for a culture of Peace and Non-violence
Because the year 2000 must be a new beginning, an opportunity to transform - all together - the culture of war and violence into a culture of peace and non-violence.
more ==> Manifesto-000226.htm
The forgotten Albanians in Serbia
The situation of ethnic Albanians in South-Serbia
out of Kosovo
mit ERGAENZUNG aus: Reuters
on March 09, 2000
mit ERGAENZUNG aus: AFP
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Science Monitor on March 09, 2000
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mit ERGAENZUNG aus: UNMIK
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News Release on March 10, 2000
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on March 10, 2000
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Socialist Web Site on March 10, 2000
mit ERGAENZUNG aus: Kosovapress
on March 10, 2000
mit ERGAENZUNG aus: New
YorkTimes on March 11, 2000
FOCUS-Kosovo rebels mass arms-Yugoslav army chiefThursday 9 March 2000
BELGRADE, March 8 (Reuters) - Yugoslavia's army chief said on Wednesday that Kosovo Albanian "terrorists" were massing weapons on the Kosovo-Serbia border to spread conflict to Serbia and provoke international intervention. General Nebojsa Pavkovic said that together with their supporters in the towns of Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja, just inside government-controlled Serbia, the "terrorists" wanted to provoke a reaction by the Serbian security forces.
"Their plan is for this to create conditions for international intervention, allegedly to protect Albanian rights and freedoms," Pavkovic was quoted by Tanjug news agency as saying in an interview with Thursday's edition of the weekly Vojska.
"With this aim, and under KFOR protection, they are massing large quantities of weapons near Kosovo's administrative border with Serbia, and building facilities for attacks and protection," Pavkovic said.
Pavkovic said the Albanians were organising military training on surprise attacks, ambushes and diversions.
Leaders of the now-disbanded ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army have denied links with a shadowy armed group that has emerged in Albanian villages inside government-controlled Serbia.
Local Albanians and Serbs both fear a re-run of the Kosovo conflict in the area after a series of clashes between Serb police and the rebels, who say they are only protecting their villages from alleged police brutality.
Pavkovic added there were a number of illegal organisations working to expel Serbs from Kosovo through murders, abductions and other crimes and that they also planned to conduct terrorist actions outside Kosovo.
Deputy Serbian Prime Minister Dragan Todorovic, a member of the ultra-nationalist Radical Party, said armed Albanians in Kosovo and nearby villages in government-controlled Serbia were spreading panic and also accused the West of backing them.
"The Serbian government expects ethnic Albanian terrorists to intensify their terrorist activities at the break of Spring, with the help of KFOR and UNMIK, especially in Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja," Todorovic said.
"They are doing this to destabilise us in their attempts to create a so-called Greater Albania," Todorovic added.
Belgrade accuses Kosovo's separatist leaders of seeking to unite the province with neighbouring Albania.
The NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) have expressed concern over the clashes inside Serbia and stepped up controls on the border.Copyright Reuters Limited
Belgrade accuses Kosovars and KFOR of seeking conflict in SerbiaThursday, 09-Mar-2000 9:00AM
BELGRADE, March 9 (AFP) - Yugoslav army chief General Nebojsa Pavkovic has accused Kosovar Albanians "terrorists" and the international peacekeeping force (KFOR) of seeking to provoke a conflict in southern Serbia.
"The Kosovo terrorists, aided by their accomplices in Bujanovac, Presevo and Mevedja, are seeking to provoke a conflict in these regions and a reaction from Serbia's security forces," said Pavkovic, who headed the Yugoslav troops who were forced to withdraw from Kosovo last year after NATO's air war against Yugoslavia.
"Encouraged by the support of KFOR, the Kosovo terrorists are openly working to take control of the multi-ethnic regions, situated on the administrative border between Kosovo and Serbia," Pavkovic was quoted by the official Tanjug agency as saying.
KFOR denied the charges.
"To the contrary, KFOR is taking all appropriate measures to make sure that people and weapons do not cross the Kosovo border to cause unrest in the boundary areas," KFOR spokesman Philip Anido told AFP.
"It is in our interest, and in everyone's interest in the Balkans to keep peace and stability in the area surrounding Kosovo," he added.
Anido said that KFOR had its areas under intense scrutiny and would close off passages found to be used for moving weapons or personnel into the valley.
"We are aware that there have been some extremists groups working in and around communities like Dobrosin," close to Bujanovac in southern Serbia, he said.
Between 60,000 and 70,000 ethnic Albanians live in southern Serbia.Story from AFP Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
WIRE:03/09/2000 10:51:00 ETNATO troops find weapons near Kosovo boundary
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo said Thursday they had confiscated guns, grenades, ammunition and military uniforms in two important weapons finds close to the province's border.
The discoveries suggested both Serb and Albanian illegal activity in the boundary region with Serbia proper, widely seen by diplomats and analysts as an area with the potential to emerge soon as the next conflict zone in the volatile Balkans.
Troops found a machine gun, 100 rounds of ammunition, 50 high explosive grenades, 12 mortar grenades, uniforms and other military equipment at an Albanian man's home in southeastern Kosovo Wednesday, a spokesman for the KFOR force said.
The man had been detained at a checkpoint in the village of Inatovce and possessed an identity card from the Kosovo Liberation Army, the officially disbanded ethnic Albanian guerrilla group which fought against Serb rule.
A new group has recently emerged in the eastern border region, calling itself a liberation army for three Albanian-dominated cities on the Serbian side of the boundary and vowing to protect them from alleged Serb police brutality.
In northern Kosovo, also close to the boundary with Serbia proper and about 20 miles north of the flashpoint city of Mitrovica, Belgian and French forces Tuesday grabbed weapons and equipment in raids on Serb property, the spokesman said.
Ethnic Albanians have long alleged that Serb paramilitaries coming from outside Kosovo and basing themselves in Mitrovica's hinterland have been fomenting trouble in the city.
The KFOR spokesman, Lieutenant Commander Philip Anido, said the troops found one AK-47 semi-automatic rifle, three shotguns, two pistols, seven full AK-47 magazines, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, three grenades and a Serbian army uniform.
One Serb man had been detained as a result of the raids in the village of Miolice, Anido said.
"KFOR will continue its search for weapons with great vigor throughout Kosovo," he added.Copyright ©2000 ABC News Internet Ventures
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2000Small groups, but big trouble?
NATO clamped a curfew on Mitrovica yesterday, as concerns grew of ethnic unrest beyond Kosovo.
Richard Mertens
Special to The Christian Science MonitorDOBROSIN, YUGOSLAVIA
Isa Beciri spent 10 years wandering around Europe, because as a young ethnic Albanian in Serbia, he could expect few opportunities at home. But since returning in November he has found a new goal, trading his civilian clothes for army fatigues.
"My village needs me, so I can't leave," he says as he sits in a friend's living room, a pair of Kalashnikov assault rifles propped against the wall. "I'd rather not have military action. But the situation is forcing us."
Mr. Beciri claims to be part of the Liberation Army of Preshevo, Medvedja, and Bujahovac (PMBLA), a small group of ethnic Albanian fighters that appears to be gaining strength in this part of Serbia just east of Kosovo.
Little is known about the group, but its potential for bringing a new round of instability to the Balkans has Western officials worried.
The US Army estimates that the group numbers about 30 and growing. Western officials suspect that more than one group may exist, although they believe Dobrosin is their stronghold. Many of the fighters appear to be from Dobrosin and other places in the Presevo Valley of southern Serbia, but not all. An 18-year-old fighter standing guard at the group's headquarters this week said he came from Kosovo.
Like Kosovo, which is technically still part of Serbia although under de facto control of the NATO-led protection force, or KFOR, since last June, the area has a large ethnic Albanian majority. Ethnic Albanians call it "eastern Kosovo" and say the area was wrongly separated from the province when borders were drawn last century.TAKING FLIGHT: Fatusha Ramadani (r.) fled Dobrosin,
Yugoslavia, along with 14 family members after Serbian police
killed two ethnic Albanians in January. Reports of a new band of
armed Albanians have Western officials worried.
RICHARD MERTENSMany of the ethnic Albanian fighters here are thought to be former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the force that fought for Kosovo's independence. The patch PMBLA fighters wear on their shoulders reproduces the Albanian black eagle design used by the officially disbanded KLA.
Ethnic Albanian fighters in Dobrosin portray themselves as simple men with simple aims. "We are just trying to defend ourselves," says Beciri.
But Western officials believe they may be hoping to unite the region with Kosovo. They say that some of the PMBLA's actions, such as attacks two weeks ago on a Serb police checkpoint and on an unmarked United Nations car, wounding a UN worker, demonstrate an aggressiveness that goes beyond mere defense.
Together with recent violence between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the divided town of Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo, the trouble in the Presevo Valley poses the greatest threat yet to the Kosovo peacekeeping mission.
An early curfew was in effect in Mitrovica yesterday, a day after street clashes injured 24 civilians and 16 French peacekeepers.
NATO officials are trying to restrain the unrest. The NATO military commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, and other Western officials have warned ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo not to support the insurgents across the border. They also have tried publicly to discourage ethnic Albanian hopes that the peacekeepers might intervene.
The situation poses a special dilemma for the US Army, whose soldiers are stationed a little more than a quarter mile from Beciri's village.
The Americans worry that PMBLA fighters might try to draw them into a confrontation with Serbian police. They also worry about the grimmer possibility that Serbian police could attack unarmed ethnic Albanians. "That's probably my No.1 concern," says Lt. Col. Jeffrey Snow, commander of the American forces along the border. "I do not want to be placed in a position where we have American soldiers observing atrocities and cannot take action to stop that."
Diplomats and military officials say Western leaders are considering the circumstances under which peacekeepers might intervene.
In recent months, events here have borne an ominous resemblance to the build-up to war in Kosovo. The UN refugee agency estimates as many as 14,000 people have fled. Relief workers have heard few reports of physical violence, but say people complain of harassment and intimidation by Serbian police. Paula Ghedini, a spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency, says ethnic Albanians have grown increasingly fearful in recent weeks. "They're ready to flee at any moment," she says.
Fatusha Ramadani left Dobrosin with 14 members of her family, including 10 grandchildren, after Serbian police killed two ethnic Albanian brothers in January. "We were afraid they would shoot the children or take my son," she says.
Ethnic Albanians maintain the Serbian police and paramilitary units that left Kosovo last spring are now based in the Presevo Valley. Western officials have accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of provoking conflict in the area, just as they have accused him of undermining peace efforts in Kosovo. Diplomats and military officials say Mr. Milosevic is likely to do this with police rather than any kind of military action.
"He's too clever to do that," says one Western diplomat. "But he can certainly manipulate the situation there. And he will turn the tap on and off to keep KFOR off balance."c) Copyright 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society.
Albanian guerillas in blatant control of villageFriday, 10-Mar-2000 6:50AM
DOBROSIN, Yugoslavia, March 10 (AFP) - A patrol of armed men in fatigue uniforms moves through the village of Dobrasin, in Serbia, while only 200 meters (yards) away, US KFOR soldiers monitor the internal border between Serbia proper and Kosovo.
Five men in military clothes, with black helmets, guns on their shoulders, walk along a narrow street of the village, deep in a valley.
The badge on their jackets bears the insignia of the UCPMB, the Albanian acronym for the Presevo-Medvedja-Bujanovac Liberation Army, a reference to the three towns in southeastern Serbia, known by Kosovo Albanians as the "eastern Kosovo".
The group first appeared on January 26, at the funeral of two brothers from the village who were killed by Serbian police, according to their relatives.
The Presevo valley is home to an estimated 75,000 ethnic Albanians, although the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said 6,000 of them have fled to Kosovo since the end of NATO's air strikes on Yugoslavia last year.
The villagers advised reporters to wait for "authorisation" to get into Dobrasin.
There, two men in black uniforms, identical to those once worn by the military police of the now dismantled Kosovo Liberation army (KLA) told reporters access to Dobrosin was forbidden.
One is a former KLA fighter from the Nerodime region in southern Kosovo, between Usorevac and Prizren, with a KLA insignia visible on the handle of his pistol.
Just 200 metres (yards) away, US soldiers of the NATO-led peacekeeping force (KFOR) control a small checkpoint on the road leading to the village.
Each vehicle, even tractors, is carefully searched. US Apache helicopters monitor the border with Serbia.
According to the agreement signed last June between NATO and Belgrade, only local Serb police are allowed into the zone set up after NATO's air war on Yugoslavia.
"The UCPMB has no right to be there, but we can do nothing, we have no right to penetrate in this zone," US KFOR spokesman Ian Fitzgerald said.
Nevertheless, a villager said he had seen US soldiers "talking with soldiers" of the UCPMB in Dobrosin itself.
"There are relations between them, they get along well," Qazim Zahiri, 75, said.
Zahiri fled Dobrosin with his family after the death of the two brothers. Nowadays, he lives in the eastern Kosovo town of Gnjilane.
He said numerous people from the village, where some 150 families used to live, have fled.
Tension has risen since the arrival of the UCPMB in the village, he said.
The old man said the rebels' presence in Dobrosin was a good thing, "since the Serbian police can not get into the village as before."
Overnight Friday, Albanian witnesses reported clashes between the Serbian police and the UCPBM fighters in Dobrosin.
And a week ago, a UCPBM fighter and a Serb policeman were killed, while two policemen were injured in clashes in the village.Story from AFP / Claire Snegaroff
Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
KFOR to increase security along Kosovo borderMarch 10, 2000
Web posted at: 11:24 AM EST (1624 GMT)PRISTINA, Kosovo (Reuters) -- International peacekeepers in Kosovo, known as KFOR, will tighten security in boundary areas to prevent unrest in Serbia from spilling into this Yugoslav province, a KFOR spokesman said on Friday.
"The new restrictions will protect the safety and security of the citizens of Kosovo while at the same time they will prevent criminal and illegal activity from being conducted across the provincial boundaries," said KFOR's Lieutenant Commander Philip Anido.
"The (KFOR) commander will not tolerate extremists stirring up unrest...and he calls on leaders and those in authority on both sides of the boundary to respect and protect civil rights of all citizens."
General Klaus Reinhardt, the KFOR commander, was expected to announce details of the security measures later on Friday.
Since last June about 6,000 ethnic Albanians from towns and villages in the Presevo valley of southeastern Serbia have filtered across the administrative boundary with the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, which is under international control.
Another 800 people came across this week. Most are housed with friends or relatives in Kosovo and the U.N. refugee agency is providing support for the rest.
Most of the displaced persons cite harassment and intimidation at the hands of Serb security forces as the reason for their flight.
Ominously, a small, armed ethnic Albanian militia group has surfaced on the Serbian side of the border in recent weeks vowing to mount a defense of non-Serb villages in the region.
A similar strategy employed by the Kosovo Liberation Army inside Kosovo in 1998-99 triggered massive Serb military retaliation, which in turn drew NATO air strikes last June.
Wary of being sucked into another dispute between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Yugoslavia, NATO-led KFOR forces are moving to shut down the flow of people and arms from Kosovo into southeastern Serbia.
Refugee and human rights advocates worry about the potential impact stricter security measures might have on the flow of displaced persons trying to flee what they see as persecution.Copyright 2000 Reuters
Violence flares along Serbian borderFriday, 10-Mar-2000 10:20AM
By STEFAN RACINBELGRADE, Yugoslavia, March 10 (UPI) - Violence along the Serb-Kosovo border has added to tension in that troubled Balkan region. Incidents involving Serbian police and ethnic Albanians have multiplied, sources said.
In Podujeva -- in eastern Kosovo north of the capital, Pristina -- Jonathan Williamson, a spokesman for the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force, was quoted by the Beta News Agency as saying that 20 armed incidents had occurred in the zone in the past six weeks. He said the latest occurred during the night of March 7-8, when a Serbian police post at the village of Merdare, on the administrative boundary, came under fire.
"The shooting started from the Podujevo side, and the Serb police returned fire. At present we have no knowledge of who started the incident, and we are searching for those responsible," Williamson said.
KFOR has also expressed concern about frequent gatherings of Albanians close to a KFOR checkpoint near Merdare, Beta said.
Serbian police have not reported all the incidents, according to KFOR.
In Presevo, another trouble spot near Serbia's border with Macedonia, Albanian Mayor Riza Halimi has condemned acts of violence in the Pcinj district. The district, with a large Albanian population, also includes the municipalities of Bujanovac, Medvedja.
In an interview with Beta, Halimi called for a dialog between Albanians in Presevo and the Serbian authorities. He said: "Each new incident merely increases tension. Despite tardiness in starting a dialog, it is worthwhile going ahead with a political approach. But I fear that as repression increases, militant elements who take a different view will get the upper hand."
In Kosovo itself, during a search for illegal weapons in the village of Grabovac, not far from Mitrovica, the local Serbian population clashed with KFOR soldiers. Three Serbs were reported slightly injured in the incident.
The spokesman for the Serbian National Council in Mitrovica, Nikola Kabasic, was quoted by Belgrade media as saying that a Danish KFOR unit that carried out the search acted more aggressively than required by the search procedure, damaging some household furniture and breaking down some doors.
This caused an angry reaction from several hundred villagers who blocked access roads to the village and did not allow the search to go on. This resulted in "individual incidents," Kabasic said. SNC President Oliver Ivanovic was called in to talk to the Danes and try to calm down the passions and defuse the tension.
A senior United Nations police officer told the Belgrade newspaper Blic on Friday that the U.N. Mission in Kosovo police command in Mitrovica had deployed a large number of snipers to buildings and rooftops to protect KFOR troops and U.N. police who are constantly patrolling the streets. They are drawn from the British Green Jackets, a unit with experience in Northern Ireland.
On Friday, the Belgrade newspaper Danas quoted police commander Sven Erick Larsen as saying that the deputy U.N. police chief in Mitrovica, John Adams, was transferred to Pristina for accusing French KFOR soldiers of preventing international police from investigating violent incidents in the northern part of the town last Tuesday, when 40 people were injured.Story from UPI / STEFAN RACIN
Copyright 2000 by United Press International (via ClariNet)
Yugoslav army chief denies reinforcing troops near KosovoFriday, 10-Mar-2000 11:40AM
BELGRADE, March 10 (AFP) - Yugoslavia's most senior army officer, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, denied Friday reinforcing his troops in a tense southern region of Serbia which borders Kosovo, the state agency Tanjug reported.
"There is neither general mobilisation nor any reinforcement of the troops in the southern part of our country," Tanjug quoted Pavkovic as saying during his visit to the 3rd Yugoslav army, which based in the region.
His comments followed an increase in tension in the Presovo border zone between Serbia proper and Kosovo, where Serbian police and a UN official have come under attack in recent days.
The attacks were attributed to ethnic Albanian fighters, calling themselves UCPMB -- the Albanian acronym for the Presevo-Medvedja-Bujanovac Liberation Army, a reference to the three towns in southeastern Serbia, due east of Kosovo.
The Presevo valley is home to an estimated 75,000 ethnic Albanians, although the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said 6,000 of them have fled to Kosovo since the end of NATO's air strikes on Yugoslavia last year.
Pavkovic, who led the Yugoslav troops who were forced to withdraw from Kosovo last year after NATO's air war against Yugoslavia, also dismissed reports of "possible new agression" against the country, Tanjug said.
According to the agreement signed last June between NATO and Belgrade, only local Serb police are allowed into the zone set up after NATO's air war on Yugoslavia.
Last week, Yugoslav army general Vladimir Lazarevic, commander of the 3rd army also dismissed reports of the troops reinforcement in the area, saying that units were "performing regular duties and observing what is happening in Kosovo."Story from AFP Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
UN INTERIM ADMINISTRATION MISSION IN KOSOVO (UNMIK)
Developments today, 10 March 2000
Updated 3:30 p.m. EST
(...)UNHCR registers 800 displaced people from southern Serbia:
This week UNHCR registered some 800 internally displaced people who arrived from southern Serbia. UNHCR Spokeswoman Ms Paula Ghedini said most of these Albanians were given accommodation in the Gnjilane/Urosevac area. She said that for the first time it seems that significant numbers are coming from urban areas.
KFOR News Release
Camp Monteith/Gnjilane, 10 March 2000Speech by General Dr. Klaus Reinhardt,
COMKFOR, on March 10, 2000I HAVE RECENTLY RETURNED FROM NEW YORK WHERE DR KOUCHNER AND I ADDRESSED THE SECURITY COUNCIL ABOUT THE KOSOVO SITUATION. THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL WAS A VERY RECEPTIVE AUDIENCE AND LISTENED VERY ATTENTIVELY TO OUR DEMANDS. ONE OF THE MAJOR THEMES, WHICH I SPOKE ABOUT, WAS THE PRESEVO VALLEY PROBLEM, WHICH IS WHAT I WISH TO TALK ABOUT TODAY.
KFOR'S MISSION IN KOSOVO, BASED ON UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION 1244 AND THE MILITARY TECHNICAL AGREEMENT IS "TO MAINTAIN A SECURE ENVIRONMENT, TO MONITOR, AND IF NECESSARY ENFORCE COMPLIANCE WITH THE MILITARY TECHNICAL AGREEMENT, THE UNDERTAKING, AND THE MILITARY ASPECTS OF AN EVENTUAL POLITICAL SETTLEMENT".
EVEN-HANDEDNESS AND TREATING PEOPLE WITH DIGNITY AND RESPECT HAVE BEEN THE DRIVING PRINCIPLES BEHIND ALL KFOR OPERATIONS SINCE OUR ARRIVAL IN JUNE 1999. OUR CHARTER IS CLEAR - WE ARE HERE TO ENFORCE THE PROVISIONS OF UNSCR 1244 AND THE MILITARY TECHNICAL AGREEMENT WITHIN THE BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES OF KOSOVO.
THE RECENT SERIES OF EVENTS IN THE PRESEVO VALLEY ARE OF GREAT CONCERN. THE SITUATION ALONG THE KOSOVO AND PRESEVO VALLEY BOUNDARY REGION CONSTITUTES A THREAT TO PEACE AND SECURITY FOR KOSOVO AND COULD DEVELOP INTO A REGIONAL SECURITY ISSUE. ANY UNREST, INSTABILITY OR INSURGENCY OPERATIONS WITHIN THE PRESEVO VALLEY ARE CLEARLY NOT IN THE INTEREST OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY, KFOR MILITARY FORCES, THE PEOPLE OF KOSOVO, OR THE PEOPLE OF THE PRESEVO VALLEY
THEREFORE, WE CONDEMN ANY ACTUAL OR THREATENED ACTIONS AGAINST THE POPULATION WHO LIVE IN THE NEIGHBOURING REGIONS OF SERBIA.
KFOR HAS SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED ITS SECURITY POSTURE ALONG THE PROVINCIAL BOUNDARY WITH THE PRESEVO VALLEY REGION IN ORDER TO DETECT ANY CROSS BORDER MOVEMENTS.
WE ARE ALSO PREPARED TO TAKE ALL NECESSARY ACTIONS TO ENSURE THAT KOSOVO IS NOT USED AS A STAGING BASE FOR EXPORTING VIOLENCE INTO THE PRESEVO VALLEY, OR INDEED ATTEMPTING TO EXTEND VIOLENCE BACK INTO KOSOVO. ANY INSURGENT ACTIVITY BASED IN KOSOVO AND THE CONDUCT OF CROSS BORDER OPERATIONS CANNOT AND WILL NOT BE CONDONED OR TOLERATED.
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CATEGORICALLY REJECTS SUPPORTING, OR EVEN TACITLY ALLOWING ANY ARMED CONFLICT OR INSURGENCY ACTIVITY IN THE PRESEVO VALLEY. THERE IS NO KFOR SUPPORT OF ANY KIND BEING PROVIDED TO ANY GROUP OPERATING IN THAT REGION.
THE INTEGRITY OF THE RECOGNISED PROVINCIAL BOUNDARY MUST BE RESPECTED. ANY ACTIVITY THAT ENDANGERS THE PROGRESS ACHIEVED TO DATE IN KOSOVO MUST NOT BE TOLERATED, REGARDLESS OF THE NATURE OF THE GROUP ENGAGED IN SUCH ACTIVITY.
The spoken word is valid.
NATO Commander Urges BoundariesBy Danica Kirka
Associated Press Writer
Friday, March 10, 2000; 5:21 p.m. ESTGNJILANE, Yugoslavia –– NATO's top commander in Kosovo has bluntly rejected any possibility of coming to the rescue of ethnic Albanians under pressure from Serb forces along the province's border in southern Serbia.
Speaking at a U.S. military base in Kosovo on Friday, NATO Gen. Klaus Reinhardt insisted that the alliance will not venture across the border.
Reinhardt appeared together with Hashim Thaci, Kosovo's top ethnic Albanian political leader. The two made a strong statement that they will maintain a hands-off policy in the Presevo Valley, which falls just outside Kosovo's administrative boundaries.
Reinhardt said the mission of his forces was clear – enforcing a U.N. Security Council Resolution "within the boundaries of Kosovo. I repeat, within the boundaries of Kosovo."
Both Kosovo and the region right across the border are technically part of Serbia, the larger member of the Yugoslav federation led by Slobodan Milosevic. But Kosovo – which has a heavily ethnic Albanian population – has been under international control since last year's conflict between ethnic Albanians and Milosevic's Serb forces led to NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
Now, some in the area fear that the border region could be the scene of renewed fighting similar to the Kosovo conflict.
The area across the border has been the site of sporadic clashes between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Serb police. Hundreds of refugees have been fleeing from predominantly ethnic Albanian towns in southern Serbia over the past two months. They have streamed into the closest Kosovo town of Gnjilane, about 30 miles southeast of Kosovo's provincial capital, Pristina.
A newly formed rebel group has emerged in the border region. The group's fighters say they are trying to protect villagers there from attacks by Serb forces.
They are widely believed to have received support from within Kosovo. But NATO has been stepping up activities to seal Kosovo's border to prevent the export of both weapons and other support for the guerrillas.
Foot patrols, checkpoints and other surveillance operations are being put in place, "in order to detect any cross-border movement," Reinhardt said.
"We are also prepared to take all necessary action to ensure that Kosovo is not used as a staging base for exporting violence into the Presevo Valley, or indeed attempting to extend violence back into Kosovo," he said. "Any insurgent activity based in Kosovo, and the conduct of cross-border operations, cannot and will not be condoned or tolerated."
Thaci's presence at the press conference was apparently meant to demonstrate a united front against aiding ethnic Albanian militants in the border area. But Thaci charged that Milosevic's government is manipulating the situation to destabilize Kosovo.
He insisted that Kosovo Albanians "are not going to fall into Belgrade's trap." Thaci did not condemn the actions of the guerrillas, but he said the situation "may put at risk everything that has been achieved so far in Kosovo. This won't happen."–––
On the Net: The Human Rights Watch Kosovo page:
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/kosovo98/index.shtml© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
KFOR commander sounds alarm in eastern KosovoFriday, 10-Mar-2000 2:30PM
CAMP MONTEITH, Yugoslavia, March 10 (AFP) - The German commander of NATO-led forces in Kosovo warned local extremists Friday he would not allow them to stir up trouble in southern Serbia's Presevo valley.
General Klaus Reinhardt, who heads the KFOR peacekeeping force, warned ethnic Albanian extremists he would not tolerate trouble in Kosovo's eastern sector, but also condemned violence against the Albanian population.
The situation along the boundary between this southern Yugoslav province and the Presevo valley "could develop into a regional security issue," Reinhardt told reporters at the camp close to Gnjilane.
"Therefore, we condemn any actual or threatened actions against the population who live in the neighboring regions of Serbia," he said in a statement is at this US military base.
Around 75,000 ethnic Albanians live in the Presevo valley, but some 6,000 have fled rising tension to seek shelter in Kosovo or Macedonia.
Reinhardt spoke to journalists accompanied by Hashim Thaci, the political head of the now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
Extremist Albanians are suspected of running arms into the valley and carrying out attacks against local Serb police, who have in turn been accused by ethnic Albanian refugees of intimidation and violence.
An Albanian group calling itself the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja, and Bujanovac -- the three largest cities in the region -- appeared on January 26 at the funeral of two Albanians killed by Serb police.
It is known by its Albanian-language acronym, UCPMB.
Reinhardt made it clear that KFOR was ready to act against the group.
"We are prepared to take all necessary actions to ensure that Kosovo is not used as a staging base for exporting violence into the Presevo Valley," he warned.
On March 3, UCPMB militants and Serb police clashed in Dobrosin, a Serb village 200 meters (yards) from the boundary with Kosovo, and the site where they first appeared.
A week earlier a militant and a policeman died in a similar firefight.
Reinhardt said KFOR was closing down roads, and increasing surveillance activities, checkpoints, and patrols, to intercept guerrillas infiltrating into an internationally-recognized demilitarized zone.Story from AFP Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
KLA provocations in Mitrovica and Southwest SerbiaBy Chris Marsden
10 March 2000The Kosovan town of Mitrovica continues to be a focus of confrontations between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, but hostilities are rapidly spreading into Serbia proper. There are clear indications that the supposedly disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is playing an instrumental role in inciting the conflict. They hope to create conditions for a renewed military offensive against Serbia and the realisation of their perspective of making Kosovo part of a Greater Albania.
Mitrovica is one of the few remaining places in Kosovo with a substantial Serb population. It is divided into two ethnic cantons, separated by the river Ibar. The southern part is home to 49,000 Albanians and a handful of Serbs, whilst the north contains 12,000 Serbs and 2,000 ethnic Albanians. It is the location of what is believed to be one of Europe's most valuable mining complexes, the Trepca lead and zinc mines, which also contain deposits of gold and silver ore.
March 7 saw pitched battles between Kosovar Serbs and Albanians in Mitrovica, during which 16 French NATO (KFOR) troops and 24 mainly Serb civilians were wounded. The incident began when a fight between an ethnic Albanian and a Serb provoked shooting. About four to five grenades were thrown and two rockets later hit a high-rise apartment in northern Mitrovica. Although the north of the city is predominantly inhabited by Serbs, KFOR has been forcibly evicting tenants and installing ethnic Albanians with the stated intention of restoring an ethnically mixed population.
The February 22 confrontation between KFOR troops and a KLA-organised march by 50,000 ethnic Albanian protesters demanding entry into northern Mitrovica via the Ibar Bridge has been followed by weeks of ethnic violence, which have left at least 12 dead.
Richard Holbrooke, US Ambassador to the UN, and NATO Secretary General George Robertson subsequently blamed forces under the control of Serbia for provoking the conflicts in Mitrovica. On the ground, however, KFOR could not but acknowledge the part played by “agitators” on both sides. In the following days, KFOR troops resumed weapons searches in Mitrovica, in an operation entitled “Operation Ibar”. Prior to the recent disturbances, 300 US troops searching for munitions had targeted buildings in the ethnic Albanian enclave of northern Mitrovica.
On Sunday, March 5, KLA leader Hashim Thaci spoke to a crowd of 20,000 and pledged to liberate Mitrovica and establish an independent Kosovo. But Thaci, who is now a leading member of the UN/NATO-sponsored Kosovo administration, made clear that his aims did not end there. He accused Belgrade of "pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Albanian population" in Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, the main towns of southwest Serbia, and home to 60,000-70,000 ethnic Albanians. "We are ... studying the issue with the international community and in particular with those good friends of the Albanians, the Americans," he said.
Thaci has identified a major aim of the KLA—to take control of the entire Presevo Valley, east of the Kosovo border. They routinely describe this 482-square-mile region as "Eastern Kosovo" and have had military detachments operating there since November last year, according to the UN, and since late summer, according to Belgrade.The KLA's forces are publicly identified as the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB). At the end of NATO's war against Serbia in 1999, a three-mile “buffer zone” was established between Kosovo—still nominally a Serbian province—and Serbia proper, which Yugoslav army units were not permitted to patrol. The exclusion zone includes the predominantly Albanian village of Dobrosin, but not Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac.
In January, the UCPMB killed three Serbs in Mucibaba, near Presevo. Serb policemen have been ambushed and killed and bombs have been planted. In Bujanovac, four bombs were detonated in February, one near an elementary school, two in a Gypsy neighbourhood and one next to a cinema. Attacks have also been made on Albanian politicians opposed to the KLA, including the murder of Zemail Mustafi, the Albanian vice-president of the Bujanovac branch of Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party. Recent fighting in Dobrosin resulted in 170 Albanians fleeing into Kosovo. Marcel Grogan from the UN's Office of Humanitarian Affairs was wounded in the leg in an attack near Dobrosin.
Following the war against Serbia, the KLA provided the military and political forces upon which NATO established its protectorate in Kosovo. But in relying on the KLA, the US has fashioned something of a rod for its own back. The KLA's gangsterism and corruption, its anti-Serb attacks and its repression of political opponents have made attempts to restore a degree of economic and political stability impossible. Moreover, the NATO powers and the US cannot but oppose its perspective of a Greater Albania, which would risk the destabilisation of the entire Balkan region.
Nevertheless, the KLA still hopes to benefit from its relationship with America. The UCPMB carries out military exercises in the shadow of US army checkpoints and observation stations on the Kosovo border, relying on the protection which the KFOR presence provides from Serb reprisals. KFOR spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Henning Philipp told the press, “We are aware of some people in groups who are aiming at destabilising the situation in the Presevo valley,” but as yet KFOR has made no real effort to close the border to KLA forces.
Sources within the UN and the US armed forces have clearly identified the aim of the KLA's campaign in southwest Serbia. A UN official told the press they “are hoping that the Serbs will retaliate with excessive force against civilian populations and create a wave of outrage and pressure on KFOR to respond." Lt. Col. James Shufelt commented, "The concern here isn't that the Serbian police will come across [into the buffer zone], but that Albanian attacks on the Serb police and army will inspire a response great enough to cause public clamour for a KFOR response."
Such observations are not remarkably insightful, since this is exactly the modus operandi the KLA employed prior to NATO's declaration of war against Serbia. Under conditions of growing tension between ethnic Albanians and Serbs, stoked by the Serb nationalist regime of Milosevic in Belgrade as well as Kosovan Albanian nationalists, the KLA waged a campaign of political assassinations, bombings and shootings inside Kosovo following the end of the war in Bosnia in 1995. The KLA's aim was to provoke Belgrade into intensifying its repression, while convincing the US that it could be a useful ally in any military attack on Serbia.
The US was eventually won to this position. On January 19, 1999 the Clinton administration demanded that Serbia withdraw almost all its security forces and grant Kosovo broad autonomy. The pretext for this, and the war that followed, was provided by the alleged massacre of 45 ethnic Albanian peasants outside the village of Racak on January 15. The Serbian government claimed that either the KLA carried out the killings itself to provide a pretext for US and NATO intervention, or took casualties from a previous fire fight between KLA and Yugoslav forces, dressed them in civilian clothes and fired single shots into the heads of each corpse to simulate a mass execution. To this day the truth about the events in Racak remains a matter of dispute.
At the time, Belgrade's version of events was dismissed out of hand by the NATO powers, and Serbia was ascribed sole responsibility for the deteriorating situation in Kosovo. America's previous description of the KLA as a “terrorist organisation” was abandoned in favour of depicting them as “heroic freedom fighters,” which the West was obliged to aid in the struggle against Serbian tyranny. Today, the Western powers cannot deny a similar scenario of provocation by the KLA in Mitrovica and southwestern Serbia.See Also:
NATO troops clash with Kosovan Serbs and Albanian protesters in Mitrovica
[24 February 2000]
The Balkans
[WSWS Full Coverage]Copyright 1998-2000 World Socialist Web Site
Intensify situation in East Kosovahttp://www.kosovapress.com/english/mars/10_3_2000_1.htm
Preshevë, March 10 (Kosovapress) - As the consequence of intensified situation in East Kosova is the fled of 47 families with 300 members, who are settled at the village Pogragjë of Gjilani. These families are helped with elementary aids on food and hygienic, but mostly they are need for flour. After fled, villagers from Dobrosin, Konçul now days are coming people from village Bilaç, where in this place have bee dislocated more police forces. The polices have maltreated many innocent villagers and the last incident is reflected when the police tore the mouth to one child.
The deportation of Albanian people are continuing to be displaced from Eastern KosovaPrishtinë, March 10 (Kosovapress) - Heavy Serb forces have been concentrated in Eastern Kosova and are imposing curfew in Albanian dwelling places, Albanian refugees, who continued to enter Kosova also on Thursday, report.
Only in the village of Pograxhe, near the border, have arrived 43 families with around 300 members, an activist of the humanitarian association "Mother Teresa" reports.
According to Albanian sources, in the commune of Gjilan, the number of the displaced from Eastern Kosova reaches around 10 000, while in the town of Fushë- Kosova, near Prishtina, around 430 families.
Presheve, Bujanoc and Medvegje, which make up Eastern Kosova, with more than 70% of the Albanian population, are communes administratively separated from the other part of Kosova.
Now in the commune of Medvegje there are no more Albanians and the last 28 families, after five hours of travelling in the mountains, have arrived in Kamenice.
Ethnic cleansing has escalated also in the communes of Presheve and Bujanoc. Sources from the Albanian parties in Presheve have reported that the Serb forces are also preparing to attack the biggest village of this zone, Ternoc.
The situation beyond the eastern border of Kosova "seems tense and fresh incidents and Serb police attacks are expected, "the Prishtine press cites KFOR representative in Gjilan, Captain Scott Olson. The majority of more than 30 000 Albanians, deported during 1999 from Eastern Kosova, and over 8 000, deported this year, have been established in Gjilan, in other parts of Kosova and in Macedonia.
In order to make impossible the return of the Albanian inhabitants home, the Serb forces have mined the villages of Eastern Kosova.
On February 15 in Muhoc of Bujanoc an Albanian was killed and two others were seriously injured as they stepped on a mined area, in an empty quarter due to the violent expulsion of the Albanian inhabitants.
Commander KFOR will announce new measures
Prishtinë, March 10 (Kosovapress) - This afternoon, General Dr. Klaus Reinhardt, the Commander of KFOR will announce stricter measures for security control of Kosova`s boundary areas. The new restrictions will be protect the safety and security of the citizens of Kosova, while at the same time they will prevent criminal or illegal activity from being conducted across the provincial boundary. The commander says he will not tolerate extremists stirring up unrest in the Ground Safety Zone. He calls on leaders and those in authority on both sides of the boundary to respect and protect the civil rights of all citizens and to denounce the tensions that have plagued the region in recent weeks.
March 11, 2000NATO Chief in Kosovo Fears a Cross-Border Insurgency
By CARLOTTA GALL
PRISTINA, Kosovo, March 10 -- The commander of peacekeeping troops in Kosovo, with the former political leader of the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army beside him, vowed today to stop any insurgency mounted from Kosovo into Serbia.
The warning came at a joint news conference when the commander, Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, was joined by Hashim Thaci, the Albanian leader. The appearance, which Mr. Thaci was urged to make by Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO's supreme commander, was an effort to send a political message to the population of Kosovo and beyond into Serbia.
Albanian leaders here are warning that tension in the Presevo Valley between the ethnic Albanian population and Serbian police forces is only going to worsen. And while the civilian population is overwhelmingly against more conflict, refugees from the Presevo area are arriving almost daily in Kosovo, spreading a deep sense of foreboding that the crisis is already unstoppable.
General Reinhardt warned of the dangers today. "This situation along the Kosovo and Presevo Valley border region constitutes a threat to peace and security for Kosovo, and could develop into a regional security issue," he said at Camp Monteith, the American base in eastern Kosovo. "Any insurgent activity based in Kosovo and the conduct of cross border operations cannot and will not be condoned or tolerated."
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the leader of American forces in Kosovo, who was also present, issued a written statement that his force had "significantly increased its security posture" on the border and was prepared to "take all necessary actions to ensure that Kosovo is not used as a staging base for exporting violence into the Presevo Valley," and would oppose "any attempts to extend violence back into Kosovo."
The statements were intended as a political message, said Capt. Russell Berg, an American military public affairs officer. American troops have already built new watchtowers on the border and stepped up surveillance. "The message is, we are absolutely not going to be drawn into anything," he said.
James P. Rubin, the State Department spokesman, who helped negotiate the disarmament of the K.L.A. after the war, intends to press Mr. Thaci and other Albanian leaders to stem the violence when he visits Kosovo this weekend, officials said.
Mr. Thaci and leaders of the Kosovo Protection Corps, the civilian structure that has replaced the K.L.A., are apparently already listening and are moving to take the appropriate public stands. In an interview this week, just after a meeting in Kosovo with General Clark, Mr. Thaci clearly stated that the Presevo Valley, long a majority Albanian area and once part of Kosovo, was not his concern.
"I respect the right of the Albanians in Presevo. They should have the rights of democratic citizens. But in Kosovo we have different circumstances and we now have a different approach to the region," he said. "Now as the president of a political party in Kosovo, my concerns only cover the territory of Kosovo."
He stressed that Albanians did not want violence. "More than anyone else in the region, Albanians know what violence means," he said.
But Ramush Haradinaj, a powerful commander of the former K.L.A. and now the deputy commander of the civilian force, showed a more independent mind.
While Mr. Haradinaj, one of the most renowned fighters of the war, said the armed insurgency in Presevo will only aggravate the situation, he refused to condemn the men who are now trying to fight the Serbian police in southern Serbia. "I am against Milosevic," he said, referring to President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. "I think they should protect themselves. It initiates more problems but I respect their decision. If I were in charge of the region, I would do the same."
He denied that he and his supporters -- most of them former fighters -- are part of a new fighting force, the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac. The army is a nascent guerrilla force that recently made a public stand to defend the Albanian population in southern Serbia. It is reportedly organized by former members of the K.L.A. and is thought to have strong backing from some of that group's senior leaders.
But Mr. Haradinaj admitted that former fighters, who are unemployed and disillusioned with the new corps, and also men from the Presevo area who fought in Kosovo, are likely to join the new force.
Foreign officials in Kosovo say that the K.L.A. no longer exists as a viable organization and that many of the leading characters have gone their different ways. Mr. Thaci has founded his own political party but cannot count on the support of all the major commanders of the K.L.A.
Mr. Haradinaj, for example, is expected to announce the forming of his own party soon.
Yet much of the old network clearly remains. Men who are fighting over the border are moving freely in and out of Kosovo and are visibly maintaining links with old comrades now in Kosovo's civilian force.
Many Albanians are comparing the nascent Presevo insurgency to that of the K.L.A., which, despite little military capability, was strong enough to provoke a violent reaction from Mr. Milosevic's forces.
Emrush Xhemajli, leader of the National Movement of Kosovo, which supported the K.L.A. organizationally and financially from its early days, is one of the few political figures to voice unabashed support for the new liberation group.
"To date, we have announced that we support them politically and morally," he said of the guerrilla force, leaving open whether he would finance it. "It would be totally inhuman to forget them."Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
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