EU Personnel Withdraw from Northern Kosovo.

[MKSheppard]

How Utterly Predictable

EU withdraws from Kosovo as Serbia protests
Last Updated: 2:05am GMT 24/02/2008

Hopes for a peaceful conclusion to the declaration of Kosovo's independence were fading as the European Union announced it had withdrawn its staff from the north of the fledgling country in the face of increasingly angry Serb protests.

The civilian staff were meant to be preparing for the EU to take over responsibility for security in Kosovo from the United Nations.

The announcement of the withdrawal came as the United States - which backed Kosovo's drive for independence - began to evacuate its American staff and their families from Serbia, offering US citizens the chance to join a convoy of 40 cars leaving Belgrade for Croatia.

"We are not sufficiently confident that they are safe here," said US ambassador Cameron Munter. On Thursday protesters stormed and burned the US embassy in Belgrade. A week after tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the Kosovan capital Pristina to celebrate the country's unilateral declaration of independence, Kosovo is already effectively partitioned.

The mostly Serb-populated northern region around the divided town of Mitrovica, next to the Serbian border, has made it clear that it wants no part of the newborn country that Serb officials consider "illegal". The bridge on the Ibar River that divides the Albanian and the Serb parts of Mitrovica has been closed to traffic, guarded by UN police and Nato on one side, and Serb strongmen on the other.

At the same time, KFOR, the Nato-led peacekeeping force, sealed the border to Serbia, after angry mobs torched border crossings. "This is a beginning of a secession of the northern part of Kosovo," Oliver Ivanovic, a Kosovo Serb leader from Mitrovica, told The Sunday Telegraph. "I fear it will lead to attacks on the remaining Albanians living in northern Mitrovica to force them to flee across the river.

The Albanians would then retaliate on the Serbian enclaves throughout Kosovo, and the ethnic cleansing will be completed under the eyes of the international community." According to Mr Ivanovic, while the Serb government officially pledges never to accept Kosovo's independence, some individual officials and their political groups are quietly orchestrating the secession. He himself was sidelined as a moderate leader and his influence diminished as the situation escalated and Belgrade-sponsored extremists won the upper hand.

Yesterday Peter Feith, the EU's Kosovo envoy, said security concerns were behind the withdrawal of his staff from northern Kosovo. They had been preparing the ground for a 2,000-strong EU rule of law mission. "I would like to appeal to the Serb community to be generous and to turn the page and look forward to working together with us," he said. "We hope that conditions will soon allow us to resume our activities."

Slobodan Samardzic, the minister for Kosovo in the Serb government, deemed the attacks on the border crossings "legitimate" and said they were in "accordance with the Serbian government's policy." Britain, the US and other Western countries have recognised independent Kosovo as a sovereign state, prompting criticism from countries such as Russia, a staunch Serb ally, but also China and some EU members, notably Spain, who claim the move to be a dangerous precedent that would weaken the rule of international law and encourage separatist movements across the world.

In the Serb part of Mitrovica, anti-independence rallies have been held every day since the independence declaration last Sunday, in an atmosphere of increasing tension and lawlessness instigated by Belgrade-paid agitators. Serbian government officials address the angry crowds as rocks, bottles and fireworks are being hurled at the UN police guarding the bridge, while thugs in track suits and leather jackets cruise the town as self-appointed guardians of security.

Officers of the Kosovo Police Service (KPS), the multi-ethnic police force which serves in northern Mitrovica, said they will no longer take orders from Pristina following the independence declaration and have vowed to swap their uniforms for those of the Serbian police. "I did not join the force to serve an illegal Albanian state. The capital of my state is Belgrade, as stipulated by the United Nations Resolution 1244.

I will soon change this uniform for a Serbian one and continue to serve my people," a KPS officer serving in Mitrovica told the Sunday Telegraph under the condition of anonymity. On the street dotted with Serbian and Russian flags and banners with anti-independence slogans, the police officer was engaged in a cordial conversation with one of the thugs known as 'bridge watchers', whose job is to make sure no Albanian crosses the bridge. He said: "We will not create incidents but we will not tolerate any form of Albanian rule. This is and it will always remain Serbia. We may be small, but we have the full support of Serbia and Russia. And we have weapons, should we be forced to protect ourselves."

Russia has already threatened to use force in Kosovo, and Serbia has sent dozens of busloads of protesters to support the rallies in the north. But following several days of unrest, KFOR decided to seal the border and halt the influx of potential protesters from Serbia. "We have issued orders not to let buses through or any individuals who could pose a potential threat to the security of Kosovo. We are also fully able and ready to prevent any clashes between Serbs and Albanians, "a KFOR spokesperson said.

Indeed, dozens of armoured vehicles and tanks have been deployed at key points in the border region, after Belgrade officials announced that they would march into Kosovo in their thousands — albeit for peaceful rallies. "KFOR troops are trained and well-equipped to answer any challenges coming from inside or outside of Kosovo," a radio advertisement, paid for by KFOR, warns Serbian listeners.

But Mr Ivanovic, is sceptical. "In case of real clashes KFOR will first protect themselves and then come to count the causalities. The Serbs here have access to weapons, and I know that the Albanians living on this side of the river have recently been armed. "I see no reason for optimism."

[Adrian Laguna]

Did they seriously expect things to go different? Wimps.

[CJvR]

If we had to do this damn silly thing why did we have to do it in this damn silly way? Replacing an angry Albanian minority in Serbia with an angry Serbian minority in Kossova does not really solve anything. If we are goning to start the deadly dangerous game of re-drawing maps shouldn't we at least do it in a manner that resolves issues rather than just shift them about?

[Netko]

The more I'm reading about it, the more I'm convinced that there really is a partition plan going on and that I'd underestimated the chance of northern Kosovo seceding (returning) to Serbia. That was mainly do to my belief that the "international community" was strongly in favour of an unified Kosovo. It appears that I was wrong. B92 (a pro-European Serbian media outlet which tends to have the most balanced coverage of Serbian affairs) is reporting that Kosovo Albanians have left the UNMIK controlled institutions of state in the Serb controlled parts of northern Kosovo, even including transporting Albanian prisoners from the local prison in Mitrovica to other facilities in Kosovo. So my feeling now is that we're going to see either an informal partition or even potentially a formal one.

Serbs protest, Albanians leave K. Mitrovica

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- Serbs in northern Kosovska Mitrovica will continue their protest today.

They are rejecting ethnic Albanians' unilateral declaration of the province's independence.

UNMIK police and KFOR have strengthened their patrols in the town, which the Ibar River divides along ethnic lines, although its northern part is also home to some Albanians. There are no Serbs in the south of the city.

Kosovo Albanians employed by UNMIK's civilian institutions are, however, are leaving the Serb side of the town, sources with the UN have confirmed.

Yesterday, an EU mission that Belgrade rejects as illegal, decided to "temporarily withdraw its staff from the north".

The Albanians working at the district court, and even Albanian inmates from a jail, have all been withdrawn.

Chairman of the Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo (SNV) Milan Ivanović told B92 that it is the Serbian state institutions that "came first" in the region, while the Kosovo institutions are parallel.

"The withdrawal of Albanians from the institutions in the majority-Serb territory is a logical consequence of this whole situation, and a realistic one. This is the state of affairs on the ground caused by the unilateral Albanian decisions," Ivanović explained.

The EU decision yesterday came after repeated strong Russian warnings against any imposition of the newly formed institutions in the province on unwilling Serbs in the north.

The peaceful student protest, organized each day at 12:44 CET to remind that the latest western moves over Kosovo violate UN Resolution 1244, yesterday received support from their colleagues from Russia, Romania, and France, who also attended.

The protest continues today, with a concert planned in the afternoon.

[Sidewinder]

Russia's blustering over Kosovar independence reminds me of my high school history lessons on the cause of WWI. Hopefully, history won't repeat itself (again).

The peaceful student protest, organized each day at 12:44 CET to remind that the latest western moves over Kosovo violate UN Resolution 1244, yesterday received support from their colleagues from Russia, Romania, and France, who also attended.

And the French continue to do dumbass things to make themselves seem important. (I can understand why Spain is against Kosovar independence, considering their problems with Basque separatists, but France? What, are the French Algerians threatening to form their own little nation in France?)

[Siege]

It's a peaceful student protest. Why wouldn't French students support it? French students, after all, have quite the history of supporting protests of all kinds -- and this is a far from unreasonable protest, not to mention peaceful, so I don't see why they shouldn't support it.

[Mobius]

France

Corsica
and to a lesser extent: Alsace, Bretagne and probably some other regions

[Sidewinder]

France

Corsica
and to a lesser extent: Alsace, Bretagne and probably some other regions

Are the separatists there setting off bombs, shooting people, turning pro-independence protests into violent riots, etc.? Just curious about how the French situation is comparable to the Spanish one, i.e., the Basques.

[Netko]

Its more of a situation of what SiegeTank mentioned - some students, probably Serbocroatian language university students, have joined with their Serbian colleagues in protesting. You can see a video report of that news piece (in Serbian only unfortunately) on Youtube, including the French student protest (about the 55s mark):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HW6MSRLVb-c

[Mobius]

France

Corsica
and to a lesser extent: Alsace, Bretagne and probably some other regions

Are the separatists there setting off bombs, shooting people, turning pro-independence protests into violent riots, etc.? Just curious about how the French situation is comparable to the Spanish one, i.e., the Basques.

bombing houses of the "continental" on a pretty regular bases, same with a lot of french administration and para-static company (electricity and so on)
- RPG fired routinely on the Gendarmerie ( think national guard or guardia civile)
Murder of the prefet a few years ago.
The main difference is that nobody care about corsica, apart from tourism and alizée exportation, this isn't a vital part of the country, same can't be said for the basque region in Spain

In Bretagne, it's quieter but they already did bomb a Mcdonalds that made 1 victim.