UNMIK/PR/73

Press Release

19 October 1999

Joint UNMIK/KFOR Statement on Proposed Serbian Protection Corps

PRISTINA--UNMIK and KFOR can neither support nor condone the formation of a Serbian Protection Corps as announced by representatives of  the Serb community in Kosovo  yesterday in Gracanica.

While we understand fully the fears of the Serbs in terms of security, particularly in light of recent incidents, the formation of any Kosovo Serb security force is unnecessary.

Security Council Resolution 1244 clearly states that there is only one security presence in Kosovo and that is KFOR.

A Kosovo Protection Corps has been created as a result of the demilitarization of the KLA undertaking. It is conceived as a  civilian emergency service agency; the only such agency for Kosovo, which needs no duplication or alternative.

The Kosovo Protection Corps was created by UNMIK Regulation No. 8 to take into account the fate and future of demobilized KLA fighters. Its tasks are to include providing disaster response services, performing search and rescue, providing a capacity for humanitarian assistance in remote areas, assisting in demining and contributing to rebuilding infrastructure and communities. The KPC is not intended to have any role in law enforcement or the maintenance of law and order.

The regulation, moreover, stipulates that  at least 10 percent of both active and reserve KPC members come from minority communities. In fact only recently a group of  16 prospective members of the KPC, including 10 Albanians, three Serbs, two Bosniaks and a Turk, left for France where for one month they will study that country’s Scurit Civile, upon which the KPC has partially been modeled.

The concept of the KPC was guided by the same principles of multi-ethnicism, pluralism and professionalism that must shape every new public service in Kosovo. A Serbian Protection Corps would by definition be ethnically based, and is therefore unacceptable.

UNMIK and KFOR have already rejected the idea of cantonization, as suggested by the representatives of the Serbs in the Kosovo Transitional Council. At that time it was made clear that cantonization would run counter to basic philosophies guiding the United Nations and this mission. UNMIK and KFOR are deeply concerned with the continuing ethnically-based tensions in Kosovo and the targeting of non-Albanian ethnic groups. Although violence has decreased significantly throughout Kosovo since the mission was established four months ago, we will continue to enhance our security presence in Serbian and mixed communities to improve their daily lives and to work  towards a tolerant, integrated and democratic Kosovo.