MITROVICA, Yugoslavia — Hundreds of Kosovo Serbs hurled rocks and sticks at NATO troops Monday after French, British and Danish peacekeepers moved in at dawn to shut down a lead smelter pumping toxic fumes into the air.
Local Serbs worried about their jobs and opposing the NATO presence in Kosovo clashed with the French after the plant seizure and a crowd of 400 threw missiles at some 40 British soldiers, four of whom were slightly injured.
At least one Serb man was injured before the British — deeply unpopular among the Serbs for their part in last year's bombing campaign — were replaced by French soldiers to ease the tension.
A group of 30 Zvecan engineers loyal to Belgrade locked themselves in an administration building and refused to discuss with U.N. experts how to safely extinguish the furnace of the Zvecan smelter, at the Trepca metals complex just north of Mitrovica.
Some 900 NATO troops in armored vehicles had moved in darkness across the River Ibar, which marks the divide between ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo and northern Mitrovica, the last major urban concentration of Serbs in the province.
The military action was the most vigorous action by NATO forces in Kosovo for some time.
The action, billed as a public health measure, will help stamp NATO's authority on the divided northern Kosovo city.
Troops encountered no resistance when they first swept into the rundown Zvecan smelter, which U.N. officials say is pumping 200 times the safe level of lead into the atmosphere, endangering the health of local people.
"We had to act in order to ensure the safety of the population," said Bernard Kouchner, the French politician and doctor who heads the U.N. mission that has run Kosovo as a de facto protectorate since mid-1999.
Kouchner said a French/U.S./Swedish consortium would carry out a $16 million assessment and renovation plan for the vast and dilapidated Trepca complex, ensuring lead smelting could restart.
Kouchner criticised Zvecan's Serb managers, who reported to Belgrade, for refusing U.N. requests to shut down the plant and rejecting the United Nations' right under Security Council resolutions to manage former Yugoslav state property, such as the smelter.
"The managers have failed. That is obvious. A few profited while the community suffered. They failed in their duty to protect their children," said Kouchner. Such managers would play no further part in the running of Zvecan, he added.
Control of Trepca's mineral wealth has long been disputed between Serbs and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
The U.N. on Monday took pains to reassure Serb workers they would keep their jobs even while the smelter was shut for repairs, with some 1,800 Serbs to enjoy guaranteed salaries in a move that will help ensure a measure of social calm.
Kouchner said there would be no change to staff, reassuring Serbs who fear the plant takeover pave the way for ethnic Albanians to return to the north of Mitrovica.
"I want a united Mitrovica," he said. "My dream is that the people work together but for the moment I am very clear, there will be no change of staff."
"We were not surpised by this action," Oliver Ivanovic, Serb leader in northern Mitrovica, told Reuters. "We do not believe it should harm relations so long as Serb workers are not fired and they do not try to bring Albanians back to the north."
The U.N. hopes to turn the Trepca group, a collection of pits and decrepit factories that straddle the ethnic divide in Mitrovica, into a major contributor to the economy of Kosovo.
Mitrovica has been effectively been partitioned since NATO forces expelled Yugoslav troops in mid-1999 after an air campaign designed to halt Serb attacks on ethnic Albanians.
Many Serbs fleeing subsequent revenge attacks from ethnic Albanians went north towards Serbia and retreated behind a confrontation line across the grimy city of Mitrovica.
It has remained a violent flashpoint, with local Serbs refusing to accept integration with the rest of Kosovo, preferring their ties to Belgrade.
In a related incident NATO soldiers early on Monday shut down a hardline Serb radio station. Radio S, in northern Mitrovica, had defied a U.N. order to stop broadcasting which was issued because it had breached media licensing rules.