[ALBSA-Info] J'accuse for Mitrovica

[Agron Alibali]

                  The Toronto Star

                    February 23, 2000, 


MITROVICA FLASHPOINT FOR THE NEXT BALKAN WAR
Susan Blaustein

    The divided northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica has
long been regarded as the 
flashpoint most likely to sink the international
peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.
Yet, Kosovo's top international officials have allowed
the long- smoldering
violence there to explode, underscoring again how
their failure of will promotes
the agenda of indicted war criminal and Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic.

    Mitrovica is not just another Balkan cauldron of
centuries-old hatreds. The 
city is a lynchpin in Belgrade's ''Greater Serbia''
strategy of expelling non-
Serbs from the region.

    Milosevic has never had more than a propaganda
interest in northern Kosovo's
historically significant monasteries. But he does have
a keen financial interest
in the Trepca complex of mines and downstream
processing facilities, including a
smelter in Zvecan, which is widely believed to have
served the regime as an
efficient money-laundering mechanism. Since the
deployment of NATO's Kosovo
Force, or KFOR, Trepca's Serb directors, who report to
Milosevic, have continued
to operate the smelter to process ores trucked in by
foreign companies still
doing business with the regime.

    Mitrovica is Milosevic's only remaining foothold
in Kosovo and it is there
he has decided to call the bluff of the international
community, in flagrant
violation of the peace accord. With the apparent
acquiescence of the French KFOR
command, which has been loath to risk casualties, and
the local U.N.
administrators, Milosevic continues to send Serbian
police and paramilitary
forces across the Serbia-Kosovo border and into the
Mitrovica area. These
operatives monitor, harass, terrorize and expel ethnic
 Albanian  civilians
who dare to live in or travel to the Serb side of
town, where the hospital and
university are located.

    For months, French commanders have denied there
were Serbian police or
paramilitary troops in the area, despite reliable
reports to the contrary. After
last week's wounding of two French soldiers, the death
of an ethnic  Albanian 
shot by the French and ethnic  Albanian  outrage at
what they perceive as
blatant French partisanship, the French troops were
replaced by British troops. 
German, Dutch and Italian reinforcements were sent in,
too, and, on Thursday,
the first of 300 U.N. international police were
deployed to Mitrovica.

    But the French remain in overall command and from
all appearances, German
KFOR Gen. Klaus Reinhardt continues to accept their
assessments of the
situation. More worrisome, Reinhardt and an increasing
number of frustrated
international officials are abandoning the U.N.'s
stated commitment to create
and protect a multi-ethnic society in Kosovo. Instead,
they favour something
closer to their French colleagues' view that mixing
the two populations is
impossible, and all that can be done is to keep the
two from killing each other.

    This passive style of peacekeeping has emboldened
Milosevic to press his
hand further in Mitrovica, by attempting to keep
control of Trepca and by
spurring the harassment and expulsions of ethnic 
Albanians  from the Serb side 
of town. They have responded aggressively with sniper
attacks, marauding
incursions into southern Serbia and, allegedly, the
fatal ambush of a
KFOR-escorted U.N. bus carrying Serbs too afraid to
travel on their own.

    The next night in Mitrovica, a riot left seven
ethnic  Albanians  dead and
34 wounded, among them five peacekeepers. Ten days
later, two more French
peacekeepers were wounded, as ethnic  Albanian  gunmen
reportedly fired on Serbs
who had set houses on fire. The French fired back,
killing an '' Albanian 
sniper'' whom human-rights monitors and journalists
insist was unarmed. The
French wounded four other alleged snipers and arrested
46 people, 45 of them
ethnic  Albanians. 

    If the initial attack on the U.N. bus was, in
fact, carried out by ethnic
 Albanian  extremists, that incident was not
unprovoked. The international
community's continued willingness to turn a blind eye
to the Serbs' oppression
of ethnic  Albanians  simply trying to live or work in
northern Mitrovica has
made the ethnic  Albanians  impatient not only with
their foreign protectors but
also with their moderate leaders. They are left with
no choice but to turn to
 Albanian  extremists for help. Former Kosovo
Liberation Army officers recently 
began informal recruiting in Pristina. On Wednesday,
Kosovar political leader
and former KLA commander Hashim Thaci warned the
international community that
Mitrovica's violence ''could spread to other parts of
Kosovo.''

    The standoff in Mitrovica must be brought to an
end, with the help of a
resolute and robust KFOR presence, international
mediation and, perhaps, as is
being contemplated at U.N. headquarters, a carefully
chosen international
administration for the city. All Serb police and
paramilitary units should be
arrested and tried, or thrown out of Kosovo, all
gun-wielding ethnic  Albanians 
and Kosovar Serbs disarmed and detained.

    Without such an immediate display of backbone on
the part of both those
international officials posted in Mitrovica and those
leading the Kosovo
mission, the international community will have failed
Milosevic's latest test of
its resolve and will bear at least partial
responsibility for his next Balkan
war.

    Susan Blaustein, a journalist and senior
consultant with the International
Crisis Group, recently spent time in Mitrovica.

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