Gazivode Motel Torn Down Two Weeks Before Hearing

Heavy machinery moved into the grounds of the Jezero motel on the shore of Lake Gazivode near Zubin Potok shortly after 10 a.m. and tore down what had been the best known restaurant and lodging spot on the lake. Crews hired by the public utility Ibar-Lepenac reached the shore around 7 a.m. on July 30, ran tape around the building and waited for the excavators.

Kosovo police officers accompanied the crews. EULEX and KFOR personnel were also present. Staff walked out once police entered the complex, and reporters covering the operation had their identity documents checked on site.

The motel came down while the property dispute over the plot remains unresolved. The Jaksic family filed a civil suit seeking an injunction that would bar demolition until the case ends, and the hearing is scheduled for August 12. The same family filed a criminal complaint against Ibar-Lepenac executive director Faruk Mujka.

Ibar-Lepenac served the eviction notice on July 14, giving the owners 15 days. The deadline ran out on Wednesday and the machines arrived the next morning. Motel owner Jordan Jaksic says the family did not expect them, because they learned the hearing date only a day earlier.

The 17th structure in barely a month

Fitore Pacoli, minister of environment, spatial planning and infrastructure in the Pristina government, announced that 17 structures have now been demolished at Gazivode. Demolitions on the lake began in late June, which makes the motel the seventeenth removed in barely a month. Pacoli used a social media post to signal what comes next:

This action will continue without compromise and will expand to other parts of Kosovo, in order to protect public property and ensure the enforcement of the law.

That line about expanding beyond Gazivode is the first public sign from Pristina that the list of targeted buildings is not tied to this lake alone.

How many buildings are still on the list?

Mujka told public broadcaster RTK that more than 80 illegally built structures have been identified along the lake shore. At the pace set in July, that is work lasting into the autumn, and most of those buildings are weekend houses owned by Serb families from Zubin Potok and the surrounding villages.

Dragisa Mijacic, director of the Institute for Territorial Economic Development (InTER) in Zubin Potok, called the operation legal violence carried out with police assistance.

Belgrade wants a final court ruling first

The Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija said in a statement that the operation was carried out without a final court ruling, since the Jaksic family’s case is still open. The same statement points back to an earlier round of demolitions:

Under the same unlawful and illegal principle, private weekend houses belonging to Serb families at Gazivode were recently demolished as well.

We covered that round in “Bulldozers tear down houses at Gazivode while everyone goes quiet on Kosovo”, when the machines worked along the shore with no official tally attached. The tally was spoken out loud for the first time today, and it came from the Pristina government.

The German and British embassies, along with the European Union, had earlier called for respect for the rule of law and a halt to further demolitions at the lake. That did not change the work schedule this time either.

The court hearing is set for August 12. By then, the building it concerns will no longer exist.