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Kostunica Appeals For Calm After NATO Troops Shoot Serb Dead
by Dave Clark
LEPOSAVIC, Yugoslavia (AFP) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica appealed for calm Sunday as around 500 Kosovo Serbs gathered here to protest the killing of a Serb by NATO-led peacekeepers during a violent demonstration the day before.
"I call on Serbs and Albanians, the U.N. and KFOR to assume their responsibilities and not to fall into the trap laid by those opposed to peace" in the region, Kostunica said in a statement carried by the Tanjug agency.
Sunday's demonstration was peaceful, as angry Serbs gathered to hear speeches in front of Leposavic town hall in northern Kosovo and then marched to the police station where the shooting took place.
There was no visible NATO or U.N. security presence in the streets of the town, where the remains of three burnt-out military vehicles lay abandoned.
Saturday's violent protest against NATO and the United Nations erupted outside the U.N. police station in Leposavic.
Lieutenant Colonel Rik Koumans of the Belgian contingent said at the scene Sunday that the Serb had been fatally wounded when a warning shot fired by Belgian troops "ricocheted."
Two Serbs were taken to a military hospital in nearby Kosovska Mitrovica, where one later died, spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force Lieutenant Colonel Alban Desgrees Du Lou said Sunday.
A Serb who suffered a heart attack during the riot also died, he added.
Kostunica questioned the spontaneity of the Saturday protest, saying it was timed to influence forthcoming parliamentary elections in Serbia, planned for December 23rd.
Belgian Defense Minister Andre Flahaut called a crisis meeting of senior commanders in Brussels following the incident, but told Belgian television: "The situation was dealt with in a professional and diplomatic manner by our soldiers."
The protest erupted late Saturday after Serb officers of the Kosovo Police Service (KPS) - a civilian force set up by Kosovo's U.N. administration - arrested Vladimir Tomovic, a Serb "known by police as a criminal", Desgrees Du Lou said.
An angry crowd trapped three Belgian military vehicles on the main road through Leposavic and threw stones at the nearby U.N. police building.
The vehicles, a jeep and two light trucks, were burned by the crowd and completely destroyed, Desgrees Du Lou said. Around 200 Serbs were involved in the attack on the police station, he added.
The police building and the KFOR sentry post in front of it were abandoned Sunday.
Bloodstains were visible in the street in front of the building, whose windows were smashed, and the sandbagged sentry position was heavily damaged.
The Yugoslav news agencies Beta and Tanjug named the dead men as Bojan Jokovic and Trifun Milekovic.
The town is in the far north of Kosovo, in the only area of the breakaway Yugoslav province that is still largely inhabited by Serbs.
The area has been the scene of frequent confrontations between troops and local people opposed to NATO and the United Nations' intervention in the province.
Kosovo has been run as an international protectorate since the arrival of KFOR in June 1999 brought an end to the conflict between Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanian separatists.
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