ZUPCE, Kosovo: Hundreds of Kosovo Serbs prevented NATO troops in Kosovo (KFOR) from removing roadblocks on roads to two contested border crossings between the countrys volatile north and Serbia early on Saturday, witnesses said.
Tensions have mounted in the north as Kosovos government tries to stamp its authority over this largely lawless area, home to 60,000 ethnic Serbs who want to stop Kosovo deploying its own police and customs at the Serbian border.
Mostly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo is Serbias former southern province and declared independence in 2008 after a 1998-99 war and years under United Nations rule. The country is still patrolled by KFOR and EU law and justice mission, EULEX.
At a roadblock in the village of Zupce, about 80 km (40 miles) north of Kosovos capital Pristina, Serbs sat in the road in front of armored personnel carriers and an infantry cordon. In the nearby village of Jagnjenica, Serbs parked trucks across the road to the Brnjak crossing, reinforcing a barricade there. KFOR troops tried and failed to get a bulldozer past meters-high earth and gravel barricades, a human shield and the trucks.
On Friday the KFOR commander, German General Erhard Drews, said Kosovan Serbs must secure freedom of movement for his troops and other international missions. He said more talks were planned with local Serbs for Saturday and warned NATO was running out of patience.
I still believe that the better solution would be a peaceful one but ... theres little hope we will come to the solution in time, he told reporters. Time is running out.
Earlier this week KFOR used tear gas to disperse Serbs at a barricade along a network of roads leading to the Brnjak border post. Eight peacekeepers and about two dozen civilians were slightly injured in the scuffles.
Hardline Serb leaders from northern Kosovo defied NATO calls to remove roadblocks and called for Belgrade to send in Serbian troops and police.
In Belgrade, President Boris Tadic asked NATO to refrain from violence and Kosovo Serbs to secure freedom of movement for peacekeepers.
Serbia holds parliamentary elections in 2012 and Kosovo, seen by Serbs as their historic heartland, will be a hot issue.
Serbia still effectively runs Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, but is under pressure to resolve the impasse and mend ties with Pristina if it wants the European Commission to approve its candidacy for joining EU. More than 80 countries, including the United States and most EU states, have recognized Kosovo as a sovereign country.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/23/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
