Thursday, February 22, 2001

By Kevin Dougherty
Kosovo bureau

PASJANE, Kosovo — U.S. military police fired a volley of rubber bullets at a group of Kosovar Serbs on Tuesday after some demonstrators threw rocks and bottles at Army personnel and U.N. police, a Task Force Falcon spokeswoman said Wednesday.

In all, 14 rounds were shot into the crowd, particularly at those suspected of trying to turn a peaceful demonstration into a riotous affair, said Army Capt. Alayne Cramer, a spokeswoman at Camp Bondsteel.

None of the U.S. soldiers, U.N. police or demonstrators were seriously injured, Cramer said.

"Once we did this," Cramer said, "the crowd stopped throwing rocks and bottles and the instigators ran away, and [the U.N. police] apprehended them."

The demonstration, which arose over a concern for security, dissipated soon afterwards, Cramer said. A similar demonstration occurred Wednesday, but it remained peaceful.

"The Serbs were upset about security in the sector," Cramer said. "They basically felt we weren’t protecting the Serbs enough."

Those concerns over a lack of security stem from a series of recent attacks against Kosovo Serbs by the ethnic majority Albanians. The cruelest incident occurred Friday when a remotely detonated bomb destroyed a bus, killing at least 11 and injuring dozens more.

Tuesday’s incident occurred in the far eastern section of the U.S. sector. Pasjane is a small village southeast of Gnjilane, where Camp Monteith is situated. The demonstration occurred on the road in what is essentially the last town before the Kosovo-Serb border.

It started peacefully at about 2 p.m. Tuesday, with around 100 people gathering to voice their concerns about security, Cramer said. Over the next hour, more people joined the demonstration, and by 3:15 p.m. the crowd had swelled to about 300.

At some point, people started to throw rocks and bottles at U.N. police and soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment out of Baumholder, Germany, Cramer said. Members of the 793rd Military Police Battalion, also from Baumholder, stepped in to assist and later resorted to rubber bullets, which will stun an individual who is hit by one.

Cramer said the MPs fired two types of nonlethal rounds. She described the bullets as simple rubber rounds and shotgun rubber rounds.

When the rounds were fired, the uprising subsided and the primary instigators began running, Cramer said. U.N. police apprehended seven people suspected of inciting the crowd.

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