[ALBSA-Info] NATO's Robertson Warns of Ethnic Cantons in Kosovo/Serbs: Free Kosovo Militant/Kosovo Party Ends Freeze of Ties with UN

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

1. NATO's Robertson Warns of Ethnic Cantons in Kosovo
2. Serbs: Free Kosovo Militant
3. Kosovo Party Ends Freeze of Ties with UN

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#1.  
NATO's Robertson Warns of Ethnic Cantons in Kosovo

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, July 18 (Reuters) - NATO Secretary- General George 
Robertson warned Kosovo Albanians on Tuesday that violence against Serbs 
risked splitting the province up into ethnic cantons. 

Robertson said NATO, like leaders of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, 
opposed cantonisation, but it could become the only solution allowing Serbs 
and other minorities to remain in the province in the face of attacks against 
them. 

``We'll protect these communities. If it involves building walls round them, 
barbed wire round them, giving them the protection they need, then we will do 
it,'' Robertson told a news conference in Kosovo'sprovincial capital 
Pristina. 

``If people want 'enclavisation' or cantonisation as a result of that, it 
will be their fault, not our fault.'' 

Ethnic Albanian leaders fiercely oppose cantonisation, seeing it as a model 
which would violate Kosovo's territorial integrity by dividing the province 
into self-governing units. 

Since NATO and the United Nations took over responsibility for Kosovo in June 
last year, Serbs and other minorities have been the targets of daily violent 
attacks by ethnic Albanians seeking vengeance for Serb repression. 

More than 150,000 Serbs have fled the province, according to the U.N. refugee 
agency. Many others have left their homes and grouped together in heavily 
guarded enclaves inside Kosovo. 

``The circumstances are leading to 'enclavisation' because that is the only 
way that minorities can be protected from the extremists who want to continue 
the violence against them,'' said Robertson, on a one-day visit to Kosovo 
with NATO ambassadors. 

``But people can stop that. If they don't want enclaves created, if they 
don't want cantonisation, then it can be stopped,'' he added. ``The violence 
stops, the cantonisation, the 'enclavisation', stops as well.'' 


#2.
Serbs: Free Kosovo Militant

By ROBERT H. REID
  
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP) - About 1,000 demonstrators marched in 
silence behind a Serbian flag Wednesday to demand the release of a Serb 
accused of harassing ethnic Albanians. 

The demonstrators walked through this industrial city toward the bridge 
dividing this industrial suburb into rival ethnic camps. 

Dozens of French troops, backed by armored personnel carriers, stood along 
the bridge, and French riot police and Polish infantry stood ready on the 
ethnic Albanian-controlled south bank of the Ibar River. 

The crowd dispersed without trying to cross the bridge or provoke trouble, 
heeding a call by their leader, Oliver Ivanovic, for a peaceful march. 

The demonstrators marched to press demands for the release of Dalibor Vukovic 
arrested Monday night for allegedly attacking ethnic Albanians. 

The arrest of Vukovic, a member of a group of militants who screen those 
entering the Serb-controlled part of the city, touched off three days of 
protests and rioting. 

The unrest has forced the United Nations to pull its police off the streets 
in the Serb part of town. 

``We have to display that we are not savages -that we are a civilized part of 
Europe and we have to struggle with democratic means,'' Ivanovic told the 
crowd. 

He then led them past French peacekeepers and armored vehicles which lined 
the route. ``That struggle will be long and difficult but at the end, we will 
be free.'' 

Vanovic said he hoped Vukovic would be freed Thursday at the end of a 72-hour 
period after which Yugoslav law requires suspects to be charged or freed. 

Several Serbs in the crowd of marchers complained that U.N. police have acted 
high-handedly against them while ignoring attacks by ethnic Albanians. 

The peaceful march followed a day of high tensions. Late Tuesday, a group of 
20 Serbs barged into the apartment of two U.N. police officers from Zimbabwe, 
threatened them and forced them to hand over their pistols and a radio, U.N. 
spokeswoman Susan Manuel said. 

Another group of Serbs trashed the apartment of two U.N. policemen from 
Britain's Royal Ulster Constabulary but the officers were not at home, U.N. 
officials said. 

Staff at the U.N. courthouse in northern Kosovska Mitrovica were evacuated 
after midnight Tuesday by NATO and U.N. security officers, she said. 

The 145 U.N. police stationed in northern Kosovska Mitrovica were on standby 
Wednesday either in the police station or their accommodations. Patrols have 
been suspended. 

In Pristina, Kosovo's chief city, the U.N. mission admitted that its efforts 
to encourage Serbs to register to vote had failed. The admission comes after 
Serb militants intimidated voters in the northern town of Leposavic, the U.N. 
said in a statement. 

Just over 1 million people registered for Kosovo's first ever ballot 
supervised by the international community, the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe said in a statement. 

Earlier, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Henry H. Shelton 
visited U.S. forces in the eastern city of Gnjilane and said NATO-led 
peacekeepers had done a good job of maintaining security in most of Kosovo, 
but said he would like to see faster work on rebuilding civilian 
institutions. 

``The long-term solution here is not a continuous presence forever by the 
armed forces of NATO, but in fact rebuilding the civilian institutions, 
re-establishing the rule of law, things that give the long-term stability and 
peace we would all like to see in this area,'' he said. 

#3.
Kosovo Party Ends Freeze of Ties with UN

By Andrew Gray
  
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, July 17 (Reuters) - One of Kosovo's main ethnic 
Albanian political parties said on Monday it would resume normal relations 
with the province's United Nations administration, broken off in protest more 
than two weeks ago. 

The Democratic Party of Kosovo, led by Hashim Thaci, said talks had resolved 
most of the issues which prompted it to suspend its role in the Interim 
Administrative Council (IAC), the centrepiece of a power-sharing structure 
set up by the U.N. 

Thaci said he had held talks with Bernard Kouchner, the French head of the 
administration, and officials from the six-nation Contact Group of major 
powers over the past few weeks. 

``After assurances from Kouchner and representatives of the Contact Group, we 
decided to continue our work in the IAC,'' Thaci told a news conference in 
the Kosovo capital Pristina. 

The DPK, the main political force to emerge from the Kosovo Liberation Army 
which fought against Serb rule, froze ties on June 30 in protest over a number
 of issues, including a deal struck between the U.N. and leaders of Kosovo's 
Serb minority. 

Since Kosovo came under international control last year, Serbs have been the 
targets of numerous violent attacks by members of the ethnic Albanian 
majority seeking vengeance for repression by Serb forces. 

NATO bombing drove Serb forces out of Kosovo in June last year, paving the 
way for the establishement of the KFOR peacekeeping force and the U.N.-led 
administration. 

The U.N. insists the agreement with the Serbs is meant purely to provide 
better security and access to services for the minority, while many ethnic 
Albanians see it as a first step towards dividing the province into 
self-governing cantons. 

The U.N. mission in Kosovo welcomed Thaci's decision to return. ``We're very 
happy,'' said Nadia Younes, a U.N. spokeswoman. ``Now the work can restart 
and we can tackle the real problems and move towards elections.'' 

Thaci said his party remained opposed to the deal with the Serbs but had made 
progress on several other issues of concern such as the treatment of war 
invalids, relatives of people killed in the Kosovo war and pensioners. 

He said drafts of three regulations on social issues had been drawn up and 
were now being studied by experts. 

He also said he hoped there would be no need for the special arrangements for 
the Serbs after local elections in October. 

``After the free elections, there will be a new reality,'' he said. 

Privately, U.N. officials had been fairly relaxed about Thaci's suspension of 
participation, seeing it more as a move to shore up political support. 

Thaci's decision allows him to return to the IAC in time for a visit to 
Kosovo by NATO Secretary-General George Robertson and the 19 permanent 
ambassadors of the alliance on Tuesday.