Subject: NATO-led Kosovo peacekeepers meet force with force
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 20:00:30 PST
From: C-afp@... (AFP / Dave Clark)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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LEPOSAVIC, Yugoslavia, Dec 18 (AFP) - NATO-led peacekeepers
opened fire when attacked in two separate incidents over the
weekend, as tensions rose in two flashpoint areas of the breakaway
Yugsolav province of Kosovo.
On Sunday, a joint patrol of American and Russian troops
exchanged fire with unidentified attackers who fired on them near
the province's tense border with southern Serbia, a US army
spokeswoman said.
None of the peacekeepers was injured in the firefight, the
spokeswoman said, reporting what is believed to be the first
occasion when former Cold War foes have fired in anger at a common
enemy since World War Two.
Meanwhile in the northern Kosovo town of Leposavic, around 500
Serbs protested the shooting Saturday of a 20-year-old local man who
was taking part in a violent protest against NATO and the United
Nations.
A spokesman for the KFOR peacekeeping force said that an inquiry
had been launched to find out how the man was shot, but the
commander of the Belgian troops involved in the incident, Lieutenant
Colonel Rik Koumans, told AFP that he was fatally injured when a
warning shot fired by peacekeepers "ricocheted."
President Vojislav Kostunica of Yugoslavia appealed for calm
following Sunday's protest, which was angry but peaceful.
"I call on Serbs and Albanians, the UN and KFOR to assume their
responsibilities and not to fall into the trap laid by those opposed
to peace" in the region, Kostunica said in a statement carried by
the Tanjug agency.
Saturday's riot erupted when Serbs protesting the arrest of a
motorist burned three Belgian military vehicles, forcing seven
troops to flee into nearby barracks, and attempted to force their
way into the police station, KFOR said.
Belgian peacekeepers responded with teargas and warning shots
after which two Serbs were taken to a military hospital in nearby
Kosovska Mitrovica, where one later died, a KFOR spokesman,
Lieutenant Colonel Alban Desgrees Du Lou, said Sunday.
A Serb who suffered a heart attack during the riot also died, he
added.
A statement released by UN police in Pristina said that the Serb
whose arrest sparked Saturday's riot, Vladimir Tomovic, would be
charged with attempting to run down a Serb UN police officer who had
tried to arrest him for a traffic offence.
The other weekend incident involving KFOR peacekeepers raised
fears that violence could spill over into Kosovo from a guerrilla
war being fought just over the province's administrative boundary
with Serbia-proper.
"A KFOR patrol was fired upon at 1:28 pm (1228 GMT) today," said
a statement from Captain Alayne Cramer, a spokeswoman for the US-led
eastern brigade of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force.
"The joint patrol consisted of US and Russian soldiers who
returned fire and broke contact with the aggressor force. There were
no injuries," it continued.
The patrol had just finished blowing up a road leading towards
Kosovo's administrative frontier with Serbia and an area controlled
by an ethnic Albanian separatist guerrilla force, the statement
said.
KFOR has tightened the security on the boundary in recent weeks
in an attempt to stop arms and reinforcements sent by sympathisers
inside Kosovo from reaching the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja
and Bujanovac (UCPMB).
The KFOR statement did not identify the attackers who fired on
the patrol, but if the attackers were UCPMB fighters it would be the
first time the guerrillas have attacked peacekeepers and would mark
a significant escalation in tensions in the border zone.
"These soldiers were continuing the boundary closure effort to
prevent the flow of supplies and the movement of armed ethnic groups
across the border," the statement said.
The UCPMB operates within a five-kilometre (three-mile) wide
demilitarised buffer zone separating KFOR troops in Kosovo from
Yugoslav soldiers over the frontier.
On Saturday, Kostunica met with both the Serb and Yugoslav prime
ministers in Bujanovac, near the boundary zone, and called on the
United Nations to take "urgent measures" to stop the rebel activity.
The UCPMB has clashed with Serb police in recent weeks, killing
three policemen and seizing several villages inside the zone. On
Friday, US troops reported that a Serb civilian was injured when
unidentified gunmen ambushed his car in the buffer zone.
The rebels want the towns of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac,
and the surrounding area, all of which have a large ethnic Albanian
population, to be part of Kosovo.
Kosovo has been run as a UN protectorate since June 1999 when
KFOR arrived in the province to bring to an end a conflict between
ethnic Albanian separatist rebels and Yugoslav security forces.