Kosovo peacekeeping tests U.S. troops

CAMP NOTHING HILL, Kosovo - Spc. Scott Krampitz stands on a plateau overlooking a smattering of shabby houses against a backdrop of snowcapped peaks known as the Cursed Mountains.

His unit of Humvees and trucks patrol muddy roads in northern Kosovo, protecting tiny hamlets of Albanians from ethnic Serbs infuriated by the birth of the newest state in Europe.

The Minnesota native is one of 1,455 American troops taking part in a NATO peacekeeping force whose mission has become even more delicate since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia.

The United States and many Western countries have recognized Kosovo's statehood, angering Serbs who consider the region the heart of their culture and orthodox religion. At the same time, NATO troops strive not to take sides between Kosovo's rival groups - putting them in a tough spot last week when Serbs vented their anger by destroying U.N. and NATO property, setting off hand grenades and staging protests.

Serbs used plastic explosives and bulldozers to destroy the two main U.N.-run border checkpoints between Kosovo and Serbia. Protesters tipped over metal sheds that housed Kosovo's multiethnic customs service and sent them sliding down a hill and into a river. They vandalized and set fire to passport control booths.

NATO peacekeepers did not intervene, apparently trying to avoid stoking tensions.

"We are ready to act tough in case of further such incidents," said Maj. Etienne du Fayet, the French spokesman of the NATO Task Force North stationed in Mitrovica, a Kosovo town split by a river into Albanian and Serbian sides.
Kosovo Albanians represent 90 percent of the new state's 2 million people. But here in the north, they are a tiny minority compared to Serbs.

Aliu Hazir, an ethnic Albanian living in an isolated mountain settlement, fears Serb anger could boil over into the sort of bloody ethnic cleansing campaign triggered by former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's offensive against separatist Kosovo Albanians.

The bloodletting stopped only when NATO chased Serbian troops out in 1999, and Kosovo became a U.N.-administered province.

A big part of the 15,900 peacekeepers' mission is to protect the 30,000 Serbs who live in virtual ghettos in isolated enclaves on the Albanian-dominated territory.

"We are faced with a display of nationalism on both sides," said Krampitz, of Owatonna, Minn.

He's not the only Minnesotan serving in Kosovo. More than 400 members of the Minnesota National Guard are part of "Task Force Bayonet" with a mission of keeping communities safe and secure.

In addition to the NATO peacekeeping force, a multiethnic U.N. mission has administered the province since 1999. Further testing international resolve to keep Kosovo intact, the Serbs prevented Albanian policemen, judges and other staff of the U.N. mission from going to work in northern Kosovo since Sunday's independence declaration.

At least four hand grenades exploded in front of a U.N. court in Mitrovica in the past few days, as Serb judges and court clerks staged daily protests in front of the building to make sure Albanians could not get in.