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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Yaacov who wrote (17501)	4/22/2001 9:09:44 PM
From: Tom Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Serbs Clash With NATO Tax Collectors Peacekeepers Clash With Blockading Kosovo Serbs ZUPCE, Apr 20, 2001 -- (Reuters) NATO peacekeepers fired teargas and stun grenades in fights with Kosovo Serbs on Thursday to remove roadblocks set up in protest against tax collection on goods arriving from elsewhere in Yugoslavia. A Serb was injured when a stun grenade detonated in his hand as he tried to throw it back at peacekeepers and several French soldiers were hurt by rocks hurled by protesters, a Danish company commander at the scene said. A hospital administrator in Novi Pazar, a Serbian town just outside north Kosovo, said one woman died of a heart attack during the violence. The NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force said it had no reports of fatalities. "When the KFOR forces that were conducting the removal operation were stoned, they used tear gas in response," said KFOR squadron leader Roy Brown. Novi Pazar hospital administrator Rade Grbic said medics who had rushed to the Kosovo village of Zupce told him 62-year-old Nikoleta Vukojicic died from a heart attack during the protest. One Serb was arrested as French troops pushed away demonstrators and vehicles they had parked across three main routes running between the northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica and the boundary of the internationally governed province. Serbs barred the roads with vehicles, concrete flowerpots and garbage cans on Tuesday, saying UN authorities had set up "customs points" to cut them off from the rest of Yugoslavia. ROADBLOCKS UP AGAIN In the operation on Thursday morning, KFOR troops regained control of roads from Zvecan and Loziste north to the boundary with Serbia, Yugoslavia's main republic. But locals in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo said new blockades were being erected, including two of three roadblocks that had earlier been removed by KFOR. KFOR's Brown defended the operation as a success. "The mission was to demonstrate our capability and will and intent, not necessarily to keep the roads open all day. The aim was only a short-term aim, and as far as we're concerned, we achieved that," he said. Tensions also boiled over in Mitrovica later in the day when running clashes broke out between KFOR troops and groups of hardline nationalist Serbs, witnesses said. Peacekeepers fired tear gas and stun grenades while Serbs hurled sticks and stones. KFOR spokesman Nicolas Engelbach said five peacekeepers were lightly injured by stones thrown at them. Crowds gathered after the peacekeepers moved to assert control over a strategically placed building to ensure security in a mixed Albanian and Muslim Slav quarter in the Serb-dominated northern half of the city. The peace force said the Mitrovica clashes were unrelated to the anti-tax blockades. UN officials in Kosovo, which has a separatist ethnic Albanian majority, said the new revenue posts were not customs points but rather only an effort to tax cigarettes, fuel, liquor and luxury items arriving untaxed from the rest of Yugoslavia. Kosovo is awash with black-market goods. UNMIK, the UN administration which has been chronically underfunded since it was formed in 1999, has been trying to expand its revenue base by gradually applying taxes to unregulated trade. Peter Walker, head of the UN customs office, said only black marketeers had an interest in the UN backing down. "The (UN) administration is quite determined about this. It's good governance for Kosovo." Kosovo has been a de facto UN protectorate since Serbian security forces ended a bloody anti-separatist campaign and withdrew in exchange for an end to NATO air strikes. europeaninternet.com