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Change Your Life! |
NATO chief strolls around Kosovo capital |
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June 1, 2000
The walking tour offered a lighter moment for Lord Robertson, who traveled to Kosovo to hammer home the point that leaders must step forward to halt sporadic acts of violence that have shattered a veneer of peace in the troubled province.
"I'm ... here to deliver a blunt message to the people of Kosovo - that the violence has to be reduced or they'll lose the sympathy of the international community," he said.
Surrounded by soldiers and reporters, Robertson found himself forced to break through a crowd each time he wanted to shake a hand or ask a question. Kosovars watched the entourage with curiosity.
One shopkeeper, Fatima Rama, 32, raced out of her grocery store to hand Robertson a chocolate bar. But after the crowd had passed, she had to ask an outsider the name of the visitor in the blue suit.
"I just know he is one of the people who saved Kosovo," she said. Others had no trouble recognizing Robertson, cheering, clapping and chanting "NATO!"
"Because of (Roberston), he'll will live in a free country," said Linda Gashi, looking at her 3-year-old son, Gramos. Earlier in the day, Robertson offered support to the ethnic Albanian chief of Kosovo's new civil defense unit, pledging to help the organization in efforts to promote peace and reconciliation in the province.
It was not immediately clear whether he gave Agim Ceku, former military commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, any concrete guarantees of assistance during an early morning meeting at his headquarters in the capital, Pristina.
Even so, Robertson praised the Kosovo Protection Corps for its work throughout Kosovo, which has included repairing roads, bridges and other reconstruction projects.
Kosovo's Serbs, however, consider the KPC as nothing more than the old ethnic Albanian rebel army under a new name and see international support for it as a sign that the United Nations and NATO favor the rival ethnic group.
"I will continue to support the KPC, to demand from the international community the resources that will allow it to do this valuable civil job and to support Gen. Ceku in the role he has of being an influential spokesman for peace and reconciliation," Robertson said immediately after the meeting.
The Kosovo mission has struggled to make do with a lack of funds ever since NATO forces swept into Kosovo after the bombing campaign nearly a year ago. The top U.N. administrator, Bernard Kouchner, has been forced to constantly plead for cash to pay teachers, policemen and other civil servants. Ceku, the KPC's top leader, reportedly earns about 600 German marks (dlrs 300) a month, while a U.N. security guard can take home an average of twice that.
Most members of the KPC fought with the KLA, the rebel group which fought for Kosovo's independence from Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.
Robertson also traveled to the ethnically divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica, a community he bypassed in March, reportedly because of security concerns.
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