[ALBSA-Info] Albanians attacked within sight of American troops

[Iris Pilika]

The Independent, UK
www.independent.co.uk

Albanians attacked within sight of American troops

By Raymond Whitaker

5 March 2000

Serbian security forces attacked the village of
Dobrosin in southern Serbia within sight of American
peace-keepers in Kosovo early yesterday, just days
after ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the village told
the Independent on Sunday that they had formed a new
movement to defend themselves.
Shooting began shortly after midnight, and for more
than two hours there were sustained periods of gunfire
in Dobrosin, a spokesman for the Nato-led
peace-keepers, K-For, said in the Kosovan capital of
Pristina. About 175 Albanian women, children and older
men fled over the border into neighbouring Kosovo.
"At the moment we are assessing that the contact on
the Serb side was local police," said the K-For
spokesman. Under the agreement, which ended the Nato
bombing campaign against Serbia last year, army units
and heavy weapons are not permitted within five
kilometres of Kosovo's border, but Serbian police
units, some of which are heavily armed and equipped
with armoured personnel carriers, may operate in the
zone.
Tension has been rising in southern Serbia, on
Kosovo's eastern border, for several weeks. The
Belgrade government has accused K-For of allowing
Albanian extremists to infiltrate the region, where
Albanians are in the majority, and police
reinforcements were reported to have been sent to the
south. But the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees said that about 6,000 Albanians had fled into
Kosovo from Serbia in recent days, complaining of
intimidation. The new guerrilla movement calls itself
the UCPMB, the Albanian initials for the Liberation
Army of Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac, three
districts in southern Serbia where some 70,000
Albanians far outnumber Serbs. It is clearly modelled
on the Kosovo Liberation Army $ its red and gold
badge, with a double-headed Albanian eagle, is almost
identical to the KLA's $ and nearly all the dozen or
so fighters seen in Dobrosin said they had been in the
KLA.
There are fears that Albanian extremists are seeking
to provoke a new confrontation between Serbia and Nato
forces, with the aim of joining southern Serbia's
Albanian-majority areas on to Kosovo. But the UCPMB
leader in Dobrosin, who refused to give his name, said
last week that the movement had sprung up in
self-defence against Serbian intimidation. "We are not
seeking to provoke them," he said, "but if attacked we
will meet fire with fire."
In response to a spate of recent incidents, including
the killing of two woodcutters in Dobrosin by Serbian
police in January, and armed clashes near Bujanovac
last weekend in which a Serbian policemen and an
Albanian gunman were killed, the Americans have moved
forces up to the border, and in the past two weeks
have built a fortified observation post which
overlooks Dobrosin. But the local commander, Colonel
Jeff Snow, warned the UCPMB in a recent meeting that
K-For would not intervene in fighting outside Kosovo.
Last week the guerrillas were nervous, warning that
"the Serbs could come here at any time". It appears
that the recent publicity given to the UCPMB was a
provocation that Belgrade could not ignore, bringing
retribution down on Dobrosin and the few civilians
still remaining there.