NATO Trains Serbs, Ethnic AlbaniansBy George Jahn
Associated Press Writer
Monday, Oct. 18, 1999; 2:57 p.m. EDTPRISTINA, Yugoslavia –– It was an unusual sight in Kosovo: Serbs and ethnic Albanians joined together to pursue a common goal – training to handle civil security and crisis management.
A 16-man team of members of the new Kosovo Protection Corps and a handful of Serbs boarded a plane Monday for a NATO-organized 3½-week study trip to France. The alliance hoped that training the multiethnic group would dispel doubts among the Serbs that the corps is merely the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army in a new guise.
The group, made up of 10 ethnic Albanians, three Serbs, two Bosnian Muslims and a Kosovo Turk, will participate in firefighting, emergency rescue and other training provided by the French Civil Securities, said Maj. Gen. Jean-Claude Thomann of the NATO-led peacekeeping force.
The training is a "trust-building exercise," said Maj. Gen. Jean-Claude Thomann of the NATO-led peacekeeping force. "We want to encourage them to talk to each other."
He said the Serbs within the group had been picked by the Serb leadership in Kosovska Mitrovica, a bitterly divided city in northern Kosovo. More than 100 people were hurt there last week after ethnic Albanians attacked NATO troops and French and Italian police in an attempt to cross into the Serb-held side of the community.
Thomann said the idea was to provide the Serbs in the group with "information on our real and true intent when we created the Kosovo Protection Corps."
Since most prospective members of the corps are former KLA fighters, the Serbs are suspicious of the new organization. NATO and the United Nations, however, say the corps is only meant to assist in civil emergencies and other nonmilitary duties.
"They say they intend to talk to each other," Thomann said of the two hostile ethnic groups on the team.
He conceded, however, that it would be difficult for Serbs and ethnic Albanians to serve together in the aftermath of the 18-month Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanians and the NATO bombing campaign that forced Serb forces out in June.
Miodrag Ralic, one of the three Serbs boarding a French military transport for the flight to France, agreed it was unrealistic to talk of a joint ethnic Albanian-Serb Kosovo Protection force.
"The tensions are just too big," he told reporters. "Maybe in the future, if the hatred and tension becomes much, much lower, and we can work together."
NATO reports Monday from different parts of Kosovo showed that there is still plenty of mistrust and anger.
A Norwegian junior officer received superficial thigh wounds when shots were fired toward a patrol of peacekeepers in southwestern Kosovo Polje, said Maj. Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman.
He said the patrol located two men in brown camouflage clothes and returned fire, probably injuring one. The men managed to escape. The officer was taken to a Norwegian field hospital.
In Pristina, a pre-dawn fire broke out Monday in a compound used by NATO peacekeepers, destroying Kosovo's television building. Three NATO soldiers were slightly injured, NATO spokesmen said. The fire's cause was apparently electrical.
The television building has not been used for broadcasts since Serb forces pulled out of Kosovo in June.© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
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