Kosovo clashes force UN pullout

[Praxius]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7300015.stm

UN police in Kosovo have been forced to withdraw from the Serb stronghold in northern Mitrovica after riots in which several policemen were injured.


About 70 Serb civilians were injured as well as at least 36 members of the UN police or the Nato-led military K-For.

The clashes began after the UN tried to wrest control of a courthouse seized by the Serbs last week.

It is the worst unrest since Kosovo's independence declaration last month which Serbia says is illegal.

It also coincides with the fourth anniversary of rioting in Mitrovica by Kosovo Albanians which drove some 4,000 people, mainly Serbs, from their homes, and left at least 19 people dead, according to UN figures.

Gunfire reports

K-For has taken over security in the town where Serbs are concentrated on the northern side of the river.

Nato says it will deal "firmly" with any further acts of violence.
At least 70 Serbs were treated for injuries, including one person with a gunshot wound to the head, according to Kosovo Serb hospital sources quoted by Serbian media and the Associated Press news agency.


Most of the UN or K-For personnel injured were Polish or Ukrainian.

The violence began after about 100 UN police arrested 53 Serbs occupying a UN court in the north of the city.

Scores of protesters blocked the police vehicles as they tried to leave and rocks and petrol bombs were thrown, according to Kosovo police.

Almost half of those arrested were set free during the violence, and UN and Nato vehicles were set alight.

Three UN policemen and two K-For soldiers were injured in an explosion, thought to have been caused by a hand grenade, and there were reports of gunfire in the town.

As the situation escalated, UN police were ordered to withdraw, leaving Nato K-For troops to control the situation.

'Excessive force'
Speaking in Brussels, Nato spokesman James Appathurai said troops would "respond firmly to ensure a safe and secure environment".

The rioters who have used Molotov cocktails, grenades and possible automatic weapons fire have gravely violated the law," he added.


The European Commission voiced its full support for the efforts of the UN administration and K-For to maintain order, saying violence was unacceptable.

Serbian President Boris Tadic accused the international forces in Kosovo of using "excessive force" and warned of "an escalation of unrest on all the territory of the province".

Rallies
Many of the protesters who seized the court last week are said to be former staff who lost their jobs in 1999 at the end of the war in Kosovo, when it came under UN administration.

Serbs had staged rallies outside the building for several weeks, preventing ethnic Albanian court employees from crossing the bridge over the Ibar River that divides Mitrovica into a Serb-run north and an Albanian south.

Tension in the region has risen sharply since Kosovo declared independence.

Last week, Serbs tried to take control of a railway line in northern Kosovo.

In February, some 150 Kosovo Serb police officers were suspended for refusing to take orders from the Kosovo Albanian authorities in Kosovo's capital, Pristina.

Most EU states and the US have recognised Pristina's unilateral declaration of independence.
Serbia - backed by its ally Russia - says the move is illegal.

And it's starting again.

 

[lone wolf]

Does anyone else get the irony that the shot heard around the world was fired not far from there just a bit less than a century ago?

Woof!

 

[Praxius]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_heard_'round_the_world

The "Shot heard round the world" is a well known phrase that has come to represent several historical incidents throughout world history. The line is originally from the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Concord Hymn (1837), and referred to the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. Later, in Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations, the phrase became synonymous with the shot that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and plunged Europe into World War I.

I take it you refer to the second explination?

 

[lone wolf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_heard_'round_the_world



I take it you refer to the second explination?

That be the one....

Woof!

 

[MikeyDB]

The great "democracies" recognized the actions of Kosovo so let them pay the bill!

Sure we can send troops in under "NATO" but how many different conflicts will the panacea of "NATO" address before reality dawns on people?

Perhaps we should send troops into Tibet? Perhaps we should send troops into Columbia....surely the security of the world can be addressed by sending troops somewhere....right?

 

[lone wolf]

I'm inclined to believe the security of the world might be better enhanced if the world's armies would just stay home and let the attention seekers fight their own wars. They'll either sort it out or the dust will settle as it was intended. Foreign involvement means foreign investment - by the very people who cry loudest if they're asked to assist the poor at home.

Woof!

 

[coldstream]

Canada's recognition of Kosovo has given Quebec separatism a big boost. Essentially it means arbitrary secession is perfectly legal, without any of the parameters Quebec has been required to meet. On top of that Kosovo in is a Narco state in its current governance. It is a key transit point for the smuggling of opium and heroin from Afghanistan, and of the 'white slave' trade, transferring women induced by promises of jobs and then forced into prostitution in the West from the old Soviet Block. The facilitation and profiteering from this reaches deeply into the highest echelons of the government of Kosovo. I can only assume Canada was given its marching orders by its neoconservative puppet masters in Washington. We are governed by weaklings and post-nationalists.

 

[MHz]

..surely the security of the world can be addressed by sending troops somewhere....right?

How 'bout they all 'get sent' go to their own homes? Make being a 'troop' a crime punishable by having to pick up garbage on your own block.

 

[jimmoyer]

Kosovo is not a viable state. And separating it from Serbia just because of the demographics of an Albania muslim migration should not be the determining factor.

Giving Kosovo away, is like asking the US to give up Texas and the Alamo, because Serbia celebrates some major battles that pushed back the Turk and muslim invasions some 100 or so years after the Crusades.

Serbia was damned enough by Milosovec's thuggerized nationalism, but losing Kosovo serves no one's interest.