Kosovo Serbs protest Serbia's SAA

02/05/2008

PRISTINA, Kosovo -- Serbia's freshly signed Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU sparked protests in northern Mitrovica on Thursday (May 1st), as demonstrators burned a US flag and a picture of Serbian President Boris Tadic. About 50 members of the group Descendants of the Serbian Fighters from the 1912-1920 Thessaloniki Front group chanted slogans such as "We don't want Europe" and "NATO, Yankee, EULEX, go home". A member of the group said it was a protest "against the shameful agreement signed between Serbia and the EU, which according to us is not valid". Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica opposed the accord because it failed to specify that Kosovo remains an integral part of Serbia.

Meanwhile, thousands of workers seeking higher salaries and more rights gathered at the Nikola Pasic square in Belgrade on Thursday for a May Day rally. Tadic and Labour and Social Policy Minister Rasim Ljajic joined the protest, organised by the Union of Independent Trade Unions in Serbia. (VOA, BalkanInsight, B92, Tanjug, Beta - 01/05/08)