Serbs protesters attack UN police

[David]

AP


KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Kosovo - Serbs protesting Kosovo's independence for a fifth straight day Friday attacked U.N. police guarding a key bridge in northern Kosovo with stones, glass bottles and firecrackers.

The U.S. Embassy in the Serbian capital Belgrade announced it would evacuate family members of the staffers following an attack on the compound Thursday. Serb protesters set fire to the embassy, angered by U.S. recognition of Kosovo's declaration of independence over the weekend.

Serbia's prime minister appealed for calm. Serbian President Boris Tadic called an emergency meeting of the national security council and said the rioting that engulfed the capital overnight must "never happen again."

"I most sharply condemn the violence, looting and arson," Tadic said in a statement. "There is no excuse for the violence. Nobody can justify what happened yesterday."

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders declared independence from Serbia on Sunday. The province, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, has not been under Serbia's control since 1999, when NATO launched airstrikes to halt a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. A U.N. mission has governed Kosovo since.

Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said Friday the violence was reminiscent of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's bloody crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo.

In Serb-dominated northern Kosovo, demonstrators waved Serbian flags and chanted "Kosovo is ours!" Police tried to keep protesters off the Kosovska Mitrovica bridge over the Ibar River. The bridge, which divides Kosovo Serbs from ethnic Albanians, has long been a flashpoint of tensions in Kosovo's restive north.

"Kosovo is Serbia and we will never surrender despite blackmail by the European Union," Dragan Deletic, a Serbian government official, told the crowd which responded by chanting "Kosovo is Serbia."

Several EU countries, including Britain, Germany, France and Italy, have recognized Kosovo.

Tensions among demonstrators was higher than usual Friday because French NATO peacekeepers on Kosovo's border refused to allow the passage of several busloads of Serbs who wanted to join the Kosovo Serb rally Friday.

There were fears that Serbian soccer hooligans, the same ones who attacked the U.S. and other embassies in Belgrade on Thursday, were among those on the buses. Some of the hooligans apparently managed to evade the blockade, leading the clashes at the bridge.

On Thursday, nearly 200,000 demonstrated in downtown Belgrade against Kosovo independence. Rioters stormed the U.S. Embassy and set fire to offices and police guardhouses on the sidewalk in front of the building. Firefighters found a charred body inside the U.S. embassy.

Serbian police said more than 150 people were injured in the unrest. Nearly 200 people were arrested and 90 shops ransacked.

On Friday, a McDonald's restaurant in the city center was still smoldering from the fire that torched much of the interior. Shops put up plastic sheeting and glass panels to cover their smashed front windows. Several sports goods stores and other shops had been cleaned out by looters leaving display windows completely bare.

The White House strongly criticized the Serbian government, saying the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade "was attacked by thugs" and Serb police did not do enough to stop it. In a conference call with reporters from Air Force One, presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States had expressed its "concern and displeasure" to the Serbian government.

U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Cameron Munter asked the State Department to evacuate all nonessential personnel and the dependents of all American staff at the embassy.

Rian Harris, spokeswoman for the embassy in Belgrade, said the State Department had authorized the "temporary departure" of dependents from the mission. She said the mission would remain closed for repairs, but would reopen on Tuesday.

The European Union also condemned rioting in the capital Belgrade.

The riots were the first major outburst of anti-Western sentiment in Serbia since Milosevic was ousted in 2000 and replaced by a reformist government.

The tensions have exposed a deep rift within the country's shaky coalition government, raising fears that nationalist anger over Kosovo was strengthening the hard-liners who want to move Serbia away from the European Union and closer to its traditional ally Russia.

The EU warned Serbia that the attacks risked harming efforts to bring the Balkan nation closer to the EU.

"These acts of violence lead nowhere and they cannot help anybody," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. He told reporters that negotiations on an agreement designed to prepare Serbia for eventual EU membership would have to wait until things "calm down."

Pro-Western politicians in Serbia accused hard-line nationalists in the government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of inciting the violence.

In Kosovo, Prime Minister Thaci said the violence harkened back to the Milosevic era.

"The pictures of yesterday in Belgrade were pictures of Milosevic's time," Thaci said during an interview at his office in Pristina. "What we saw were terrible things."

Some Belgrade analysts said the nationalists were seeking to fuel anti-Western anger in order to sideline pro-European Union reformists led by the Tadic.

Tadic's and Kostunica's parties are united in a coalition government that has ruled Serbia since mid-2007.

But the two differ sharply on how to handle Kosovo's independence, with Tadic saying Belgrade must press on with efforts to join the EU regardless of Kosovo, and Kostunica seeking to drop the bid because most EU countries plan to recognize the province's independence.

Kostunica appealed for an end to the violence.

"This directly damages our ... national interests. All those who support the fake state of Kosovo are rejoicing at the sight of violence in Belgrade," he said. But he made no mention of the damaged embassies.

Police said that in addition to the U.S. and Croatian embassies, the missions of Turkey, Bosnia, Belgium and Canada were also targeted.

Defense Minister Dragan Sutanovac of Tadic's EU-oriented Democratic Party said rioters were energized by the backing of some nationalist politicians for smaller attacks earlier in the week against Western embassies and commercial interests.

The pro-Western Liberal Democratic Party leader, Cedomir Jovanovic, warned the rioting was a prelude for a crackdown against government critics and pro-Western liberals.