2004 Unrest in Kosovo - International Reaction

International Reaction

The international community was taken by surprise by the sudden upsurge in violence. Kosovo had been fairly quiet since the end of 1999, although there had been occasional small-scale ethnic clashes throughout the past five years and an ongoing tension between Serbs and Albanians. This had, however, largely gone unnoticed by the Western media since 1999.

KFOR troops closed Kosovo's borders with the remainder of Serbia-Montenegro and the UN suspended flights in and out of the province. NATO announced on 18 March that it would send another 1,000 troops – 750 of them from the United Kingdom – to reinforce the 18,500 troops already there.

The United Nations and European Union both appealed for calm, calling on local leaders to restrain their supporters. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged both sides to cooperate with the peacekeeping forces but pointedly reminded the Kosovo Albanians that they had a responsibility "to protect and promote the rights of all people within Kosovo, particularly its minorities".

An Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) official in Austria called the events an orchestrated plan to drive out the remaining Serbs, while one anonymous UNMIK official reportedly referred to the event as Kosovo's Kristallnacht. The commander of NATO's South Flank, Admiral Gregory G. Johnson, said on 19 March that the violence verged on ethnic cleansing of Serbs by Albanians. On 20 March, Kosovo's UN administrator, Harri Holkeri, told journalists that "Maybe the very beginning was spontaneous but after the beginning certain extremist groups had an opportunity to orchestrate the situation and that is why we urgently are working to get those perpetrators into justice."

According to Amnesty International, at least 19 people died—11 Albanians and eight Serbs—and over 1,000 were injured while some 730 houses belonging to minorities, mostly Kosovo Serbs, as well as 36 Orthodox churches, monasteries and other religious and cultural sites were damaged or destroyed. In less than 48 hours, 4,100 minority community members were newly displaced, (more than the total of 3,664 that had returned throughout 2003), of whom 82 per cent were Serbs and the remaining 18 per cent included Roma and Ashkali as well as an estimated 350 Albanians from the Serb majority areas of Kosovska Mitrovica and Leposavić.

• The government of Albania has "come out strongly against the violent actions of the Albanian side" and is aiming to calm the violence, according to Holkeri (Helsingin Sanomat).

• Denmark pledged to send an additional 100 peacekeepers to the region after the violence began.
• Germany's Defence Minister Peter Struck said on March 19 that a further 600 peacekeepers were being sent to join German forces in Kosovo, with deployment to the region beginning on March 20.
• France pledged to send about 400 more troops immediately to the region after the violence began.
• Russia and Serbia-Montenegro called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, which condemned the violence. On 19 March, the Russian Duma passed a resolution (397 to 0) calling for the return of Serbia-Montenegro's troops to the southern province. Russia condemned KFOR and UNMIK's inabilities to stop the violence.
• Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica has himself described the attacks as "planned in advance and co-ordinated... this was an attempted pogrom and ethnic cleansing" against Kosovo's Serbs.
• The United Kingdom sent an additional 750 peacekeeping soldiers, which arrived in the region's capital Pristina within 24 hours of the first attacks, to reinforce British troops already on the ground.
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters the Bush administration called "on all groups to end the violence and refrain from violence." The U.S. State Department also repeated its call to stop the violence, stating: "The escalating violence threatens the process of democratization and reconciliation in Kosovo and must end."