Police were not protecting the buildings and are now trying to regain control of the rioters. More than 30 people have been injured.
At least 150,000 of Serbs have gathered in the capital Belgrade for a massive demonstration in protest against Kosovan independence.
The motto of the demonstration in Belgrade, which is partly government-sponsored, is “Kosovo is Serbia".
All railway transportation has been free on Thursday, with the authorities providing more than 500 buses to bring people in from all over the country.
Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has addressed the people. In his speech he highlighted the support from Russia and other countries.
“In this fight we are not alone. The Serbian people will not forget the friendship and strong support that president Putin gave to Serbia. We will not forget the support we got from other countries that are against breaking the existing international order,” he said.
Several hundred Serb students have also been demonstrating in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They threw stones at police which blocked the crowd from reaching the U.S. consulate. The protesters burnt the American and EU flags. Police have had to use tear gas to disperse crowds.
Earlier, violence broke out on the Kosovo-Serbia border, where protestors hurled stones at NATO peacekeepers.
Analyst's comments
Irina Kobrinskaya from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations believes that even though the protests were organised by the government, the attacks were not planned. Thousands of those among the protesters came from Kosovo several years ago.
“This is a very difficult situation for the police and for the government, because I hardly can imagine the situation when just after the election, just after the declaration of independence by Kosovo, the government may enforce the police to beat the people, to use force against their own people. I think police and the crowd are in the same boat. And for the government it will be very dangerous – for their image in the country,” she said.
World split over Kosovo
Kosovo announced its independence last Sunday. The region had been under the jurisdiction of UN Security Council after the war in the 1990s.
It had been threatening to announce independence unilaterally since then.
As the UN Security council had been unsuccessfully trying to find solution for the Kosovo problem, the world appeared split over how to treat the new self-proclaimed status of the province.
Russia strongly opposes the unilateral ideclaration of independence, along with China and other countries. Among these are Spain and Georgia, who have problems of their own with regard to potential breakaway regions within their countries. The fear is that Kosovo will set a dangerous precedent.
In an interview to Russia Today, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia will be doing everything in “its capacity to preserve the international law”.
He also added that the situation with Kosovo didn’t help Russia’s relations with the EU and the U.S., “with whom we wanted to promote real partnership to resolve equitable problems”.
“Kosovo was not among the most topical problems and it was not the hotbed as Palestine, or some other places in the Middle East which required utmost attention. Unfortunately, by concentrating on absolutely illegitimate unilateral course for Kosovo, this important amount of attention was diverted from much more needed action in other parts of the globe,” Lavrov said.
Source: Russia Today
