Division of Kosovo City Spotlights Key Issue Now Facing the Province

Niman Nimani, a onetime village school principal, spent two years fighting Serbs as a Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla.

So when he sees that ethnic Albanians today are still not safe in the Serbian-dominated section of this divided city in northern Kosovo province, to him that means Kosovska Mitrovica is not yet free.

Nimani is sure the de facto partition of Kosovo--divided here at the Ibar River into a Serbian north and ethnic Albanian south--will not last. “There will be no partition,” he said. “Even if the international community allows such a partition, people here won’t allow it.”

Such sentiments--widespread among the ethnic Albanians in this province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic--and a recent wave of violence here have brought the question of Kosovo’s territorial unity to center stage as the key issue facing international authorities and local residents.

Left unresolved, the division of Kosovo into hostile regions could mean that the United States and its allies have won the war only to eventually lose the peace, many here say.

Across the Ibar River in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, where local Serbs have been joined since summer by thousands of Serbian families fleeing revenge attacks in ethnic Albanian-dominated areas of Kosovo, men like Nimani are still seen as terrorists.

Ethnic Tensions Erupt Anew

Ethnic tensions exploded in a fresh round of violence when a bus carrying Serbs was attacked Feb. 2 and two passengers were killed. The unsolved assault was followed the next day by a night of violence in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, still home to some ethnic Albanians who have refused to abandon their apartments.

The bloody night saw a grenade attack on a Serbian cafe that left 15 people injured and violence against ethnic Albanians committed by roaming gangs of armed men that left eight dead, according to international authorities. That was followed by two days of demonstrations in southern Kosovska Mitrovica against French peacekeepers, whom rock-throwing protesters claimed had failed to protect ethnic Albanians in the northern section of the city.

In a statement issued Thursday, German Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, commander of the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo, defended the actions of the French soldiers but noted that they were new to the city.

“They were placed in a particularly difficult situation over the night of Feb. 3-4 as this was the new contingent’s first night on the streets,” Reinhardt said. “Indeed, some have speculated that this was not a coincidence. I have no doubt that they did their best in very difficult circumstances.”

At a rally Monday of about 2,000 Serbs in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, Serbian leaders praised what they described as a defensive response to attacks by predominantly Muslim ethnic Albanians.

“I want to thank you for what you did a few evenings ago when you showed in the best way how much you love your city, how much this town can be defended from Muslim terrorism,” declared Vuko Antonjevic, president of the city’s branch of the Serb National Council, the leading organization of Kosovo’s Serbs. “In the best way you responded--a real Serb response.”

Authorities Seek More Control in the North

Spurred by the sense of crisis, top international civilian and military authorities attempting to govern Kosovo are taking steps to assert control in northern Kosovo more firmly than has been done so far.

The Serbian-dominated part of Kosovo lies in the sector controlled by the French contingent of KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force that has been stationed in the province since Yugoslav forces were driven out in June after 78 days of North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrikes. Many Serbs feel that the French are the only members of the NATO contingent that treat them fairly, while many ethnic Albanians see the French as pro-Serb.

As part of the new effort to improve security in northern Kosovska Mitrovica, German, British and Dutch troops are being assigned to support the French, said U.N. mission chief Bernard Kouchner in an interview Wednesday.

“We are reinforcing the checkpoints,” Kouchner said. “We are reinforcing mobile and mixed patrols [of] U.N. civic police and KFOR, guarding the people, certainly in the triangle where the Albanians are living, and [instituting] strict control of the boundaries to Mitrovica” from the main part of Serbia.

Kouchner, who is French, disagreed with ethnic Albanian complaints blaming French soldiers for failing to control the recent violence here.

“I blame the people who are not understanding that we won the war and we are going to lose the peace if they continue not giving attention in good time,” Kouchner said.

Kouchner cited a lack of funds in his budget to pay public workers’ salaries on time and the failure of the international community to provide anything close to the authorized number of U.N. police officers. There are only 2,056 officers here, compared with an authorized force of 4,718 and a request last year by Kouchner for 6,000.

While insisting that stronger financial support from the countries that backed last year’s NATO bombing campaign is essential to consolidate peace in Kosovo, Kouchner also said he believes that the recent violence in Kosovska Mitrovica was a direct response by extremists to recent U.N. successes here.

Kouchner noted that the Kosovo Liberation Army has disarmed and disbanded and that ethnic Albanian political leaders have dissolved unofficial governmental organizations and joined in the U.N.-led administration. He also said that until the recent violence, Serbian community representatives led by Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije were on the verge of rejoining the U.N. governing effort.

Radicals on both sides of the ethnic divide want to torpedo this progress, Kouchner said.

Many people say the real battle in Kosovska Mitrovica is for territory. In this view, the issue is whether Serbia will permanently control at least a piece of the province where ethnic Albanians--despite U.N. discouragement--hope to gain independence from Serbia.

A related point is whether ethnic Albanians or Serbs will control the Trepca mines, which produce silver, gold, lead and zinc and are seen by many as one of Kosovo’s key economic assets. The mines, located near Kosovska Mitrovica, are currently split between Serbian and ethnic Albanian control, and are almost entirely shut down.

Fear that Kosovo’s integrity is at risk is a major factor slowing the acceptance of democratic norms by former fighters of the KLA, which disbanded in September. And if the province is partitioned, allowing the Yugoslav army to return to the north, a possibly independent Kosovo would always face the threat of being easily overrun by Serbian forces because natural defensive positions afforded by Kosovo’s current boundaries would be lost.

“The formal border is in fact a natural border, which is created by the mountains, and it can be defended in a very efficient way,” said Milazim Krasniqi, a spokesman for the Democratic League of Kosovo, which is headed by longtime pacifist leader Ibrahim Rugova. “God forbid the border to be there where the Serbs now want to put it. All Kosovo would be in danger.”

A sense among many ethnic Albanians that the fighting may not be over is one factor distracting attention from U.N. plans to hold local elections, and possibly a vote for a Kosovo-wide parliamentary body, in September or October.

“Mitrovica is a crossroads--for Albanians, Serbs, the international community and the Kosovo issue in general,” said Behlul Becaj, a political analyst associated with Hashim Thaci and other KLA leaders. Thaci is a top contender to lead a future autonomous or independent Kosovo.

“Mitrovica is the biggest example that the mentality of expansionism of the Serbs is not over yet, and Mitrovica is the biggest obstacle to democratizing life in Kosovo,” Becaj said. “As long as Mitrovica is in that situation, nobody has the moral authority to say to Mr. Thaci, ‘You have to democratize.’ Radical opponents can say to him, ‘How can we democratize when you have Mitrovica around your neck?’ ”

If Serbs are not willing to compromise on a political solution to Kosovska Mitrovica, then there will be a “nonpolitical” solution, Becaj said. “How it will go, I don’t know,” he said. “But victims will be there for sure, because this is the logic of nonpolitical acts.”