Serbs Press Their Drive to Control Northern Kosovo

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February
21, 2008

Serbs Press Their Drive to Control
Northern Kosovo

By
DAN BILEFSKY

CABRA, Kosovo
— Serbs in northern Kosovo on Wednesday continued what appeared to be a drive
to force a partition three days after the ethnic Albanian majority declared the
province’s independence from Serbia.

A mob of 300 Serbs wielding
clubs and tools gathered on a road near this small village of ethnic Albanians
in northern Kosovo, prompting NATO to send armored vehicles and tanks to head
them off.

Earlier, ethnic Albanian
police officers, part of Kosovo’s multiethnic police force, were forced out of
the neighboring Serb village, where they were patrolling with fellow Serbs. It
was the latest sign that Serbs in Kosovo, incensed by the declaration of
independence, are trying to assert control over the northern part of Kosovo,
the majority of whose residents are ethnic Serbs.

NATO peacekeeping troops
closed off roads between Serbia and northern Kosovo, and United
Nations police officers guarded checkpoints still smoldering after
they were burned down Tuesday by several hundred Serbs in what the police said
appeared to be an organized operation, The Associated Press reported.

Indicating that the violence
could be a prelude to an effort to force a partition of northern Kosovo, the
Serbian minister for Kosovo, Metohija Slobodan Samardzic, said the destruction
of the United Nations checkpoints was in line with Serbia’s policies. “It might
not be pleasant, but it is legitimate,” he said, adding that Serbia would be
seeking to enlarge its operations in northern Kosovo, where it provides
education, culture and health services to the ethnic Serb population.

In Mitrovica, a northern
Kosovo city that is divided between Serbs in the north and ethnic Albanians in
the south, 3,000 demonstrators marched to the bridge dividing the communities,
chanting, “We won’t give up Kosovo!” The daily protest, begun this week, starts
precisely at 12:44 p.m., in reference to United
Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, under which Serbia insists
that it still has sovereignty over Kosovo under international law.

Capt. Bertrand Bonneau, a
spokesman for NATO’s 16,000-member peacekeeping force in Kosovo, said the
peacekeepers were under orders to maintain security in all of Kosovo, including
the north, and would not tolerate any action by either side that undermined
this goal.

The European
Union on Wednesday formally began a program that will bring 1,800
police officers and judges to Kosovo to help administer its affairs. The move
provoked criticism from Russia, which has supported the Serbs in opposing an
independent Kosovo. Pieter Feith, the European Union’s special envoy, appealed
to Serbs, who consider the mission an occupying force, to stop demonstrating.

But European diplomats,
speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to
discuss the subject for attribution, expressed worries that Kosovo’s Serbs
could provoke ethnic Albanians, undermining whatever collective Serbian and
Albanian authority remained in northern Kosovo, and entrenching Serbian control
so that de facto partition became a political reality.

“The Serbs appear intent on
provoking an Albanian reaction and to make the international community’s
mission here impossible, but we will not allow legal partition,” said one
senior European Union diplomat.

But another European diplomat
said that if Serbs pursued de facto division, “there is not a lot that could be
done.”

The political temperature in
Cabra, an agricultural village of about 70 ethnic Albanian families, has
particular resonance because it was here in March 2004 that three ethnic
Albanian boys drowned under mysterious circumstances, prompting Albanians to
riot across Kosovo.

As the Serb protesters
gathered on the road outside the village Wednesday, local ethnic Albanians
vowed they would stay to ensure that northern Kosovo remained in ethnic
Albanian hands. Children wearing T-shirts with Albanian flags gathered to
observe the peacekeepers’ tanks parked at the edge of the town.

“This is my land, and we must
stay here to show Serbia that this is Kosovo,” said Zuka Ilir, an unemployed
28-year-old. “But we are afraid. We don’t know what will happen.”

Xhevadet Beka, a 26-year-old
engineer, added: “I will stay here and fight if I have to. For now we put our
faith in NATO, the E.U. and the United States. But we are very, very afraid
that the Serbs will try and take over northern Kosovo, and it is impossible. We
will not allow it.”

Kosovo was placed under
United Nations administration in 1999, after NATO intervened to halt repression
by the Serbian leader, Slobodan
Milosevic, of ethnic Albanians, who make up 95 percent of the
population. Yet the northern part of Kosovo — 15 percent of its territory —
remains under de facto Serbian control.

The Serbian leader of Kosovo,
Nebojsa Radulovic, demanded Wednesday that the border between Serbia and
Kosovo, sealed on Tuesday by NATO troops to keep militants from crossing into
Kosovo, be reopened or “the Serbs will continue with the protests, with
consequences we cannot predict.”

Germany, meanwhile, joined
the United States, France, Britain and seven other countries in recognizing
Kosovo, calling Kosovo’s independence a necessary measure to stabilize the
Balkans. Austria and Norway said they also were planning to recognize Kosovo’s
sovereignty.

The Serbian foreign minister,
Vuk Jeremic, addressed the European
Parliament in Strasbourg, France, warning that diplomatic relations
with countries that recognized Kosovo would be damaged. “This is going to have
an impact on our future progress to European Union membership,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/world/europe/21kosovo.html?ex=1204174800&en=6b7a9a517e416f9e&ei=5040