UNESCO must protect Kosovo from Albanian vandalism
Serbian monasteries in Kossovo and Metohija require international protection because they are under threat of destruction.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated this in his speech at the 40th session of the UNESCO General Conference, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“This cultural heritage is important not only for Serbian identity, but also for the whole of Europe and the world,” Vucic was quoted as saying by the Serbian TV channel RTS.
The greatest threat, in his opinion, loomed over the monasteries south of the Ibar River. The Serbian President also pointed out the destruction of Serbian cemeteries and the continuing danger to the Serbian population in the southern province. He also expressed confidence that Kosovo will not become a member of UNESCO.
“We have good relations with UNESCO, and Kosovo, as an unrecognized country, will not become a member of this important organization, so Serbia will always be able to protect its interests here in the future,” Vucic said.
In September, Serbia's permanent representative to UNESCO, Tamara Rastovac Siamashvili, said that Kosovo "authorities" had allowed attacks on 236 Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) churches, monasteries and other sites, as well as cultural and historical sites, since 1999. In total, 174 places of worship and 33 cultural and historical sites were destroyed, and more than 10 church icons, religious artifacts and art objects were stolen.
“One of the most beautiful and valuable monuments of Serbian medieval art and culture, as old as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, was set on fire during a pogrom in March 2004 by ethnic Albanians of Kosovo. In the area south of the Ibar River, not a single Serbian historical monument remained undamaged,” Siamashvili wrote.
According to her, in modern Kosovo and Metohija they are trying to destroy everything that reminds of the Serbs as the original majority of the population of the region, falsely presenting objects of the Serbian cultural heritage as Albanian, Byzantine, Catholic, Illyrian. There are also violations of the property rights of the SOC, usurpation of church property by institutions, and deprivation of Serbian Orthodox believers of the right to profess.
Kosovo and Metohija is the cradle of the Serbian state and church, as well as the spiritual home of the centuries-old culture of the Serbian people. There are about 1300 churches, monasteries and other sites that constitute the cultural heritage of Serbia
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