Serbs storm a UN courthouse in northern Kosovo

The Associated Press
Friday, March 14, 2008

MITROVICA, Kosovo: Hundreds of Serbs stormed a UN courthouse in northern Kosovo on Friday, taking control of the site and hoisting a Serbian flag to replace the one of the United Nations.

The Kosovo Serbs broke through two entrance gates and pushed aside UN riot police guarding the building, a police spokesman said. The dozens of UN police officers did not intervene.

The top UN official in Kosovo said he had ordered the police to retake the courthouse in the city of Mitrovica, and he pledged to defend his mandate as head of the UN mission, known as UNMIK.

"Those who turned to violence in North Mitrovica have crossed one of UNMIK's red lines," the UN official, Joachim Rücker, said in a statement issued Friday. "This is completely unacceptable. I have instructed UNMIK police to restore law and order in the north and to ensure that the court house is again under UN control."

He said the attackers would be prosecuted and called upon the authorities in Serbia to prevent any such incidents in the future.

Most of the protesters later left the yard of the building and the UN flag was hoisted again, UN officials said. Serb judicial workers, however, remained locked inside the courthouse, saying they would not leave.

The storming of the courthouse came as the NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, arrived for his first visit to Kosovo since it declared independence last month. Scheffer was to meet with Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and President Fatmir Sejdiu at the NATO headquarters in Pristina.

Sejdiu said he had urged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the UN authorities to "react urgently and oust the hooligans from the building" and restore the UN flag.

The protest also came as Kosovo began lobbying the Islamic world for recognition on Friday, making its first major international outing at a summit meeting of Muslim states. Enver Hoxhaj, the government's minister of education, led a mission Friday at the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, which met in Dakar, Senegal.

Kosovo is trying "to get support for our independence," Hoxhaj said.

Addressing the storming of the courthouse, a spokesman for the Kosovo police in Mitrovica said the regional UN representative was negotiating with Serb leaders to deal with the situation.

Serbs have held daily protests in front of the courthouse since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17.

The protesters have been trying to take control of local institutions that have been run by the UN since the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999. The crowds have prevented international and ethnic-Albanian judges from returning to work at the court.

"We tried to negotiate, but no one wanted to talk to us," said Miodrag Ralic, one of the Serb protest leaders. "We could not wait any longer."

Serbia, which considers Kosovo its historic and religious heartland, has said that its declaration of independence was illegal under international law.