Incommunion

Kosovo Crisis reports 3

Ferocity of Clashes Stuns All

IWPR'S Balkan Crisis Report, No. 486, March 18, 2004

y Jeta Xharra and Alex Anderson in Pristina, Caglavica, Merdare and Obilic

As the KFOR APC drove quickly through the centre of Pristina on the night of March 17, pushing along a rubbish container placed in the middle of the street to obstruct its progress, an angry protester shouted, "Stop if you dare."

But the APC moved on regardless, as did other vehicles of the Kosovo Police Service passing by the crowd.

The smell of petrol and singed metal came from four UN cars, burning near the building of the National Library. The flames eventually caused several explosions, which echoed around Pristina at around midnight.

While the police had sealed off UN headquarters in the city, they more or less abandoned the rest of Pristina to mobs of angry young men who were hanging around looking for trouble.

This sight and smell of anarchy in the capital was illustrative of what was going on in the whole of Kosovo. The violence that was unleashed had a cathartic, bacchanalian feel about it, the extent of which nobody would have predicted even a day before. It spread like a contagious epidemic of madness to almost every town.

The pure irrationality of it all, overcoming all logic and reason, created the feeling that Kosovo was descending - if only for a day - into civil war.

"NATO's largest deployment in the world," as Colonel Horst Piper of KFOR put it. Now 17,000 strong, the alliance forces were busy protecting themselves, as well as the embattled Serbian enclaves in central and southern Kosovo.

The same NATO troops who were welcomed with flowers five years ago have been reeling from the attacks of angry Albanian men who ignored calls from local leaders to go home.

The sudden arrival of spring and the first good weather had allowed several different strands of tension in Kosovo to coalesce to explosive effect, among them a growing sense of humiliation at the hands of both the Serbs and the internationals.

Demonstrations the previous day in Pristina, Prizren and other locations included many people aggrieved at the internationals' treatment of the former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, fighters and the imprisonment of former commanders of the rebel force. That had already produced such newspaper headlines in Epoka e Re as, "UNMIK watch yourself, there's gunpowder for you too."

On March 17, the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, demonstrated in Pristina after a grenade attack on the house of Kosovo's president and LDK leader Ibrahim Rugova. Trade union protests about privatisation we re planned for later this week.

A highly emotive media report about the drowning of three children in the divided town of Mitrovica, allegedly caused by Serbs, provided the spark that ignited this latest upsurge in violence.

The initial trouble started on March 16 in Caglavica, five kilometres south of Pristina, where Serb villagers blockaded the highway from the Kosovo capital to Skopje in protest against a drive-by shooting of a local Serb, attacking Albanian-owned and KFOR vehicles and hurting several Albanians.

As news of ethnic violence in Mitrovica spread, by early afternoon on March 17 Albanians were pouring out of Pristina to attack the Caglavica Serbs as UN police struggled to contain the situation and KFOR remained in the background. A UN police officer at the scene said, "What can KFOR do? Only shoot people!"

An anti-UN mood rapidly built up in Pristina itself and the surrounding area. Driving in what looked like a UN car towards Caglavica we passed a group of children, one of whom shouted in English, 'Fuck you" .

By late afternoon on March 17, UN police were struggling to contain the Albanian crowds trying to break into Caglavica. As nearby houses burned, police doused the mob with a water cannon and launched stun grenades. KFOR shot dead an Albanian who tried to ram his truck into their lines.

A crowd of up to 5000 students - many from the countryside and more militant than their city-born counterparts - descended on the UN headquarters, chanting "KLA, KLA", before marching toward Caglavica.

As night fell, they torched police cars and a UN bus on the highway . A kilometre short of Caglavica, the police, exhausted from battling for 12 hours in riot gear, withdrew and called for backup.

But help was not forthcoming. With police stretched to the limit all over Kosovo there were no men to spare . As they and accompanying KFOR withdrew towards a Swedish army base , more explosions and gunfire could be heard in Caglavica.

American KFOR reinforcements then arrived from the south, but the violence in Caglavia continued unabated until late in the evening, when a Swedish APC was set on fire.

While chaos enveloped Caglavica, there was total confusion on the road north of Pristina towards Serbia, with protesters blocking the traffic in and around Podujevo, close to the Kosovo-Serbia border.

The violence, which had earlier seemed like random protests organised by Albanians angered over the death by drowning of three boys in the Ibar river in Mitrovica, looked like orchestrated attacks by extremist groups by evening.

Derek Chappell, UN spokesperson, told IWPR on March 18 that the synchronised nature of the attacks against Kosovo Serb houses and churches, as well as against KFOR soldiers and local police in almost every single town, suggested the attacks had been planned.

"We don't know who is doing this and what organisations, but we know that subversive extremists groups from both sides could benefit from this situation and we fear that since there is a clear target in each town one of these groups is orchestrating them," Chappell said.

On the morning of March 18 in Obilic, a town 10 km north-west of Pristina, it was clear that the target of these groups of thuggish and threatening-looking men were local Serbs.

Several Serbian houses were on fire, with crowds of people looting and ransacking them. The local Serbs had been moved to the police station under the protection of 40 KFOR soldiers and UN police officers.

The international security presence here was insufficient to protect the Serbian homes. The local police made two arrests and saved one Serb who was trapped in his burning house.

Ismet Hashani, the Albanian mayor of Obilic, said he was helpless to stop the looting. "I went to talk to the crowd and tell them to refrain from violence and go back to their homes but they just swore at me," he said.

Kosovo's Albanian leadership has largely shrunk from tackling the challenge. President Rugova and assembly chairman Nexhat Daci delivered calls for calm to little avail.

A far more vigorous reaction came from Xhavit Haliti, one of the KLA's founders and a member of the Democratic Party of Kosova, PDK, who praised the good that the UN has done and accused Kosovo's politicians of taking cheap shots with their ritual anti-UN declarations.

An anti-UN backlash has long been feared in Kosovo. But most expected the real trouble to come later this year, or in 2005, if the status of the territory was not settled in way that satisfied the Albanian majority. Its frenzied arrival over the last couple of days came as a shock and almost everyone has been taken by surprise by its ferocity.

Jeta Xharra is IWPR project manager in Pristina and Alex Anderson works for an international NGO in Kosovo.

Our Longest Day

In 24 hours, Kosovo slipped back to the fear, suspicion and violence of June 1999.

By Tanja Matic in Pristina

All I wanted on Wednesday was to finish work as soon as possible and catch up on some sleep I'd missed the previous evening. But this turned out to be wishful thinking. Violence erupted across Kosovo - and members of my family were caught up in it.

"Our house has been burned down," read a chilling text message I received late at night from my 13-year-old cousin, a member of the last Serb family living in the village of Kishnica, near Gracanica. "Please help us if there is any way you can!"

Wednesday, March 17, was the longest day in the four years that I have lived in Kosovo, and the darkest since the end of the war in 1999.

When the first demonstration started at around 11 am local time, my first thought was, "Oh, it's Mitrovica again" - just another incident between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in that divided town.

But then I received a panicked phone call from a local journalist in the Serbian enclave of Caglavica, some 50 kilometres south of Mitrovica, screaming that the community was being shot at by crowds of Albanians.

Almost immediately, phone calls started coming in from Serbs from all over Kosovo. The trouble had spread far beyond Mitrovica and Caglavica to almost every place where Serbs still live - Silovo, Gracanica, Prizren, Belo Polje, Lipljan and Gnjilane.

I decided to go to Caglavica in a United Nations car with some other journalists. But as we walked into the UN compound in the capital Pristina, we were rushed by security guards screaming, "Go inside, get away from the gate!"

And then I saw the crowd marching on the UN headquarters.

What struck me was the youth of the crowd - they were around my age, 26 years old, or even younger. Many of them were thuggish in appearance, and were reminiscent of the football fans who often cause trouble in Serbia.

We were left with no choice but to stay within the UN compound and use our mobile phones to stay in touch with the outside world.

Serbs from all over Kosovo continued to phone, shouting and begging for help until long after 3 am.

And friends from Serbia and all over the world kept ringing to find out what was happening.

While the riots spread across the protectorate, and the news of deaths and injuries was reported in the media, my family in Vojvodina in the north of Serbia was worried sick. My mother almost had a nervous breakdown, asking me to find a way out of Kosovo and leave it forever. Even as I write this, I am trying to calm her down.

In the midst of the smoke and chaos I tried to call Ramush Haradinaj, an ex- Kosovo Liberation Army commander who is now leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK, to ask him whether he planned to ask people to halt the violence. But his phone was switched off.

However, I found the answers to my questions in today's press statements issued by the AAK and the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK - two of the largest parties in Kosovo's parliament.

"Serbs are misusing the good will of Albanians to create an equal society for all. They don't want to integrate into Kosova society. Even five years after the war, their will remains the same - the will for violence against Albanians. This can no longer be tolerated," read the PDK statement.

Meanwhile, the AAK claimed that parallel structures operating in northern, Serb-run Kosovo, were to blame for the violence.

These responses have deepened my own conviction that Kosovo has regressed to the chaos of June 1999, and that this time its prospects for recovery are far slimmer.

And yet several of my Albanian friends, disgusted by the day's events, telephoned me yesterday to offer me a place to stay and whatever other help they could give me. Their kindness is proof that demonisation of a whole nation - Serb or Albanian - is not the way forward, and it must not be allowed to prevail.

Tanja Matic is IWPR's programme coordinator in Pristina.

Official UNMIK report confirms burning of Devic Monastery

ERP KIM Info Service / March 19, 2004

According to an UNMIK security report dated March 18 for the region of Mitrovica, it has been confirmed that Danish soldiers who were protecting Devic Monastery yesterday have abandoned it and that the monastery is burned. Here is the excerpt of the original report:

Mitrovica regional office Mitrovica Situation report, Afternoon of 18. March 2004

Devic Monastery is now undefended in Danish Bn troops have withdrawn, with the occupants of the monastery to the platoon base position in the farmhouse, some distance from the patrimonial site. It is burnt. Monastery personnel evacuated in time, no injuries reported.

The Diocese of Raska and Prizren most strongly condemns this barbaric act by Albanian extremists and expresses its horror that members of KFOR who were protecting the monastery yesterday abandoned one of the greatest Serbian Orthodox holy shrines in Kosovo and Metohija. Devic Monastery was built in the 14th century and contains the sacred tomb with the relics of St. Joanikije of Devic the Miracle-worker.

The Diocse of Raska and Prizren appeals to international forces to give priority to the protection of the persecuted and endangered people, as well as precious cultural and historical Christian heritage sites.

What is currently happening in Kosovo and Metohija, the general and systematic destruction of Christian churches and monasteries in the presence of international forces, represents an unprecedented barbarism which the Diocese has not experienced for centuries.

The mask of false democracy has finally fallen from the face of Albanian extremism. Their goal is clear: the destruction of everything that bears the sign of the Cross; the creation of a monstrous state of violence and crime where there will be no room even for Albanians who see their future in European civilization and culture.

From the Office of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren Gracanica, March 19, 2004

Sokolica Monastery saved - Nuns returned as KFOR guards holy shrine

ERP KIM Info Service Gracanica, March 19, 2004 17:40

The Diocese of Raska-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija has learned that KFOR has decided to guard Sokolica Monastery. Previous statements by some international representatives indicated that KFOR had abandoned the monastery after the forcible evacuation of Mother Makarija and the Sokolica sisterhood. Thanks to the intervention of Bishop Artemije and his monks and priests with KFOR representatives in Mitrovica, it was agreed that KFOR would stay to guard the monastery. Finally KFOR agreed to return the nuns to the monastery and with them the sisterhood of Devic Monastery, which was evacuated and destroyed yesterday.

Bishop Artemije, who personally went to Sokolica to stop the destruction of the monastery by his physical presence, is currently in northern Mitrovica and is in constant telephone contact. According to Bishop Artemije, a much firmer position on the part of KFOR can be observed today with respect to the protection of churches and monasteries than yesterday and two days ago.

Visoki Decani Monastery was visited by KFOR commander Emilio Primiceri who assured the monks that KFOR is undertaking maximum security measures. At the same time, work is being done in the political field by establishing an atmosphere of trust among representatives of local Albanians to prevent an escalation of violence. According to the Italian general a handful of Italian paratroopers heroically fought yesterday to defend the Church of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple in Djakovica after the evacuation of four elderly Serb women. However, when the church and courtyard were surrounded by an enormous crowd of Albanians armed with Kalashnikovs, Molotov cocktails and hand grenades, the Italian paratroopers were forced to evacuate despite the arrival of reinforcements. The church is difficult to defend as it is located in the very center of the city and is surrounded by houses from which guns were being fired. The church was then set on fire and everything inside it - precious icons, books and iconostasis from the 19th century - was destroyed.

Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Stimlje Set on Fire

ERP KIM Info Service March 19, 2004 21:00

The Diocese of Raska-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija has just received word that the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, built 1920-22, has been set on fire. In January Albanians set fire to the church belfry in the courtyard; now the entire building is on fire.

According to UNMIK estimates, this would be 17th Serbian Orthodox Church destroyed in the last two days of Albanian raging in Kosovo and Metohija; there are indications that the number could be at least 20 destroyed churches.

Today was also burned down the church in Pecka Banja, near Pec. In Vucitrn a group of Kosovo Albanians stormed the church of ST. Elias in Vucitrn and burned it down with molotov cocktails.

According to the evidence which arrive to the diocese of Raska and Prizren the number of destroyed churches in the last two days is at least 20 and very probably even larger. Together with 112 churches destroyed since the arrival of peace mission in 1999 the post-war number of destroyed churches is higher than 130 holy sites. The number of Serb victims is not known becaue many Serbs are still missing and there are no Serb humanitarian organizations which may freely move and gather precise information.

Church head leads prayers for Kosovo

2004.03.18 / B92 (Belgarde)

21:27 | Beta

Belgrade -- Thursday - The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle this afternoon led prayers outside Belgrade's Temple of St Sava for those who have lost their lives in Kosovo in the past two days of violence.

Patriarch Pavle and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, together with other senior officials, had earlier led a procession of about ten thousand people from the centre of the city to the temple in nearby Vracar.

The crowd was addressed after the prayers by Archbishop Amfilohije Radovic who called on the international community to stop what he described as a pogrom and terrorism in Kosovo.

Describing the violence as the continuation of Albanian terrorism conducted over several decades, the archbishop called on Albanians to stop the violence and on Serbs to pray for peace in the world.

Prime Minister Kostunica, also addressing the crowd of protesters, said that Serbia would not relinquish Kosovo "because without Kosovo Serbs are nothing and would mean nothing". He announced another protest assembly for tomorrow, calling on the public to show with strength of numbers that Serbs want peace.

Kosovars Survey the Damage of Ethnic Violence

New York Times / March 21, 2004

By Nicholas Wood

Lipjan, Serbia and Montenegro, March 20 - Bogdanka Miric's eyes looked tired and red. Her 6-year-old daughter clung to her legs for comfort as she recounted how last Wednesday she, her family and about 20 of her neighbors, all ethnic Serbs, escaped from their apartment block as an ethnic Albanian mob rampaged through the town.

They escaped, they said, by jumping from a second-floor balcony onto a waiting military truck. On the other side of the Communist-era concrete building, gunmen fired from nearby buildings into the apartments. Ms. Miric said she and her neighbors managed to get away unharmed, and they are now staying in a Serbian enclave north of the town.

The family's narrow escape mirrored that of hundreds of other Serbs across this province, illustrating the apparent inability and failure of the United Nations mission that governs the region to provide protection.

The violence, which seemed initially to be a spontaneous response to the death of three Albanian boys who drowned in a river - an incident Albanians said occurred when the boys were chased by Serbs - was described by United Nations police officers and peacekeepers as being well planned and organized.

It was unclear four days after the first clashes whether those behind the marauding mobs had succeeded in altering the ethnic balance of the province. In the short term, the burning of Serbs' homes and churches forced many Serbs to leave areas that were once ethnically mixed.

At least one town, Kosovo Polje, just outside Pristina, the regional capital, had no Serbs left. But in other areas, including Lipjan, Serbian men were returning to their homes to inspect the damage, and possibly to stay.

The number of Serbs now believed to have been killed in the violence was lower than had been reported earlier. The United Nations says now that the official death toll is 31, though police officials say they have found 28 bodies, 15 of which are known to be Albanians and 7 Serbs.

The arrival of up to 2,000 new troops in the province, to reinforce the 17,000 already there, came as police officers and soldiers admitted they were ill-equipped to respond to the unrest.

"No one had any idea it would be so violent," said Angel Feliciano, a 39-year-old police sergeant from Milledgeville, Ga., who was working with the United Nations police in Lipjan. "We felt there was nothing we could do but sit back and watch the destruction."

Sergeant Feliciano said that he and about 14 other officers tried to prevent a crowd of several hundred people from reaching a group of houses owned by Serbs but that the police were outnumbered. Three armored personnel carriers stood by, they said, but the Finnish troops in them said they had received no orders to back up the police.

Capt. Ari Lehmuslehti, a member of the Finnish contingent, said his troops had no equipment to control the crowds when the violence started. But over the next two days, he said, the soldiers helped rescue 300 Serbs besieged in their homes, including the Mirics and their neighbors.

In Mitrovica, where the first outbreaks took place, similar events were described by witnesses. Local journalists and United Nations officials said angry crowds swept aside small groups of police officers who attempted to bar their way.

A spokesman for the peacekeeping forces said they did not have enough troops to deal with the scale of the violence.

"When NATO first came to Kosovo we had around 50,000 troops," said Lt. Col. James Moran. "Now we are a small peacekeeping force. But when you have 30 to 40 percent of the population out on the streets, there is not much you can do about it."

While international condemnation of the ethnic Albanians involved in the violence was unanimous, some of the severest criticism of the last few days' events was directed at international figures and bodies.

Over the past two years, United Nations officials have repeatedly pointed to falling crime rates as proof that the province was becoming more like a normal European state. But it now seemed clear that the underlying causes of the conflict between Serbs and Albanians in the province have not been resolved.

Critics said the province has been left in limbo for too long, with the world refusing to deal with whether it should become an independent state, something the majority Albanian population desires. European officials in particular have argued that an independent Kosovo could destabilize the Balkans.

"The delay is what caused this crisis," Richard C. Holbrooke, a former American envoy to the Balkans, said in a telephone interview from New York. "It was exacerbated by the United Nations, the European Union and the U.S., and now we are left with a situation where we had to send more troops to bring the situation under control again."

"They Wanted to Burn Us"

A Personal Account of Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo

Blic, March 20, 2004

'I heard a terrible noise. I looked through a window and saw our church in fire. I took the children to Hranislav's yard so quickly. The children did not ask me 'Mama will they kill us?' because they are too small to ask something like that', Verica Mladenovic says.

She is 40. She is from Obilic. She lived in Cerska Street only several gardens from the Stolices house. The Stolices were killed and burnt last year. Two days ago while rushing children into armored UNMIK jeep she saw smoke from the direction of her house. She has three sons, Milosh 11, Milorad 8 and Nikola 5.

We are dialing the number of her mobile telephone.

'Is that Belgrade', she says and begins to tell her story immediately.

'The first night when the violence started we all were sitting in front of our houses. The situation8 a.m. after our church, three white towers were set on fire. Kosovo Police arrived and took us into the station. We ran away to Hranislav Radovanovic, the man that has bees. There were 50 adults and 11 children. My neighbor, that Albanian is not telling me whether I should stay or leave. He was only watching.

When I left I did not know that I would never see my house again. Very soon Kosovo Protection Corp arrived to tell us that we should leave Obilic', Verica says.

Since they refused to leave, later on they were taken to a barracks in Pristina where Italian soldiers are.

'We have decided to leave. Italian soldiers told us that everything that belonged to Serbs had burnt in fire. We all shall leave from here as soon as possible'.

NATO complacency allowed Kosovo return to mob rule

The Irish Times / 22 March 2004

NATO's current mandate in Kosovo, despite the fact that it defies both logic and local realities, is crucial, writes Jonathan Eyal.

by Jonathan Eyal

NATO and other European contributing nations have managed to restore a modicum of stability to Kosovo, after the worst bout of ethnic violence since the war in that former Yugoslav province ended five years ago. Yet the events of last week will leave deep scars, and they should serve as a grim reminder of the unfinished business in the Balkans.

Under a UN mandate set up in 1999, the international forces stationed on the ground have achieved a great deal. The persecution of the ethnic Albanians - who form the largest part of the local population - has stopped. Extreme nationalists have been partially marginalised and a relatively peaceful election for a local assembly has taken place. Aid is pouring in, and the administration of Kosovo has noticeably improved.

Finally, a local police force came into existence, partly in order to clamp down on the wanton criminality which plagued the territory and partly in order to absorb the various paramilitary organisations which operated during much of the last decade.

But the list of unresolved problems is just as long, and clearly much more important. First, there has been little progress on the return of ethnic Serbs and Roma minorities, forcibly evicted from the province by the Albanians in the immediate aftermath of the war. Furthermore, under the original UN mandate, the international force stationed in Kosovo was meant to facilitate a political dialogue between Albanians and the central Serbian government in Belgrade, to which Kosovo still legally belongs.

Nothing of the kind happened, and the result is a curious mixture of fact and fiction. Kosovo is still officially part of Serbia, despite the fact that nobody ever believes that the province could ever return to Belgrade's control. The Kosovars are technically independent, apart from the fact that nobody recognises their legal status. And all pay lip service to the concept of a multi-ethnic Kosovo, while the bulk of the evicted Serbs continue to languish in refugee camps outside the province, and the remaining minorities are subjected to almost daily intimidation. It was this air of unreality which was shattered by the riots of last week.

Kosovo erupted when ethnic Albanians blamed Serbs for the drowning of two children. Albanians set fire to Serb homes and churches. Serbs, in turn, torched Albanian homes and mosques. And violence briefly spread to Serbia proper itself.

It is now evident that the province's worst week in years was partly the result of an orchestrated campaign by extreme nationalists, and partly an outcome of NATO's own mistakes.

The North Atlantic Alliance, which leads the international force on the ground, has simply grown too complacent. It has ignored repeated intelligence warnings about a rising level of tension between Kosovo's communities, and it turned a blind eye to the reappearance of road blocks around isolated Serb hamlets. As a result, NATO was surprised by the eruption of violence and, for at least a day, the province was back in the hands of mob rule. Furthermore, some of the old emergency plans for reinforcing the international contingent have clearly become rusty:

although NATO swiftly regained control, it took days before additional troops started pouring in.

Graver still was the fact that, despite a heavy international presence, little was done to control extremist propaganda from the local media.

The Albanian-affiliated local television station repeated the lurid tale of the children's murder at the hands of Serbs despite the fact that no evidence of Serb responsibility was ever produced. And the Serb-controlled media quickly replied in kind. In neighbouring Bosnia, where NATO fulfils a similar mandate, great care is taken to ensure a balanced and race-free coverage by the local media. Nothing of the kind was attempted in Kosovo, and the results were predictable.

It is by now pretty clear that the riots, which cost the lives of approximately 30 people and led to the displacement of around 3,200 ethnic Serbs, were largely orchestrated by extremist Albanian elements.

Their aim is evident: to force Western governments - and particularly the US which is now much more concerned with Iraq and other global issues - to concede independence for Kosovo.

This is easier said than done. The UN mandate, which still assigns Kosovo to Serbia, cannot be changed, if only because the Russians and the Chinese have only recently reiterated their opposition to the province's independence. Splitting the territory between Albanians and Serbs is equally impossible, without risking further bloodshed and the possible disintegration along ethnic lines of Bosnia and Macedonia.

So, NATO is destined to continue with its current mandate, despite the fact that it defies both logic and realities. Yet this has been the fate of many operations in the Balkans. The least that can be expected is that NATO will perform its job better, and that - at the very least - people will stop dying violently. This narrow task may be frustrating or unglamorous for an alliance which has recently been toying with the idea of policing Iraq, on top of its current operation in Afghanistan. But Kosovo is a reminder that NATO's primary business remains that of providing security in Europe itself.

The author is director of studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London

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Kosovo Smolders After Mob Violence

New York Times / March 24, 2004

By Nicholas Wood

Svinjare, Kosovo, March 23 - There is not much left of this village. Every Serbian house has been burned - all 136 of them. Smoke still rises from some of the embers of buildings where some 320 people lived until last week, when they were forced from their homes by an ethnic Albanian mob.

The only houses left standing were a group in the center of the village, each with an Albanian flag on the door or roof to ward off intruders.

Yet Svinjare is in a region of Kosovo under the authority of the United Nations. It lies just 600 yards from a camp of United Nations peacekeepers whose task is to protect the people living there.

The village was among dozens of Serbian communities across Kosovo attacked by ethnic Albanians during two days of violence last week, during which United Nations officials now say 28 people died.

More than 400 Serbian homes were ruined, 30 churches were destroyed and 11 damaged, and 72 United Nations vehicles were destroyed, United Nations officials said. They acknowledged that Svinjare (pronounced SVIN-yah-reh) was among the worst cases, though no one died there. United Nations police and soldiers managed to evacuate the village in time.

There were mirror-image scenes in Kosovo just less five years ago. Then, hundreds of villages were burned as Serbian security forces sought to expel the majority ethnic Albanians - some 1.8 million people - from the territory.

The United States government estimates that up to 10,000 Albanians were killed in massacres by the Serbian police and paramilitaries.

In March 1999, NATO forces intervened with a bombing campaign. By June, the Serbian forces withdrew and the United Nations was placed in charge of the province. Some 800,000 Albanian refugees began to return home. Many of them sought revenge against their Serbian neighbors, and once again whole villages went up in flames.

United Nations officials have said that progress has been made and that interethnic violence has declined. But analysts say the underlying cause of those conflicts has never been addressed, even by the United Nations: What should become of Kosovo?

The ethnic Albanians want independence. The Serbs, who make up less than 10 percent of the population, want to return to Serbian rule. Albanian hard-liners, some United Nations officials believe, want to redraw the province's ethnic map again, by seeking to fuel interethnic hatred.

A senior police commander said the apparent failure of the peacekeepers demonstrated how their concern over possible mass violence had diminished as interethnic relations appeared to improving.

"Maybe we were a little bit sleepy," said Lt. Col. Jerzy Szezytynski, the commander of the Polish Special Police Unit in Kosovo, who has worked in the province since 1999. "It was a big surprise for all of us." But he said the United Nations - with more than 3,000 troops in the northern region, bolstered by several hundred police officers - should have been able to stop the violence. "It was a failure," he said.

A spokesman for the French brigade in charge in northern Kosovo, Lt. Matthieu Mabin, said the violence had spread too quickly and across too wide an area. "We can't protect everywhere all of the time," he said. "It's the reality on the ground, very simply."

The United Nations' spokeswoman in Kosovo, Jing Hua, said the United Nations troops had restored order quickly. "The developments here took everyone by surprise," she said, "but within two days they had gained control of the situation."

The situation remains volatile, however. Two policemen were killed late Tuesday when their patrol car came under fire on the main road between Kosovo's capital, Pristina, and Pudujevo, close to the boundary with Serbia.

Svinjare villagers said they were alerted to the possibility of an attack last Thursday, a day after violence erupted in the neighboring city of Mitrovica. That afternoon, a United Nations police car drove at high speed toward the north of Svinjare. Svinjare was the only Serbian village bordering the Albanian-dominated south of Mitrovica, just half a mile away.

The rioting was continuing in Mitrovica for a second day. Villagers said the entrance to Svinjare was being protected by a truck filled with seven or eight Moroccan peacekeepers. Lieutenant Mabin, the French brigade spokesman, said 20 soldiers were on duty.

Pedrag Antic, 49, a former electrician, said he was standing at the end of the village with four other men when the speeding United Nations police car slowed to pull alongside the Moroccan patrol. Within seconds, he said, several hundred youths came into sight, running along the road by the perimeter fence of the French base.

Mr. Antic said he and his neighbors began warning families nearby to retreat into the village. "I can't even find the words to describe how fast they were coming," he said.

Suddenly, he said three armored United Nations police jeeps carrying 12 officers came from behind the youths and reached the edge of the village before them. But the mob continued to advance, and within minutes, he said, houses at the village's northern end were being set alight. In less than 15 minutes, he said, perhaps a dozen houses were ablaze.

"We were shouting at the police to stop them," he said.

Mr. Antic's cousin, Milas Antic, 49, recalled his terror. "I thought we would all be dead," he said.

Pedrag Antic and several other villagers said the United Nations police officers and the Moroccan patrol did nothing to stop the mob but drove parallel to it as the young men threw Molotov cocktails, set more buildings on fire and fired guns.

A regional commander of the United Nations police said his unit fired 7 to 10 shots to ward off the group.

The mixed convoy of police and military vehicles drew to a halt several hundred yards into the village, ahead of the mob, forming a roadblock. Villagers said the youths began to pull back.

Meanwhile, as a precaution, soldiers arranged for the village's women and children to be taken to the French base, Camp Belvedere. But then the soldiers told the villagers that they could not defend the village, and that every one would have to leave.

Svinjare had been reinforced by then, according to the United Nations police and the peacekeeping force, with an additional 20 soldiers and 50 Polish antiriot police officers.

"We asked them if they could secure us, but they were trying to convince us they were not able, because they had to go elsewhere," Pedrag Antic said.

The decision to evacuate was taken by the French general responsible for Northern Kosovo, Gen. Xavier Michel, Lieutenant Mabin said, because the French forces were needed elsewhere. He said he did not know where.

"We had a choice between human lives or houses," he said. "It was clear we had to save lives."

The families were loaded onto a bus. "People were crying and yelling," said Capt. Cezary Luba of the Polish unit. Most villagers said they left with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.

The Polish troops were also ordered to leave the village, the police said. The threats to Albanians were spreading; the Poles were sent to help protect groups of Albanian-speaking Roma in a town to the south of Mitrovica. But their commander, Colonel Szezytynski, said there were still enough peacekeepers in the village to defend it. "There were only five houses burning when they left," he said, referring to his men. "When they passed by again all the houses were on fire."

About 100 men from the village made their way on foot to the base, which lies on a hill overlooking the village. So they saw the mob returning, shortly after nightfall, he said, and they saw the fires.

Graffiti left on the scorched walls suggests the Albanians intended to rebuild the village for themselves. "Taken by Qerkim," "Taken by Safeti," and other Albanian names.

The peacekeepers evacuated 204 people to the French camp; they have now been moved to an empty housing project in the Serb-dominated northern side of Mitrovica, on a hill where they can still see their village.

"We really believed KFOR would come to protect us, but you see how it turned out," said Milorad Vasic, referring to the peacekeeping force. Mr. Vasic fled his house with his wife and three children.

"We lived in hope," he said. "We counted on them. They told us they were democrats. We thought it would get better. That's why we stayed."

Centuries of culture vanish in Kosovo city

Seattle Post Intelligencer - Seattle,WA,USA / March 23, 2004

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Kosovo%20Charred%20Churches

By Danica Kirka, Associated Press Writer

Prizren, Serbia-Montenegro -- Bishop Atanasije Jevtic dusted ashes away from the base of the fresco in the 14th-century cathedral gutted during recent mob violence in Kosovo.

He then softly placed two fingers on the image of Virgin Mary in the soot- covered fresco. But his visit to the cathedral to assess the damage would last but four minutes: a U.N. police officer acting as his bodyguard, a semiautomatic shotgun at the ready, hustled him away, shouting, "It's not safe! It's not safe!"

Orthodox Christian Serbs and symbols of their culture and history were targeted throughout Kosovo in violence last week, exposing the underlying tensions with the mostly Muslim ethnic Albanian majority that led to a war that ended in 1999.

Days after the rioting began, the extent of the material damage is only now becoming clear. In all, 366 homes were destroyed and 41 churches burned.

In this southern Kosovo city, centuries of culture vanished in seconds when mobs blamed Serbs for the deaths of two ethnic Albanian children and rampaged through the city.

Eight churches here were set on fire and at least a dozen homes. The devastation scarred the heart of this Ottoman-era community, with a hillside overlooking the Bistrica River now scarred by abandoned and blackened hulks of buildings set alight by the melee.

The mobs specifically targeted churches, the very symbols of Orthodox Christian Serbs, who want the U.N.-run province to remain part of Serbia- Montenegro. Kosovo's mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians want independence.

For the last five years, NATO has stepped between the two. The alliance moved into Kosovo after a 78-day air war aimed at stopping former President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian seeking independence. The conflict killed an estimated 10,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians.

In the early years of the mission, the alliance set up elaborate protection for the churches of Kosovo, the province which is considered hallowed ground and the birthplace of Serbian identity. Kosovo was the site of an epic battle between Serbs and Turks in 1389.

Among the province's many treasures was the Holy Virgin of Ljevis Cathedral, which is located just down the street from the U.N. administration's offices. Mobs transformed the brick structure into a gutted hulk.

Of particular note was a fresco of Jesus Christ, said Father Sava, a spokesman for the Orthodox Church in Kosovo, who wept upon learning that flames, smoke and soot left only a vague image on the wall.

"The church meant so very much," he said. "In France there is Notre Dame ... but for us that was the Holy Virgin of Ljevis Cathedral."

Father Sava said that Serbs who remained in Prizren after the war have left for good now, and the only people visiting the wrecked structures this week were ethnic Albanians curious about what damage had been done.

Among them was Bashkim Dauti, 37, a construction worker, who wandered into the cathedral of St. George and gaped at the toppled tower in the center of the rubble.

"I don't like what I'm seeing," he said, noting that the riots would damage the hopes of ethnic Albanians to win independence.

"It's my feeling that we went back in time," he said. "(Independence) will take as much time as we will need to repair the churches and the houses that were burned."

Others suggested the destruction as revenge for the war. At the Holy Virgin of Ljevis Cathedral, Ruzhdi Krasniqi, 23, smoked a cigarette as he assessed the damaged and said he felt "OK" about its destruction.

"I don't want the Serbs to return here," he said. "They've got no place here."

Atanasije didn't stop to offer his views, intent on getting in and out of the church with his life intact. But as he saw the damaged fresco of the Virgin Mary, he paused even though his security detail frantically screamed for him to go.

"This is the mother of God," he said, describing the fresco.

Then he crossed himself and ran for the door.

Kosovo declares day of mourning for victims of ethnic clashes

Associated Press / Mar 22, 7:26 PM ET

Mon Mar 22, 8:40 AM ET

By Fisnik Abrashi

Pristina, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Kosovo has declared a day of mourning for Monday, ordering flags to fly at half-mast to grieve for the 28 people killed in ethnic-Albanian mob violence directed at Serbs.

Flags across Serbia-Montenegro were lowered to half-mast and Serbian Orthodox priests led liturgies and prayer services Sunday as the country mourned the victims of ethnic violence. As church bells tolled, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, appealed for calm.

"God sees and hears everything," he said. "Let us pray that for our children and the children of tomorrow, there will be more peace, freedom and blessings than there have been in the difficult times we now endure."

Also Sunday, thousands in Kosovo attended the funeral of two ethnic-Albanian boys whose drowning was blamed on the Serbs and had sparked the violence. NATO helicopters patrolled overhead and Italian Carabinieri encircled the northern village to of Cabra to ensure calm in a critical test of alliance efforts to bring stability to the province.

With fresh troops now visible and deployed throughout the province, NATO took steps to keep law and order on streets racked for days by chaos. To ensure that the funeral and its aftermath caused no troubles, troops set up checkpoints every 15 kilometres along the main road leading to northern Kosovo - and warned people they would be turned away.

But up to 7,000 people came anyway, many walking the dusty roads leading to Cabra, 40 kilometres north of the capital, Pristina. As many as 25,000 people had been expected to attend the funerals for Egzon Deliu, 12, and Avni Veseli, 11, but the unprecedented security and an appeal from the family for a quiet ceremony kept people at home.

The Tuesday deaths of the boys triggered days of rioting, looting and arson by ethnic-Albanian mobs against Serbs. About 600 were injured and 4,000 people homeless by week's end.

The violence illustrated the depth of hatred between Kosovo's mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians, who want independence, and Orthodox Christian Serbs, a minority in Kosovo, who want the UN-run province to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro. NATO has tried to keep the peace here since the end of the war in 1999.

Meanwhile, UN police investigated claims by a 13-year-old survivor, Fitim Veseli, that a group of Serbs with a dog chased the children into the Ibar River but shed no light on the results so far.

The teen was among the mourners Sunday, crying so hard he could barely lift his head. Just down the hill, along the banks of the river, divers kept looking for his little brother, Florent, 9, who has been missing since Tuesday.

Playmates of the two boys pushed to the front of the crowd gathered for the burial, holding wreaths and carrying small signs, reading, Stop the Violence and We Want Peace.

But the emotions failed to trigger the same outbursts of violence seen earlier in the week.

The attacks were the worst outbreak of violence since 1999, when a NATO air war ended a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians seeking independence. The war killed 10,000 ethnic people.

Kosovo has been an international protectorate since then, whose final status is to be decided by the United Nations. For now, it officially remains a part of Serbia-Montenegro, the successor state of Yugoslavia.

NATO Secretary General accuses Kosovar politicians

'Violence was orchestrated by Albanian extremists'

Pristina Media Update / 23 March 2004

By Koha Ditore

'I don't believe that the unresolved status has anything to do with this. This has to do with people who think wrongly, who have illusions that by carrying out these criminal acts of ethnic violence they get closer to their ambitions but they must understand that the international community will never accept this,' Scheffer was quoted as saying during a press briefing held yesterday in Prishtina.

Scheffer said that KFOR was going to stay in Kosovo for a long period of time, and he also announced that measures would be undertaken in order to provide security in Kosovo. 'NATO is here, KFOR is here and KFOR will remain here,' he added.

Koha Ditore says that despite the civilian victims and destructions, the NATO chief praised KFOR for showing efficiency in last week's turmoil. 'You know that when violence orchestrated by extremist elements from the Albanian community erupted, KFOR went into action and NATO very quickly decided to send reinforcements and this has happened. KFOR will do everything it can in its protection role and it is a shame to see people going against KFOR and UNMIK last week. How low can one person go by attacking his protectors? Therefore, I think that the serious lesson learned from last week is that there is a responsibility on the Kosovo Albanian leadership to reconstruct houses and return IDPs,' said Scheffer.

The paper notes that SRSG Harri Holkeri accompanied Scheffer in the meetings that the latter had yesterday with Kosovar leaders and Quint representatives.

Holkeri himself made harsh criticism against Kosovo Albanian leaders for, as he said, failing to harshly condemn the violence against Serb churches and houses. Holkeri was also reportedly pessimistic about the possibility of having a positive evaluation of the implementation of standards by mid-2005. 'I have received instructions from the Security Council in New York, but it is difficult to continue on the basis that we had last week. Something has been ruined and we must rebuild it, and let's be realistic: I am not willing to say that mid-2005 is a realistic target,' Holkeri was quoted as saying. 'The main priority for the time being is to reestablish law and order, to have a stable situation and to bring the perpetrators to justice. This will happen in co?ordination between KFOR and UNMIK. The international community cannot tolerate impunity.'

Holkeri called on the Kosovo Government to stay true to its promise and rebuild the damaged houses of Kosovo Serbs. He also said that the government and politicians must isolate those that have caused the violence. 'I am certain that the provisional government of Kosovo will do everything that is possible in this situation in order to achieve a more stable future for Kosovo,' he added.

In closing, the UNMIK chief was quoted as saying, 'First, we must work together, get the perpetrators and bring them before justice. And we should help the people that have suffered and that need immediate assistance. But the government must help us isolate the perpetrators and remove them from this society and not allow this to happen again. If the institutions are silent, it will be more difficult to do this, but now is the time to break the silence and to tell each other what we know. I am certain that people in high-ranking positions know more than what they have told us.'

51,000 People Took Part in 33 Riots Across Kosovo Last Week

UNMIK Police spokesperson Derek Chappell announced yesterday that a total of 163 people suspected of arson, looting, murder and other crimes during last week's explosion of ethnic violence in Kosovo had been arrested. He stated that the police estimate that 51,000 people were involved in 33 riots that resulted in the death of 28 people, the wounding of 870 persons, the destruction of 30 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries, the damaging of 11 Orthodox premises, the destruction of 286 houses belonging to Kosovo Serbs and of 72 UNMIK vehicles, reported Danas. No incidents were reported over the last 24 hours and all roads have reopened for traffic although a certain number of checkpoints have been established by KFOR, B92 reported. UNMIK chief Harri Holkeri announced yesterday while visiting the town of Lipljan where several Serbian houses were torched that UNMIK Police was investigating the violence and stressed that "those who are responsible for these attacks must be isolated from this society," reported VIP. Ibrahim Makolli, representative of the Prisitina based NGO 'Committee for Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms' condemned the violence and assessed that "the biggest number of killings during the unrest were committed by the members of KFOR and UNMIK police," while underlying the NGO's "opinion that they had other possibilities to act so as to avoid these killings," reported KAG.

Kostunica's cantonization versus Rugova's independence

Serbian Premier Vojislav Kostunica is to visit Brussels today and shall address, among other issues, the situation in Kosovo after the latest wave of violence against Serbs with EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, European Commissioner for Foreign Policy Chris Patten, European Commission President Romano Prodi, and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Politika reported. The President of the Serbian Parliament's Kosovo Committee and Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) official Dusan Prorokovic, announced yesterday that Kostunica would present them with a proposal for the cantonization of the province, and commented that "the interesting thing, and connected with the cantonization, is the reaction of certain officials yesterday, I think about Italian Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister, who estimated the idea as acceptable and realizable", VIP reported. Meanwhile Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova announced yesterday that attempts to change Kosovo's borders were pure speculation, which would result in unforeseeable consequences, and stated that "although the unrest occurred, Kosovo is not in a danger," as last week violence "had weakened the image and progress of Kosovo, but it was understood that the independence of Kosovo is necessary," reported Beta. Rugova expressed his optimism that "we shall overcome this situation soon, continuing with the progress and recognition of Kosovo in the world," KAG reported.

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