Will Weiman Lake lose?

Recently, officials from Belgrade have suggested they would like to divide Kosovo on ethnic lines, alluding that Kosovo could lose Wajman.

This lake is managed by hydroeconomic company “Iber Lepenc” at Pristina, owned by the Government of Kosovo. On the other hand, Zubin Potok has a Serbian-owned company called “Ibar” and was founded in 2002 and Kosovo considers illegal.

Where did they get the money for construction?

Serbia's state leaders are insisting on adopting this lake itself, which is currently managed by Serbs, saying that Wyman's share is of strategic importance to the survival of Serbs in the north.

Azem Vlasi, former senior Kosovo official in the time of communism, now a lawyer and political analyst, for Radio Free Europe shows that Weyman Lake was built at the time by means of the Kosovo budget.

It shows that, for the implementation of this $45m project, loans have been obtained from the World Bank, which the state of the former Yugoslavia has guaranteed, while obligations and agreements have signed federal units, in this case Kosovo. Meanwhile, another $45m has been secured from Kosovo's then budget.

The “means both investment and property-judic aspect as public resources, and in every respect, Weiman has been fully investment and resources in Kosovo. And now at the borders that Kosovo has been declared a state, Weiman is located within these borders and that Serbia has nothing in this tree” says Vlasi.

Even Muhamet Mustafa, senior adviser at the Institute for Development Research “RIINVEST” says the accumulate for artificial Lake and Hydrocentral Lake in Weyman is built in all with Kosovo funds and the needs of Kosovo's economy and citizens. Even the lands found on Serbia's territory, he says, have been expropriated by Kosovo funds.

Serbia has not invested a cent in the construction of Uyman. Even exhumations on Serbia's territory, property and land that are covered after water accumulate, are true that some of Uyman has covered some lands that are on the border in Serbia, are outside Kosovo's territory, but even for those lands, Kosovo has paid them off from its own” budget.

The Iber é Lepenci canal runs through the territory of five municipalities -- Zubin Potok, Mitrovica, Vushtrri, Obilic, Pristina -- passing through 33 rural settlements and two cities.

Therefore, Serbia's every claim to the attempted-recognition of Kosovo resources is groundless, Vlasi says.

Serbia's “claims to Uyman's water resources are just the continuation of Slobodan Milosevic's policy when they think that Kosovo with all resources belongs to Serbia”.

Even Muhamet Mustafa, says it is out of the question that Serbia's claim to discuss or adopt companies that are found within Kosovo's territory and that are its property.

Serbia has no legal, logical or moral basis to seek any property in Wyman, Trepca or any other company. Serbia must remove this habit that discusses and tries to absorb Kosovo's properties, are new realities, and this is the number one basis for normalising reports. Because if Serbia discusses Uyman's ownership we can also discuss the properties of other things, but they are crazy things because they are things outside the territory of Kosovo and of Serbia”, Mustafa says.

Government officials of Kosovo have also said that Ujman Lake (Gazioda) belongs to the state of Kosovo, and that whoever claims to adopt it will do “an aggression” against Kosovo.