Tensions rise as Kosovo prepares to declare its independence

CAMP NOTHING HILL, Serbia -- Suddenly, they're almost everywhere: NATO peacekeepers patrolling Kosovo in trucks and Humvees. The increased presence is intended to reassure, but it's rattling nerves as the breakaway province gears up for independence.

"There's tension in the air -- especially at night," said Dragan Jovanovic, 41, who lives in Sainovica, a Serb village in western Kosovo that is surrounded by ethnic Albanian settlements.

With some Serbian officials threatening violence if Kosovo declares statehood early next year, there are fears that things could go badly again in the Balkans.

The birth of Europe's newest nation, international observers warn, could touch off the continent's next crisis.

"There will be protests. There could be riots," said Charles A. Kupchan, a senior fellow for European studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

"Kosovo is to the Serbs in some ways as Jerusalem is to Israelis or Palestinians," he said. "Lives are on the line, and we may see renewed bloodshed in the Balkans sometime early next year."

Serbia has offered broad autonomy, but insists that Kosovo remain part of its territory. Russia agrees, contending Kosovo's independence would encourage other separatist movements in Georgia, Chechnya and worldwide, and has vowed to block it at the U.N. Security Council.

The province's ethnic Albanian majority demands nothing short of full independence.

With the rival sides hopelessly deadlocked -- and the Security Council unlikely to reach agreement on a way forward when it takes up the issue Dec. 19 -- Kosovo's leaders are expected in January to formally set the province on the road to achieving statehood by spring.

"Compromise is impossible," Kosovo's incoming new prime minister, former guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci, declared Saturday in an interview with The Associated Press.

"Kosovo will be independent. The negotiating process is finished. Now it's time for a decision," Thaci said in the interview at Pristina's Hotel Victory, where a giant replica of the U.S. Statue of Liberty adorns the roof.

Thaci pledges to closely coordinate a declaration of independence with the U.S. and the European Union, and insists the time for war and violence is over.

But ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 percent of the province's 2 million people, are mindful of the havoc and death wrought during the 1998-99 war, which killed an estimated 10,000 people. And Kosovo's minority Serbs, targeted in the past by reprisal attacks, fear they may be pressured to leave if the province gains statehood.

"People are worried about their safety and their lives," said Rados Vulic, mayor of the nearby Serb enclave of Osojane where several houses were torched a few years ago.

Marnhac, the NATO commander, visited Osojane last week to reassure the locals that peacekeepers would protect them. He got a polite, if skeptical, reception -- and in a stop in the village of Gorazdevac, a few frustrated Serbs scuffled briefly with troops.

Joachim Ruecker, the top U.N. official in Kosovo, accused authorities in Belgrade of orchestrating the incident and called it part of a campaign of "intimidation and threats" waged by Serbia.

Russia and Serbia have both demanded continued negotiations. But Ruecker contends it's pointless to prolong the talks.

"The longer the status process drags on, the more extremists from both sides will be able to exploit this," he told AP in an interview.

Thaci made it clear that Kosovo's Albanians won't wait any longer for what they see as their destiny.

"We don't have time to lose. Every day that we delay is risk for peace and stability for Kosovo and the region," Thaci said. "We have only one solution for our status, and that is independence."

Although the U.S. and major EU powers including Britain, France, Germany and Italy have indicated a readiness to recognize Kosovo as an independent state, there are holdouts who -- like Russia -- feel it would set a bad precedent. Those include Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

Getting most of Europe on board will take time, a senior Western official in Kosovo told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomacy now under way.

"It's not going to be fireworks and suddenly Kosovo is independent," the official said. "It will take time. Enough nations will have to support Kosovo so Serbia doesn't get the wrong idea. We can't afford to be timid."

The rift with Russia, meanwhile, threatens to escalate into a full-blown confrontation. In a new report, the Brussels, Belgium based International Crisis Group think tank warns that the U.S. and its European allies must "be prepared to accept some damage in their relations with Moscow" if they recognize Kosovo.

Western officials also are bracing for a messy "double secession" -- the possibility that Serb-dominated northern Kosovo will break off from the newly independent province and join neighboring Serbia.

If Kosovo does gain independence, it faces daunting economic obstacles.

Unemployment is over 40 percent. There are power blackouts on most days. And although the late pacifist leader Ibrahim Rugova liked to give visitors gems offered as proof of the province's untapped mineral wealth, Kosovo is not South Africa, and experts say all it really has to exploit is its coal.

The EU, which would take over from the U.N. during the transition to independence, says it would swiftly organize a donor's conference to help the new nation get on its feet.

As Kosovo's moment draws near, the presence of NATO's 16,000 peacekeepers adds to the nerve-wracking sense of an impending confrontation. But most people seem to trust that NATO and U.N. officials can pull off a peaceful transition in Kosovo.

"I'm not afraid at all. I don't even think about violence," said Emine Bushi, 58, shopping Saturday along Pristina's main pedestrian street.

Serbs, she said, "kicked us out once -- but they won't do it again."