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Vol.64/No.8      February 28, 2000 
 
 
NATO troops in Kosova kill one, arrest 46  
 
 
BY PATRICK O'NEILL  
The U.S.-led NATO occupation force in Kosova (KFOR) deployed tanks, armored personnel carriers, and helicopters as soldiers went door-to-door in Mitrovica on February 14. Troops from Denmark, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy were involved. French forces killed one man of Albanian origin and arrested 46 people, 45 of them Albanians.

"The robust response of KFOR soldiers is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our determination to protect our forces," said Lord Robertson, the secretary-general of NATO. "You may well see more arrests in the following days," said Mario Morcone, the United Nations administrator in this industrial city in the northwest of Kosova. United Nations officials have brought in foreign judges to try those arrested.

The repression followed a fire-fight that involved Albanian, Serbian, and KFOR forces in the city.

The UN Security Council established the KFOR "peace-enforcement force," as it is officially dubbed, in June of last year. The move followed NATO's air war against the workers state of Yugoslavia, which targeted the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade. That assault lasted 78 days and wreaked massive damage on industry, infrastructure, and housing in Serbia and Kosova. During the war, Serb paramilitary forces, as well as special military forces of the Milosevic regime, brutally expelled more than half of Kosova's Albanian population. Thousands of Kosova Serbs who disagreed with Belgrade's "ethnic cleansing" campaign fled as well.

Through the offensive Washington reinforced its dominance over its imperialist rivals in Europe--especially Paris and Berlin. The KFOR occupation force now numbers some 42,500 troops, with another 7,500 based in Macedonia, Albania, and Greece.

After the bombing campaign, Mitrovica was partitioned by the occupying forces. KFOR troops now patrol barricades at the bridge over the Ibar River, which forms a divide between 9,000 Serbs to the north and around 90,000 Albanians to the south.

During February, several people died in clashes involving forces from the two nationalities. An Albanian community in the Serb area has been the scene of much of the fighting. The mineral resources in the region where the city is located raise the stakes for all would-be exploiters. For example, Washington is pushing for the swift privatization of the rich Trepca mine. Serbian people living in Mitrovica staged protests on September 26 last year after NATO forces confiscated their weapons.

"There is only one KFOR," said Klaus Rehardt, the German general who commands this force. Tensions in the occupation force around the Mitrovica events belied his words. Some 150 British troops of the Royal Green Jackets were shifted from central Kosova on February 10 to replace French troops on the Mitrovica bridge.

"I think it is widely understood," said a spokesperson for the British forces, "that the British have experience of patrolling urban areas and in dealing with civil unrest.... Most of our men have been in Northern Ireland in the not-too-distant past." The French and British command reportedly argued about the numbers to be assigned, a "hint perhaps of injured French pride," as the New York Times put it delicately.

Officers in the UN police force also claimed that the French troops had "walked off and left us" when they were forced to retreat in clashes with Serb residents of Mitrovica. One representative of the Albanian community said on February 14, in contrast, that the French KFOR troops "are as bad as the Serb soldiers."

The Green Jackets were shifted from the Multinational Brigade Center commanded by officers from London's armed forces. Other areas of the occupation are commanded by Italian, German, French, and U.S. officers. The events in Mitrovica show that these imperialist forces will clash more directly with working people in the region the longer the occupation--and partition--of Kosova lasts.  
 
 
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