Haekkerup promises solutions, KPS and KFOR restore calm in Mitrovica

Future students of Kosovo's current history may note that Saturday, 3 February 2001 was not only the first anniversary of the deaths in northern Mitrovica of nine Kosovo Albanians at the hands of extremists a year ago. It was also the time when the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) took the lead role in crowd management in Mitrovica, effectively ending the worst unrest there since 12 months ago.
   
Assigned by UNMIK Police to the main flash points-the western bridge and the Hotel Adriatic (which houses French soldiers)-KPS officers, together with KFOR patrols, allowed people to gather peacefully at 5 p.m. for a candlelight vigil. The crowd placed hundreds of candles at the site of the riots exactly one year ago. Some 5,000 walked silently through the streets holding candles, or gathered at the main cross roads nearby. They dispersed peacefully 40 minutes later without incidents. The dignified and restrained atmosphere stood in stark contrast to the rioting of the previous days when two Kosovo police officers were injured by stun grenades and many KFOR soldiers and civilians were hurt.
   
Restoration of calm followed three days of stone throwing, petrol bombs, beating up OSCE Kosovo Serb personnel and finally riots. It took the combined efforts of SRSG Hans Haekkerup, KFOR Commander General Carlo Cabigiosu, Kosovo Albanian leaders in both Mitrovica and Pristina, Regional Administrator Anthony Welch, French KFOR (reinforced in by British, Danish, German, Italian, Swedish and United States troops drafted in from other Multinational Brigades), UNMIK Police (including two Special Police Units) and the Kosovo Police Service to bring things under control.
   
Haekkerup and the KFOR Commander appeared together on prime-time TV to warn that  "unless the security situation in Mitrovica stabilizes, it will be impossible to address longer-term issues involving the future viability and integration of the city".  The SRSG had earlier told the Kosovo Transitional Council (KTC) there was information that more serious violence may have been planned: "There is a strategy to deal with bridge watchers and other provocateurs, but it cannot be implemented in the face of mob violence."
   
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which had pulled its staff out of southern Mitrovica following the violence, noted that the anger of the crowds had been directed against UN peacekeepers, describing the deteriorating situation as a very worrying development. On Wednesday alone, a total of 21 KFOR peacekeepers were injured, one of them seriously, in three separate incidents involving stones and grenades.
   
At the height of the unrest, Kosovo Albanian leaders condemned the violence through a declaration (see below) aimed at restoring calm. It followed a two-hour meeting in Mitrovica with the heads of UNMIK and KFOR. Recognizing that the situation in Mitrovica posed a significant threat to a safe and secure environment, they called on all citizens to remain calm and to refrain from further acts of violence. The declaration also deplored violence directed at KFOR, which resulted in numerous injuries to soldiers "who are here to provide for a secure environment". It also expressed concern about potential attacks against international civilian representatives.
   
In addition to calling for additional security forces to be deployed in Mitrovica, the assembled leaders urged greater freedom of movement for all residents, the return of displaced families to their homes, and the establishment of functioning political structures.
   
According to the declaration, the violence started as a result of the killing of a 15-year-old Kosovo Albanian boy, and led to other serious injuries, including those to KFOR soldiers.
   
The KTC, whose membership includes all Kosovo's national communities, issued a statement on Wednesday condemning the Mitrovica violence, the loss of life and the injuries to Kosovo Albanians, a Kosovo Serb and a Bosniac. The Council expressed outrage at the attacks on KFOR and the international community and called on the people of Mitrovica and their leaders to calm the situation, and to work with the international community in building up a peaceful and united Mitrovica.

Mitrovica Declaration by UNMIK, KFOR and Kosovo Albanian leaders

"Today, on 1 February 2001, we the representatives of the Kosovo Albanian community and the international civilian and security presence in Kosovo met in Mitrovica to discuss the current situation. We strongly condemn the violence that has occurred in Mitrovica over the past several days. This violence started as a result of the killing of a 15-year-old Kosovo Albanian boy and also resulted in other serious injuries. We strongly deplore the violence directed at KFOR that resulted in numerous injuries to KFOR soldiers who are here to provide for a secure environment. We are very concerned about potential attacks on international civilian representatives. We recognize that the situation in Mitrovica poses a significant threat to a safe and secure environment and we call on all citizens to remain calm and to refrain from further acts of violence. Until the security situation in Mitrovica stabilizes, it will be impossible to address longer-term issues involving the future viability and integration of the city. We jointly recognize the need for:  additional security measures, specifically additional KFOR soldiers, UNMIK police officers and officers of the Kosovo Police Service; the expansion of the zone of confidence; ensuring the freedom of movement of all citizens; the return of displaced families to their homes; and the establishment of functioning political structures."

Objective justice on trial: Regulation 2000/64 in action

The first trial completed under a recent regulation designed to enable defendants to receive the most objective justice possible, given in the special circumstances that surround war- and ethnically-based crimes, ended last week in precisely the kind of controversy its framers sought to prevent.
   
Regulation 2000/64, passed last December, allows defendants in highly sensitive cases (or their lawyers, prosecutors or the Department of Justice) to petition the SRSG to hold the trial in front of three judges, at least two of them international. Otherwise, such cases are brought before a panel of Kosovo judges and a single international judge.
   
The Regulation's application on behalf of Savo Matic, a Serbian detainee indicted for war crimes, resulted in the accused being sentenced under article 39 of the Criminal Law of Kosovo to two years imprisonment for "light body injury". There was insufficient evidence to sentence him for war crimes, the panel of judges found.
   
The controversy arose from three sources. The lay public found the verdict incredible, given Kosovo's recent history and the seriousness of the charges. The Kosovo judiciary in general believes Regulation 64 undermines their position of trust. The local judge broke all the normal rules of secrecy of a judicial deliberation by talking to the press right after the verdict.
   
Replying, the DJA points out that courts everywhere in the world act only on the valid evidence brought before them. It sympathizes with the local judiciary on the trust issue, but defends Regulation 64 as respecting the difficult, yet temporary conditions under which the local judiciary has to work. It is used, moreover, only in exceptional circumstances. UNMIK always intended the regulation to be a temporary measure, operational only while the Kosovo judiciary builds its capacities. It will initially remain in force only for 12 months, unless extended by the SRSG in the meantime.
   
The DJA believes that the regulation's implementation should not be abused. And, as the local judiciary develops its capacity to be impartial and independent, the need for using it will become less frequent. Prior to the Matic case, the Department had not used the Regulation because there had not been sufficient grounds in the particular cases presented. It accepted the application from Matic because of his own ethnicity and that of his alleged victims, because of the gravity of the charges and because of the trial's potential to attract public interest. At the same time, in order to avoid controversy, the DJA took an unprecedented decision to allow the accused to be tried in his home jurisdiction of Prizren, even though he had been detained in Mitrovica.
   
The local judge, who as always had been appointed by the President of the regional District Court, is regarded as having been, at the very least, imprudent in talking to the press about the deliberations. Further investigations by the DJA will show whether he was unprofessional and his action unacceptable.

Lead and traffic are bigger threat than depleted uranium, WHO experts conclude

As expected, experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) have found no firm evidence linking individual medical cases in Kosovo to the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions during the 1999 Balkans conflict.
  
The WHO team, which was in Kosovo on a ten-day visit, concluded that scientific and medical studies have not proven a link between exposure to DU and the onset of cancers, congenital abnormalities or serious toxic chemical effects on organs. But the WHO experts also noted that caution had been expressed by scientists who would like to see a larger body of non-military, independent studies to confirm this viewpoint.
   
In a separate announcement in Geneva, WHO itself appealed for $2 million of donor funding to study further possible effects on human health of DU munitions used in the Balkans conflicts and the Gulf War. The risk from exposure to DU was low, but information was not sufficient for firm conclusion, the appeal said.
  
In Kosovo, the general population, except possibly in isolated incidents, was much less likely to have been exposed than soldiers, who could have inhaled uranium metal and oxides in dusts and smoke, according to the WHO team. Civilians were most likely to come into contact with the substance by picking up objects on the ground. While routine measures to remove DU objects from the ground surface would be beneficial, the experts did not recommend the creation of an immediate, separate cleanup programme at DU sites. Over 70 per cent of the DU penetrators at a typical attack site on soft soil were likely to still be in solid (i.e. safe) form and buried at depths of up to 3 metres, isolated from human contact. The buried penetrators were unlikely to decompose and hence, their addition to the natural occurrence of uranium in soil would be small.
   
The team emphasized that DU issues were small in comparison to the deaths and injuries caused by, for example, the presence of high levels of lead in people living in Mitrovica as well as by Kosovo's "alarmingly high" rate of traffic-related deaths.
   
Nevertheless, the experts recommended that useful and realistic information on DU for distribution to the general public should be prepared. The public should be advised that if a penetrator is found, it should be reported to the authorities in the same manner as mines and unexploded ordnance. Facilities should be made available to include routine measurement of uranium in drinking water quality samples taken by the Institute of Public Health for monitoring purposes.
   
In a longer term, UNMIK should make a firm commitment to record and assess all forms of medical illness. It should prepare six-monthly public reports on the incidence of all forms of illness initiated by whatever cause. Potential developers near or at former attack sites should be made aware of the possibility of buried munitions and be given clear instructions on who should be notified if ordnance is unearthed.
   
Deputy SRSG Tom Koenigs has been tasked by SRSG Hans Haekkerup to follow up the recommendations.