Belgrade ready to provide troops to NATO to end Kosovo violence

[DuctapeFatwa]

Serbia and Montenegro is ready to commit troops to NATO-led international forces in Kosovo to end inter-ethnic violence in the province and protect the Serbian community, an official communique said Thursday.
Belgrade is "ready to send troops to the international forces to stabilize the situation in Kosovo within the framework of (UN Security Council) resolution 1244 and the (NATO) mission and the UN mission in Kosovo," said the communique issued by the Supreme Defense Council (VSO) and published by Tanjug news agency.

Defense Minister Boris Tadic told BK television after a council meeting that Belgrade meant to "assist NATO troops with its professional troops to protect non-Albanian citizens in Kosovo".

http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040318022556.spnh5ejb.html

[aquart]

1. Is this a joke?

They want to send Serbs with guns to police Kosovo?

Will they provide their own shovels for the mass graves or simply unearth the ones they used last time?

Chutzpah lives.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. Nope, and neither is this:

Serb paramilitary troops who last saw action in the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo in 1999 are being trained for anti-terrorist duties in Afghanistan beside some of the US forces who helped expel them from the Yugoslav province. The 1000-strong force comprises some former members of the "red berets", a feared military police unit which helped lead the campaign to drive the Albanian majority out of Kosovo and wipe out Kosovo Liberation Army resistance fighters.

http://www.nni-news.com/current/world/news-10.htm

[Vladimir]

4. To be fair

I agree the sitation is ridiculous but the government in Belgrade has little choice but to say this. At the last election, the ultra-nationalists won and were kept out of government by a minority-coalition of the centre-right (with tacit support from SPS, Milosevic's old party). The government is now in a no win situation: if it acts it is seen as grotesque, but if it doesn't it may well not survive the week and the lunatics will be in power.

I don't really want to go in to the history of it but for the record, its a fair bit more complex than your post makes it sound. I agree that Serbian troops in Kosovo is the last thing anyone (and especially the Serbs) needs at the moment though.

V

[Devils Advocate NZ]

3. Of course we all know that the Serbs wanting to send troops...

is far more of a scandal than the fact that the Albanians are STILL killing Serbs in Kosovo!

You see, when the US picks a side, that side is automagically elevated to the position of GOOD and thus can do no wrong, just like Saddam Hussein in Iraq...

Oh, wait a minute...

Scratch that, I mean, just like the Mujahideen in Afghanistan...

No, that's not right

Uhmm...

Oh damn.