KOSOVO FACES RISK OF PARTITION, SAY EXPERTS
Peninsula On-line
March 19 2008
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BRUSSELS ~U A month after declaring independence from Serbia, Kosovo
is in danger of partition a respected think-tank warned yesterday in
a new report, urging the EU and NATO to act before it is too late.
The warning came a day after a Ukrainian police officer was killed
and more than 150 people were injured in pitched battles between
international security forces and Serbs in Mitrovica, an ethnically
divided north Kosovo town.
"There is a real risk… that partition will harden at the Ibar River
in the north, and Kosovo will become another frozen conflict," like the
breakaway regions of Abkhazia or Nagorno-Karabakh, the International
Crisis Group said in its report.
It urged more countries to "recognise and embrace the new state"
Japan became yesterday one of almost 30 countries to have done so
and the European Union and NATO to "be more proactive and coordinate
their operations."
On the board of the Brussels-based think-tank are many former premiers
and foreign ministers, and one of its chairmen emeritus is Martti
Ahtisaari, the UN envoy whose blueprint Kosovo is using to guide its
independence drive.
"While Serbia has a strategy to divide Kosovo, the international
community does not have a clearly defined and coordinated response,"
the report said.
It described the UN and KFOR forces move to storm Mitrovica’s court
house on Monday as "more an ad hoc reaction to provocation than part
of a carefully choreographed plan."
"Legitimate questions have arisen as to whether its timing, tactics
and potential consequences were fully considered in advance."
The Crisis Group urged the EU and United States to encourage more
countries to recognise Kosovo’s independence, declared on February
17, and to provide immediate financial aid and capacity-building
assistance.
"The EU, UN and NATO should agree on a common, comprehensive strategy
for the Serb north of Kosovo," the report said, adding that they
should reject Belgrade’s efforts to set up parallel institutions in
Albanian Serb areas.
Ethnic Albanians make up most of the population of Kosovo, which Serbs
consider a cradle of their civilisation. Kosovo has been UN-run since
1999 when NATO bombed Belgrade to end a crackdown on Albanian rebels.
A UN policeman was died of injuries suffered in rioting by Serbs,
police said as NATO tried to restore calm after the worst violence
since Kosovo’s independence declaration.
More than 150 people were wounded Monday in the ethnically divided
northern Kosovo town during clashes between the UN police and NATO-led
Kosovo Force (KFOR) peacekeepers on the one side and Serbs opposed
to Kosovo’s independence declaration.
Sixty-three of them were members of the United Nations’ international
police force in Kosovo, hurt when demonstrators pelted them with
stones and at least one grenade and possibly even shot at them. The
rest were Serbs.
The rioting erupted after police conducted a pre-dawn raid in order
to dislodge a group of Serb protesters who had been holed up inside
two UN-run courts in Mitrovica since Friday.