Serbs Driven Out in 'Kosovo Carve-Up'

Reuters ^ | 3-19-04 | Fredrik Dahl

[SJackson]

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Another burned Serb village smoldered in Kosovo on Friday as Germany joined the rush of NATO reinforcements to quell an outbreak of ethnic violence that the alliance has blamed mainly on Albanian hard-liners.

Nearly a thousand Serbs have been driven from their homes by mobs since Wednesday and 31 people killed, in what some say is not spontaneous violence but a deliberate drive to obliterate isolated enclaves before Kosovo is carved up.

Germany joined the United States, Italy and Britain with a decision to send 600 more troops to bolster the 18,500 strong KFOR peacekeeping mission, Defense Minister Peter Struck said.

They will start deploying on Saturday, raising Germany's contingent to 3,800 troops.

About 150 British troops landed in Kosovo early on Friday, the lead party of 750 troops pledged by Britain, a Ministry of Defense spokeswoman said in London. About 150 U.S. troops and 80 Italian Carabinieri arrived on Thursday.

But some fear permanent damage has been inflicted over the past 48 hours on the post-1999 war resettlement program.

"Albanians are trying to cleanse the Serbs and create a fait accompli before any talks," said a Western source on condition of anonymity. "Anyone with some political experience can see that."

In Mitrovica, scene of the worst clashes this week, a loud blast shook a high-rise building on Friday and NATO-led troops evacuated residents, a Reuters cameraman at the scene said.

Smoke billowed from windows in the building, populated mainly by Albanians, but located in the Serb-dominated northern part of the ethnically-divided town. French NATO peacekeepers soldiers carried out two elderly people.

Earlier about 300 French troops and gendarmes of NATO's Kosovo peacekeeping force sprang a raid on Albanian high-rise apartment blocks after apparently coming under fire during the night.

Kosovo Albanian Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi was due to visit the town later in the day.

It was in order to prevent Serbian ethnic cleansing of Albanians during an Albanian guerrilla uprising in 1999 that NATO bombed Serbia, compelling its forces to withdraw from Kosovo. NATO then occupied the province together with the United Nations.

In the immediate aftermath, Albanian revenge attacks, arson, killing, abduction and intimidation drove 200,000 Serbs out of Kosovo. But 80,000-100,000 stayed on, many in north Mitrovica but many others in enclaves surrounded by Albanian communities.

NATO has squarely blamed Albanians for the latest violence, which some see as a bid to clean up territory ahead of negotiations on Kosovo's final status and possible partition.

Smoke rose from burned-out houses in the Serb village of Svinjare, about five km (three miles) south of Mitrovica. A local man said Albanians had set fire to a dozen buildings in the hamlet of 50 homes the night before.

Oliver Ivanovic, Serb member of the Kosovo parliament's presidency, said he expected burning and looting to continue in the next few days, "until KFOR gets its act together."

"Ethnic cleansing of Serbs began in 1999 and it is about to be completed now. Small enclaves in central Kosovo will not be saved and Kosovo's north now becomes a clearly defined area which will have to have a strong protection," he said.

"It is very difficult to look at the future of Kosovo, but one thing's for sure -- there's no more talk about multicultural life, this is rubbish no one here even thinks about any more."

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[cicero's_son]

We have an opportunity.

With our forces still there, we have a chance to right he wrong we committed when we bombed the Serbs and gave their land away to the Albanians.

I'd like to see us use the peacekeepers to restore Kosovo to Serbia.

[Sam Cree]

Well, it looks like Clinton does have a legacy after all.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

US, NATO, UN, get out, leave now. Let the Serb army come back in to right a gross wrong.

[billyhill]

Yeah, Klinton was on the side of the muslim Albanians against the Christian Serbs. Go figure.

[FormerLib]

Madrid has shown them that terrorism works so the thugs will use it to steal Serb land in Kosovo.

Let the Serb army clean-up this mess!

[Poohbah]

What goes around, comes around.

[Fiddlstix]

US, NATO, UN, get out, leave now. Let the Serb army come back in to right a gross wrong.

[Lion in Winter]

What the helll! You in favor of terrorism now? Yikes and you post here.

[Lion in Winter]

BTTT

[Poohbah]

What the helll! You in favor of terrorism now? Yikes and you post here.

Nope. Not in favor of terrorism at all.

There are a lot of FReepers who DO favor terrorism, as long as it's committed by Serbs and not against Serbs.

[Lion in Winter]

Well, to me who is NOT a Serbian person... THIS IS TERRORISM.... especially when you firebomb NUNS at a Monastery who are just old women.

You obvisously think albanians can do no wrong.

[thoughtomator]

I guess it doesn't matter that every assertion that Serbs engaged in terror fell to pieces under examination?

[Poohbah]

Well, to me who is NOT a Serbian person... THIS IS TERRORISM.... especially when you firebomb NUNS at a Monastery who are just old women.

Uh-huh. And Serbs did the same damn thing through the 1990s. And now, they wonder why the Croats, Bosniaks, and Albanians all hate their guts.

You obvisously think albanians can do no wrong.

Nope. I just don't believe that about the Serbs, which makes me politically incorrect on FR.

[Poohbah]

I guess it doesn't matter that every assertion that Serbs engaged in terror fell to pieces under examination?

You're telling me, with a straight face, that not ONE Serb committed an act of terror against anyone?

[thoughtomator]

Well, now you're just building strawmen. You know as well as I do that terror in Kosovo was 99% Albanians against Serbs.

[adam_az]

"You're telling me, with a straight face, that not ONE Serb committed an act of terror against anyone?"

Where are the 100,000 bodies that Clintons bagboy Cohen said there were?

Less than 2000 were found, most were combatants, and some had been killed by NATO bombs.

We were on the wrong side of that war. It was just more of Clintigula sucking up to jihadists.

[Poohbah]

Well, now you're just building strawmen. You know as well as I do that terror in Kosovo was 99% Albanians against Serbs.

99%?

Pull the other leg.

And, of course, there's Croatia, Bosnia, and what they tried to do in Slovenia (but the Slovenes turned out to be the toughest folks in the region).

[thoughtomator]

Are you trying to make a case that we were not drawn into that war on fabricated pretenses? Here's a word for you to Google: "Racak"