In response, Washington is calling for the "KFOR" military occupation, led by the U.S.-dominated NATO military alliance, to be boosted. Heavily armed troops are stepping up their policing of this industrial city, located in a mining region.

"We don't have enough troops," said Gen. Wesley Clark, the senior commander of the NATO military alliance on February 23. More than 2,000 soldiers from the armed forces of a number of countries, including the major imperialist powers of Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have been moved to the city.

Clark, who is from the U.S. military, called for 1,800 additional troops and complained that "nations have turned down command requests."

The troops are increasingly taking on policing duties, including the enforcement of a 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. curfew. Two thousand police have also arrived. In interviews, several cops expressed their aggressive attitude. A policeman from Northern Ireland said, "If we had enough police we'd certainly go for a more proactive policy, clamping down on arms and violence." "Sure we can bash heads all day. But then don't ask us to walk a beat and have people's trust," said a cop from Canada

The U.S. forces have constructed observation towers and set up checkpoints and listening posts along the border between Kosova and the rest of Serbia. U.S. tanks now overlook Dobrosin, a village just to the east of Kosova whose residents are majority Albanian.

"Is Mitrovica the preparation for a partition of the province?" wrote Misha Glenny in the February 23 issue of the Wall Street Journal in an opinion piece that spelled out the options facing the imperialists. "Is the West considering exchanging the large Albanian population in Serbia proper for the Serbs of Kosovo?" Reflecting distaste for the area and the working people who populate it, Glenny described Mitrovica as a "malignant tumor fed by Slobodan Milosevic's mischief-making."

The Yugoslav president survived last year's NATO offensive, and his removal remains an express target of Washington's policy.  
 
 
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