Serbian minority fearful and angry at western powers

SERBIA: Marko Tijnic was reading a newspaper headline in the Cafe London in the Serbian enclave of Mitrovica North yesterday. "The Oath Lasts," it read. "The Ownership Remains."  Peter Beaumont reports from Mitrovica.

The headlines referred to Serb ownership. For Tijnic and other Serb residents, the declaration of independence from Serbia means nothing but the prospect of trouble.

The 19-year-old history student pulled out a printed map of Kosovo from inside the paper, covered in red dots.

"Look, they are the monasteries and other sites important to Serbian culture," he said. "It's a tragic situation."

Tijnic, originally from a small Serb enclave of 20 families, Crkolez, near Istok, where his family still lives, blames the international community. But mainly he is worried about the future.

"I don't expect anything to happen today," he said, speaking of fears that violence might again break out along Kosovo's most dangerous faultline, the divided city of Mitrovica.

"But in the coming months I am concerned they will start applying pressure on us. It will happen in the enclaves first."

Yesterday Mitrovica was a city split by powerful sentiment as much as ethnicity.

South of the Ibar river the snow-covered streets were a riot of red Albanian flags, laughing families and beating drums.

To the north of the Mitrovica bridge, in Kosovo's largest Serbian enclave, the mood was angry.

Ahead of the declaration of independence a crowd of men gathered at the symbolic bridge's northern side, separated from the celebrating ethnic Albanians by police and French soldiers in a glum and largely silent protest. Among them was Caslav Milisavljevic, director of the local radio station.

"They are just following the orders of the major powers," he said, leaning against a car and staring at the red banners on the river's other side.

"No one cares to listen to the Serbian case. We lost the media war a long time ago."

In her flat in an apartment block overlooking the river, 34-year-old Sanja Markovic had moved the cot of her one-year-old daughter Jaklina out of her bedroom, which faces the river, and into the lounge, for fear of snipers in the days ahead.

"I worry about the future and about my daughter. She has been sick.

Otherwise I would have taken her away, as other parents have done," she said.

"It scares me. I am so worried about violence."

With the fear was anger directed at those the Serbs of Mitrovica blame for the declaration of independence, mainly the US and UK. "You are a fascist. A fascist like Tony Blair," an elderly man spat at British journalists yesterday.

On the other side of the Ibar, in the Real Patisserie, Khalit Cimil, an Albanian construction worker, watched the independence proceedings on television with his family.

"I don't want Kosovo divided. I don't think we will be in the future," he said. "What has happened today means the partition of this city is legally over."

But on the bridge Kosovo's separation continued. "What kind of independence is this?" shouted an Albanian man at the police after being prevented from crossing over.

"I came to the bridge to stare at the dogs on the other side," he said, referring to the crowd of Serbs. And they stared back at him across Kosovo's divide.

On Saturday, in anticipation of yesterday's declaration, French troops prepared concrete and razor-wire barriers to separate Serbs from Albanians in Mitrovica.

The commander of Nato peacekeepers in Kosovo, French Lieutenant-General Xavier de Marnhac, said his troops "will react and oppose any provocation that may happen during these days, whether from the Albanian or the Serb side".

North of the River Ibar, Serbs held a day of prayer and protest to demonstrate they will never accept the secession of cherished land where a 90 per cent Albanian majority has struggled for its own state for almost two decades.

Later last evening an explosion rocked a UN courthouse in Mitrovica, causing slight damage but no injuries, only hours after the independence declaration. - (Guardian service; additional reporting Reuters)

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times