U.N. Officials Say Serbia Fomenting Problems
By Nicholas Wood
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, June 22, 2002; Page A13
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia -- Sitting at a roadside table in a hot summer
sun, two Serb men dig into a meal of bread, cabbage and a bottle of beer. But
it's not just a leisurely lunch. The men have two-way radios sticking out of
their pockets, and, a bit down the road, a roll of razor wire blocks passage to
a bridge. The men are members of "the bridge watchers," a Serb gang whose primary task
is to prevent ethnic Albanians from crossing the river from the south of this
divided city to the Serb-dominated north. Their unchallenged presence three years after the United Nations took control
of Kosovo from withdrawing Serb forces is one of many signs that the U.N.
administration has failed to establish the rule of law in much of the province
and to begin building a multi-ethnic society. In few places are continuing divisions more apparent than in Mitrovica. The
bridge watchers turn out daily and have taken part in assaults by mobs on
NATO-led peacekeeping troops. At the same time, ethnic Albanians have continued
attacks on the province's Serb minority, bottling them up as virtual prisoners
in enclaves such as northern Mitrovica. Wary of taking casualties and triggering violence, peacekeepers and police
often take pains to avoid confrontation with hostile groups, particularly the
city's Serbs, many of whom view the United Nations as an occupying force. "The U.N. is failing to live up to its mandate and establish security in the
north of Mitrovica," said Robert Curis, regional representative of the European
Center for Minority Issues, a research organization. "This is affecting
communities throughout Kosovo, and polarizing the different ethnic groups." NATO bombed Kosovo, a province of Serbia, and other parts of the republic in
1999 to end a crackdown by the Serb security forces on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian
majority, many of whom were backing the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army. U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1244, passed as the Serb army withdrew from Kosovo,
established the U.N. mission in Kosovo as the sole government authority in the
province. But now U.N. officials say the Serbian government is contributing to the
problems of division by illegally funding a range of separate government
organizations in Serb areas of Kosovo. These include courts and a force of at
least 200 plainclothes police, according to the U.N. officials, in addition to
clinics and schools. "This must stop," said Michael Steiner, head of the U.N. administration,
known formally as the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo. "We cannot
accept that there are structures that are not legitimate [administration]
structures, and their personnel are financed from Belgrade." Steiner said these
"parallel structures" are helping split the province into two. Serbia, the dominant republic of Yugoslavia, is funding these institutions
even as it pleads poverty in seeking aid from the International Monetary Fund
and World Bank, U.N. officials say. That has prompted accusations that the newly
democratic republic routinely cooperates with the outside world while working to
undermine its work in Kosovo. U.N. officials contend that by creating parallel structures, the Serbian
government hopes to solidify divisions and complicate any future political
discussions that might give Kosovo full independence. In an interview in Washington, a Serbian deputy prime minister, Nebojsa
Covic, denied that Serbia sponsors bridge watchers or other security agents in
Kosovo or that it has sent in plainclothes police. He confirmed that Serbia
supports about 1,500 education workers and 2,000 health workers in Serb areas of
Kosovo, saying it did so because the United Nations declined to take them on
after it took control in 1999. The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research group, estimated in
a recent report that the Serbian government is spending more than $50 million a
year on parallel government in Kosovo. Covic denied trying to split the province. He said that "Serbs must be
integrated into the structures of the U.N.," but that in the meantime they need
government services and protection from Albanians. Most of the province's Serb majority fled Kosovo at the war's end, but a
determined few remain. The United Nations has encouraged their presence, saying
it wants a multi-ethnic society. But Serbs view the world body as unwilling to
protect them from Albanians -- roughly 600 Serbs have been reported missing
since the United Nations arrived. U.N. police in Mitrovica acknowledge that the bridge watchers and men that
U.N. officials call plainclothes police of Serbia's Interior Ministry exercise
greater authority than the world body in the Serb-populated north of Kosovo. On a typical day, U.N. police officers can be seen on patrol in northern
Mitrovica in their familiar red and white four-wheel-drive vehicles. But once
they step out of their cars, they say, there is not much they can do. Routine
tasks such as investigations and document checks are largely out of the
question, out of fear of setting off violence. "The bridge guards see themselves as the local police, and at the moment,
they have more control than we do," said Duncan Patel, a police officer from
Northern Ireland who is on temporary assignment as commander of northern
Mitrovica's U.N. police station. "You just let the bridge gang get their way.
They control Mitrovica." They screen traffic crossing the Ibar river, sometimes stopping drivers and
checking ID cards. U.N. police accuse them of extorting money from shopkeepers.
The group's leaders describe the money as donations. They maintain high-ranking positions in local Serb society. Two men,
appointed by Covic as representatives of Serbia to the United Nations in
Mitrovica, describe themselves as senior bridge watchers. One of them, Marko Jaksic, said in an interview that the group has
successfully defended the local population from Albanian militants. He denies it
targets people just for being non-Serbs. "You have many minorities living in the
north, such as Romas [gypsies] and Bosniaks [Muslim Slavs]," he said, unlike in
southern Mitrovica, which is now solidly Albanian. At the same time, U.N. police officers and residents said, Serbian Interior
Ministry police operate out of a passport office on Mitrovica's King Peter
Street. By this account, they regularly arrest Serbs and take them to court
across the boundary to parts of Serbia governed from Belgrade. One Serb judge, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was strong
support for such measures among the local population. "I will be a traitor if I
report a criminal to [U.N.] police. But if officers from the Serbian police go
and take him across the boundary, we say, 'Okay, that's good. Somebody has
cleared the garbage off the street.' " On April 8, 26 U.N. policemen, including five Americans, were injured after
they came under attack by a crowd throwing grenades and firing AK-47 rifles. The
clashes erupted after police attempted to set up a traffic checkpoint, and then
arrested a leading member of the bridge watchers when he tried to intervene. Sometimes, members of the U.N. administration complain that they get little
help from NATO-led peacekeepers. Pete Karlewicz, a paramedic from Savannah, Ga., said French peacekeeping
troops stood by and did nothing as he and his colleagues came under fire on
April 8. "We were working in an armored vehicle, and one of them [a rioter] with
an AK-47 fired a shot directly at the driver. He was aiming to miss the
[armored] plate on his bulletproof vest. It doesn't get any tighter than
that." Since the incident in April, the U.N. administration has tried to reassert
its authority in the north. U.N. police and NATO peacekeepers have stepped up
joint patrols. The arrests of prominent bridge watchers are promised. More critical, perhaps, are negotiations over the creation of a local Serb
police force under U.N. auspices, which Covic said he favors. He noted that
ethnic Albanians who served in the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war have
been allowed to join the police in Albanian areas but said that the United
Nations has been unwilling to do the same for Serbs who served in the old
Yugoslav police. "The approach is that all the Serbs are war criminals," Covic
said. Steiner said the end of the divisions in Mitrovica will ultimately depend on
a political agreement with the Serbian government to end its financing of
agencies in Kosovo. "I think I have some signals that there is some
understanding" on this in Belgrade, he said. "I hope that the promises we have
received . . . will come through."
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