Shaip Kamberi: Prime Minister Brnabić is surprisingly intolerant – Politika

Know that my speech as a member of parliament did not only emphasize the rights of Albanians and Bosnians. You can see for yourself that there are big problems in this society, which I spoke about. This mainly refers to the stubborn refusal to face the past, the insincere path to membership in the EU, the increasingly strong totalitarianism and even the disunity and lack of ideas of all the opposition operating in the political field where a single player rules.

This is how Shaip Kamberi, in an interview with Danas, answers the question of how he sees the great attention that his speech in the National Assembly has attracted from the Serbian public, after Prime Minister Ana Brnabić presented her revelations.

Kamberi (56) is one of six deputies from the United Valley – Democratic Action Party. He has a law degree and president of the Party for Democratic Action, the oldest ethnic Albanian political organization in southern Serbia.

* How do you comment on the reactions of Ivica Dačić, Ana Brnabić and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to your speech in the Serbian Assembly?

– I was hoping that you would not agree with what I was saying, and so I announced in the opening sentence that I would not listen to Meša Selimović’s advice that “you should not always speak your mind”. I decided to speak regardless of the reactions. But I must admit that I did not expect such intolerance. Especially not from President Brnabić, for whom he had a court that she was moderate.

In any case, my subsequent performances will not depend on whether or not someone will like it, be it the Speaker of Parliament or someone above him. I and the members of my parliamentary group will constructively point out whatever we deem necessary.

* You are one of the six minority deputies who are in the opposition. Does your performance have something to do with the fact that Albanians, but also Bosnians, did not get a place in any of the ministries?

– I, Shaip Kamberi, would never seek a ministerial position. My compatriots chose me to present the problems they face in the Serbian National Assembly, and I will. We are talking about the rights that belong to members of the Albanian community as a constitutional category, whether they are in power, the opposition or even if they are not part of parliament at all.

The protection of the rights of minorities is an integral part of the international protection of human rights and we demand that this principle be respected. Explanations in the style of us protesting because we were not elected as ministers show the inability of the ruling coalition to deal with criticism with arguments.

* Many interpret your performance as a revenge for the one who was not in the “Vučić team”?

– President Vučić once said that he intends to build a team like soccer giant Bayern Munich. As a Real Madrid fan, I would never join that team.

* If he had become a minister, as his Bujanovac citizens say, he probably would not have spoken of “Serbia as Belarus”.

– I should have asked the question in a different way: would you agree to be the Serbian Minister covering the mass graves of Albanians, who does not want to shed light on the murder of the Bytyci brothers and who does not recognize the Srebrenica genocide?

* You have raised again the issue of mass graves in which Albanians were allegedly killed, the unsolved murders of the Bytyci brothers, as well as the murder of journalist Slavko Curuvija. Do you have more information about everything than what you said in parliament?

– If the Foreign Minister publicly asks the Serbs not to show those places, should we suspect that there is such a thing? Do you have an answer?

* Did someone from the Serbian opposition “boycott team” contact you after what you would like to say, and yet you formally have no chance to do so?

– No, because I personally, as a politician, do not have the ambition to deal with the issue of the opposition leadership in Serbia. Attitude towards minorities is an important indicator of the democracy of a society, but regardless of the will of minorities, the responsibility for democratizing Serbia lies with the majority of the population, and at least with minorities and their parties.

* What is your message to them – Djilas, Jeremic, people from the divided DS – because you still have no other ability than rhetoric to achieve greater political progress in the Serbian parliament?

– They must know for themselves what their programs are and express the political objectives and how to achieve them towards citizens. You mention the names of people who have much more experience than me, and parties that are much stronger than our Democratic Action Party, of which I am president for only two years, after Riza Halimi. It is not for me to share lessons with any politician in Serbia.

* President Vučić personally accused him of “expelling Serbs, 42 percent of those who voted for the local government SNS in Bujanovac.” How do you comment on that, considering that local self-government is not led by the PDD, but by Nagip Arifi’s Democratic Party?

– The state president must know the situation in the entire territory of Serbia, including in the “current field”. Being “uninformed” is a bad message. That is why I must emphasize that the rule of multiethnicity that was established in our municipalities in 2002 was violated two years ago in Medvedja, by the SNS, when there was no tolerance to find at least one place to represent a minority that lives in that municipality. . It is the president’s constitutional obligation to ensure that the principles and principles are universally applied, both in Bujanovac and Medvedja, not only in part when it comes to Serbian members of the Bujanovac SNS.

* I was told personally from Bujanovac that you, as a deputy, “humiliate the state of Serbia and receive up to 10 million euros from the state budget every year” when you were the head of local self-government?

– Well, I assume that all municipalities in Serbia received regular transfers, and not just “me”, as you say in the question. That money, as it was earmarked for all municipalities in Serbia, also went to the local budget of the Bujanovac municipality. The money did not go to any of my accounts, as the always well informed residents of Bujanovac told them.

* What are the reactions to your speech in the Serbian Assembly from Pristina, but also from Tirana? Were there concrete contacts?

– I have not read any reaction from the Pristina or Tirana officials. As a deputy, I represent the Albanians of Presevo Valley with a clear political program from my party and the program that we have as a United Valley coalition.

* Where do you see your work and the work of just five other opposition MPs in the Serbian Parliament?

– We will continue to work actively in parliament. We will give our constructive opinion, initiatives for each issue that we consider necessary, we will give a proposal, a better solution, if someone wants to listen to it or accept it. Certainly, the majority will not like that, but it is not our obligation to flatter anyone, not even this majority that currently exists.

* Are you afraid of underground tabloids in the Serbian media run by people from the ruling coalition?

– And to this question of yours, I will have to look once again for a quote from the writer Mehmed Meša Selimović, who says: and “that the powerful speak of human impotence”, our obligation as powerless is “to speak of man’s duty to continue being man”.

* What is the role of the media in monitoring this composition of the Serbian Parliament?

– I’ll be completely honest, I don’t know. We are in a situation where there are few media left, at least the free ones. I am of the opinion that despite the whole situation, it is up to these media to assume the mission of spreading the truth.

* What do you consider to be the biggest problems for Albanians, and taking into account your experience and that of other citizens of southern Serbia, and there are also Serbs, Roma, Bosnians?

– In the first place, the almost eternal problem is the integration of Albanians and all other minorities in state institutions. A request that we repeat insistently, although, also insistently, all the governments of the Republic of Serbia treat it as our provocation. Answer me how the Albanian community of Presevo, Bujanovac, Medvedja should act, which for more than twenty years constantly seeks to integrate into public and state services, and that this completely legitimate request is persistently ignored, rejected or considered a provocation.

* How do you see future negotiations between Serbia and the Pristina authorities with EU officials on the state of Kosovo? Are southern Serbia and the “Presevo valley” on the sidelines despite your desire to achieve a certain “global agreement”?

– We all support the dialogue and hope that this legally binding agreement will finally be reached, which we believe will be incomplete if it does not address the situation of the Albanians in the Presevo Valley. It is clear to all that progress towards the EU cannot be expected without complying with the obligations of Chapter 35, which in my opinion is the key to Serbia’s progress towards full EU membership. The sooner that particular agreement is reached, the better it will be for all of us.

* The Washington agreement seems to benefit the initiator more, but also the Serbian president?

– The agreement is made so that everyone looks like a winner, depending on the angle from which those firms are viewed from the White House. Without a doubt, the most current President Trump in his presidential campaign. In all this, is it not important for the Pristina authorities that Israel recognize Kosovo, as well as Serbia’s obligation to suspend the diplomatic campaign against the recognition and integration of Kosovo?

* What is your position, that you have spoken many times with the ambassadors of the EU, USA, Great Britain, and from what I think, none with the ambassador of the Russian Federation or China in Serbia? Why?

– Serbia is officially in the process of integration into the EU. To become a full member, you must meet the obligations under Chapter 35. The EU is responsible for evaluating these criteria. Accession to the EU is a process in which minorities expect positive developments. For these reasons, and because the United States and several countries of the European Union were the ones that made donations to our municipalities, cooperation was established with those countries and their diplomatic officials.

The tolerance of the majority will be seen

* What are your next plans when you discuss it in the Serbian Assembly?

– We will ask questions in a constructive way, we will propose initiatives, we will make amendments to legal proposals. The level of tolerance of the ruling majority towards all of our efforts remains to be seen.

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