Angry Kosovars call on 'colonial' UN occupying force to leave

The international force's fall from grace in Kosovo is a stark warning of what could happen to peacekeepers in Iraq. Helena Smith reports

Sunday October 19, 2003
The Observer

The first chant came from the back of the crowd. 'Go home!' yelled a youngster, as he stood in Pristina's dusty Mother Teresa Square, the site last week of Kosovo's first post-war demonstration.
'Out with the UN!' screamed an elderly woman, producing a placard that conveyed the same message. 'We don't need you here!'

Four years ago, Kosovar Albanians were liberated from their Serbian tormentors by the West. The international bureaucrats who arrived to administer the benighted territory after Nato forces made their triumphant entry were hailed as heroes by a populous as grateful as it was grief-stricken.

But now Kosovo has become angry again. As the eyes of the world have been elsewhere, another battle has erupted in the heart of the world's 'most successful' UN peacekeeping mission. After around 1,500 days of receiving more money, aid and support than any other war-ravaged country, Kosovars are angry. But this time their venom is reserved for the very people who came to protect and reform them.

<snip>
Over half of Kosovo's two million people are living on or below the poverty line. Unemployment is rampant, and after four years of governance by 'white men' the province - a net exporter of electricity under the Yugoslav regime - is still suffering daily from debilitating power cuts. All this as the perception also grows that many internationals are only in Kosovo for 'their fat-cat salaries and CVs'. If they cared so much about locals, why were there so many abandoned babies who had reportedly been sired by Westerners?

'I'm really fearful for my children,' sighed Blakcori. 'What are they going to do? The internationals have done good things, but they have also brought bad habits. Now there is a lot of drugs and prostitution. In the Balkans when people have lots of time and nothing to do they tend to become radicalised.'

<snip>

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1066231,00.html

I have this added to favorites so I can show a certain and good friend of mine this.

when to go home these days.

Oh god, that is a laugh. Ugh.

:shrug: