[Marxism] UN-NATO violence against Serb protesters in Kosova, near Serb border

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

U.N. and NATO troops clash with Serbs in Kosovo
Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:58am EDT
By Branislav Krstic

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) - NATO troops came under fire during Serb riots
in the northern Kosovo flashpoint of Mitrovica on Monday, in the worst
violence in the territory since the Albanian majority declared independence
last month.

The riot posed a direct challenge to NATO, the United Nations and Kosovo's
fledgling European Union justice mission, underscoring fears in the West
that Kosovo could be heading for ethnic partition one month after breaking
away from Serbia.

A U.N. spokesman said the riot "crosses one of the red lines that had
clearly been articulated by the U.N. to the leaders of Kosovo Serbs in the
north and to officials in Belgrade."

A U.N. police spokesman said 25 officers were hurt.

But Serbia blamed the U.N. and NATO for heavy-handed action and increased
the level of security on its borders, warning that the highly volatile
situation risked provoking a fresh Albanian "pogrom" against Kosovo's
120,000 minority Serbs.

The Orthodox church said Serbs were "again being killed".

The Serb director of Mitrovica hospital, political hardliner Marko Jaksic,
said three people of Serb nationality had been severely injured in the
rioting.

"One person has been shot in the head most probably by a sniper. The bullet
went right through," he said. "The person is in very bad condition and we
had to transport him to a hospital in Kragujevac in central Serbia."

Two others were in very serious condition, Jaksic said.

The loyalist Serbian National Council of northern Kosovo called on Belgrade
to "help Serb people and say that Kosovo is Serbia", its leader Nebojsa
Jovic was quoted as saying.

In an apparent hint at the forced partition the West fears, he said "there
is a scenario" if people get killed, which could reach "a point from which
there's no way back".

LIVE AMMUNITION

NATO said troops had come under automatic weapons fire.

"We used automatic weapons to respond but fired only warning shots," French
spokesman Etienne du Fayet de la Tour told Reuters. "We shot in the air, not
into the crowd."

The violence began at dawn when several hundred U.N. special police backed
by NATO peacekeepers stormed a U.N. court that had been seized by Serbs on
Friday, and arrested dozens.

Hundreds of Serbs fought back with stones, grenades and firecrackers,
forcing the U.N. police to pull back and leave KFOR to face the rioters.
Rioters attacked three U.N. vehicles, breaking doors and freeing around 10
of those detained in the raid, witnesses said.

The police and troops responded with tear gas. Some U.N. vans with detainees
were still in the courtyard of the compound, with dozens of Serb protesters
outside blocking their exit.

"Eight French KFOR soldiers are injured with grenades, stones and molotov
cocktails," said du Fayet de la Tour.

The U.N. police force reported 25 officers injured.

"After attacks with explosive devices suspected to be hand grenades, and
firearms, the police are ordered to withdraw from the north of Mitrovica,
while the situation will be taken over by KFOR," a U.N. police statement
said.

In Serbia, the Interior Ministry "has raised the security level in the
territory of Serbia to a higher level", the state news agency Tanjug quoted
a ministry source as saying.

The raid to retake the court coincided with the March 17 anniversary of
Kosovo Albanian riots against Serbs in 2004, in which 19 people were killed
and hundreds of homes and churches burned in two days of chaos that caught
NATO flat-footed.

It was this flare-up that pushed the West to start talks on Kosovo's final
status.

In north Kosovo, the 35-nation KFOR has troops from France, United States,
Denmark, Belgium, Greece, Estonia, Luxemburg and Morocco. The U.N. police
includes Ukrainians and Poles.

Serbia's President Boris Tadic appealed to them to refrain from violence
against Serbs, especially on the anniversary of what he called an Albanian
"pogrom" against Serbs.

Bishop Amfilohije, acting head of the Serb Orthodox church, said "the
suffering of our people is continuing this morning in Mitrovica ...
strongmen are continuing to kill our people".

In the Serbian capital Belgrade, meanwhile, police reinforced protection at
embassies and government buildings ahead of planned protests on the March
2004 anniversary.

Serbia's Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic called the U.N.-NATO raid a
provocation. He said it violated a deal he had for the U.N. not to take any
action before he got to Kosovo to discuss a plan "for resolving all issues
between UNMIK and Serbia and in connection with Serbs in Kosovo".

(Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci, Shaban Buza; writing by Douglas
Hamilton; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

C Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of
Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters
and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the
Reuters group of companies around the world.




________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism