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Posted by
Olog-hai
on Tue Dec 9 03:14:10 2008, in response to Re: EU Taking Over Kosovo (from UN), posted by Olog-hai on Thu Nov 27 16:53:58 2008.
edf40wrjww2msgDetailOT:detailStr fiogf49gjkf0d Well, now that it's all "offeecial" (to use the Scots spelling), we get the Associated Press (via IHT here) to report on EULEX. 2,000 strong, too! Why do they need so many? Could it be because of what has gone on before, out of the EU?
And completely unrelated: Is "Scots" a language or just a dialect?
EU's Kosovo police mission to deploy amid protestThe Associated Press
Published: December 8, 2008PRISTINA, Kosovo: The European Union's most ambitious police mission to date will take over the policing of Kosovo from the United Nations on Tuesday, after months of delay and protests on both sides of the ethnic divide.
The force, known as EULEX, will have over 2,000 police and justice workers monitoring and advising Kosovo's authorities on tackling corruption and organized crime.
"Kosovo is part of Europe and I think it's a duty for the EU to bring this help and this support to Kosovo," the head of the mission, Yves De Kermabon, told The Associated Press in an interview over the weekend. "To improve the rule of law is very important ... for all of Europe," said De Kermabon, a former French general who was in charge of Kosovo's NATO-led mission.
The EU mission, which will rely strongly on NATO's 16,000 peacekeepers for protection, finds itself unwanted by either side of Kosovo's ethnic divide — ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
Kosovo's Serb minority rejects the EU deployment, as most EU member states supported Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia earlier this year.
Ethnic Albanians fear that the EU made too many concessions to Serb leaders in a bid to garner their support, and fear that these will lead to Serbia having a say over Kosovo's affairs in areas where Serbs live — eventually splitting the country along ethnic lines.
NATO peacekeepers have heightened security in the Serb-dominated north in advance of the EU arrival.
To counter defiance from the Serbs, the EU mission will work under the auspices of the United Nations, which does not endorse Kosovo's declaration of independence. The U.N. has run Kosovo since 1999, and was supposed to leave when the EU mission arrived, but will stay on to act as a buffer between Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-run authorities and the minority Serbs that shun them.
Following Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia on Feb. 17, Serbs clashed with international forces in riots that left one Ukrainian peacekeeper dead and injured more than 30 NATO-led peacekeepers, most of them French.
The EU mission was supposed to deploy soon after the declaration of independence to promote peace, justice and the rule of law. But it was stalled in part because of objections from Serbia, which insists that Kosovo remains part of its territory. Serbia and Kosovo reluctantly agreed to cooperate with the mission last month.
De Kermabon conceded that the mission could take longer to deploy in Serb areas, but brushed away fears it would take sides in the dispute.
"We have once again to explain and to convince everybody that EULEX is a win-win situation," De Kermabon said.
Kosovo's legal system has been plagued with inefficiency despite years of U.N. administration, following a 1998-99 war between separatist ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs. Courts are swamped with cases and corruption is rampant, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which regularly monitors Kosovo's justice system.
On Monday the London-based human rights watchdog, Amnesty International urged the EU mission to take "urgent measures to resolve the massive backlog of war crimes and other human rights violations."
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