Smuggled arms threaten new danger to independent Kosovo

Published on Sunday 16 December 2007 21:07

SUCCESSFUL smuggling of anything from Kalashnikov assault-rifles to counterfeit Marlboro cigarettes between Macedonia and Kosovo depends on two critical factors: which route and who to bribe.

Amid increasing tension over their forthcoming declaration of independence from Serbia the northern side of the border in Kosovo is patrolled by troops from the 16,500-strong Nato taskforce known as K-For, the south by Macedonian soldiers and police.

But a top Macedonian government official working in state security says that if you know the right people you are in business. "All it takes is bribing two important people and you can move anything across," said the official, referring to those in influential positions in the Macedonian government institutions

Large quantities of arms and equipment move into and out of Kosovo and Macedonia, through the oak forests and across wind-blown slopes, carried on foot, by mules and vehicles, ready to equip armed Albanian groups intent on destabilising Kosovo and Macedonia.

Whether any form of violence in either Kosovo or Macedonia will accompany an independence declaration remains to be seen. But if it does many of the weapons that will fuel it are likely to be found in the barns, fields and red-roofed houses of two Macedonian villages, one a mile from the border, the other right on it.

Around two million people live in Kosovo, 90 per cent of them ethnic Albanians. A de facto dividing line on the River Ibar in northern Kosovo, centred on the ethnically-divided town of Mitrovica, separates Albanians and Serb communities. An estimated 55,000-odd Serbs live across Kosovo guarded by NATO troops.

The Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Koštunica, said Serbia would declare any unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence legally null and void.

"For us, Kosovo's independence does not exist and cannot happen," he said.

The prime minister also said that the Kosovo Serbs had expressed their willingness to live in Serbia by supporting the country's constitution.