Kosovo Albanians Blamed for Violence

By Jamie Lyons, Political Correspondent, PA News

Militant ethnic Albanians were accused today of orchestrating the outbreak of violence in Kosovo.

More than 30 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the worst bloodshed since the war in 1999, which left Kosovo as a United Nations-administered province.

The violence began last week when ethnic Albanians in the city went on the rampage after blaming local Serbs for the drowning of three children, and quickly spread across the province.

But western diplomatic sources said today there was an element of orchestration as well as opportunism to the violence.

“Our best assessment at the moment is that a number of things came together on the ground,” said a source.

“By the time the incident happened with the Albanian children, tempers were pretty high. A couple of people exploited that and probably deliberately said they had been chased into the river by Serbs.

“The violence very quickly erupted. The best analysis we have at the moment is that there is a mixture in that of both opportunism and orchestration.”

The sources said they did not know specifically who had orchestrated the violence. But others have pointed the finger at militants from the ethnic Albanian community – in particular, the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army.

The attacks were concentrated on Serb areas in central Kosovo. By forcing the Serbian population to move north, the attackers are making it easier to partition Kosovo in the future.

All mainstream politicians oppose the idea of partition, which could have devastating effects for all of the region's neighbours.

It would also represent the undoing of everything the international community has tried to do in the past five years.

The western diplomatic sources said the situation was now under control, with the help of British troops, and it had not killed off the ultimate aim of many to see an independent Kosovo.

“It was moving in the right direction before this and it still can move in the right direction,” a source said.