Peacekeepers Remove Serb Barricades
 

By Robert H. Reid, Associated Press, Oct. 5, 1999

Peacekeepers Remove Serb Barricades

By Robert H. Reid
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, Oct. 5, 1999; 8:07 a.m. EDT

KOSOVO POLJE, Yugoslavia –– Backed by tanks, armored personnel carriers and helicopters illuminating the night sky, British troops and Italian U.N. police removed a barricade today that Serbs erected last week across the main east-west highway in Kosovo.
     About 650 feet away, peacekeepers cleared a second barricade set up by ethnic Albanians in response to the Serb blockade, which NATO said was interfering with civilian traffic and the movement of humanitarian aid.
     NATO's early morning operation came after Serb negotiators refused to end the blockade, which began Sept. 28 after a grenade attack on a Serb market here killed two people and injured more than 40.
     British troops briefly detained two Serb men, but most who were manning the barricade stepped aside when the operation began about 5:15 a.m., said a spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeepers, Lt. Col. Dermot O'Donovan.
     Roland Lavoie, another spokesman for the peacekeepers, said the two men were released immediately afterward and no arrests were made.
     One Serb community leader, who said he had been briefly detained, said Serb men and women rushed to the barricade when word of the action spread through the community.
     As he headed to the site, he said he was apprehended by British troops, who handcuffed him and warned him they were prepared to use force if the protesters did not step aside.
     The Serb, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he told the crowd to disperse to avoid injuries, and they complied. He said the town's Serb community would break off contacts with the United Nations and the NATO-led peacekeeping command until its demands were met, chief among them exclusive control of a school near the old barricade.
     At the community clinic, Serbs appeared angry and surprised by the action.
     As the sun rose, British troops were sweeping away debris from where the roadblock once stood. Groups of Serb civilians stood by watching but stayed behind British and Canadian armored vehicles.
     British infantry fanned out among Serb houses on the southwestern edge of this town, five miles southwest of Pristina, Kosovo's capital. A few Serbs said they were considering erecting a new barricade, but there was no sign of it as traffic moved along the two-lane highway.
     The Serbs have maintained the peacekeepers are unable to protect them.
     U.N. officials had accused Serbs of stalling removing the blockade, saying all the Serbs' major demands had been met, including sending twice as many peacekeepers and additional civilian police to the majority Serb town.
     On Monday, ethnic Albanians unilaterally lifted a blockade they had set up in front of the Kosovo Polje municipal building, but 50 people stayed on the railroad tracks.
     Also Monday, Lavoie denounced comments by Hashim Thaci, political leader of the officially disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, who said a new civilian force would have the same leaders as the KLA.
     Lavoie said Thaci, who heads a KLA-backed provisional administration, has "no connection with or influence over" the Kosovo Protection Corps. Many ethnic Albanians see the new civilian force as the forerunner of an army to defend the province against the Serbs.
     Thaci contradicted the chief U.N. administrator, Bernard Kouchner, in a joint visit Monday to the western city of Pec aimed at building confidence among Bosnian Muslim residents following ethnic attacks on them.
     Speaking to a crowd of 500 people, Kouchner said: "We are here to move together with you toward free democratic-controlled elections that will gain a wide autonomy for Kosovo, where all of you will live and take part in the administration."
     Thaci, however, responded by stating he believes that international officials will recognize the right of the free will of the people in Kosovo, who will vote for independence in a referendum.
     Regardless of NATO's position, the former KLA is clearly moving toward taking control of the new corps, or appearing to do so. During rallies in Gnjilane and Srbica, which the Kosovo Albanians call Skenderaj, former KLA commanders were introduced to the crowd as regional directors of the new corps.
     Serbs have demanded the right to form their own self-defense force because they consider the corps to be the old KLA with a new name and believe the United Nations and NATO have tacitly accepted this.

© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press

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