Posted on 08/08/2002 10:45:01 AM PDT by Destro
NATO troops attempt to arrest Serb leader
Thu Aug 8, 7:23 AM ET
By GARENTINA KRAJA, Associated Press Writer
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - NATO ( news - web sites) troops and the U.N. police raided a house near Kosovo's most tense city Thursday in an apparent attempt to arrest a man believed to be a hard-line leader of a Serb vigilante group.
Backed by two armored vehicles and a helicopter, French soldiers and police ransacked the home of Milan Ivanovic, the leader of the Serbian National Council for northern Kosovo.
"I was somewhere else, but they interrogated my sick mother for quite a while," Ivanovic told The Associated Press by telephone. "My property was completely destroyed."
U.N. officials told The Associated Press that an international prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Ivanovic on charges of attempted murder in the riot of April 8th in the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the capital, Pristina.
Some 22 police officers — mainly Polish — serving with the U.N. police force in the province were injured by grenades in that riot.
"Dr. Ivanovic has been informed of the warrant and should surrender himself to the authorities," said Andrea Angeli, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Kosovo.
Kosovska Mitrovica has long been a flashpoint in this southern Yugoslav province. The city is divided between an ethnic Albanian south and a predominantly Serb north.
In the predominantly Serb part of Kosovo, Serb vigilantes have served as a sort of parallel police force, despite U.N. efforts to force them to hand over weapons and submit to U.N. authority.
The United Nations ( news - web sites) and NATO have run Kosovo since June 1999, when the alliance pushed out forces loyal to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ( news - web sites) after a 78-day air war. The air war was intended to stop Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanians, who want independence.
Milosevic is now on trial before the Netherlands-based U.N. war crimes court on charges of war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
Ivanovic's council actively supports a local vigilante organization known as the "Bridgewatchers," a group which takes its name from the three bridges that divide the city.
Kosovo's U.N. administrator, Michael Steiner, accuses the group "of stirring up troubles," in the gritty industrial city. Members of the "Bridgewatchers" say they are simply protecting the region's Serbs from attacks by ethnic Albanians.
"My eventual arrest would represent his (Steiner's) attempt to intimidate Serbs in Northern Mitrovica ahead of upcoming local elections in Kosovo and to force them to flee," Ivanovic said.
Why are American led NATO troops serving out warrants for UN courts? When did NATO become the UN's police force?
P.S.: To the Serbs, in these case please follow G. Gordon Liddys's advice.
The US is insane to play along with this. We're messing with fire. Today Kosovo, tomorrow the US. Today a supposed radical vigilante, tomorrow a preacher for crimes against humanity.
This is one game I wish the Bush administration would opt out of. How can we make such a stink before the ICC, then allow this type of nonsense against other nation's citizens? It's a double standard that is only going to make people resent the US more.
What happens the first time some "international prosecutor" decides to pick someone up in the US? All the advocates would have to to is point to this instance where the US actually participated in a similar action in another nation. What valid basis for rejection would we have? None!
We are playing a stupid stupid game.
If Ben Laden was given an honorary citizenship by the Bosnian Moslem government that we supported, and right now, we have numerous reports of cooperation between the Kosvo Moslem drug dealers and and the El Quaeda terrorist all over the world. We are either stupid, or we have traitors at the State Dept.
Your comments may be right on with regard to the musical chairs aspects of this. I'm just not tuned in enough on this issue to agree or disagree. My gut says you're probably right.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.