-Caveat Lector-
>From Wash (DC) Post
{{<Begin>}}
With Few Police to Stop It,Crime Flourishes in Kosovo
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 23, 1999; Page A19
JAZINCE, Yugoslavia—A silver truck with two large trailers pulled up to this
border crossing with Macedonia recently, and Hasan Koshtanjevci leaned out the
window to tell customs officials that he was carrying clothing meant for
destitute ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
But when the two U.N. policemen who patrol the crossing peeked beneath a canvas
tarp at the rear of the truck, they found a Volkswagen Golf and a Mercedes-
Benz, both headed north into the chaotic and crime-ridden environment of post-
war Kosovo. The U.N. police ordered the truck back to Macedonia.
It was one small victory for the nascent police presence at Kosovo's southern
border with Albania and Macedonia, one of the most porous border crossings in
Europe.
U.N. and Western officials say that since NATO's air campaign against
Yugoslavia ended in June, criminals have passed without difficulty into Kosovo
from Albania and Macedonia, smuggling cars, cigarettes, fuel, narcotics and
other goods, much of it bound for Western Europe.
U.N. officials worry that this is fueling an economic crime wave in the Serbian
province. Arrests and detentions by U.N. policemen and NATO peacekeeping troops
for robberies, looting, auto thefts and other crimes are increasing.
"This is a perfect environment for criminals . . . [and] the level of crimes is
at a totally unacceptable level," said Sven Frederiksen, a Danish policeman who
worked on the international police force in Bosnia and recently became the U.N.
police commissioner in Kosovo. "I'm absolutely sure that drugs are flowing into
the province . . . and going on into Europe. I'm quite sure that the big Audis
and Mercedes you see are not all legal."
U.N. officials here have called for doubling the proposed size of the Kosovo
police force to 6,000 officers. They also have requested that the troops in the
NATO peacekeeping force take on more police duties, though senior NATO officers
here have spurned that idea.
In the meantime, U.S. and allied intelligence agencies have dispatched
specialists on organized crime and narcotics trafficking to Kosovo.
"The chaos makes it a ripe and attractive target for smugglers" who were active
in the region well before the war, said a senior U.S. official who visited
Kosovo recently to discuss narcotics and police matters. "The police have not
been setting up good border controls; they've had other things to do."
Small amounts of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methadone have been confiscated
at the border, and two weeks ago U.N. police in Pristina, the Kosovo capital,
for the first time arrested several men with heroin, marijuana and needles in
their possession. The men said they had obtained the drugs in Skopje, the
Macedonian capital.
"The border is a veritable sieve," said Lt. Col. Edward Donnelly, chief of
operations for the U.S.-led military brigade responsible for the southeast
sector of Kosovo, which borders Macedonia. "We know there's organized crime in
Gnijilane," the sector's largest city. But U.S. troops have not seized any
drugs, he said, because "we're not looking for it. We're trained to fight
wars," not patrol borders.
Police statistics suggest that the probability of being caught depends heavily
on where in Kosovo a crime is committed, because the U.N. police force has only
been deployed in Pristina and some NATO forces are more willing than others to
tackle crime.
Within the U.S. sector, for example, 73 ethnic Albanians and 14 Serbs have been
imprisoned for crimes from murder and arson to larceny, looting and reckless
driving, more than in any other Kosovo sector. That compares with 52 people
detained by British forces, 32 by the German and 13 by the Italians.
None of those arrested in Kosovo since the war ended has been brought to trial,
because U.N. officials determined that the criminal laws of Yugoslavia violated
human rights and have yet to draft new ones or create a broader judicial and
prison system. As a result, a group of five ethnic Albanians appointed to an ad
hoc supreme court orders detentions only in the most serious cases. It releases
other suspected criminals pending court appearances that are yet unscheduled.
"We are undermanned, underpowered and underequipped," said Michele Lefebvre, a
veteran Canadian police officer handling homicides in Pristina. "I've seen more
weapons since coming here than in my entire career. You have bread and butter
at home? Well, they have a machine gun."
Lefebvre said that crime investigators "lack any forensic support, and have to
use our own cameras and film--we got nothing from the United Nations. Even
getting decent autopsies is hard--there are no photos taken and no X-rays."
Auto theft investigations are nearly impossible because no car registration and
licensing system exists, although one will be established in mid-December.
Frederiksen said he needs a forensic laboratory, fingerprint equipment,
criminal intelligence experts and the assistance of as many as 1,000
peacekeeping troops and a handful of military helicopters assigned to help
monitor the borders.
Crime is "getting worse at the moment," said Tom Koenygs, the director of civil
administration for the United Nations. "We need more quick reaction police and
investigative police. And we are just at the beginning."
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
{{<End>}}
<<Gee, might it not have been helpful to have some of the original
(Yugoslavian) policing resources available AFTER (if not INSTEAD of) the NEATO
'humanitarian' efforts? Now, its seems as though there exists only the Law of
the Bungle ... oops, Jungle. As one report some time ago stated: Milosevic
gave up control not so much a piece of his territory, but a veritable headache.
Needless to say, Kosovaria is not Kuwait, despite rumours of the 'common'
spiritual focus. A<>E<>R >>
A<>E<>R
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