Subject: Two Kosovo Serbs die in anti-NATO protest
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 2:40:06 PST
From: C-afp@... (AFP / Dave Clark)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Dec 17 (AFP) - One Kosovo Serb was shot
and killed and another died of a heart attack during a protest
against NATO-led peacekeepers in which three vehicles were burned
and Belgian troops fired "warning shots," a military spokesman told
AFP Sunday.
Two Serbs were shot Saturday afternoon in "circumstances which
have yet to be explained" as they took part in a violent protest
outside the UN building and Belgian barracks in the northern Kosovo
town of Leposavic Lieutenant Colonel Alban Desgrees Delou said.
Both injured protesters were taken to a military hospital in
nearby Kosovska Mitrovica, where one died, he said. The other was
being treated. A third Serb who apparently suffered a heart attack
in the crowd also died, he added.
A spokesman for the French-led northern brigade of Kosovo's KFOR
peacekeeping force said it was not yet clear who had fired the fatal
shots.
The protest erupted at around 3:30 pm (1430 GMT) Saturday after
United Nations police arrested Vladimir Tomovic, a Kosovo Serb
"known by police as a criminal", Desgrees Delou said.
An angry crowd surrounded the barracks of the Belgian contingent
of KFOR, trapped three military vehicles and threw stones at the
nearby UN administrative building.
Seven occupants of the vehicles, including one civilian member
of staff, were forced to abandon them and retreat, uninjured into to
the barracks. The vehicles, a jeep and two light trucks, were burned
by the crowd and completely destroyed, Desgrees Delou said.
The Yugoslav news agencies Beta and Tanjug said that the Belgian
troops had fired into a crowd of around 1,000 demonstrators and
named the dead men as Bojan Jokovic and Trifun Milenkovic.
More protests were planned Sunday and a delegation of local Serb
politicians had demanded that the commander of the French KFOR
gendarmerie detachment in Leposavic order that Serb police working
with the United Nations be withdrawn from the town, the agencies
said.
The crowd continued to press at the gate of the camp and the
peacekeepers dispersed them with tear gas and warning shots, he
said. Following the deaths, the situation in Leposavic remained
"tense" Sunday, he added.
The town is in the far north of Kosovo in the only area of the
breakaway Yugoslav province which is still largely inhabited by
Serbs. The area has been the scene of frequent confrontations
between troops and local people opposed to NATO and the United
Nations' intervention in the province.
Kosovo has been run as an international protectorate since the
arrival of KFOR in June 1999 brought an end to the conflict between
Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanian separatist rebels.
While Kosovo Albanians, who suffered persecution from Slobodan
Milosevic's Belgrade regime before the war and murder and mass
eviction during it, regard UN-rule as the first step to
independence, most Kosovo Serbs oppose this.
Arrests of suspected extremists and criminals from the Serb
community often provoke violent confrontations in the area.