic, uniformised and equipped with light weapons. The KSF was established in 2009, according to the General Plan for the Status of Kosovo, of President Martti Ahtisaari, on which Kosovo's independence was declared. The KSF numbers more than 2,000 members, of whom 200 belong to minority communities, while 100 are from the Serb community.

Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj has reacted by naming Belgrade's pressures on Serb members of the Kosovo Security Force as meaningless and crime against Kosovo citizens.

This pressure is pointless, it's out of time because these methods happened about ten years ago and we're surprised by this approach. It is very unfair, because someone is exercising crime against these Kosovo citizens -- from these young men and women -- to their families” -- has declared Haradinaj following the meeting of the National Security Council.

The “is against conventions, it is against human rights, it is against the security of these citizens, and we, like Kosovo, have acted on time, we have taken action, both in the external and internal plan to clarify this unacceptable” action, Haradinaj said.

Serbia's pressures on Serb KSF members have been frequented in recent months, initially with detentions at border crossings with Serbia, and then with statements by Serbian authorities that they were threatened with the sentence by 10 years due to participation in foreign armed formations.

Several incidents of Molotov cocktail attacks on the property of these members have also been recorded.