[ALBSA-Info] Mitrovica

[Agron Alibali]

             The Irish Times

 February 17, 2000

Pg. 15



Dream of diverse Kosovo fades as Serbs divide town
Christian Jennings found deeply entrenched attitudes
in the divided Kosovan city
of Mitrovica

 
Northern Mitrovica starts just the other side of the
last British Warrior
armoured vehicle. A crouching English private from the
Royal Green Jackets,
assault-rifle levelled, gives the obligatory warning.

   "There's a sniper threat," he says, breath misting
through the khaki Arab
head-dress, or shemag, he wears wrapped around his
nose and mouth. "Beyond this 
point we can't come and pick you up if you get hit."

   Once through the barbed-wire on the north end of
the bridge over the River
Ibar, which separates north and south of this
bitterly-divided city, you're in
Serb territory. This part of the scruffy city, with
its communist-era apartment 
blocks, may be part of Kosovo, with all of NATO and
the UN's over-stretched
claims to multi-ethnicity, but this is very much
mono-ethnic country.

   Hard to the left-hand side is the Dolce Vita cafe,
a hangout for the Serb
paramilitary teams suspected of being the real
security in this part of town.
The place was closed three days ago, after French NATO
troops surrounded it with
armoured vehicles and sent in 50 soldiers on an arms
raid.

   But the paramilitaries and their accomplices are
still very much in evidence.
Just walk up the central shopping street for 300
metres. Go past the UN police
vehicle torched during last week's ethnic cleansing of
 Albanians,  past the
brightly-painted caravans selling hamburgers, and the
drapers' shops with their 
dusty, faded mannequins decked out in flared suits.
And there they are, just
past the NATO soldiers.

   Three body-armoured French infantrymen lounge
against a VAB armoured-car at
the crossroads. The camouflaged vehicle has the name
"Luxembourg 1684"
stencilled on its hulking flank, commemorating a
former battle honour. This
crossroads, like all main arteries in northern
Mitrovica, is code-named after a 
part of Paris. This junction is "Passy".

   Straight on from here, past "Rue des Rosiers", and
there's a khaki Yugoslav
army jeep swerveparked into the kerb. Five Serb men
are inside, identically
dressed in black leather jackets, black roll-necks,
black jeans, and radio
handsets.

   These are the local men organised by Oliver
Ivanovic, the self-=styled mayor 
of northern Mitrovica. These are the bridgekeepers,
who Bajram Rexhepi, the
 Albanian  mayor of southern Mitrovica, claims led the
recent ethnic rampage
against  Albanians.  Eight  Albanians  were killed and
some 1,200 forced to flee
their properties in the north.

   Less than 1,500  Albanians  still remain in the
north, according to the UN
refugee agency, UNHCR.

   "Oliver Ivanovic keeps us in touch," says Ljumir
Marich (23), a refugee from 
the Krajina region of Croatia, who fled first to
Pristina in 1995 and then to
Mitrovica last September after NATO entered Kosovo.
"This is a small town and we
need to know what is going on. There could be another 
Albanian  attack at any
time."

   Ljumir and his 23-year-old Krajina Serb girlfriend,
Vanja Majstorevic, are
both engineering students. Dressed in black wool and
grey velvet, suede shoes
brushed, they're off for a walk in the cold, late
afternoon light.

   They've reason to be nervous. On Sunday, French
troops fought a five-hour
running gun-battle through the streets of northern
Mitrovica against  Albanian  
snipers, former Kosovo Liberation Army rebels who had
infiltrated the north,
barricaded themselves into an apartment, mined the
stairs and loaded their
Kalashnikovs. Two French soldiers were wounded.

   Serb gunmen took advantage of the confusion to open
fire on British soldiers 
on the south of the river. British snipers returned
fire.

   But Vanja and Ljumir will only tell you about the 
Albanian  attack. Serbs,
they say, were not involved. Only  Albanians.  They
used to live in Pristina,
before they fled to the enclave of northern Mitrovica,
escaping  Albanian 
reprisals for the Serb ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.
They know  Albanians. 

   "Tell us," they ask, "in Pristina are children
still being killed for their
body-parts?"

   Up at the United Nations Police HQ, all the
officers have orders not to talk 
to the press. These are men who went out on a limb two
weeks ago, rescuing
 Albanians  from a rampaging Serb mob, while French
NATO soldiers, they claim,
stood by and did nothing. Their lips are now sealed
from above.

   One of the recently-destroyed  Albanian  properties
stands around the corner,
on the edge of the Mahala quarter, now guarded by
French troops busily arresting
 Albanians  suspected of being snipers. They've pulled
in over 50 so far. And
only one Serb.

   "I'm sick of being accused of having a pro-Serb
agenda," says French General 
Pierre de Saqui de Sannes wearily. "I'm committed to a
multi-ethnic Mitrovica." 

   Not so, say his critics. Oliver Ivanovic's men are
excused the 6 p.m. to 6
a.m. curfew, while  Albanians  in the south of
Mitrovica stay indoors. French
troops will open fire to protect their own lives, but
not those of  Albanians.  

   "It's just the beginning of the end of any hope for
a multi-ethnic Kosovo,"
says a senior NATO official. "It appears that deals
are being done to keep the
north of this city purely Serb, just for the sake of
keeping the peace.
Milosevic is triumphing again."
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