Kamberi: Posting Albanian addresses is changing ethnic structure in Presevo Valley

The Albanian MP in Serbia's Parliament, Shaip Kamberi, says that there have been years since Serbia has started applying the addresses of Albanians living in three southern municipalities, in Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanoc, and that, according to him, is changing the “ethnic infrastructure” of these municipalities, which are otherwise known as Presevo Valley..

In a conversation to Radio Free Europe, Kamberi says he welcomes the response of Kosovo and Albania's top diplomats, who demanded that Serbia stop deliberately deleting the addresses of Albanians in the Presevo Valley.

This is a process that started several years ago. More intensively, it is being implemented in Medvedja in Albanians who, in 99, have fled violently from Medvedja and live in Kosovo, have no civil status regulation in Kosovo, which means they are still resident citizens in Medvedja. But, under the country's settlement assignment law, a provision is being exploited, which says that if the citizen is not dwelling in the settlement he has presented, then that settlement is after moving. Here's about the evacuation of” settlements, Kamberi says.

He adds that citizens who were followed by the address may ask to register a new settlement, but he says it is done through a prolonged procedure.

Kamberi says there is no precise information about the number of citizens whose addresses in Medvedja have been deleted, but a rough number extracts it from the election register.

According to the information we now have, at least in the electoral records because with the loss of civic settlements, the citizen loses even the right to vote there are about 1,200 persons who have been wiped out in Medvedja, that is, of age, over 18 -- ”, he says, adding that they have no data on citizens under the age of 18.

The “Albanians, up to 2018, according to the election registry, had 8 advisers in the Medvedja Municipal Assembly. They've dropped to 3. This implies a drastic change of the ethnic structure of the municipality”, Kamberi adds.

Kosovo Foreign Affairs and Diaspore Minister Melza Haradinaj-Stubla and Albania's acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Gent Cakaj, through a joint statement, said this process under way in Serbia constitutes a new form of “impression on Albanians in the Presevo Valley. ”

“Therefore, while we strongly condemn this institutional practice, we call on Serbia's authorities to immediately halt systematic work for insulating Albanian addresses. This state practice does not only harm the rights of Albanians in the Presevo Valley, but is also a complete disregard of democratic standards in general”, the joint declaration of Kosovo and Serbia's diplomatic chiefs said.

MP Kamberi says that although Medvedja is the most affected by the progress of settlements, this process is also under way in two other Albanian-run municipalities, Presevo and Bujanoc.

He also expresses concern that Albanians who have fled the Presevo Valley towards Kosovo since 1999 have no civil status regulated in Kosovo either.

“in Kosovo, most of them do not have the civil situation adjusted, so there remain persons, what judicial terminology in Serbia calls legally invisible persons”, he says.

There is no accurate number of Albanian residents in Serbia, as Albanians had boycotted the census made in 2011.