Posted on 03/17/2004 7:31:42 PM PST by Destro
Kosovo in flames as Albanians renew war on Serbs
By Harry de Quetteville, Balkans Correspondent
(Filed: 18/03/2004)
Ethnic Albanians rose against the Serb minority across Kosovo yesterday in co-ordinated attacks on them in the worst bloodletting in the province since the 1999 war.
A French peacekeeper was one of at least 11 people killed in grenade attacks and gun battles. About 250 were injured as the five-year peace in Kosovo was shattered.
The trouble started in the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo, where thousands of Albanians armed with heavy automatic weapons and hand grenades clashed with Serbs.
The explosion of ethnic violence apparently was provoked by reports that two ethnic Albanian children had drowned in the Ibar River after being pursued to their deaths by a Serb gang. The river is the dividing line between the town's Serb and Albanian populations.
It is thought that hardline Albanian political parties had been stoking existing tensions before the violence broke out. Fighting later spread south of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, and to towns in the west of the province.
"It's very dangerous. This is a very large, comprehensive uprising," said Derek Chappell, a spokesman for the United Nations police force.
He added that the force's 10,000 officers in the province had been mobilised.
"We are getting reports in all the time, from all over Kosovo. Wherever there is a Serbian population there is Albanian action against them," he said.
Mr Chappell described the violence as "by far the worst since 1999", when a Nato bombing campaign forced the withdrawal from Kosovo of Serbian troops sent by the then Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, to repress an Albanian independence movement.
After the campaign, about 40,000 Nato troops arrived in Kosovo to monitor the tentative detente between the province's Serb and Albanian communities.
Fewer than 20,000 troops remain, but many Serbs still live in ghetto conditions, and very few who fled with the Yugoslav army in 1999 have returned to their former homes.
Those who have remained now represent only about 10 per cent of Kosovo's two million population, and they appeared to have come under well-organised attack yesterday.
The first shots were fired as 3,000 Albanian protesters gathered at the bridge that divides Mitrovica demonstrate against the drownings.
As Serbs gathered on the other side of the bridge, heavy machineguns began firing and hand grenades were thrown. With ambulances rushing the wounded to hospital, hundreds of Nato troops and riot police under French command went to the scene, firing rubber bullets and teargas to disperse the crowds.
Four hours later, 11 Nato troops were injured, two UN jeeps had been set on fire and shots were still being fired, but the situation was a little calmer. By then, however, the violence was spreading across the province, with Albanians attacking a number of Serb enclaves.
One of them, the southern village of Caglavica, was the site of a recent drive-by shooting of a Serb youth, which may have prompted the retaliatory drownings of the Albanians in Mitrovica.
There, UN police erected a road block to prevent Albanians from the capital marching on the village, where Serbs had set up their own barricades to protest against the shooting.
But hundreds of ethnic Albanians broke through the road block, marching on Caglavica. A UN spokesman later said hand grenades were thrown and several houses were set on fire.
"These are well organised extremists leading these attacks," said Mr Chappell. "They hate the progress of the last four years and this is their final attempt to destroy any ethnic integration."
He called on leaders from both sides to appeal for calm, but reports emerged from Serbia that interior ministry forces were massing on the border with Kosovo ready to intervene if attacks on Serbs continued.
"We have closed the border with Albania and Macedonia," said Mr Chappell. "But we can't hold the entire province back."
I guess you've missed the part about people getting killed. Oh, I forgot...you don't consider Serbs to BE human, do you? Never mind, then.
Why is it that pro-Clinton Hum Warriors are always advocating breaking the law ?
UNSCR 1244 is pretty clear.
Considering the bombardment of inaccurate information that has come out about this conflict since the early 90's, it is no wonder that you could have been misled on this.
Because they clearly believe themselves to be above the law, either man's or God's, and beyond morality. They are nothing more than hate-filled, murderous "Supermen!"
Perhaps it is because they have been able to get away with murder for so long that they believe people will accept their lies
With the internet liberal Hum Warriors no longer have a monopoly on information. People are free to verify the truth.
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