RSK
03-19-2004, 06:13 PM
Troops bolster peacekeepers as Kosovo spirals into violence
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PRISTINA, Serbia (AFP) - A score of military transports landed in Kosovo with troops and equipment to boost the 17,000-strong NATO (news - web sites) force struggling to prevent violence by a ethnic Albanians against Serbs from spiralling out of control.
AFP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Kosovo Unrest
The violence has forced around 900 Serbs in the UN-administered Serbian province to take refuge in NATO camps over the past few days, a source close to the multinational KFOR force said.
Admiral Gregory Johnson, NATO commander for southern Europe, denounced the violence, in which at least 28 people have died and more than 600 were wounded, as "ethnic cleansing."
Anger mounted in Serbia, the sovereign power in the province, which has been administered by the United Nations (news - web sites) since the end of the 1998-1999 war between Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
At a service in Saint-Sava Cathedral in memory of the Serb victims, Amfilohije, the Metropolitan Bishop of Montenegro, placed all the blame on the Muslim, ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo.
"To speak of inter-ethnic conflict in Kosovo is a big, hypocritical lie," he said. "What's happening in Kosovo is called a pogrom against a people and its history."
More than 200,000 Serbs fled Kosovo after the war, and only about 80,000 remain, guarded by about 10,000 UN and local police and the 38-nation, NATO-led peacekeeping force known as KFOR.
But they have come under heavy attack since Wednesday when a rumor that Serbs pushed three Albanian children into a swift-flowing river inflamed anger among the ethnic Albanians to the point of explosion.
Amfilohije bitterly railed at the international community for being unable to save medieval churches and monasteries that stood through 500 years of Turkish occupation but which have been torched in the current violence.
Kosovo is a holy land for the Serbian Orthodox hierarchy.
A source close to KFOR said 25 Serbian Orthodox religious monuments had been destroyed by fire, while around 900 Serbs had taken refuge in NATO camps over the past few days after fleeing violence from Albanians, the source said.
"Around 900 Serbs have taken refuge in KFOR camps and seven Serbian villages have been burned down," he said.
As violence spread, NATO nations rushed in reinforcements for the peacekeeper force, which has suffered more than 60 casualties.
Britain, France, Germany and other NATO countries pledged up to 2,000 extra soldiers, with orders to use deadly force if fired on.
The violence was a serious setback to the international community's attempts to build a multi-ethnic community in the province, where Serbs once ruled ethnic Albanians with a heavy hand and are now suffering a brutal backlash.
One French officer, Captain Frederic Vareilles, said the violence marked "a complete rupture" with the process of normalization.
"We were not able to protect the Serb enclaves efficiently," he acknowledged, stressing that the immediate KFOR task was to keep the two communities apart.
The violence has all but buried Western hopes that the province's Serb and ethnic Albanian population could live in harmony.
Some Serbs said they had been given 10 minutes to leave their homes or die.
"You've got 10 minutes to leave or you'll be killed," Nikola Stolic, a resident of Obilic, northwest of the capital Pristina, recounted after being evacuated by KFOR troops.
"We just had time to recover our papers," he told AFP by telephone. "More than half of the Serb homes were already on fire when KFOR troops, who couldn't stop the Albanians, started evacuating us. We barely escaped a certain lynching."
Senior military officials said the fighting appeared premeditated.
"The wave of violence set off by the Albanians hasn't shown signs of calming down. I believe they've been ready for some time to lay waste to Kosovo," KFOR's Italian General Alberto Primicerj told Rome's Corriere della Sera.
Admiral Johnson said the fighting seemed to have been orchestrated.
In Washington, Goran Svilanovic, the Foreign Minister of Serbia and Montenegro, said Albanian extremists who want Kosovo "ethnically cleansed of Serbs" were causing the violence.
"Our reading is that it was orchestrated and organized actions by the Kosovo Albanian extremists who wanted to have Kosovo ethnically cleansed of Serbs," Svilanovic said after meeting US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
The State Department called on all ethnic factions in Kosovo to halt the violence.
8 minutes ago Add World - AFP to My Yahoo!
PRISTINA, Serbia (AFP) - A score of military transports landed in Kosovo with troops and equipment to boost the 17,000-strong NATO (news - web sites) force struggling to prevent violence by a ethnic Albanians against Serbs from spiralling out of control.
AFP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Kosovo Unrest
The violence has forced around 900 Serbs in the UN-administered Serbian province to take refuge in NATO camps over the past few days, a source close to the multinational KFOR force said.
Admiral Gregory Johnson, NATO commander for southern Europe, denounced the violence, in which at least 28 people have died and more than 600 were wounded, as "ethnic cleansing."
Anger mounted in Serbia, the sovereign power in the province, which has been administered by the United Nations (news - web sites) since the end of the 1998-1999 war between Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
At a service in Saint-Sava Cathedral in memory of the Serb victims, Amfilohije, the Metropolitan Bishop of Montenegro, placed all the blame on the Muslim, ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo.
"To speak of inter-ethnic conflict in Kosovo is a big, hypocritical lie," he said. "What's happening in Kosovo is called a pogrom against a people and its history."
More than 200,000 Serbs fled Kosovo after the war, and only about 80,000 remain, guarded by about 10,000 UN and local police and the 38-nation, NATO-led peacekeeping force known as KFOR.
But they have come under heavy attack since Wednesday when a rumor that Serbs pushed three Albanian children into a swift-flowing river inflamed anger among the ethnic Albanians to the point of explosion.
Amfilohije bitterly railed at the international community for being unable to save medieval churches and monasteries that stood through 500 years of Turkish occupation but which have been torched in the current violence.
Kosovo is a holy land for the Serbian Orthodox hierarchy.
A source close to KFOR said 25 Serbian Orthodox religious monuments had been destroyed by fire, while around 900 Serbs had taken refuge in NATO camps over the past few days after fleeing violence from Albanians, the source said.
"Around 900 Serbs have taken refuge in KFOR camps and seven Serbian villages have been burned down," he said.
As violence spread, NATO nations rushed in reinforcements for the peacekeeper force, which has suffered more than 60 casualties.
Britain, France, Germany and other NATO countries pledged up to 2,000 extra soldiers, with orders to use deadly force if fired on.
The violence was a serious setback to the international community's attempts to build a multi-ethnic community in the province, where Serbs once ruled ethnic Albanians with a heavy hand and are now suffering a brutal backlash.
One French officer, Captain Frederic Vareilles, said the violence marked "a complete rupture" with the process of normalization.
"We were not able to protect the Serb enclaves efficiently," he acknowledged, stressing that the immediate KFOR task was to keep the two communities apart.
The violence has all but buried Western hopes that the province's Serb and ethnic Albanian population could live in harmony.
Some Serbs said they had been given 10 minutes to leave their homes or die.
"You've got 10 minutes to leave or you'll be killed," Nikola Stolic, a resident of Obilic, northwest of the capital Pristina, recounted after being evacuated by KFOR troops.
"We just had time to recover our papers," he told AFP by telephone. "More than half of the Serb homes were already on fire when KFOR troops, who couldn't stop the Albanians, started evacuating us. We barely escaped a certain lynching."
Senior military officials said the fighting appeared premeditated.
"The wave of violence set off by the Albanians hasn't shown signs of calming down. I believe they've been ready for some time to lay waste to Kosovo," KFOR's Italian General Alberto Primicerj told Rome's Corriere della Sera.
Admiral Johnson said the fighting seemed to have been orchestrated.
In Washington, Goran Svilanovic, the Foreign Minister of Serbia and Montenegro, said Albanian extremists who want Kosovo "ethnically cleansed of Serbs" were causing the violence.
"Our reading is that it was orchestrated and organized actions by the Kosovo Albanian extremists who wanted to have Kosovo ethnically cleansed of Serbs," Svilanovic said after meeting US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
The State Department called on all ethnic factions in Kosovo to halt the violence.