Czechs hold line in Kosovo

KFOR soldiers defend Serb enclaves against attacks by Albanians

KFOR troops struggle to prevent further clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo.

By Eva Munk
For The Prague Post
(March 25, 2004)


Captain Jindrich Plescher had never seen anything like it.

"We were defending a Serb Orthodox church in the town of Podujevo against a mob of 500 Albanians, but there were too many for us," he recalled. "When they broke through the wall [around the church], we got orders to retreat.

"They smashed everything inside, including our communications center, made a big pile in front and set it on fire. Then they turned their attention to the adjacent Serb cemetery. They knocked over tombstones, dug up the coffins and scattered the bones in them."

For the first time March 21, the professionally optimistic voice of Plescher, press spokesman for the Czech-Slovak KFOR battalion in Kosovo, sounded tired.

"Sorry, we've been on our feet since last week," he said. "Our boys have been rounding up Serb families, pulling them out of cellars and out of burning houses -- saving their lives."

Czech and Slovak soldiers have been supporting KFOR's Brigade center -- a multinational unit consisting of Finnish, Swedish and Irish troops, located around the administrative center of Pristina -- since mobs of ethnic Albanians went on a rampage against Kosovo's Serb minority March 17.

"The Serbs are very happy to see Czech and Slovak troops. They see us as keepers of the peace," Plescher said.

For most of the week, they helped defend Serb enclaves in the towns of Lipljan, Plemetina, Babin Most, Caglavica and Gracanica. By March 21 they had consolidated around the village of Obiliç, a Serb enclave northwest of Pristina, and were evacuating the remaining Serb inhabitants to military headquarters in the city. The Serb homes in the village were ransacked and burned, said unit commander Josef Kopecky.


Albanian rage

In times of peace, the 500-strong Fourth Czech-Slovak KFOR battalion keeps the peace in an area of 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) in the northeast corner of the province, including 104 kilometers (65 miles) of borderland and a long stretch of the Belgrade-Pristina highway. The area was expanded by 179 square kilometers March 22 to include more ethnically mixed villages.

Now their mission is simply to protect Serbs from enraged mobs of ethnic Albanians.

"The residents have gone to war with each other using whatever they can -- iron bars, rifles, handguns and even grenades," Kopecky said March 19. "In Serbian enclaves, Kosovo Albanians are destroying property, burning houses, chasing people away and even lynching them. The Serbs are trying to defend themselves and we are trying to keep them apart."

No Czech or Slovak soldiers have been hurt, except for one Slovak who was hit on the head with a rock, Plescher said. "He was up on his feet again the next day. Please, please tell everyone back home that all our boys are alive and well."

The Czech government had planned to withdraw 100 troops from Kosovo by May 1. But the performance of the Czech soldiers in quelling the riots has made the government change its mind about downsizing the force in the province, Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla told reporters.

FACE TO FACE • Ethnic violence haunts the Serbian province of Kosovo.

The rampage broke out March 17 after two Albanian boys were drowned in the Ibar river, reportedly chased there by Serbs. That event triggered the worst violence the province has seen since 1999. Mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked Serb enclaves and KFOR units, leaving 24 dead and about 850 more wounded, 22 of them seriously.

Mobs razed hundreds of Serb houses and 17 Orthodox churches and monasteries.

Ironically, the riots started days after UN Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno praised evident progress in Kosovo and urged displaced persons to return to their homes.

That hardly seems likely now.

Instead, NATO plans to augment its 17,000-strong presence in the province with 2,000 more troops. UN officials and the commander of NATO forces in Southern Europe, Admiral Gregory Johnson, are now saying the riots appear to have been well-planned and organized.

In Serbia, the violence triggered anti-Albanian protests, and several mosques were burned.

Serbian Foreign Minister Goran Silvanovic said the riots prove that KFOR and UN forces have no real authority in the province and are incapable of protecting Kosovo's minorities.


Independence demand

For their part, Kosovar leaders say the only way to resolve the underlying causes of the conflict is to give the province independence. But European leaders agree that such a move could again destabilize the Balkans -- not to mention what such a move would mean for Kosovo's Serb and Romany minorities.

"Of course they would kill us or drive us out," said Romany journalist Jackie Buzoli.

So far, according to Romany activist and Kosovo correspondent Paul Polansky, the Albanians' rage has bypassed the Roma, who are merely being urged not to help the Serbs.

 

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