State "for years failed to react to violence"

State "for years failed to react to violence"

They were asked to comment on the fact that a recent wave of attacks following a stadium provocation in Belgrade targeting ethnic Albanian property has been occurring only in that province.

After the incident at the Partizan stadium last week, the victims have been ordinary citizens whose property is destroyed by hooligans because of their names, said the daily.

"For two years in Vojvodina the regime of the SNS has been promoting hate speech and verbal and physical violence against political opponents. They legitimized violence against those who think differently. Such an atmosphere is fertile ground for ethnic violence," head of the provincial government Bojan Pajtić accused the Serb Progressives (SNS). Pajtić is the leader of the Democrats (DS) who are in opposition on the state level, but a ruling party in the province.

He stressed that the government of Vojvodina held an emergency session and allocated funds to help those who have come under attack over the past few days.

Istvan Pasztor, president of the Vojvodina Assembly from the ranks of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, told the paper that when it comes to the causes of the incidents, he "has the impression and the feeling that cannot be substantiated, because it is a question for social scientists and not for politicians."

"There has been a great commotion of value elements in Vojvodina in the last 25 years. In the 1990s people who brought a different culture and temperament settled in the province and have not been able to incorporate into the local society to an adequate degree. Too much frustration, misery, poverty and arrogance in the sense that everything is allowed - and that was the reason for the outbreak of such animal instincts. That's what I see on the streets of Novi Sad, Subotica and Sombor, while it is missing in the streets of Belgrade. Luckily, it's only a handful of those who did not learn good manners at home," said Pasztor.

Bojan Kostreš, vice president of the League of Vojvodina Social-Democrats (LSV) told the daily that "this is happening because such phenomena have been ignored in Vojvodina for many years."

"When that is the case, then they become a way of behavior and hooligans think they will go unpunished. Now that this phenomenon is dramatically threatening the state, then it, after many years, begins to react. This is not the first time - after the (2004) pogrom of Serbs in Kosovo, property of Vojvodina's ethnic Albanians was attacked and the flag of Vojvodina burned, and the state did not react. There was no reaction also when after the arrest of (Veselin) Šljivačanin Novi Sad was demolished," said Kostreš.

One reason, he added, is that most Albanians have property in Vojvodina. Kostreš also said that "is not good that such vandalism is not prosecuted as inciting national and religious hatred, which is a violation of the Constitution; instead those who do it are punished by paying damages for broken windows."

"That is why the League is not a separatist organization when it insists on a Vojvodina police force and the formation of all branches of power in the province," said he.