Rubber bullets fired as NATO shuts down smelter

In this story: Smelter 'environmental hazard' Workers resist closure 'Robbery' allege Serbs RELATED STORIES, SITES

ZVECAN, Yugoslavia -- Hundreds of NATO-led peacekeepers wearing surgical masks against toxic smoke swept into a Serb-run metal smelting complex in Kosovo on Monday and shut it down.

The troops from France, Belgium Denmark and Britain used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse protesters.

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Yugoslav officials called the seizure of the communist-era complex an "anti-Serb" action, but the chief of the U.N. administration that runs Kosovo said the peacekeepers were acting against an environmental danger.

Scuffles broke out outside the plant's gates when outraged residents, mostly women, threw stones at NATO peacekeepers who had blocked the centre of the town of Zvecan, 25 miles from Kosovo's capital, Pristina.

Three British soldiers suffered head injuries and were transported to Pristina, while one British soldier had a hand injury, Major Angus Forbes said. At least one Serb civilian received a head wound, though it was not serious, NATO said. Serb media reported six injuries.

About 900 peacekeepers cordoned off a 200-square-yard area around the huge facility before swooping into the mining complex, which is seen by some as vital to the economic survival of Kosovo.

Soldiers gasped for air in clouds of black and white smoke belching from chimneys.

Kosovo's top U.N. administrator, Bernard Kouchner, said 160 people had been hospitalised in the past year because of lead poisoning.

He ordered the facility closed until repairs could be made that would reduce emissions, which have been measured at 200 times the accepted World Health Organisation norms.

"We had to act," Kouchner said in a written statement. "As a doctor and as chief administrator of Kosovo, I would be derelict if I let this threat to the health of children and pregnant women continue for one more day."

Kosovo Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic said plant workers told him NATO troops "appeared out of nowhere." Only a few workers were on hand when the operation began in the early morning, Ivanovic said.

Workers resisted, wary of losing their jobs in this economically devastated Serb-dominated region north of the Ibar River and together with plant managers blocked access to the plant for three hours.

KFOR on Monday reassured Serb workers they would continue to be paid, even while the smelter was shut for repairs.

The smelter is part of the Trepca mining complex, a collection of about 40 mines that produce gold, silver, lead, zinc and cadmium.

Recent studies made clear that Trepca would need a large injection of foreign cash to become viable and environmentally sound.

Still, Serb leaders in Kosovo say the U.N.'s environmental concerns are only a ruse to get rid of Serb managers with close ties to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Control of Trepca's mineral wealth has long been disputed between Serbs and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population.

Milosevic's Socialist Party said that the takeover proves the NATO-led peacekeeping mission wants to expel Serbs and non-Albanians from Kosovo.

Yugoslav Information Minister Goran Matic described it as "robbery" and violation of a U.N. resolution that allowed the peacekeepers to operate in Kosovo.

"It is an anti-Serb demonstration of power against unarmed people," Matic told the state-run Tanjug news agency.

The main source of employment for Serbs in the industrial north until last year, Trepca's mines were one of Yugoslavia's leading export industries for years. U.N. officials say some 600 ethnic Albanians and Serbs work at the mine.

Serbs fled most of Kosovo during NATO action aimed at forcing Milosevic to end his repression of ethnic Albanians, but some clung on in the northern Mitrovica area around Zvecan

NATO soldiers also shut down a hardline Serb radio station, Radio S, in northern Mitrovica early on Monday, for breaching U.N. media licensing rules.

CNN In-Depth Specials -- Kosovo: Prospects For Peace

NATO Official Homepage
Human Rights Watch, Kosovo: Focus on Human Rights
Trepca: Making Sense of the Labyrinth - International Crisis Group
Serbia Info News / Front page

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