of the Serbian province’s worst interethnic violence in years and warnings from a top diplomat that the conflict could further escalate.
The former Swedish Prime Minister and Balkans peace negotiator Carl Bildt condemned both NATO and the European Union for not having seen the warning signals ahead of the fighting and the burning of at least 16 Serbian Orthodox churches and the destruction of over 100 Serbian homes.
Speaking in the Slovak Capital Bratislava, where he attended a European summit, Bildt said he was concerned about the violence against Serbian Orthodox Christians, which was reportedly carried out by ethnic Albanian extremists.
One of them, the parish priest of the Church of St Nicholas in Kosovo’s capital Pristina, told the Forum 18 News Service (F18News) that he is lucky to be alive after his church was burned down by an Albanian mob last week. His parish house where he was hiding was apparently later set on fire, when the ethnic Albanians returned the next morning. ”I went to the cellar and hid,” Fr Miroslav Popadic was quoted as saying.
”They entered the church yard, spread petrol or diesel around and set it alight. I was lucky they did not look in the cellar otherwise God knows if this morning I would still be alive,” he told F18News which investigates the plight of persecuted religious groups.
KFOR
Similar scenes were reported across Kosovo, where Serbian Orthodox church leaders have often complained about a lack of protection from the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR. Bildt confirmed that the signs of ethnic tensions in Kosovo have been obvious for some time.
”It was not unpredictable that the situation was going to be more tense,” said Bildt, ”(But) there has been a tendency by politicians not to look at the Balkans and [then] think that it is just a success story and then thinning out forces. And perhaps they have been thinning out forces too much. Obviously there are not enough forces in Kosovo like the one we saw yesterday.”
Thousands of Serbs have fled their enclaves with the help of NATO, which send additional forces to the region to deal with what has been called Kosovo’s most serious ethnic clashes between the Serbian minority and ethnic Albanian majority since the war ended in 1999.
”BURRIED”
Referring to the ethnic and religious nature of the deadly conflict, Serbia’s minister of human rights Rasim Ljajic, was quoted as saying that the bloodshed shows that the idea of a multi-ethnic Kosovo was ”definitively buried” and ”now belongs to history.”
Setting the tone for upcoming final status talks for Kosovo, Bildt told BNL he “is not against independence” for the troubled province, which has been under UN administration and the protection of NATO since Serbian forces withdrew from the region five years ago.
But he stressed an agreement should be reached between Belgrade and Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership. ”The key thing for me is whether it (Kosovo) is going to become multi-ethnic or not. When it is multi ethnic than let’s look at the situation.”
He made clear that “independence based on ethnic cleansing” is not acceptable. However ”I would support anything that is eventually agreed between Belgrade and Pristina. Because at the end of the day these are the neighbors,” Bildt added.
SERBIA
Serbia has criticized NATO and the international community for not doing enough to prevent the bloodshed. But speaking at the Bratislava summit on NATO and E-U enlargement, NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, denied that the Western defense alliance was to blame for the crisis.
”I think NATO is doing a good job there by very quickly flying in new reinforcements” to boost it’s over 18,000 troops there. ”But the responsibility is really with the leadership to refrain from violence,” he said.
Kosovo’s new violence initially erupted in the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica, where the two ethnic Albanian boys who were buried Sunday drowned in the Ibar River. They were reportedly forced to jump into the river after being chased by Serbs in what was seen as a revenge attack for a shooting near Mitrovica, in which a Serbian teenager was injured.
FUNERALS
Thousands of people attended the funeral of the two boys Sunday, March 21, in the village of Cabra, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the provincial capital, Pristina, as NATO-led troops were on standby to provide security.
Yet despite the Balkan tension, Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda told BNL he hopes NATO and the EU will not close their doors for more countries from that region, after the organizations’ historic enlargement Eastward within the next few weeks. ”I think this is the most important conclusion from the Bratislava summit,” he said.
