Ethnic Albanians Continue to Block Access to Town for Russian Troops

Rejecting NATO demands, ethnic Albanians refused to lift their blockade against Russian peacekeepers Tuesday, warning that Moscow’s forces will “only destabilize the situation.”

Using trucks, tractors and trailers to block twisting mountain roads into this divided town, ethnic Albanians blocked Russian peacekeepers from replacing Dutch soldiers who are scheduled to withdraw in a few weeks.

Russian, Dutch and German officers met with a four-member ethnic Albanian delegation Tuesday to demand that they move the mile-long traffic jam that clogged the main road into Orahovac. The Albanians refused and rejected a proposal for joint Dutch-Russian patrols.

“We told them the Russians will only destabilize the situation,” protest leader Agim Hasku said. “The Russians can be sent where there were no massacres committed by Russians. Why station them here, where so many crimes were committed by Russians?”

Several thousand residents manned the barricades under a hot summer sun, waving signs written in Albanian, German and English. Some read: “Russians killed us,” “NATO No Russians” and “We are UCK,” using the Albanian abbreviation for the Kosovo Liberation Army.

“We will stay here until the Russians grow tired of insisting and give up,” said 53-year-old Ismet Bugari.

In the Serbian quarter, several hundred Orahovac Serbs rallied in support of the Russians, shouting “Serbia, Serbia, we want Russians! We won’t give up the Russians, KLA out!”

Local Albanians claim Russian mercenaries fought with the Serbs during an 18-month crackdown on Kosovo separatists, which ended when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepted an international peace plan after 78 days of NATO bombing.

The Albanians and the peacekeepers agreed to meet again today. Dutch Lt. Col. Tony van Loon said peacekeepers had decided against using force to clear the blockades.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman James B. Foley said officials expect the situation to be resolved with the Russian troops taking over operations in Orahovac.

“The fact is that we believe that Russian troops will act evenhandedly, they will fulfill their mandate in Orahovac, just as they have done elsewhere in Kosovo,” he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, scores of young men and women walked along the blockades, selling food and drinks. Some protesters set up beach umbrellas against the blazing sun.

NATO and the United Nations are struggling to overcome deep ethnic hatred between Kosovo’s Serb and Albanian communities, which speak different languages, practice different religions and have separate cultures.

Kosovo’s dwindling Serbian population trusts Russians--fellow Slavs--more than NATO to protect them from ethnic Albanians seeking revenge for atrocities committed during Milosevic’s crackdown.

In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry denounced the blockade as an “open challenge” to the international community and Moscow’s participation in the Kosovo peacekeeping force. Russia’s deputy defense minister, Alexander Avdeyev, said it was up to the NATO-led peacekeeper command to sort out the problem.

A spokesman for the Serbian community, Jovan Durisic, said Serbs were insisting on Russian protection “because we are prisoners in our own country” and under attack by ethnic Albanians.

NATO’s bombing campaign stopped Serbian atrocities against ethnic Albanians, but 40,000 NATO and Russian soldiers have not been able to stop ethnic Albanians from attacking Serbs, Gypsies and other minorities.

In Geneva, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees warned Tuesday that a “Serb-free Kosovo” could soon be the result since only 30,000 Serbs remain of the province’s prewar Serbian population of 200,000.

“We are pretty much approaching the line of a Serb-free Kosovo, which is an extremely sad phenomenon,” said spokesman Kris Janowski. “The terrible scenario that we warned against of one exodus following the other is happening.”