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Kosovo town under Nato military law
Nato placed the Kosovo town of Mitrovica under de facto military law yesterday after riots by a hostile Serb population killed one UN policeman and forced the pullout of UN personnel.
- Reuters
- Published: 10:18 March 18, 2008
Mitrovica, Kosovo: Nato placed the Kosovo town of Mitrovica under de facto military law yesterday after riots by a hostile Serb population killed one UN policeman and forced the pullout of UN personnel.
The Nato-led peacekeeping force KFOR and the United Nations mission ordered all local Kosovo Serb police officers to park their patrol cars and suspend normal duties.
With UN police already withdrawn, the order left French, Belgian and Spanish troops in sole control of law and order in the northern slice of Kosovo, where Serbs opposed to its February 17 secession from Serbia dominate the population.
"KFOR have put north Mitrovica under 'military law'," said a Kosovo security source who asked not to be named. There was no immediate announcement from KFOR.
At the main police station, three dozen Kosovo Serb police officers carried their holdalls and flak jackets out past Belgian armoured cars guarding the perimeter to the parking lot.
"Following yesterday's events KFOR has taken over authority for north Mitrovica and occupied the northern police station. UN police have ordered us to stay at home until further notice," Captain Milija Milosevic told Reuters.
Shrapnel wounds
A Ukrainian police officer serving with the United Nations died overnight of injuries sustained in the riots. A UN source said he died of shrapnel wounds. Polish, French and Ukrainian police were also injured, some seriously.
The violence was the worst since Kosovo's Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia on February 17 and highlighted the risk of the new state's partition along ethnic lines.
Soldiers in armoured personnel carriers (APCs) secured key positions in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica, where Serbs opposed to Kosovo's independence clashed with UN police and Nato peacekeepers on Monday.
The main bridge over the river separating the Serb north from the Albanian south was closed. Razor-wire and upturned garbage containers blocked the way.
The violence was sparked by a UN police operation to retake a UN court seized three days earlier by protesting Serbs and cast further doubt on the deployment in the north of a European Union rule-of-law mission in the coming two months.
It left Nato holding the line. But the 16,000-strong peace force has ruled out policing the new state, a job the UN is supposed to hand over to the EU.
"We will maintain our intention to deploy the mission throughout the territory of Kosovo," the EU's new Kosovo envoy, Pieter Feith, told a news conference. The EU last month withdrew a small advance team from north Mitrovica for security reasons.
About 120,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo among 2 million ethnic Albanians. Almost half live in the north, adjacent to Serbia and in complete isolation from the capital Pristina. They reject the incoming EU mission as "occupiers".
Backed by big-power ally Russia, Serbia has rejected Kosovo's secession and its recognition by the United States and a majority of the EU's 27 members.
Russia demanded restraint by Nato on Monday.
August 5, 2003: An Indian police officer of the UN force was killed in northern Kosovo in an ambush. He was the first UN officer killed in Kosovo.
March 23, 2004: Gunmen killed two police officers and injured a local translator near the town of Podujevo. One UN police officer was from Ghana and one from Kosovo.
April 17, 2004: A Jordanian UN police officer opened fire on a group of fellow UN police in a detention centre, killing two Americans before he was killed when officers returned fire.
January 13, 2005: A United Nations police officer from Nigeria was killed in an apparent car bomb explosion in the town of Prizren.
March, 18, 2008: A Ukrainian UN police officer died in violent clashes with Serbs in Mitrovica.
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