SERBIA:UNITED NATIONS officials have blamed Serb leaders and police for this week's deadly riots in Kosovo, as Belgrade railed against several neighbouring countries for recognising the independence of the fledgling state.
After a Ukrainian officer serving with UN police died of injuries sustained in Monday's clashes in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Larry Rossin, deputy UN administrator for Kosovo, said the violence was "orchestrated".
Referring to the UN courthouse in Mitrovica, seized by Serbs last Friday and stormed by UN police on Monday, sparking the riots, Mr Rossin said Serb leaders in Belgrade and northern Kosovo had failed to use "their undoubted influence to persuade the occupiers of the buildings to leave".
"Of the 40 or so people occupying the building, some were identified as Serbian ministry of interior officers," he added.
Plainclothes Serb police became prominent in Mitrovica before the February 17th declaration of independence by Kosovo's government in Pristina, capital of the 90 per cent ethnic-Albanian state. It is not clear who is controlling them in Kosovo, but Serbia's interior ministry is led by allies of nationalist prime minister Vojislav Kostunica, and elements of its staff have in the past been accused of helping war crimes fugitives to evade arrest.
Western diplomats and think tanks say Serb officials have plans to divide Kosovo along ethnic lines and allow Belgrade to govern in Serb-dominated regions. "Nationalist politicians in Belgrade hope at the very least to secure partition in Serb and Albanian areas," said the International Crisis Group.
"While Serbia has a strategy to divide Kosovo, the international community doesn't have a clearly defined and co-ordinated response."
On a visit to Mitrovica, Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, told crowds that Belgrade would protect them, and he failed to denounce the violence against UN police. The Ukrainian officer who died succumbed to blood loss because gunfire delayed his evacuation to hospital.
The UN police mission started returning to Mitrovica yesterday, after pulling out during the riots and leaving Nato peacekeepers to restore order. The town, in which the Ibar river divides Serb and Albanian districts, was still tense in the context of an angry political response from Belgrade to recognition of Kosovo's independence by Serbia's neighbours, Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria.
The three countries admitted to fearing violent retribution against assets and personnel in Serbia, following riots that killed one person and set light to the US embassy in Belgrade last month.
The Croatian mission in Belgrade was closed behind new steel shutters. Some Bulgarian families had left Serbia on safety grounds and there were warnings of possible reprisals against the 300,000 Hungarians who live in the northern Serb province of Vojvodina.
"Every country that decides to recognise the illegal state of Kosovo violates international law . . . cannot count on good relations with us," said Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic.
Thirty-three countries have now recognised Kosovo's sovereignty, including 18 of the EU's 27 members.
