SERB VILLAGERS DISTURBED BY KFOR AND KPC MANEUVERS Beta

SERB VILLAGERS DISTURBED BY KFOR AND KPC MANEUVERS
Beta - September 15, 2003

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA - French KFOR troops and members of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) began exercises today near the Serb villages of Malo Rudare and Veliko Rudare in the Kosovo municipality of Zvecan, causing unrest among local residents.

Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo member Marko Jaksic said that the locals see the military exercises "as yet another way of instilling fear and applying pressure."

The KFOR press center in Mitrovica confirmed that the exercises are in progress but said that they are being conducted only by members of the KPC with KFOR supervision.

The SNC of Northern Kosovo sees the exercises as a sign of KFOR's intent to soon turn over the military barracks to the KPC or to "the future Albanian army in Kosovo" as they call themselves, said Jaksic. He announced that the SNC would lodge a sharp protest with the KFOR Multi-National Brigade North commander, general Michel Klein.

As a result of these military exercises, a convoy of buses transporting Serbs to central Kosovo was cancelled, said Serb representatives, adding that similar exercises are also being conducted in the area of Zubin Potok from the direction of Srbica, as well as in other Serb-inhabited areas in Kosovo.

The Kosovo Protection Corps is an organization created by the official demilitarization of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the role of its members has in the past been limited to intervention during natural disasters in the Province.