STOCKHOLM, May 3 (AFP) - Kosovo Serbs are likely to become targets of ethnic cleansing if a strong international military presence is not maintained in the war-torn province for at least another decade, Swedish Brigadier General Anders Braennstroem said on Monday.
"If the Serbian minority is not protected by a strong military organization, the part of the Kosovo Albanian population with violent tendencies will ethnically cleanse all Serbs from Kosovo," Braennstroem, who led the Swedish troops in Kosovo until last week, wrote in a commentary in the leading daily Dagens Nyheter on Monday.
Referring to the deadly ethnic unrest that rocked Kosovo in March, Braennstroem warned the international community against carrying out plans to cut back the number of troops stationed in the province.
"A positive result of what happened (in March) is that we discovered the fragility of the project in time. If we had already significantly reduced (the number of troops), the ethnic cleansing could not have been stopped. Then, maybe about 100,000 Kosovo Serbs and other minority groups would either have been dead or gathered in the refugee camps we have seen so many of throughout the history of the Balkans," he wrote.
Before the ethnic clashes exploded on March 17, NATO had been planning to reduce the number of troops serving in the Multinational Brigade Center, which has been led by Sweden, not a NATO-member.
Even after the violence ended on March 19, leaving 19 dead and more than 900 injured, Sweden, at least, has been considering dramatically reducing the number of soldiers stationed in Kosovo.
Sweden, which at the height of its involvement had as many as 900 troops in Kosovo, is considering calling nearly two-thirds of its soldiers home.
The consequences of such a move would be catastrophic, according to Braennstroem.
"The differences and the hate are so strong that the problem in any case will remain for many years. It's obvious that it will take decades before one can expect another situation," he said.
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Copyright (c) 2004 Agence France-Presse
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Insight: 05/03/2004 12:53:07
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