UN and Nato troops clash with Serbs in Kosovo

U.N. and NATO troops clash with Serbs in Kosovo

Mon Mar 17, 2008 7:56am EDT

Reuters
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 rioting was a challenge to the authority of NATO, the United Nations and a fledgling European Union justice mission, underscoring fears that Kosovo could be heading for ethnic partition exactly one month after breaking away from Serbia.

Reuters witnesses in the town reported hearing gunfire as hundreds of Serbs clashed with the NATO peacekeeping force KFOR, and with U.N. police.

A French NATO spokesman said automatic weapons fire had been aimed at peacekeepers, but gave no further details.

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.

"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.

"Eight French KFOR soldiers are injured with grenades, stones and molotov cocktails," said spokesman Etienne du Fayet de la Tour. Their wounds were not life-threatening, he said.

The U.N. police force (UNMIK) reported three of its officers had been injured. The Polish news agency PAP said 13 Polish members of the force had been hurt.

"AGREEMENT VIOLATED"

Serbian Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic demanded the release of three dozen Serb judges and former court officials arrested in the retaking of the court.

"Disregarding everything, they (U.N. and KFOR) carried out this action and provoked the citizenry," he said. "We had an agreement not to undertake any action before I go to Mitrovica," he told the Serbian state news agency Tanjug.

Samardzic said he had met U.S. diplomat Larry Rossin on Sunday and offered a plan "for resolving all issues between UNMIK and Serbia and in connection with Serbs in Kosovo".

KFOR is the U.N.-mandated NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, where about 120,000 Serbs remain and form a bitter minority among 2 million ethnic Albanians.

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

The territory had spent years in limbo as a U.N. protectorate after NATO intervened in 1999 to evict Serbian forces and halt the ethnic cleansing of civilians in response to an armed Kosovo Albanian insurgency.

The takeover of the court on Friday was the latest effort by Serbs to assert control over policing and justice in north Kosovo following the ethnic Albanian majority's declaration of independence on February 17.

Kosovo's Serbs, almost half of whom live in the north, reject Kosovo's Western-backed declaration of independence.

Belgrade, supported by Russia, has vowed never to accept the secession, and to extend its authority over Kosovo's Serb-populated areas, particularly the north.

Kosovo's secession has been backed by the United States and the European Union.

(Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci, Shaban Buza; writing by Matt Robinson and Douglas Hamilton; editing by Kevin Liffey)