SERBIA: Ethnic Albanian protesters clash with UN police in Pristina

Kosovo's Albanian leaders stood by UN police action against Albanian protesters in a demonstration that turned violent on Saturday. But Albin Kurti, the head of the 'Self-determination' movement, said they would continue to oppose a UN plan on the fate of the breakaway province and that further protests were inevitable. UN police in Kosovo fired teargas and rubber bullets during clashes on Saturday (February 10) with ethnic Albanians protesting against a UN plan they say falls short of full independence from Serbia. Hospital officials said they had treated 70 people, including four who were seriously wounded. Fourteen people were arrested as Kosovo and UN riot police advanced on hundreds of demonstrators who were hurling stones and bottles. "However this is not an over-reaction by police, it was proportional response to what demonstrators have done during the day," government spokesperson Ulpiana Lama told Reuters Television. "We have said that there is no reason for any protest at all because the processes are going in the right path, in the right direction," she added. The clashes, a repeat of riots in November, underscored Western fears of what the United States described last week as a possible "breakdown in order" if a decision on the Albanian majority's demand for independence does not come soon. A UN plan unveiled this month would, if adopted by the UN Security Council, set the territory on the path to statehood, eight years after NATO bombs drove out Serb forces and the United Nations took control. But some among Kosovo's 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority are angry at the plan's provisions for a powerful European overseer and self-government for the 100,000 remaining Serbs. The protesters called for an independence referendum and rejected talks with Serbia, which in 1998-99 killed 10,000 Albanians and expelled 800,000 in a two-year war with rebels. "Freedom does not come in packages," they chanted, in reference to the plan drafted by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari following months of Serb-Albanian talks in 2006. "Serbs in Kosovo many times blocked the roads and they had no consequence whatsoever but we do. The questions is 'why?', the aim is to return Serbia here and Kosovo into Serbia," said Albin Kurti, leader of the self-determination movement which organised the protest. "Of course we will continue with protests and very soon we have a date for the next protest which will be this month," he added. Serbia opposes the amputation of its medieval heartland, but the Albanians living there reject any return to Serb rule and are impatient to end eight years of UN-imposed limbo. Washington and the European Union back Ahtisaari's blueprint and hope the UN Security Council will adopt it by June. UN veto-holder Russia, however, repeated on Saturday that it would only back a solution that was also acceptable to fellow-Orthodox nation Serbia. Ahtisaari has invited Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians to a final round of talks in Vienna from February 21 and hopes to present the plan to the UN Security Council in late March. The West has already delayed the process twice to avoid radicalising Serbia. Ahtisaari said on Friday he saw no chance of the two sides agreeing, "even if I negotiated all my life". NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer warned against security gaps in Kosovo during a sensitive transfer of policing tasks this year. The United Nations has been reducing its UNMIK police force in Kosovo which is due to be replaced later this year by EU police. Several NATO nations also want to start winding down the alliance's separate 16,000-plus peace force there.

ITN Source | February 11, 2007

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