PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro â Five years into an indefinite mandate, the United Nationsâ occupation of Kosovo â backed by the boots of NATO peacekeepers â is rapidly losing support among both Kosovar Albanians and ethnic Serbs...Some analysts also worry that the eruption of violence in mid-March, which left 35 Orthodox monasteries in ruin, claimed 19 lives and forced an estimated 4,000 Serbs from their homes, is but the first act of a simmering Muslim Albanian insurgency that will target the international community, including U.N. officials, the next time it explodes.
...Most of the Kosovar Albaniansâ ire is directed toward the U.N. administrative body, UNMIK (United Nations Mission in Kosovo), which has a $200 million annual budget for civilian and operational costs. In addition to Albanian criticism of UNMIK, the handful or Orthodox Christian Serbs still living in Kosovo, a region roughly the size of Marylandâs Eastern Shore, accuse some NATO peacekeepers â especially the German and the French â of complicity in what Serbs regard as reprisal ethnic cleansing. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), who visited the region in May, told The Hill, âThe French didnât protect the local Serb population and the monasteries, and the Germans didnât either. The Greeks did, and the Italians did. Same with Americans and British.âIt wasnât until Admiral [Gregory] Johnson came and took charge did NATO troops act together.â
| More American unilateralism. |
...Many of them [Albanians] blame UNMIK and its roughly 5,000 bureaucrats for an unemployment rate holding steady at 60 percent and a host of administrative problems from flagging public utilities to an unresponsive government agencies...âUNMIK wants to make Serbs and Albanians fall in love with each other. That is not going to happen. It is a chemical impossibility.â Ethnic Serbs are no less harsh in their assessment of UNMIK, but they also blame some NATO troops for failing to protect their monasteries from what appeared to be a coordinated and methodical plan of destruction and intimidation last March...Pot boiler in Europe... |