Kosovo force hailed as new step towards "liberation"
AFP, Oct 16, 1999
New Kosovo Police Officers Graduate
AP Oct. 16, 1999

 
Kosovo force hailed as new step towards "liberation"

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Oct 16 (AFP) - Kosovo's new protection force was hailed Saturday as a new step toward the province's independence from Yugoslavia by a former political chief of Kosovar Albanian rebels.
     "You represent the future, the security, peace, democratisation and the total liberation of Kosovo," Hashim Thaci told a "graduation" ceremony for the force.
     Thaci, formerly political leader of the now-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, was not expected at the ceremony, but was invited onto the podium by Nuredin Ibishi, another former KLA commander.
     The crowd of predominantly ethnic Albanian recruits, who stood up when he entered the room, applauded his comments.
     Thaci, who presides over the provisional government formed in February 1998, has in the past suggested he sees this force as an embryo for a future army.
     UN Kosovo administrator Bernard Kouchner told the new graduates: "You are the symbol of the break with intolerance that has dominated Kosovo for too long."
     The officers are to get final training from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) before beginning patrol duties alongside United Nations police officers in two weeks' time.
     Once out in the field, they will be armed only with telescopic batons. For the first five months' they will be on traffic duty with UN colleagues.
     After that, they will shadow UN police on normal duties for six months. The OSCE plans is to have each Kosovar officer accompanied by two UN personnel.
     The force was created as part of an international plan to demilitarise KLA rebels. It is supposed to consist of all of the province's ethnic groups but is predominantly ethnic Albanian.
     The first graduating class comprises 173 new police officers -- including eight Serbs, three Bosnians, three Roms and three Turks. There are 39 women.
     The UN officers, with their distinctive red and white cars, have made up the only police in the province since the international force moved in last June.
     Although it was originally planned to deploy 3,000 officers, only 1,700 of them are actually on the ground.
     Nearly 19,000 Kosovars applied to be trained for the new police force. The next intake will start their nine weeks of training on November 21.
     The OSCE is aiming to train 6,500 Kosovar police officers over the next two years.

Copyright © 1999 AFP

 
New Kosovo Police Officers Graduate

By George Jahn
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, Oct. 16, 1999; 1:08 p.m. EDT

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia –– The first cadets to graduate from Kosovo's new police academy received their diplomas Saturday and heard an admonition from their class leader to fight crime without regard for personal or ethnic interests.
     "The Kosovo police will be the protector of human rights and will fight against any type of crime or corruption," the class leader, Nuredin Ibishi, a former Kosovo Liberation Army officer, told the 173 graduates in the ceremony, a symbol of international attempts to bring normality to Kosovo.
     Ibishi said the tragic experience with the Serbian police force should make the new officers aware of their responsibility to treat all the province's citizens with respect and fairness.
     "There will never again be deportations, massacres or rapes by uniformed men," Ibishi said. "This will be a police which will respect the law, and above everything, will respect the human factor."
     The graduates, wearing blue uniforms with the insignia "Kosovo Police Service," received their certificates from Bernard Kouchner, the U.N. administrator in the province. The group, mostly ethnic Albanians, included 39 women, eight Serbs, three Bosnians and three Turks.
     "With you lies a real possibility to break with the past, from the hardship and intolerance that has prevailed for too long in Kosovo," Kouchner told the graduates.
     Training began Sept. 7. The average age of the graduates is 33 years, the youngest being 20 and the oldest 46. Many of the new officers have a military background.
     The ceremony, attended by families, international officials and Kosovo political leaders, was held in the sports center of the University of Pristina. Also present were Hashim Thaci, political chief of the officially disbanded KLA, and Rexhep Selimi, the minister for public order in the KLA-backed provisional administration.
     The ceremony came a day after violence erupted in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica when ethnic Albanians tried to force their way across a bridge to the Serb side of town, leaving more than 100 people injured.
     Braving a shower of stones, French-led peacekeepers used tear gas and percussion grenades Friday to drive back hundreds of ethnic Albanians.
     The town was quiet Saturday, and there were plenty of NATO soldiers and police officers guarding the bridge.
     Most of those injured Friday were ethnic Albanian demonstrators hurt by the percussion grenades and tear gas. Two Danish U.N. soldiers and five police officers were wounded, but none of the injuries were serious, NATO spokesmen said.
     Kosovska Mitrovica's Albanians say they are being kept from their homes, schools and a mine in the Serb part of town by the NATO forces. However, allowing them to cross would spark far greater violence, the peacekeeping forces say.

© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press

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