OT (Overseas Topic) Serbia: Mitrovica called "most dangerous place in Europe"

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Mitrovica called "most dangerous place in Europe"

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is trying to partition Kosovo with a line through the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, "certainly the most dangerous place in Europe," American U.N. envoy Richard Holbrooke said on Wednesday.

"The Serb leadership in Belgrade is trying to partition Kosovo at the Mitrovica bridge," he said, referring to the landmark dividing the Serb-dominated northern part of town from the ethnic Albanian southern area.

"This is a campaign being directed by Belgrade, directed by President Milosevic and his senior colleagues. They are infiltrating people," Holbrooke said in answer to reporters' questions about the tense situation in and around Mitrovica, where at least nine people have been killed this month and dozens wounded, including two French peacekeepers

"Mitrovica is now certainly the most dangerous place in Europe," said Holbrooke, architect of the 1995 Dayton accords that halted nearly four years of conflict in Bosnia.

"The reason for that is not because Albanians and Serbs don't like each other -- that's an established historical fact," he said.

"It is because the leadership in Belgrade, led by President Milosevic, is conducting a campaign to undermine the efforts of NATO and the United Nations in that salient."

NATO troops, who have been the target of stone-throwing demonstrators, are conducting house-to-house searches in Mitrovica for illegal weapons.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said in Brussels on Monday the alliance was monitoring a buildup of Yugoslav forces in areas of southern Serbia, where he said there was "clearly rising tension."

But the commander of Yugoslavia's Third Army, Colonel-General Vladimir Lazarevic, on Wednesday denied any buildup.

Holbrooke called Belgrade's actions "an absolutely clear attempt to undermine" last year's military agreements and U.N. Security Council resolution that preceded the entry into Kosovo of the NATO-led KFOR and a U.N. administration to run the province.

That followed an 11-week NATO bombing campaign to halt Serb repression of the ethnic Albanian majority in the Serbian province.

Holbrooke called the situation "a matter of legitimate concern to all members of the United Nations, and certainly to NATO."

"NATO won the military campaign, and NATO and the United Nations together are going to ensure that the people of Kosovo will have a chance to determine their own destiny free of outside intimidation, which is what is going on in several places in Kosovo and above all, the salient north of the bridge at Mitrovica," he added.

"The people in Belgrade who are doing this are playing a very dangerous game," he said.

"They have learned it before. They have lost four wars in the last eight years. I don't know what they think they are doing but whatever it is, it is not going to work," Holbrooke added, referring to conflicts that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.

© copyright 2000 Reuters, Ltd.



-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000

Answers

60,000 Albanians want to enter North Mitrovica (in one mob) and evict the remaining Serbs who live there. NATO wants an easy occupation, once the Serbs are gone from Kosovo the Albanians will be quiet.

-- Possible Impact (posim@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000.

And they think Mitrovica is a dangerous place?Just 9 killings a month?They should try living in south Phoenix,usually average about a murder a day,or D.C. even higher!!!

-- just a thought (tigerpm@netscape.com), February 24, 2000.

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