Tensions mount in Kosovo election
Source: Agencies |
December 13, 2010, Monday
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KOSOVARS voted yesterday in the first general poll since the country's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, a critical election already marred by ethnic tension that many fear will split the world's newest country.
Serbia has called for Kosovo's Serb minority to boycott the vote in protest at the declaration of independence, which Belgrade has refused to acknowledge. The boycott call has deepened fears the country could split into a Serb north and an ethnic Albanian south, a reverse of decades of efforts by the West to calm ethnic tensions in the region.
The move is likely to weaken Pristina's claim over the territory in upcoming European Union-brokered talks with Serbia on resolving the dispute. The region is patrolled by NATO peacekeepers and EU police, but is run as a fiefdom by local Serb leaders picked by Belgrade.
Some 1.6 million voters are eligible to vote and 29 political parties, coalitions and citizens' initiatives are seeking to enter Kosovo's 120-seat parliament. Ten of the seats are reserved for minority Serbs, some of whom are running in the poll.
But minorities in Kosovo's north are unlikely to vote after violent attacks aimed at intimidating potential voters. Yesterday, a clandestine Serb group calling itself White Eagles acknowledged responsibility for the slaying of a Bosniak leader loyal to Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-dominated institutions.
The group warned in a letter obtained by The Associated Press it would "not allow Albanian elections to be held" in Kosovo's north and said it would "make life worse" for all those who take part. The group also threatened NATO peacekeepers and EU police.
Serbia has called for Kosovo's Serb minority to boycott the vote in protest at the declaration of independence, which Belgrade has refused to acknowledge. The boycott call has deepened fears the country could split into a Serb north and an ethnic Albanian south, a reverse of decades of efforts by the West to calm ethnic tensions in the region.
The move is likely to weaken Pristina's claim over the territory in upcoming European Union-brokered talks with Serbia on resolving the dispute. The region is patrolled by NATO peacekeepers and EU police, but is run as a fiefdom by local Serb leaders picked by Belgrade.
Some 1.6 million voters are eligible to vote and 29 political parties, coalitions and citizens' initiatives are seeking to enter Kosovo's 120-seat parliament. Ten of the seats are reserved for minority Serbs, some of whom are running in the poll.
But minorities in Kosovo's north are unlikely to vote after violent attacks aimed at intimidating potential voters. Yesterday, a clandestine Serb group calling itself White Eagles acknowledged responsibility for the slaying of a Bosniak leader loyal to Kosovo's ethnic Albanian-dominated institutions.
The group warned in a letter obtained by The Associated Press it would "not allow Albanian elections to be held" in Kosovo's north and said it would "make life worse" for all those who take part. The group also threatened NATO peacekeepers and EU police.
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