Kosovo: Violence Threatens Prospects For Multiethnic Society

[seemslikeadream]

By Julia Geshakova
Prague, 19 March 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Tensions remain high, but no major incidents were reported today in Kosovo after two days of interethnic clashes left 31 people dead and wounded about 500 others.

The violence flared on 17 March, amid claims that three Albanian boys had drowned near the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica after being driven into a river by Serb assailants. One day earlier, a Serbian teenager was reported shot and injured in a village south of Pristina.

After those incidents, violence quickly spread. Albanians burned Serbian homes and churches. Nationalist protesters came out in the streets of Belgrade and other Serbian cities and burned down a mosque.

Kosovo's Albanian leaders urged restraint, saying violence was damaging Kosovo's image and future. But Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi also accused the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which runs the province, of failing to act effectively to halt the bloodletting.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/03/71ce51e3-3a3a-466d-8a43-c14e34ba59f5.html

NATO troops block a bridge over the Ibar river, which divides the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, March 19, 2004. NATO troops raided apartment blocks in the flashpoint Kosovo town on Friday after two days of serious violence the alliance has blamed mainly on Albanian hard-liners bent on driving out Serbs. The raids on three high-rise blocks inhabited mainly by ethnic Albanians followed the killing of a sniper in Kosovska Mitrovica by NATO troops Thursday after they came under fire. Photo by Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4607130


Accusations fly over Kosovo bloodshed as NATO reinforcements fly in
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/76266/1/.html

[demdave]

1. Accused the UN Mission of failing to act effectively to halt the bloodletting

Well it looks like they are busy hiding behind the U.N. truck.

[Vladimir]

2. Latest from B92...

Kosovo events near ethnic cleansing: NATO

http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=27619&...

PRISTINA -- Friday -- A senior NATO commander said today that Kosovo Albanian attacks on Serb villages this week were not far from turning into "ethnic cleansing".

Almost a thousand Serbs living in isolated villages among the majority Albanian communities in Kosovo have fled in the last three days as houses and churches were torched by Albanians despite a heavy presence of international peacekeepers.

Russia demands return of Serb troops to Kosovo

http://www.b92.net/english/news/index.php?&nav_category=&nav_id=27622&...

Moscow -- Friday -- The Russian parliament today unanimously passed a resolution saying the Serbian-Montenegrin military should be allowed to help defend the Kosovo Serbs.

The resolution also condemned the failure of international organisations to stem the ethnic violence between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo.



I find all this very worrying. If Belgrade for once shows some sense and doesn't try to intervene, then maybe the worst can be prevented... otherwise I fear this will spread beyond Kosovo.

V

[Goldmund]

4. How do you define "the worst"?

"I find all this very worrying. If Belgrade for once shows some sense and doesn't try to intervene, then maybe the worst can be prevented... otherwise I fear this will spread beyond Kosovo."

1) Belgrade hasn't intervened in Kosovo since the NATO bombing, and certainly can't be accused of not "showing some sense" in foreign policy in general since Milosevic got ousted in 2000. Hence I don't really get the "for once" qualification.
2) This is an ethnic conflict between a humongous majority (over 90%) and a fiercely outnumbered minority. I'm not about to speculate on who started what, but the fact is that one of the two groops (the Albanians) knows that it vastly overpowers the other. There is absolutely no balance of power, and thus to hope that some kind of negotiation or a settlement between the two groups can take place is futile. The only thing that can stop the bloodshed is either to reestablish the balance of powers, by inviting Belgrade to protect the Serbian minority (I don't like this idea either), or by strong mediation of an outside power like the UN. The latter seems to be the present choice, but the fact is that there are obviously not enough troops there to do the job, or that the strategy is absolutely failing. This needs to be readressed, and urgently, otherwise the "worst" in terms of welfare of the civilian population is inevitable.

[Vladimir]

6. I define the worst

as Belgrade intervening, and this being used as a pretext for another war on Yugoslavia in which large portions of Southern Serbia are annexed to Kosovo. In terms of my 'for once' qualification, Yugoslavia has scored more political own-goals, many when under no pressure whatsoever, than I care to remember over the last 15 years. Witness as the latest them allowing the mosque in Blegrade to burn down, thus allowing all British media this morning to carry that and not the violence against the Serbs in Kosovo as their main story.

Of course Belgrade may well have no choice - if they don't intervene the government may well fall because the ultra nationalist opposition are also by some way the largest single party in parliament. Either way, Yugoslavia is fucked once again.

I agree with you, the UN is doing an awful job - but then of course it is. What I am saying is that Serbia enterin the fray will not only not protect the Serbs currently being ethnically cleansed (in the words of NATO admiral Gregory Johnston) but will make their situation much worse.

V

[seemslikeadream]

3. The children

Children are war’s innocent victims. One of many young faces of the Kosovo war. Photo: © Gary Fabiano

A father’s emotions can’t be held back as the story of how his son was wounded by a Serbian explosion was retold. Photo: © Gary Fabiano

Killing time along the fence of an Albanian refugee camp. Children in the camps had shown signs of loneliness, boredom, agitation and depression. Photo: © Gary Fabiano

[private_ryan]

8. call me old fashion but if you killed my father, brother and raped

my mother or sister I will kill you. Maybe not today, not tomorrow, but I will kill you. Revenge is best served cold and Serbs have certainly done enough to deserve it.

this what you're dealing with, centuries old:
snip
In all parts of Albania the vendetta (gyak, j&k) or blood-feud, the primitive lex talionis, is an established usage; the duty of revenge is a sacred tradition handed down to successive generations in the family, the village and the tribe. A single case of homicide often leads to a series of similar crimes or to protracted warfare between neighboring families and communities; the murderer, as a rule, takes refuge in the mountains from the avenger of blood, or remains for years shut up in his house.
http://77.1911encyclopedia.org/A/AL/ALBANIA.htm

[Vladimir]

10. Serbs have done enough to deserve this

Oh really? Do you know anything at all about Balkan history or is 1999 year zero for you? Your argument, interestingly enough, was also used by a Serbian general in the early 1950s to advocate removing all Albanians from Kosovo. Thankfully Tito had the sense to overrule him.

V

[private_ryan]

11. I do actually

start here: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=illyrians

[Vladimir]

12. The further back you go

the more right I become. Your logic has been why the last forever down there has been bloody as fuck.

V

[seemslikeadream]

5. NATO Raids Kosovo Town, Refugee Concern Mounts

Smoke rises from Serb houses burned during last night's protests in the southern Kosovo town of Prizren, March 19, 2004. Germany joined the rush of NATO reinforcements to quell an outbreak of ethnic violence that the alliance has blamed mainly on Albanian hard-liners. Nearly a thousand Serbs have been driven from their homes by mobs since Wednesday and 31 people killed, in what some say is not spontaneous violence but a deliberate drive to obliterate isolated enclaves before Kosovo is carved up. Photo by Arben Celi/Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4607130



Kosovo clashes 'ethnic cleansing'

Admiral Gregory Johnson said almost 1,000 Serbs had been driven from their homes after attacks by ethnic Albanians

It is the worst outbreak of violence since Nato forces entered Kosovo in 1999 to end years of ethnic unrest.

Meanwhile, reinforcements for Nato peacekeepers have started arriving in Kosovo following the deadly clashes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3551571.stm

[seemslikeadream]

7. Kosovo's Latest Ethnic Strife Threatens Serbs' Future There

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 20, 2004; Page A20


MERDARE, Serbia and Montenegro, March 19 -- Vesna Kadic crossed the frontier from Kosovo into Serbia, two estranged regions of the shattered former Yugoslavia, and shrugged as if she were relieved. "I promised myself never to flee my home and now I am here," she said as she arrived in this border town. "It all happened so quickly, it was like dying suddenly. I don't feel anything."



Kadic is one of more than 1,000 Kosovo Serbs driven from their homes during three days of assaults by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. Her flight illustrates the threat created by this week's violence to the future of a multi-ethnic Kosovo, to reconciliation between Serbs and Albanians and to the chances for regional peace.

U.N. officials say that unless the ethnic strife stops and Serbs such as Kadic stay, this week will have marked the beginning of the end of the Serbian presence in Kosovo, technically a province of the Serb republic. "Tremendous damage has been done by this," said Isabella Karlowicz, the chief U.N. spokeswoman.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9363-2004Mar19.html



The hours of waiting end in chaos. Flailing hands reach for loaves of bread. Photo: © Gary Fabiano

[opihimoimoi]

9. The United States working with the UN almost acheived Peace in the region

but we are pulling our troops for battles in Iraq. We have left the Game before victory opening the door for self interest Forces to upset the fine balance.

Bush and Staff has fucked up bad.