THE divided town of Mitrovica was in turmoil yesterday morning, after UNMIK police and KFOR troops, in a major provocation, stormed a local court to arrest 50 Serbs, who were occupying the court.
At 0530 hours several hundred heavily armed police surrounded the court, where Serb judicial workers, demanding to return to their jobs, were protesting since Friday.
They handcuffed the men, and then tied the women’s hands with ropes, despite the fact that the workers were not resisting arrest. When the police moved outside Serbs blocked the road.
They threw stones at the UNMIK Bulgarian and Polish police, who responded by throwing back tear gas and shock bombs.
The protesting crowd stopped two vehicles and set the Serbs inside free. Twenty-one men and women were released from UNMIK custody.
The fighting then spread to other parts of the town, where by 07:00 bombs were being thrown and vehicles, including NATO, KFOR and UNMIK vehicles, were set on fire, with NATO troops saying that they had come under grenade attack and automatic weapons fire.
Up to 30 international soldiers and policemen were injured, five of them seriously. Three Serbs are also in serious condition, one of them sustained life-threatening wounds. A further 70 were treated for minor injuries. Hospital officials say most of the wounds were inflicted by firearms.
The police were then ordered out of the town by their commanders and NATO troops were sent on patrol after being told to shoot to kill to restore order.
Serbs meanwhile gathered at the city square, where Serbia’s Minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, addressed them. UNMIK spokesman, Alexandar Ivanko, confirmed that UNMIK police had withdrawn from northern Mitrovica, while KFOR NATO troops remain there.
According to Ivanovic the raid came at UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker’s orders, who got his orders from Hashim Thaci and Fatmir Sejdiu, the EU appointed Albanian majority rulers of Kosovo.
Several hundred KFOR troops are currently on the streets. Armoured vehicles and five tanks have cordoned off the Mitrovika court building.
Russia yesterday urged the NATO troops in Kosovo to show restraint. ‘There must not be a return to violence and conflict,’ the statement said. ‘The international presence must show restraint and must act strictly in adherence to the UN mandate.’
Since the 1999 NATO attack on Yugoslavia, 200,000 Serbs, Romas, Bosniaks and members of other groups have been driven out of Kosovo.
The driving forces of the 1999 war to destroy Yugoslavia were the US, UK and Germany. They remain the main backers of an independent Kosovo, which does not have the support of the United Nations, Russia, China, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, and Romania amongst other states.
The deeply divisive imperialist policy has already begun to come to grief in Mitrovika, where an insurgency will now get underway to drive out NATO and UNMIK from northern Kosovo, and for that region to be run from Belgrade, with order maintained by the Serbian police and the Serbian armed forces.
There is a general election now due in Serbia. One result of the NATO-UNMIK provocation in Mitrovica may well be the victory of the Serbian nationalists in that election, and a movement amongst the Bosnian Serbs to secede from Bosnia and join Serbia.
Meanwhile, there will be a movement for a Greater Albania to include Kosovo and parts of Macedonia and Greece.
All that the US-UK and Germany have succeeded in doing is laying the basis for a new round of Balkan wars, with Russia supporting Serbia.
The way forward for the working class is through the struggle to reconstitute the Yugoslav workers state under which there was peace in the Balkans for over 40 years, as part of the struggle for a Balkan Federation of Socialist States to unite the working class and the poor of the entire region.
