Recent Violence In Kosovo Shook UN Mission 'To Its Core',
Security Council ToldAlthough the recent wave of violence
shook the United Nations mission in Kosovo "to its
foundations," it aimed to root out and punish the
perpetrators while remaining resolute in its task to help
prepare the province for self-governance, the UN's senior
envoy in the province told the Security Council today.
In
his first briefing to the Council since a spate of
ethnically-motivated violence rocked the province in
mid-March, Harri Holkeri, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's
Special Representative and head of the UN Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), said that in the
wake of this "serious setback," the Mission was questioning
whether its response had been adequate, and whether it had
done enough to prevent it.
"The violence has forced us at
UNMIK to take a long hard look at ourselves," he said,
recalling the incident in which 19 people were killed and
nearly 1,000 injured over days of rioting. Hundreds of homes
and centuries-old Serbian cultural sites were razed or
burned, and some 4,000 people were displaced in just two
days.
The speed with which the unrest spread had
overwhelmed the ability of the Kosovo international force
(KFOR) and UNMIK security forces to respond, Mr. Holkeri
said. The mission had no means to augment its security
forces, and KFOR was not reinforced until after the violence
ended. The Mission had since been reviewing operational
procedures and coordination in responding to crisis, for
which he had appointed a review board.
In the aftermath,
UNMIK would do all it could to bring to justice all those
who provoked or engaged in the violence, he said, noting
that some 270 arrests already had been made. The priority
now was to target investigations on the principal
organizers, as well as on homicides and arson. Local
prosecutors were handling over 130 cases directly related to
the riots. Some 50 cases of a more serious nature had been
entrusted to international prosecutors.
Meanwhile,
violence had obviously had a very adverse effect on the
overall returns process, and the current security
environment in Kosovo was not conducive to the forcible
return of members of minority communities to their homes, he
said. Achieving any progress on returns, including the newly
displaced, would require a substantial increase in the
quality and quantity of protection provided by KFOR and the
police.
Describing Kosovo as an "open wound for Serbs,
Albanians and the entire international community," Vuk
Draskovic, Foreign Minister of Serbia and Montenegro, said
that in the wake of the "mass violence against Serbs and the
barbaric destruction of their cultural sites," the Council
had adopted a Presidential statement that had not adequately
responded to the tragedy suffered by the Serbian people in
the province. He called on the body to ensure a greater and
more resolute respect for the UN Charter and strict
compliance with Security Council resolution 1244, which gave
UNMIK its original mandate.
Mr. Draskovic told the Council
the international community should not think today in terms
of final status since the rights of Serbs were being
tragically violated in Kosovo, and such human suffering
could not constitute the basis for any final status. Serbia
and Montenegro called for the start of a sincere dialogue at
all levels between ethnic Albanians and Serbs, directly or
through the good offices of the international community.
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