Kosovo Celebrates early….
Albanians flooded the Kosovocapital Pristina on Saturday, celebrating the territory’sindependence from Serbia a day ahead of schedule.
Cavalcades of cars circled with horns blaring as thousandspoured into the city waving the black and red Albanian flag.Fireworks lit up the night sky in a spontaneous celebrationless than 24 hours before the secession.
Kosovo’s parliament will declare independence on Sundayafternoon, almost nine years since NATO went to war to save theAlbanians from killings and ethnic cleansing by Serb forcestrying to crush a rebel insurgency.
It ends a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.
In the north, French troops prepared concrete andrazor-wire barriers to separate Serbs from Albanians in theflashpoint town of Mitrovica. Kosovo’s 120,000 Serbs, backed byBelgrade, will reject the Albanian declaration, cementing a defacto partition in the north where half the Serbs live.
“The influence of Belgrade has ended,” Prime MinisterHashim Thaci told Kosovo’s public broadcaster. “The success ofKosovo’s independence as a new beginning will be clearlymeasured by respect for the rights of minorities, especiallySerbs.”
The commander of NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo, FrenchLieutenant-General Xavier de Marnhac, said his troops “willreact and oppose any provocation that may happen during thesedays, whether from the Albanian or the Serb side”.
North of the River Ibar, Serbs held a day of prayer andprotest to demonstrate they will never accept the secession ofland where a 90 percent Albanian majority has struggled for itsown state for almost two decades.
“Our message to you, all Serbs in Kosovo, is to remain inyour homes and around your monasteries, regardless of what Godallows or our enemies do,” Bishop Artemije, the head of theSerbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, told a service in Mitrovica.
RAZOR-WIRE
Pre-cast concrete sections three metres (10 feet) high andtall metal barriers wound with razor wire were lined up on theEast Bridge over the river. Barricades were also ready on themain bridge to close both off quickly if clashes erupt.
The declaration will be made during a parliamentary sessionin the capital Pristina due to begin at 3.00 p.m. (1400 GMT),according to the schedule of events leaked to media onSaturday.
In Belgrade, 1,000 Serbs gathered with banners, flags andreligious icons to protest against the loss of land manyconsider their religious heartland, steeped in history and thesite of dozens of centuries-old Orthodox monasteries.
“We’re ready to fight for Kosovo,” said Ivan Ivanovic.”Kosovo will be returned to us, we’ll never accept itsindependence.” Notices in Serbian dailies called for moredemonstrations against “this punishment and humiliation”.
A day ahead of the proclamation, the European Unionapproved the launch of a 2,000-strong rule-of-law mission forKosovo that will take over from the U.N. administration after a120-day transition.
Serbia’s uneasy coalition government is split over whetherto reject ties with the EU over the bloc’s backing for Kosovo.
Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic, an ally ofnationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, said Serbiawould “have to question its ties” with the EU and states thatrecognise Kosovo’s independence.
The United States and most EU members will recognise thenew state, the last to be carved from Yugoslavia. They saySerbia relinquished the moral right to rule its people becauseof the brutality against them under the late SlobodanMilosevic.
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