A rchive Date
[ 18-03-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Yugoslavia ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2004/03/17/385574-ap.html
Drowning deaths spark riots in Kosovo
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Albanians traded gunfire with Serbs in Kosovo on Wednesday after blaming them for the drownings of Albanian two boys.
The clashes left eight dead and more than 300 injured in one of the worst days of Serbian-Albanian bloodshed since the end of the Kosovo civil war in 1999. The bloodshed in ethnically divided Kosovska Mitrovica illustrated the failure of UN and NATO efforts to snuff out ethnic hatreds and set the occupied Serbian province on the path of reconciliation. Riots broke out in virtually every city in the province - and in at least four enclaves where Serbs live.
While most of the violence was directed at the Serbian minority, running street fights characterized the evening clashes, with Albanians targeting UN police and NATO troops.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan condemned the violence, saying it "jeopardizes the stability of Kosovo and the security of all its people."
Meanwhile, in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia-Montenegro, thousands of protesters swept into the streets, demanding the government act to protect their ethnic kin in Kosovo. Demonstrators in the southern Serbian city Nis set a mosque ablaze - and then prevented firefighters from putting out the flames.
The conflict began amid reports Serbs in a village near Kosovoska Mitrovica set a dog on a group of Albanian boys, sending three fleeing into an icy river. Tensions grew as the morning wore on, fanned by the testimony of a 13-year-old who said his younger brother slipped off his back as he tried to swim for safety.
After authorities recovered two bodies - and searched for a third - Albanians and Serbs gathered near a key bridge over the Ibar River that divides Kosovska Mitrovica, long the flashpoint of tension in the southern province. The two sides traded insults, threw rocks and charged at each other several times before gunfire rang out.
NATO troops and Romanian special police units in riot gear moved in firing tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to stop Albanians from surging across the bridge toward the Serbian side of the city, where another crowd had gathered.
The dead included six Albanians and two Serbs, said Derek Chappell, chief UN police spokesman. A UN police officer shot and killed one of the Albanians, who was attempting to hit the officer with a brick in the western town Pec, Chappell said.
Lt.-Col. Jim Moran, a spokesman for NATO, said 17 troops were injured - 15 French, one Dane and one Polish soldier. By evening, troops in armoured vehicles were positioned on the bridge.
In the predominantly Albanian southern side of Kosovska Mitrovica, hospital floors were swamped with blood. Doctors urged bystanders - including weeping relatives - to give blood in the crowded corridors. Hospital workers counted 200 hurt, including several who were shot.
On the Serbian side, Milan Ivanovic, a hospital physician, said 80 Serbs were wounded.
In a separate melee near the provincial capital Pristina, hundreds of Albanians broke through barricades erected by UN police and NATO troops to march on the Serbian village Caglavica. Hand grenades were thrown and Serbs' houses were on fire.
NATO troops and police used water cannons and tear gas to push the crowd back as authorities tried to regain control. Several UN cars were in flames.
Violence also occurred in Pristina, where UN cars were set on fire. In the nearby city Kosovo Polje, dozens of Serbs' houses were also ablaze and Albanians appeared to be in control on the streets. A local hospital used by the Serbian minority was also burning.
Riots also were reported in the western city Pec, where crowds targeted international institutions. Crowds clashed with peacekeepers and police in Gracanica and cars were destroyed in Gnjilane.
UN officials, diplomats and Kosovo's leadership issued an unusual joint statement appealing for calm after the riots widened. The statement came after an emergency meeting in Pristina.
"The violence must stop and it must stop immediately," the statement said.
With Orthodox Christian Serbs regarding Kosovo as their ancient homeland and mostly Muslim Albanians seeking independence, hatreds between the two sides continue to boil over into violence, with each act of bloodshed leading to revenge from the other side.
The province itself is UN-administered but remains part of Serbia-Montenegro, the successor state to Yugoslavia, with its final status to be decided by the United Nations. The lack of movement on the status question, however, has left postwar tension simmering.
The violence was the worst since February 2001, when Albanian terrorists blew up a bus carrying Serbs, killing 11 and injuring 40. Other recent ethnic violence also targeted Serbs, including one incident in which three members of a Serbian family were axed to death in their home and another in which two Serbian teenagers were shot dead while swimming in a lake.
The fact most recent victims have been Serbs reflects how they have gone from Kosovo's rulers to a besieged minority, subject to attacks by the Albanian majority who continue exacting revenge for the 1999 Kosovo war.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called an emergency cabinet meeting and said the events in Kosovska Mitrovica "showed the true nature of Albanian separatism." He insisted his government would undertake unspecified "energetic action" to protect the Serbs in Kosovo against "violence and terror," acting in concert with NATO and the UN.
Serbia's Supreme Defence Council, the body which governs the military, called an emergency meeting to discuss the possibility of putting Serbia-Montenegro's forces on a higher level of alert, sources said. The move - which will likely add to tension in the region - reflects growing public outrage in Serbia over the attacks.
Fewer than one-half of the 50,000 NATO troops originally in Kosovo now remain. But such violence is a blow to hopes by western powers that troops in Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans can soon be further drawn down and redeployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict.
The Kosovo war ended in mid-1999 after a NATO air campaign drove Yugoslav troops out of the province and stopped a crackdown on Albanian separatists. An estimated 10,000 people died in that war, most of them Albanian.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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