AP News, July 12th, 2007
The United Nations said Thursday that it has suspended the use of rubber bullets while it reviews whether peacekeepers have potentially deadly expired ammunition that has hardened with age.
The U.N. police commissioner in Kosovo banned rubber bullets there after an internal inquiry found that Romanian peacekeepers had killed two ethnic Albanian demonstrators in February with rubber bullets that were 13 years past their expiration date.
Manufacturers put a time limit on the use of rubber bullets because the coating over the metal or wood slug can harden over time, making the projectile potentially fatal.
The new directive from the U.N.'s department of peacekeeping operations places a temporary suspension on the "carriage and use of rubber bullets and bean-bag rounds" in Liberia, East Timor, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Kosovo and Congo, according to the document, which was obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by U.N. officials.
"I said I did not want them (rubber bullets) on the scene. My understanding is that the U.N. is now saying this to all the U.N. missions around the world," said the police commissioner, Richard Monk.
The U.N. has some 100,000 peacekeepers in missions around the world, the highest number in the history of the organization. The U.N. took over control of Kosovo in 1999 alongside a 16,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force. Some 1,500 U.N. police officers are stationed in Kosovo and police the province together with over 7,000 Kosovo officers.
The two demonstrators were killed during a protest by about 3,000 ethnic Albanians angry with a U.N. plan for Kosovo's future.
The Romanian police officers left Kosovo after the demonstrators were killed.
