[ALBSA-Info] Kosovo (Reuters)

[Alma Capa]

May 10, 2000 
Web posted at: 10:23 PM EDT (0223 GMT) 


PRISTINA, Kosovo (Reuters) -- Kosovo's Albanians and Serbs drew closer on the political front on Wednesday but out on the streets thousands of ethnic Albanians demonstrated against plans to resettle Serbs in their region. 

In a move hailed by a top international official as historic, Albanian and Serb politicians issued a statement in which each community condemned crimes committed against the other and urged all citizens not to resort to violence. 

The declaration came at a meeting of a multi-ethnic council set up by the United Nations to foster cooperation after more than a year of armed conflict -- which culminated in the 1999 NATO bombing to drive Serbian security forces out of Kosovo. 

"This is the most important meeting we've had," said Bernard Kouchner, the French head of Kosovo's United Nations-led administration. "This is, according to my opinion, the historic statement of the tenth of May." 

The U.N. has been working for months to bring Serbs and Albanians closer after a decade of increasingly violent Serbian repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, which has been followed by a post-war plague of revenge attacks on Serbs. 

But a protest in the western town of Istok showed how far the United Nations and NATO, which took control of Kosovo last June, still have to go to achieve genuine reconciliation. 

The demonstrators, marching just as the politicians in the capital Pristina issued their statement, carried placards with slogans such as "Shed blood has not dried up yet," "Don't hurt the wounds of Kosovo" and "Stop Serb colonies in Kosovo." 

They were protesting against plans floated by Kosovo Serb leaders and U.S. officials to return Serbs to the area. 

"We say this project should be stopped. Even talks about returning Serbs to Kosovo should be stopped," said Remzije Zeqiraj, the head of the committee which organized the protest. 

A figure estimated at more than 200,000 Serbs and members of other minorities fled Kosovo during and after NATO's air war against the forces of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic last year, fearing revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians. 

Despite the presence of around 40,000 peacekeepers from the NATO-led KFOR force since last June, attacks on minorities or cases of harassment against them are still reported daily. 

Protesters at Wednesday's rally, who appeared to number more than 2,000, said Serbs would not be welcome back until a host of conditions had been met, including the release of Albanians detained during the conflict and now in Serbian jails. 

The issue of the prisoners is highly emotive for ethnic Albanians, who see it as unfinished business from the conflict. International agencies say at least 1,200 Kosovo Albanians are in Serbian jails. 

Wednesday's statement by the Kosovo Transitional Council, agreed by all of the around 35 members present except one who objected on a technicality, demanded the handover of all ethnic Albanian prisoners by Yugoslav authorities. 

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