U.N. Condemns Albanian Hate Crimes Against Serbs

International officials censured Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians on Friday for becoming the oppressors of their former Serbian tormentors and using the same “disgusting tactics” that were once used against them.

In a report released Friday, the United Nations and other international organizations involved in rebuilding Kosovo--a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic--condemned growing anti-Serb violence, saying Albanian revenge attacks remain a worry a year after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s air war to end a crackdown against ethnic Albanians.

In a report issued on the eve of the first anniversary of the U.N. mission, Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that continued international involvement in Kosovo depended on the cooperation of all sides to bring peace and security.

“An upsurge of vicious attacks on Kosovo Serbs in several areas has undermined Serb confidence in the future,” Annan said. “The international community did not intervene in Kosovo to make it a haven for revenge and crime.”

But the chief U.N. administrator in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, said Friday that it would take years for Serbs and Albanians to live together peacefully.

“The history of the Balkans involves centuries and centuries of difficulties,” he said in New York. “We will need . . . 10 years of a United Nations presence there . . . to see change in people’s minds.”

Kouchner spoke after briefing the Security Council on the accomplishments and shortcomings of the U.N. administration in Kosovo, launched June 10, 1999.