GOD BLESS HIS SOUL. +Memory Eternal+
Posted on 06/05/2004 7:56:57 AM PDT by Jane_N
GRACANICA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A Serb teenager has been shot dead in Kosovo and police quickly arrested two Albanians suspected of trying to ignite another round of ethnic violence in the United Nations-run province.
The killing in the Serb enclave of Gracanica on Saturday was the first since 19 people were killed in mid-March when the U.N. protectorate was engulfed in the worst violence in five years of international administration. NATO peacekeepers later said the riots were clearly orchestrated.
U.N. police spokesman Malcolm Ashby said 16-year-old Dimitrije Popovic was killed when gunmen fired from a car into a group of young Serbs at a hamburger kiosk at 2 a.m. Police in Pristina later stopped a suspect car and seized two Albanians with guns.
It was not clear how the suspected gunmen managed to drive in and out of the village undetected. The NATO-led peacekeeping mission KFOR re-established permanent checkpoints on the outskirts of the Serbian town after the March riots.
Serb spokesman Oliver Ivanovic blamed the U.N. and NATO for failing to stop Albanian militants. "There is no living together here... We must seal off all roads through Serb districts," he told the SRNA agency.
UNSAFE ENCLAVES
"We were right when we demanded a full demilitarisation of Kosovo, disarmament of all extremist groups and introduction of a state of emergency after the March 17 riots," said the head of Serbia's Kosovo Coordination Centre, Nebojsa Covic.
Covic said the latest murder was "a message to the EU foreign policy chief (Javier) Solana who is arriving in Pristina on Monday, (and) a farewell message to Kosovo's outgoing UN Administrator Harri Holkeri".
Holkeri, Kosovo's fourth U.N. governor since 1999, quit two weeks ago under pressure. He was due back in Kosovo on Saturday afternoon for a final meeting with Solana.
NATO said it was investigating how a car carrying armed Albanians "managed to cross the KFOR checkpoint after the incident", said spokesman, Colonel Jim Moran. Checkpoints were re-established after the March riots, but some may have been relaxed, he added.
It was a similar shooting in another Serb enclave, quickly followed by the drowning of three Albanian boys in a river, that ignited mob violence in March. Albanian media were condemned for blaming Serbs for the drowning and fomenting 'revenge' attacks.
The U.N. and KFOR admit they were caught off-guard by that spasm of violence and came close to losing control. On Saturday, Serbs in Gracanica again blocked the road from Pristina to east Kosovo, as they did three months ago, but later dispersed.
By afternoon, police said the region was calm and under control but the road to Gracanica was sealed off until Monday.
Serbs were targeted for revenge after Kosovo came under U.N. control in 1999 following NATO's 11-week bombing war to halt Serb repression of the independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.
Belgrade has complained bitterly that those Serbs who chose to stay as 200,000 fled north are not adequately protected.
It wants the enclaves to be made autonomous and protected by Serbian police. But the Western powers that ordered intervention in Kosovo are against its partition.
UN police in Kosovo have announced the arrest of two people on suspicion of involvement in the drive-by shooting of 17-year-old Dimitrij Popovic in Gracanica. Albanians Albert Krasnici (18) and Labinot Gasi (20), both of Pristina, were arrested on Saturday, but no further information is available. The International Press Centre in Kosovska Mitrovica reports that police have seized a white Audi 80 together with two weapons. The body of the young Serb victim, who was gunned down in the street overnight on Friday, was to be buried in Gracanica today.
GOD BLESS HIS SOUL. +Memory Eternal+
Posted for Fair Use only
Priest: O God of spirits and of all flesh , You have trampled down death and have abolished the power of the devil, giving life to Your world. Give rest to the soul of Your departed servant in a place of light, in a place of repose, in a place of refreshment, where there is no pain, sorrow, and suffering. As a good and loving God, forgive every sin he has committed in thought, word or deed, for there is no one who lives and is sinless. You alone are without sin. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your word is truth. For you are the resurrection, the life and the repose of Your departed servant, Christ our God, and to You we give glory, with Your eternal Father and Your all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages.
People: Amen.
KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, June 06, 2004 An archive photo of Dimitrije Popovic, the 17 year-old killed in a drive-by shooting in Gracanica (Beta)
both of their clans are heavily involved with the KLA.
These guys are no doubt wanna-be KLA and just doing what their older cousins have been doing for the last few years, murdering and pillaging under UNMIK's nose.
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