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Serbians protest kosovo independence { February 19 2008 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/world/europe/19serbs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sloginhttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/world/europe/19serbs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
February 19, 2008
In a Divided Kosovo City, a Resounding Vow to Remain Part of Serbia
By DAN BILEFSKY
MITROVICA, Kosovo — A day after Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership declared independence from Serbia, 7,000 Serbs took to the streets of this divided city, waving Serbian flags, chanting “Kosovo is Serbia!” and burning an American flag covered with the words “The Fourth Reich.”
A small clutch of radicals stood at the bridge leading to the Albanian side of the city shouting, “Kick, shout, kill the Albanians!” Old men and women wept, some expressing disbelief that Kosovo was no longer theirs. A NATO military helicopter hovered overhead. Armed police officers formed a human shield to keep the protesters from trying to cross to the other side of the bridge, where crowds of Albanians looked on defiantly.
Mitrovica is divided between Albanians, who live south of the Ibar River, and Serbs, who live to the north. The city has long been a flashpoint for violence in Kosovo, a territory of two million people, where a Serb minority of 125,000 people ekes out an existence in isolated enclaves surrounded by Albanians, who make up 95 percent of Kosovo’s population.
An explosion went off Monday night in the northern part of Mitrovica, near the building where the United Nations police and mediation offices are situated, Agence France-Presse reported. The police said that there were no injuries and that damage was confined to a few shattered car windows.
The Serbian-dominated northern part of Kosovo already has parallel institutional structures and a majority of Serbs there do not recognize the authority of the Kosovo government. The ability of NATO’s 16,000 peacekeepers to maintain calm could help determine whether Kosovo will hold together.
As Kosovo’s jubilant ethnic Albanians continued to celebrate, concerns were growing that the Serbian-dominated north could boil over into violence, break off and bring about the partition of Kosovo. Conversely, analysts warned of the risks if Kosovo’s Albanians, newly emboldened by independence, tried to assert authority over the north, which accounts for 15 percent of Kosovo’s territory.
“Mitrovica has for long time been the critical area in the south Balkans where things are going to come to a head,” said Misha Glenny, a leading Balkans expert based in London. “Whatever the outcome of Kosovo’s independence, everyone knows we are heading for de facto partition, but no one is willing to admit it.”
In a sign that Serbia was already asserting its authority in the north of Kosovo, reports emerged Monday that some Serbian policemen had begun to desert the multiethnic Kosovo police force to give their allegiance to Belgrade. The police force in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, denied that.
Even as Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leaders pledged to protect the rights of the Serbian minority, Serbs in Mitrovica said Monday that they would never join the “false state” and would remain part of Serbia. They said they had put their faith in Moscow, which vehemently rejects Kosovo’s independence.
“If the Albanians try to cross the bridge, we demand from the Serbian Army to use all available means to stop them,” Marko Jaksic, the Kosovo Serbs’ hard-line leader, told the protesters. “America is no longer the single world power. The Russians are coming. As long as there is Russia and Serbia, there will never be an independent Kosovo.”
Serbian officials in Mitrovica said they had been encouraged by Belgrade to ignore the independence declaration and remain in Kosovo to keep the northern part of the territory under de facto Serbian control. “They will offer us a lot of money to sell our houses, but we will never leave — never!” Mr. Jaksic said, as the crowd raised three fingers in a sign of Serbian unity.
In the Albanian part of Mitrovica, most residents heeded police warnings to stay inside. Bislim Bislimi, an unemployed 28-year-old ethnic Albanian, said it was unjust that Albanians could not move freely on their own territory. “We live here, and we can’t even walk to the other side of the bridge,” he said. “It belongs to us.”
While the demonstrations in Mitrovica were calm by Balkan standards, violence erupted nearby. An explosion early Monday destroyed a United Nations car in Zubin Potok, a village about six miles northwest of Mitrovica, the local police said. No injuries were reported. Another explosion on Sunday rocked a United Nations building near Mitrovica, causing minor damage but no injuries.
In a move that threatened to heighten tensions, the Serbian Interior Ministry filed criminal charges in a Serbian court on Monday against the three Kosovar leaders who were instrumental in proclaiming independence: President Fatmir Sejdiu, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and the speaker of Parliament, Jakup Krasniqi. It was symbolic, because Kosovo does not recognize the legal jurisdiction of Serbian courts.
Meanwhile, in Belgrade, 7,000 protesters gathered in Republic Square and chanted anti-Albanian slogans.
The march on Monday followed demonstrations on Sunday in which rioters stoned the American Embassy and attacked the mission of Slovenia, which currently holds the rotating European Union presidency. Both countries backed Kosovo’s secession.
Ljubica Gojgic, a leading Serbian commentator, said that if Kosovo’s independence declaration was recognized by the West, it would embolden Serbian nationalists while making it difficult for those who advocate closer ties with Europe to have their voices heard.
On Monday, Serbian defiance also spilled over to Bosnia, where the international community maintains a fragile unity between Bosnia’s entities, the Serb-run Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation.
The main opposition Bosnian Serb party called for the independence of the Serb-run half of Bosnia, citing Kosovo as a precedent. A march by several thousand people in Banja Luka, capital of the Bosnian Serb Republic, turned violent as protesters threw stones at the American, French and German consulates.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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