Group condemns Kosovo violence

In a scathing report, a leading human rights organisation blamed Nato and UN police today for failing “catastrophically” to protect minorities in Kosovo during ethnic violence earlier this year.

Among other charges, the New York-based Human Rights Watch accused Nato-led peacekeepers of locking their gates and standing by as Serb houses went up in flames just outside their bases during the mid-March riots that left 19 killed and 900 injured.

“The Nato-led Kosovo Force and UN international police failed catastrophically to protect minorities during the widespread rioting,” said the 66-page report.

The report also accused the international community in Kosovo of being in “absolute denial about its own failures in Kosovo”.

“While international actors have been universally and accurately critical of Kosovo Albanian leadership during and after the crisis, the dismal performance of the international community has escaped similar critical scrutiny,” the report said.

A Nato spokesman in Kosovo said the report does not do justice to peacekeepers’ attempts to normalise the situation.

“These reports coming from an armchair position do not pay any respect to the efforts of the soldiers,” said Colonel Horst Pieper of the Nato-led peacekeepers in Kosovo.

He said the peacekeepers “quickly stabilised the situation within hours during the riots and prevented … civil war.”

“The soldiers did their utmost to de-escalate the situation and to save many lives,” he said.

Nato-led peacekeepers said after the riots that they chose to save people’s lives instead of buildings. Over 1,200 of those fleeing the rampage found temporary refuge inside their military bases.

The UN mission in Kosovo, known as UNMIK, responded by saying the report is a “broad-brush” condemnation of peacekeepers.

“UNMIK shares many of the concerns addressed in the report,” it said. “However, its broad-brush condemnation of UNMIK and (Nato-led peacekeepers) does not show an understanding of the extent of the challenge this violence posed to security forces.”

Mobs of ethnic Albanians targeted Serbs and other minorities in a two-day rampage in mid-March.

Beyond the dead and injured, 4,000 people – most of them Serbs – were displaced, and at least 600 homes and Orthodox Christian churches were burned.