Albanians posed as Serbs to stoke ethnic fires in Kosovo
By Neil Barnett in Pristina
(Filed: 28/03/2004)

The murder of a United Nations policeman in Kosovo last week was committed
by ethnic Albanians
who posed as Serbs in an effort to cast their bitter rivals as villains,
the Telegraph has
learned.

The UN policeman, from Ghana, and a local Albanian police officer were
killed when their car was
sprayed with bullets near the town of Podujevo, the centre of Albanian
resistance against the
Belgrade government.

Kosovo, in which Serbs make up only about 10 per cent of the population, is
nominally part of
Serbia and Montenegro but has been administered by the local UN mission
since the war in 1999.

The ambush has heightened fears that the mob violence against Serbs which
recently broke out in
the disputed enclave will usher in a new campaign of attacks against Nato
Kosovo Force (Kfor)
troops and the UN mission by Albanian extremists impatient for Kosovo's
independence.

The UN car was hit after a man flagged it down at the roadside. As the
gunmen opened fire with
Kalashnikovs, they were heard speaking Serbian. According to a senior
security official,
however, when one gunman was shot by a survivor, he instinctively screamed
in Albanian: "I've
been hit."

Afterwards the gunmen were forced to hijack a passing Mercedes when their
getaway car failed to
start. Security officials said that police officers gave chase for several
miles, exchanging
fire with gang members, but failed to capture them.

Soon after, however, Kfor troops raided a local Albanian-owned farm where
they found two
Kalashnikovs and a corpse with gunshot wounds, believed to be that of the
gunman hit in the
attack. Four people were arrested.

During the riots a fortnight ago in the towns of Mitrovica and Pristina -
the first serious
unrest for five years - 28 people died and 500 houses were destroyed, as
well as 42 Serbian
Orthodox churches and monasteries.

Major Tim Dunne, a Kfor spokesman, said that there was evidence that the
mob violence had been
carefully orchestrated. "We stopped numerous buses carrying men aged 18 to
40 from going to
Mitrovica," he said. The troops believed that the men were being bussed in
to take part in the
unrest.

The violence flared when three Albanian children drowned after allegedly
being chased into a
river by Serbs. Unrest quickly spread and, according to one UN official,
the "subsequent
disturbances all over Kosovo, and their prolonged nature, point to
widespread orchestration".

Doubts have also been cast over how the children came to drown as
suspicions grew that the blame
had been wrongly placed on Serbs. Allegations that they were involved were
made by a fourth
child who survived, yet during the violence a spokesman for the UN mission,
Derek Chapple, said
that police had no conclusive evidence. Last Wednesday, Mr Chapple was
"moved to other duties"
on the orders of senior UN mission officials, who are believed to think he
had been too frank.

Last week, after mainly British reinforcements arrived, the streets of
Kosovo were largely calm.
With more than 3,800 Serbs still displaced, however, tensions remained.
Major James Daniel,
second in command of the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire
Regiment, said that his
troops had been "well received" by both communities.