PRISTINA - Russian peacekeepers who recently departed from Kosovo left behind unpaid power bills totaling some -500,000 (US$ 575.000), electricity company officials said Tuesday.
The Russian military contingent had been deployed in Kosovo as part of a NATO-led peacekeeping force since mid-1999.
"(The Russians) were aware of the debt and despite negotiations with KEK, they didn't come up with a solution on how to pay it," said Betty Dawson, a spokeswoman for KEK, the state-owned electricity supplier.
Letters had been sent to the Russian foreign ministry and efforts were being made through the Russian defense ministry to get the debt paid, Dawson added.
While Simon Haselock, the chief U.N spokesman in Kosovo, said the Russians were obliged to pay their debts to KEK, NATO officials said the issue needed to be resolved between the electricity company and the Russian authorities.
"It is a disappointment if people leave Kosovo and do not pay their debts," said Squadron Leader Gary Bannister-Green, a NATO spokesman in Kosovo.
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations and NATO-led peacekeepers since June 1999, following a 78-day alliance bombing campaign to force an end to a crackdown by Serb forces on ethnic Albanian separatists.
The final contingent of Russian forces left Kosovo last week, wrapping up their Balkan peacekeeping mission.
Defense officials in Moscow cited financial concerns as among the reasons for pulling out the peacekeepers.
I find it strange that peacekeepers are expected to pay for the privelege of using services in a country/region/province that will fall apart but for their presence. If anything, shouldn't they be the ones getting paid?
Surely they knew they would be paying before they were deployed? So they ought to keep their word, and pay. Should have bargined it out of whatever contract they signed before they signed.
Vympel wrote:
I find it strange that peacekeepers are expected to pay for the privelege of using services in a country/region/province that will fall apart but for their presence. If anything, shouldn't they be the ones getting paid?
Sounds like the power was being imported from Serbia, which I somehow doubt is going to want to subsidies KFOR.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
