Members of protection corps run into problems prompting reprimand from U.S.
By Terry Boyd and Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
Gregory Piatt / Stars and Stripes
While civilian and military officials call the Kosovo Protection Corps a disaster relief
organization, some critics say it's becoming Kosovo's new army. Members of the corps march
in a funeral procession for a fallen comrade. The two in the front carry the banned Kosovo
Liberation Army emblem. Most members of the corps are former members of the KLA. |
UROSEVAC, Kosovo — Since its creation in 1999, Kosovo’s
disaster relief force faced numerous allegations ranging from kidnapping to murder.
Former members of the Kosovo Protection Corps also are suspected of
working with ethnic-Albanian guerillas in southern Serbia and helping spark the five-month
rebellion in Macedonia.
In a forceful reproach of the United Nations-created,
peacekeeper-supervised group — President Bush recently issued an executive order
banning six corps members from entering or receiving money from the United States.
The Department of the Treasury action stated that corps members pose
“a significant risk of committing acts of violence” meant to destabilize the
Balkans.
Those members include two corps regional commanders and a former
corps chief-of-staff who now is a guerrilla commander of the National Liberation Army, an
ethnic Albanian force that has been fighting Macedonian forces.
Corps members also have been connected to the following:
Nine corps members arrested in late May driving a car with National
Liberation Army emblem on it are suspected of supplying or fighting with ethnic Albanian
rebels in Macedonia.
The Vitina corps commander was one of three officers fined and
suspended in May by NATO-led peacekeepers after the men served as an honor guard in the
funeral of an ethnic Albanian rebel.
In June 2000, NATO-led peacekeepers discovered two major weapons
caches.
On May 8, 2000, United Nations police charged three corps members
with the murder of a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander.
In May 2000, 30 men, identified as corps members, kidnapped four
Macedonian border guards.
In May 2000, a corps regional commander acknowledged in an
interview that the corps participated in the killing of a Serb special operations soldier
in Kosovo.
In February 2000, two Corps members were charged with killing a
Slav in Dragas.
European Union foreign ministers have drawn up a list of 38 people,
including corps members, whom they accuse of contributing to violence in Macedonia.
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