Angry Serbian nationalists set fire inside a mostly deserted US
embassy Thursday out of anger over Kosovo's independence, leaving one
person dead as break- off groups from a massive peaceful rally
stirred violence in the country's capital.
More than 100 people were injured as demonstrators looted and
smashed storefronts across Belgrade. The protests also spread to
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
A charred, unidentified corpse was found in the US embassy, TV B92
reported. A spokesman for the US embassy in Belgrade, William
Wanlund, said on CNN that the body appeared to be that of a
protester.
Only US security personnel were present during the embassy attack.
The protestors defaced and ransacked the US and Croatian embassy
on Kneza Milosa Street and lobbed stones at the Turkish, Bosnian and
German embassies, agitating unhindered for nearly an hour after
nightfall before police arrived on the scene.
They burnt foreign flags and replaced them with Serb flags, and
set a vehicle on fire at the Canadian embassy, near the US mission.
Serbia continued ordering its ambassadors home for consultations
from countries that recognized Kosovo, including the US, France,
Germany, Britain, Turkey, Australia and 10 other countries.
Serbian leaders vowed to hold onto kosovo during a protest of more
than 200,000 earlier in the day. Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica
delivered a dramatic speech to the rally, though he had also urged
demonstrators to remain peaceful.
'Kosovo belongs to Serbia. Kosovo belongs to Serbian people. It
has always been so and it will be so forever,' the normally-reserved
Kostunica screamed into the microphone. 'No force, no threats or
promises can change that.'
Kosovo declared independence on Sunday, the last of the one-time
Yugoslav territories to break away from Belgrade since the Balkans
ethnic conflicts of the 1990s.
Firefighters doused the US embassy blaze and armoured police
vehicles drove down the broad embassy-studded, symbol-laden Kneza
Milosa street, accompanied by dozens of riot police who fired teargas
and drove protestors away.
The United States urged Serbian authorities to protect the US
embassy and was in contact with the Serbian government 'to ensure
that they devote the appropriate assets' to protect diplomatic
facilities, spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.
Former US ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who negotiated the 1995
Dayton peace accord for the Balkans, noted in a broadcast interview
that Serbian security forces should have been protecting the US
embassy.
In New York, the US called on the UN Security Council to condemn
the attacks. The council said it would issue a statement later
Thursday.
The governing and opposition parties had organized the 'Kosovo is
Serbia' rally earlier in the day, financing free bus and rail
transport from all over Serbia, closing factories and schools.
The demonstrators packed the large plateau, boulevard and park
outside the national assembly in the country's largest gathering
since the October 2000 protest toppled late strongman leader Slobodan
Milosevic.
Kosovo had been under a United Nations and NATO protectorate since
NATO stopped Milosevic's forces in 1999 from the ethnic-cleansing of
Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. Kneza Milosa Street, where the US embassy
is, holds symbolic importance after NATO planes bombed military
sites there in 1999. The buildings have been left unrepaired.
Kostunica has frozen Serbia's approach to EU membership in protest
against Western support of Kosovo, branding the presumed exchange of
Kosovo for membership of the EU an 'indecent proposal.'
Tomislav Nikolic, a former high-ranking member of Milosevic's
regime who leads the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS) in
opposition, vowed that 'Hitler could not take Kosovo and neither will
these of today.'
'As many people as we have here today' could march on Kosovo, he
vowed.
But Serbian President Boris Tadic vowed Belgrade's would 'never
again wage war' after a meeting with Romanian President Traian
Basescu in Bucharest.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin said
NATO's KFOR peacekeeping force 'has the capability for us to prevent'
any partition of Kosovo to the remaining minority Serbs and maintain
order.
Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday called on all sides to act with
'prudence and moderation' and promote reconciliation in the region.
Serb protests spread across the region. In Banja Luka and Sarajevo
in Bosnia and Herzogovina, police used teargas to prevent some
protesting 3,000 students from attacking consulates and looting
shops. Fourteen Bosnian Serb policemen and several students were
slightly injured.
USA
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