NATO tightens grip on north Kosovo

[yiozik]

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MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) - NATO placed the Kosovo town of Mitrovica under de facto military law on Tuesday after riots by a Serb population hostile to independence killed one U.N. policeman and forced the withdrawal of U.N. 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With U.N. police already withdrawn, the order left French, Belgian and Spanish troops in control of law and order in the northern slice of Kosovo, where Serbs opposed to its February 17 secession from Serbia dominate the population.

"We have not organized martial law," KFOR commander General Xavier Bout de Marnhac told a news conference in the Kosovo capital Pristina. "There is no intent as far as I know for installing it for the time being."

He said Monday's riots had "crossed a red line with the deliberate intent to kill people -- you know Molotov cocktails, fragmentation grenades and direct fire" aimed at U.N. and KFOR personnel.

"We are not going to tolerate that," the general said.

A column of U.S. troops, some in full riot gear, arrived on the south side of Mitrovica on Tuesday "to help out," as one soldier told Reuters. They are based in southeastern Kosovo.

At the main police station, three dozen Kosovo Serb police officers carried their holdalls and flak jackets out past Belgian armored 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. U.N. police have ordered us to stay at home until further notice," Captain Milija Milosevic told Reuters.

A Ukrainian police officer serving with the United Nations died overnight of injuries sustained in the riots. Polish, French and Ukrainian officers were among 42 U.N. police and 22 KFOR soldiers injured.

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.

TENSION AND BARRICADES

Soldiers in armored personnel carriers (APCs) secured key positions in the flashpoint town. 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 U.N. police operation to retake a U.N. court seized three days earlier by Serbs. The unrest has 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 EU hopes to take over from the United Nations in a rule-of-law mission.

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 Pristina. They reject the incoming EU mission as "occupiers."

Backed by powerful ally Russia, Serbia has rejected Kosovo's secession and its recognition by the United States and a majority of the EU's 27 members.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated his government's view that Kosovo's independence amounted to a "gross violation of international law."

"We have warned that this step would inevitably have negative consequences. It happened," he said at a joint news conference with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Moscow.

Rice said: "We do agree that all sides should refrain from violence and that all sides should refrain from any provocation and we are sending messages to all sides."

Serbia has offered to govern the ethnic Serb areas, senior diplomatic sources told Reuters on Tuesday, in a plan that would effectively partition the newly independent state.

The proposal was made at the weekend by Serbia's Minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, but was rejected by Kosovo's United Nations administrators, they said.

The Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group said in a report the EU and NATO would have to send a "clear message" to Serbia and Russia that they would not permit Kosovo to be divided and become "another frozen conflict."

[ursus]

Nato must be stopped somewhere. Russia and Serbia must stand firm. The stake here are not just about Kosovo, it is about the perpetuation of the American military occupation of Europe since 1945, the erasure of borders, the blending and mixing of races , the elimination of sovereign states, and the establishment of their "new world order" . Now with Nato spearheading the thrust, the virtual envelopment of the balkans is on their sights ,which can well serve as a launching pad for their aggression towards the east. The Americans-Nato-Israeli axis of evil are extending their stranglehold on the east of the continent. Unfortunately Greece is also in harm's way and sooner or later we will find ourselves swept in the maelstrom these pariahs are preparing for their banqueting feast in blood and iron. Muslims statelets in the west, and the oafish Turk on the east, we will be squeezed in a pincer embrace. Let's hope that the Serbs show their mettle and do not let these animals walk over them, and the rest of us.

[Prokomenos]

Im pretty sure Russia is going to intervene. Its all just a matter of time.