EU peace mission begins in Kosovo

09/12/2008| IslamWeb

The European Union has begun a long-delayed police and justice mission in Kosovo and international peacekeepers have tightened security in the north where Serbs oppose the move.

 

The first of a 1,900-strong force of European and American police, customs agents, judges and prosecutors began deployment in mainly Albanian Kosovo which seceded from Serbia in February.

 

In the Serb-controlled part of the divided flashpoint town of Mitrovica, EU policemen arrived on Tuesday wearing black flack jackets with red Eulex [European Union Legal and Police Mission] logos pinned on their shoulders.

 

"So far, in the north, 15 border policemen, four customs officers and eight police monitors and advisers in police stations have been deployed," Victor Reuter, an Eulex spokesman, said.

 

Five mission members have been deployed in Mitrovica's courthouse.

 

"The rest of about 100 forces are police officers from the special police units and other departments," Reuter said about the force in the Serb-controlled north.

 

Serb relations

 

Kosovo's minority Serb population of about 120,000 refuse to deal with Pristina institutions, leaving them in an uncertain legal status between Kosovo and Serbia authorities.

 

The situation is especially stark in Mitrovica, where Serbs live on one side of the river and Albanians on the other with little interaction.

 

Younger residents rarely speak each other's language.

 

The EU hopes its new mission will help build government institutions in the poorest corner of the Balkans, a region still recovering from the wars of the 1990s when Yugoslavia collapsed.

 

In February, the EU decided to send a mission to take over from the United Nations mission running the province since 1999 when Nato bombing drove Serb forces out.

 

But its deployment has been delayed due to Serb opposition which sees the effort as a symbol of Kosovo independence.

 

French troops

 

In the Serb-held north, French (Nato forces in Kosovo) troops also stepped up security to prevent violence and no incidents were reported.

 

French Colonel Herve Messiot, responsible for Eulex command in the area, said his policemen in Mitrovica would have an advisory role.

 

The mission would be dealing with organized crime, ethnic-based crime, war crimes and will intervene when local authorities have unsolved cases.

 

The 27-nation EU won Serbia's consent by amending the deployment plan to enable police, judiciary and customs officers in Serb-held areas to report to the remaining UN administration.

 

Albanian counterparts will work within Kosovo's ministry of interior and with Eulex.

 

Pristina's leadership opposed the deployment plan which said it would lead to a de facto partition of Kosovo.

 

Several thousand ethnic Albanians have staged two protests against EULEX in Pristina in the past two weeks.

 

PHOTO CAPTION

 

French Gendarmerie, part of the EU's Kosovo mission move in as UN members leave Kosovo's northern-most border post with Serbia on the Jarinje check point on Tuesday Dec. 9, 2008.

 

Al-Jazeera