Guzdic: Police Hold Executive Power in North Kosovo
The Raska-Prizren Eparchy says police have taken over executive power in the north of Kosovo, while Serbs describe daily life as living under security, economic and institutional pressure.
- Guzdic of the Raska-Prizren Eparchy claims police have taken over executive power in northern Kosovo.
- Serbs in Kosovo face three kinds of pressure: security, economic and institutional.
- A shooting near a school in Laplje Selo on July 17, while the yard was full of Serbian children, deepened the fear.
- Daily life in the north is described as living in constant uncertainty.
Life for Serbs in the north of Kosovo is increasingly described as a daily routine lived under institutional pressure. Guzdic, speaking from the Raska-Prizren Eparchy, claims that police in that area have taken over executive power, and that the community remains in constant fear. His assessment came a day after a shooting near a school in Laplje Selo, an incident that further unsettled parents and children.
This is an assessment coming from church circles, from an institution that has followed the position of the Serb community in the province for decades. Guzdic is not speaking about a single incident but about a pattern that, as he puts it, shapes how people live, work and make everyday decisions. The impression is that fear has moved from exceptional moments into the ordinary rhythm of the day.
Three pressures that shape daily life
Guzdic describes security, economic and institutional pressure as three sides of the same reality. The security dimension shows up in a sense that the presence of police does not bring safety but the opposite, a feeling of control over every part of life. The economic side is visible in the growing struggle of families to get by, in questions of employment, income and whether young people can stay on their family land.
Institutional pressure is, by this account, the most subtle and the most lasting. It is not measured by the number of interventions in a single day, but by the gradual sidelining of Serb institutions and the narrowing of the space in which the community decides its own affairs. When authority shifts into the hands of one side, residents lose the sense that there is anyone left to turn to.
The shooting near the school in Laplje Selo on July 17 fit into that wider frame. According to available reports, the incident happened close to the school while the yard was full of Serbian children, and two people were detained. For parents who take their children to class every morning, such a scene is not an abstract news item but confirmation that danger can be only a few steps away.
What is left for the Serb community in the north?
This is a question that neither church figures nor community representatives answer easily. Part of the answer lies in persistence, in the decision of families to stay where they have lived for centuries. Another part depends on circumstances the residents of the north can barely influence, on moves by Pristina, on reactions from Belgrade, and on the attention of international actors monitoring conditions on the ground.
Pristina regularly presents its actions in the north as establishing the rule of law and strengthening state institutions across the whole territory. The Serb side, by contrast, reads the same actions as pressure that changes the reality on the ground and forces people to reconsider their own survival. Between those two pictures live ordinary residents, the ones who work, send children to school and try to keep a normal routine.
The claim that executive power has passed into the hands of the police is a heavy statement and calls for careful monitoring in the days ahead. What cannot be disputed is that the fear Guzdic speaks about runs through the accounts of northern residents long before the latest incident. Will the voice of the Serb community be heard before fear becomes a permanent condition rather than an exception?
