3/19/2004 02:06:00 PM

an update from a good friend in Kosova regarding the recent ethnic violence:

..We face a crisis here in Kosova. For three days now the country has been
consumed with marches, demonstrations, looting and burning. So far over twenty
people have been killed and many hundreds injured.

We live and work in Prizren. The air in the city center reeks with smoke
from burning buildings. Tear gas blinds the eyes. Tanks and soldiers surround
the local UN building, many of its windows already broken. Elsewhere the local
police can do little as large mobs vent their anger. Serbian Orthodox houses
and religious structures lay in smoldering ruins.

The commercial airport has been closed. America, Britain and other
countries are flying in extra troops to help. But the situation remains
volatile.

Various factors contributed to the sudden outburst of hostility. Ethnic
tension between Serbs and Albanians is one. Sporadic violence between the two
sides came to a head when three small Albanian boys drowned in a river as they
fled from a Serb mob near the northern city of Mitrovica.

Another factor is that the United Nations continues to control Kosova,
restricting the formation of a truly democratic government. Most people feel
that the UN has bungled its mandate to bring stability and progress to the
region.

A third factor is that the unemployment rate remains above sixty
percent--this is the greatest problem. Most young adults cannot find work or
plan for the future, and so they lash out in frustration.

An ultra-nationalist group, rather shadowy and small in numbers, has been
planting bombs and creating disturbances for some time, hoping to destabilize
the social structures. Perhaps they provided the recent spark in various
cities, but the explosion of violence was a spontaneous response from frustrated
young adults....