Serb militia formed to defend Kosovo May 05, 2007 10:07 AM
BELGRADE, Serbia-Hundreds of ex-Serb militia members from the Balkan wars
gathered in a central town Saturday and pledged to fight for Kosovo if the
breakaway province is granted independence as proposed in a Western-backed
plan. Police detained more than two dozen people.
The former Serb fighters gathered in the town of Krusevac, about 150
kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Belgrade, to form a paramilitary unit
similar to the ones that roamed the Balkans during the wars of the 1990s.
Police in Krusevac said they detained 27 people dressed in T-shirts with
symbols of the disbanded Unit for Special Operations, whose former commander
and several members are on trial for the 2003 assassination of Serbia's
reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
The event is an illustration of the mounting nationalism here over prospects
that Kosovo will split from Serbia as demanded by its ethnic Albanian
majority.
Talks on the formation of a new pro-Western government in Serbia, meanwhile,
remain deadlocked, triggering a political crisis that could pave the way for
the return to power of the nationalists loyal to ex-leader Slobodan
Milosevic.
Such a scenario would undermine Western efforts to find a lasting solution
for Kosovo and the troubled region.
Many of the ex-volunteers in Krusevac wore military uniforms with
nationalist symbols typical of the notorious units accused of committing
atrocities during the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s.
"We will never give up Kosovo, we are ready to fight," one of the
organizers, Andrej Milic, said at the gathering held in front of a Serb
Orthodox Church in the town.
Milic added their unit will be available to the state authorities in case
Serbia decides to wage a war for Kosovo, and called for a "new Serb uprising
and a new battle for Kosovo."
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Kosovo is formally part of Serbia, but is dominated by ethnic Albanians who
are seeking independence for the region. Kosovo has been run by the United
Nations since 1998-99 during which time Muslim Kosovo Albanians expelled
over 200,000 Serbs from the province, destroyed over 150 churches and are
besieging and intimidating the remaining Christians.
The United States and its allies favor internationally supervised
independence for the province, as proposed in the U.N. plan, but Russia
opposes it, signaling a possible showdown at the U.N. Security Council,
which will have the final say on the matter.
Most Serbs consider Kosovo the heartland of their history and culture.
Belgrade has strongly rejected the plan drafted by U.N. envoy Martti
Ahtisaari, saying it would never agree to let go of the province.
There was no immediate reaction from the Serbian government to the veterans'
gathering in Krusevac, although creation of paramilitary units in Serbia is
illegal.
The volunteer units were first founded in the early 1990s, during the rule
of late Milosevic, who took Serbia to four wars during his decade-long rule.
Those units later became notorious for their brutality against civilians and
enemy troops, but were disbanded after the wars and Milosevic's ouster from
power in 2000.
Dragoljub Vasiljevic, one of the volunteers who came to Krusevac on Saturday
denied the brutality allegations, telling the Beta news agency that they
were "honorable and brave" fighters.
The organizers said that their unit will be named after a medieval Serb
leader, Czar Lazar, who led the Serb army in a crucial battle against the
Ottoman Turks in Kosovo in 1389. The Serbs lost the battle but cherish the
event as one of the most important in their history.
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