Kosovo blast KLA's attempt to put pressure on Vienna talks - Serbian paper

BBC Monitoring Europe (Political) - February 23, 2007, Friday

 

Text of report by B. Mitrinovic: "The return to KLA terrorism" by Serbian newspaper Politika on 21 February

 

The negotiating teams from Belgrade and Pristina will begin their talks in Vienna today on the proposed solutions offered by UN Kosovo Status Envoy Martti Ahtisaari with the knowledge that the Kosovo Liberation Army [KLA] has been reactivated in Kosovo-Metohija.

 

The members of the organization that embarked on a war for Kosovo's independence about 10 years ago caused a bomb blast in the centre of Pristina that damaged three UNMIK [UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo] vehicles two nights ago.

 

This act of terrorism against the representatives of the international community in Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija] was obviously a calculated message from Pristina to the people participating in the Vienna talks on the future status of Kosovo, which Ahtisaari has assessed as "giving one more chance." The terrorist attack was a grim reminder to Serbia of the pressure that was made against Serbia's negotiating position on 17 March 2004, when the Kosovo Albanians organized riots that resulted in 19 people getting killed, 4,500 being banished, and 35 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries burned down.

 

In a statement in which they assumed responsibility for the bomb attack, the members of the KLA - which was formally disbanded after the fighting had stopped although the majority of its members went over into the Kosovo Protection Force - said yesterday that they would "avenge every injustice that would be done to the people." They described their terrorist act as a sign of revenge for the killing of two demonstrators and the wounding of 80 Kosovo Albanians in the recent demonstrations staged by the Self-Determination Movement. This movement, headed by Albin Kurti, protested because Ahtisaari's plan did not call for an independent Kosovo right away.

 

The similarities with the violence of three years ago do not end here. Then as well as now they used the same argumentation in order to step up the adoption of independence under threat of violence and terrorism, and then as well as now, the international officials justified their haste with the ominous hostility that could not easily be kept under control.

 

Last Friday in the US Congress Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the negotiators would be facing a difficult issue and would have to work on the ways to avoid an "explosion."

 

"We do not want the last piece of the puzzle of uniting Europe along democratic principles to blow up on the issue of Kosovo," Rice said.

 

Yesterday's message sent by the unexpectedly "revived" OVK wants to stir up such fears. The international forces in Kosovo know they are safe in Kosovo only for as long as the Albanians are extending them their hospitality. "The aim of these explosions was to destroy the UNMIK vehicles, not to cause human casualties, as the UNMIK Police did (during the Self-Determination demonstrations)," the statements issued by the terrorists said.

 

The two-day violence of the Kosovo Albanians in 2004, when their rage towards the Serbs spilled over and turned on the Kfor troops, compelled UN Secretary General Kofi Anan's special envoy for Kosovo Kai Eide to inform the UN Secretary General that "prolonging the uncertain status of Kosovo should not be an option, in other words, the temporary status of the Kosovo institutions should be terminated and its status should be resolved." Haste in resolving the Kosovo problem was at that time also expressed by US Under Secretary Nicholas Burns, who said that "the people of Kosovo deserve to know what their future will be."

 

Today this sentence is not used only by civil servants in the US Administration, but it is also one of the arguments used by UN Kosovo Status Envoy Martti Ahtisaari and his deputy Albert Rohan, who themselves give the talks in Vienna virtually no chance at all.

 

In an interview to the Vienna tabloid Kurier, two days before the start of the negotiations, Rohan announced that there was "little likelihood" of the talks leading to a compromise.

 

"There is no realistic alternative to the UN proposal, and the continuation of the current situation is impossible," Rohan said and concluded that "without a plan for the future of Kosovo, the two opposing sides would almost inevitably bring the situation to a destabilization of Kosovo, creating disorder that could potentially jeopardize the entire region."

 

And so the same protagonists used the same formulation and identical methods so as to express dissatisfaction with the slowness of making the necessary decisions. Seeing as how the Western powers have reacted to the Albanian frustrations in the past, yesterday's statement made by the Chief of the US Office in Pristina Tina Kaidanow that "violence of any sort, whether aimed at international organizations, ethnic communities or political groups, will endanger the status process" does not seem very convincing.

 

Source: Politika, Belgrade, in Serbian 21 Feb 07