SERBIA: Ethnic Albanian protesters clash with police and UN forces in Kosovo

An ethnic Albanian group calling itself "Self-determination" protests, on Saturday (February 10), against the U.N. and ethnic Albanian plan for Kosovo. United Nations police fired tear gas during clashes with ethnic Albanians protesting in the Kosovo capital on Saturday against a U.N. plan on the fate of the breakaway Serbian province. Hospital officials said they had treated at least 20 people, after protesters waving sticks tried to break through a police barricade and were met with tear gas. Reuters reporters saw dozens of people arrested as Kosovo Albanian and U.N. riot police advanced on hundreds of demonstrators who were hurling stones and bottles. A U.N. plan unveiled this month by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari would, if adopted by the U.N. Security Council, set the territory on the path to independence, eight years after NATO bombs drove out Serb forces and the U.N. 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 broad self-government for the areas 100,000 Serbs. Ten thousand Albanians died and almost one million were expelled in Serbia's 1998-99 counter-insurgency war. The protesters were demanding the right to a referendum on independence and rejected negotiations with Serbia, which in turn opposes the amputation of land it has traditionally regarded as its heartland. "Freedom doesn't come in packages," the protesters chanted, in reference to Ahtisaari's 58-page proposal, the result of one year of shuttle diplomacy and fruitless Serb-Albanian talks. Saturday's clashes underscore Western fears of what the United States described last week as a possible "breakdown in order" if a decision on Kosovo is delayed much longer. Washington and the European Union back Ahtisaari's blueprint and hope to adopt it at the U.N. Security Council within months, although the Western powers fear a Serb breakaway bid in the north of the region if Kosovo wins independence. Russia, however, repeated on Saturday it would not back any solution that was not also acceptable to Serbia. Ahtisaari has invited Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians to a final round of talks in Vienna from Feb. 21 and hopes to present a plan to the U.N. Security Council by the end of March. The talks were delayed on Friday (February 9) by one week, the second postponement in the process in three months as Western powers advance cautiously to avoid radicalising Serbia.

ITN Source | February 11, 2007

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