Calls for calm after Kosovo violence

POLITICAL LEADERS and international forces in Kosovo have called for calm after seven firemen were injured in the second spate of ethnic violence within a week to rock the flashpoint town of Mitrovica.

The firefighters were hurt by a suspected grenade blast as they doused a blaze at two ethnic Albanian-owned shops in Mitrovica, the main town in northern Kosovo.

Police believe local Serbs razed the shop early on Saturday morning, in revenge for an earlier explosion that damaged several cars outside a Serb-owned bar in Mitrovica, where Albanians in the southern half of town often face-off against the Serbs who dominate the northern section.

Ethnic tension in Mitrovica was already high after a Serb teenager was stabbed by two Albanians last week, an attack that prompted hundreds of Serbs to burn down several Albanian shops and damage cars with Kosovo licence plates in the northern part of town.

Serbs in northern Kosovo refuse to accept rule from the capital, Pristina, or its Albanian leaders' declaration of independence last February, which has since been recognised by more than 50 countries. The Serbs have severed ties with the south, take orders only from Belgrade, and reject the EU police mission that is intended to replace UN staff, fuelling fears among Kosovo's 90 per cent Albanian majority that Serbs are seeking partition of the tiny state along ethnic lines.

The UN ran Kosovo after Nato bombing ended a brutal Serb 1998-99 crackdown on Kosovo's separatist rebels, which was followed by vicious reprisals by Albanian gangs against Serbs and Roma. Kosovo's president Fatmir Sejdiu urged his people to "avoid provocation and help the forces of law and order maintain stability". "Such acts of violence, regardless of their authors or what their motives may be, do not contribute to the [well-being] of Kosovo's citizens," he said. Nato's Kfor peacekeeping force and the EU's Eulex mission reinforced their presence in Mitrovica and said "to any kind of threat to the safe and secure environment and freedom of movement, Kfor and Eulex are ready to respond in a strong way".

Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic, visited Mitrovica yesterday and appealed to Kfor and Eulex to "prevent provocations and escalation of conflict by Albanians", adding that "Albanian politicians have to understand that it is not in anyone's interest to further destabilise [Kosovo]".