U.N. and Security Council members urge Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders to confront extremism in their own ranks

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Responding to a rash of ethnic violence in Kosovo, key U.N. officials warned the province's leaders Tuesday to confront growing extremism there or face being ostracized by the rest of Europe.

At an open council meeting, U.N. Undersecretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno and many Security Council members denounced last month's rioting and arson by ethnic Albanian mobs against minority Serbs - the worst since the United Nations began running the province five years ago - and called it a major setback to rebuilding Kosovo.

According to Guehenno, 19 people died in the violence and 954 civilians, 65 international police officers, 58 Kosovo police and 61 members of the NATO-led peacekeeping force were injured. In addition, 36 Serbian Orthodox churches and religious sites and some 730 homes, nearly all of which belonged to Kosovo minorities, were burned or damaged.

The onslaught, led by Kosovo Albanian extremists, underscored the depth of hatred between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who want independence, and Serbs, who want Kosovo to remain part of Serbia-Montenegro, the successor state to Yugoslavia.
While the overall situation is now quiet, Guehenno told the council the province remains tense and "there continues to be a potential for further violence" with sporadic attacks still taking place against international and local police.

"Kosovo's leaders must leave no doubt of their wholehearted commitment to tackle and confront extremism and extremist positions - including within their own ranks - and to hold those politicians responsible, and to discipline those civil servants who may have played an instrumental role in fomenting or participating in the violence," he said.

"The message they are called on to convey to Kosovo's representatives and its population is simple and clear: there can be no peaceful and prosperous future for Kosovo without respect for the diversity of its people - violence will not be rewarded," he said.

The United Nations has been administering Kosovo since a 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced Yugoslav troops to withdraw from the province in June 1999. The NATO action ended then-President Slobodan Milosevic's attacks against the province's ethnic Albanian majority, but the end of the war unleashed a spate of revenge attacks against Kosovo Serbs.

U.S. deputy ambassador James Cunningham said last month's violence "was clearly a setback in Kosovo's development into a society that can become part of Europe" and posed a challenge to the international community which must now ensure that it fulfills U.N. standards and becomes a peaceful, multi-ethnic democracy.
He indicated the United Nations will not decide Kovoso's future status until this happens.

"Those who believe that violence can be used to further a political agenda should know that the United States and the international community shall not pursue a final status decision until Kosovo can ensure a peaceful and secure environment for all its communities," Cunningham said.

Germany's U.N. Ambassador Gunter Pleuger, the current Security Council president, said Kosovo's political leader "must leave no doubt about their commitment to protecting minorities and building a multi-ethnic society.'

UNITED NATIONS, April 13 (Reuters) - A senior U.N. official accused Kosovo's leaders on Tuesday of a tepid response to last month's ethnic violence in the Serb province and urged them to confront extremism and pursue those behind the outbreak.

Some leaders at first issued statements condoning or justifying the violence after it broke out on March 17, said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. peacekeeping chief.

While Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi called for an end to the violence, an initial statement issued by the provisional Kosovo government focused on the earlier drowning of Kosovo Albanian children, assuming without evidence that it was a result of interethnic hatred and caused by Serbs, Guehenno told the U.N. Security Council.

Only later, after pressure from the international community, did the Kosovo leadership "come to realize that attempting to justify the violence was unacceptable," he said.

While government representatives ultimately condemned the violence, "their statements largely failed to expressly condemn the attacks on the Kosovo Serb community," he said.

Guehenno urged the leaders to "leave no doubt of their wholehearted commitment to tackle and confront extremism and extremist positions, including within their own ranks."

Politicians and civil servants who may have played a significant role in the violence or used the events to promote intolerance must be identified and punished, he said.
Kosovo, a landlocked Serbian province of 2 million people, has been under U.N. administration since June 1999 after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign to halt Serb repression of its ethnic Albanians.

While the international community weighs whether to make Kosovo independent or leave it a part of Serbia, Albanian mobs last month attacked Serb villages and churches in two days of bloodshed in which 19 people were killed and 954 civilians were injured.

The attacks, blamed by NATO on Albanian extremists bent on driving remaining Serbs out of Kosovo, dealt a severe setback to Western hopes of bridging the province's ethnic divide.

Some 4,100 people were driv en from their homes by the violence and 36 Serbian Orthodox churches and religious or cultural sites were looted, burned or destroyed by mobs in "an organized, widespread and targeted campaign," Guehenno said.

PRISTINA -- Tuesday - A shadowy rebel group appeared at a funeral in Kosovo yesterday, vowing to stop the "occupation" of the province and to fight for unified Albanian lands.

Three men wearing balaclavas and insignia of the Albanian National Army showed up during the re-burial on Monday of two ethnic Albanian guerrillas who died fighting Serb forces five years ago, local media reported.

Their surprise appearance in the western village of Bainca may worry international officials in Kosovo, coming a few weeks after the province exploded in violence the West blamed on Albanian extremists bent on driving out minority Serbs.

The group has in the past claimed responsibility in statements on its Web site for several attacks in the Balkans. One was an attempt to blow up a Kosovo railway a year ago.

The funeral is believed to be the first time uniformed members of the group, branded a terrorist organisation by Kosovo's UN-led administration last year, were seen in public.

"The moment has come to appear publicly as a political and military force here near the graves of the martyrs," a man in camouflage uniform told the crowd of several hundred people.

"We swear on the graves of national martyrs that we will not stop on our path towards national liberation and unification," he said in a speech which one daily said was met with applause.

The group advocates a Greater Albania including Albania proper, Kosovo, and parts of western Macedonia, southern Serbia and Montenegro - an idea rejected by the West and Albania.

Some diplomats have dismissed the group as little more than an "Internet army" or a band of criminals. "They are too small and unlikely to get much support," said one Western official.

Bogdanovic quoted Johnson as saying that he did not want to be party to the international community’s failure in the province on March 17 and emphasised that the priority of NATO and KFOR was to ensure peace and security for all citizens of Kosovo.