Tagesnachrichten 21. Juli 1998
von ALBANEWS und anderen
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Tagesnachrichten 21. Juli 1998
On The Report By The International Crisis Group:_______________________________________________________________________
The Albanian Dimension Of The Kosova CrisisThe View From Tirana Or By The Tirana Government
By Albert Rakipi
The International Crisis Group published recently a new report on the crisis in Kosova. The International Crisis Group, a non-governmental multi-national center, founded since 1995 which tends to reinforce the possibilities for resolving the crisis before they change to conflicts is led by senator George Mitchell, while many well-known names of politics, media and business compose the leading board. After a successful engagement as contribution for the implementation of the Dayton agreements in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Group in a special way has started to deal with the crisis in Kosova. Respectively on February 17 and 24, 1998, the Group published two important reports in relation to the Kosova crisis. "Kosova, a short introduction", and "Serbia: Miloshevic factor", which contained selected information and realistic analyses of the developments in Kosova and also the domestic factors in Serbia. But the most complete report on Kosova was published on March 24, 1998. This report seemed to be the most complete with a distinguished scientific level and totally balanced.
Beyond doubt, there has been a successful effort of the International Crisis Group to approach the decision-making centers of politics and opinions, is a real and full access of the conflict since its origin, history and myths that still have their influence upon the current policies, sociological matters, constitutional religious cultural and political ones (political parties), economy and media. In this study, of importance were the introduction of the reports of Kosova in Yugoslavia, the Balkans, with other states and specially with the USA, Albania as well as the Inter-governmental organizations and Security institutions (NATO). Likewise, the proposals for the solution of the conflict were interesting, though not much different from the proposals presented by the "Council of European Action for peace in Balkans (Holland) and the "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA).
Though the report was a serious effort to reflect the relations between Albania and Kosova, these relations were not revised in their complete aspect. Probably, this has been the reason that the Group encouraged another special report on the "Albanian dimension in the Kosova crisis", from the viewpoint of the relations of Albania (government and other institutions, opposition including media and others) with Kosova and the conflict there.
Thus the Group published almost a week ago the report: "The view from Tirana: Albanian dimension in the Kosova crisis".
The latest report which tends to present a most important dimension of the Kosova crisis, i.e., the stands of the institutions of the Republic of Albania towards Kosova and the conflict, is a very useful idea in case everybody joins the idea that it is "impossible for Tirana to stay passive" towards the crisis. Though the survey on the view from Tirana brings helpful information and revisions, anyhow seems to be far from the other reports of the Group on Kosova and in many cases has embedded non-realistic approaches, erroneous interpretations based on non-serious facts apparently offered by at least non-reliable sources. Naturally the International Community, through different most qualified agencies and the international presence in Albania, is supposed to have a realistic and complete view on the developments in Albania and specially on the stands of the Albanian institutions towards the Kosova crisis. But the International Crisis Group has proven with its contribution to be a very serious institution that has assisted the decision-making centers of policy and opinion-making. A non-realistic report with quite often non-existing interpretations of facts, would at least have been not helpful.
The first impression given by a careful reading of the survey: "The view from Tirana: Albanian dimension in the Kosova crisis", is that probably on behalf of the International Crisis Group have worked people that are now aware of Albania, its actual developments and who have probably preferred to discover the Tirana dimension to the crisis by spending a few days in Tirana in company of their interpreters through protocol-arranged meetings with the Albanian institutions. Unfortunately, in some cases, the report testifies the mediocre scientific level of its makers, even scientific inaccuracies are noted in it.
The historic revision of the relations of Albanians in Albania and Kosova as well as the relations of Albania with the Yugoslav Federation, sure cannot be a special object in the report, but for the space reserved on this topic a professional scientific treatment was needed (for example the Albanian-Yugoslav relations after 1968 and before 1980, that anyhow seem to not be so important in the actual contexts, while the Albanian-Yugoslav honey-moon till 1948 lacks). The idea that "the historic lack of interest by the official Tirana towards Kosova has contributed to the increase of lack of confidence by the Kosova Albanians against the actual government which is led by socialists on the arguments that the current Tirana authorities are considered by the Kosova Albanians as communists under a new name, is disputable and only on an emotional background. If the Kosova Albanians and their political leadership lacks confidence in the actual Albanian government, the reasons should not be searched so much in the reflections of history and the inheritance of the Communist party of Enver Hoxha.
The report by the Group presents a non-realistic approach of the relations between the Albanians in Albanians and the Albanians in Kosova, especially in separating them in Ghegs and Tosks in the context of the Kosova crisis. Continuance of the separation between the North and the South in the domestic policies of Albania is totally groundless. The quite trivial differences from the religious cultural or urban viewpoint have never been a challenge to endanger the national security of the country. These differences were used to impose a war between North and South in the public opinion during the 1997 crisis and rebellion. The conclusion of the report accordingly that the not so friendly or indifferent stand of the Albanians in Albania including also the stand by the institutions (1945-1992) to Kosova is due to the origin of the country elite dominated by the South (tosks) is not just ridiculous. The report notes that actually the country is led by the same elite from the tosks (South).
The Report of the Group concludes that the actual Albanian government is following a different policy from that followed by the previous Albanian administration. In fact there are differences in the stand of the actual government as compared to the pervious one, but it is neither professional nor helpful to cook up non-existing facts to argument a nationalistic policy of former President Berisha since his coming to power in 1992, even before that. The authors of the report on Albania seem not only uninformed, but also totally emotionally motivated while in a flagrant way that cook up facts as allegedly the Albanian opposition and specially former President Berisha, opposes not only the government policy, but also the Western one through institutions like the Contact Group on Kosova. As an argument to excuse this allegation is used only a fragment part of a paragraph of one of the opposition grouped in the Union for Democracy. The Albanian opposition leader (who in the report is mentioned only as the former President trying to mount comeback) is effect has supported the steps and decisions by the international institutions to the Kosova crisis and has demanded further steps and more restrictive measures against Belgrade. Bu the authors of the report cut only a sentence by the speech of the opposition leader where he expresses his reserves for the efficiency of the measures made by the Contact Group on April 9, 1998. In effect, as all are well aware of, reserves were also expressed by the USA (Secretary Albright), and furthermore, it is well known that the USA, being not satisfied by the Contact Group decisions forewarned to undertake individual initiative about the Kosova crisis. But the emotional non-professional authors of the report continue to comment that paragraph taken by the context with other allegations as if "diplomats in Tirana forewarned Berisha to neither play (with) or explode the national cart. The report is filled in with other "alarming" details, such as for example the introduction of "facts" according to which "former national intelligence (SHIK) officers still loyal to former President Berisha are instrumental in organizing the shipment of weapons from Albania into Kosova and Macedonia for the use of the KLA".
The above-mentioned and also other details stupidly invented by the authors of the reports have served to conclude that former President Berisha is using the Kosova card and the conflict there for political comeback. Naturally, on conclusions based on irrelevant facts cannot be raised fruitful recommendations.
Flagrant is for example the allegation that finds support in the summary of the report, according to which the USA has exercised pressure on President Berisha to give up calls for the unification of all territories inhabited by Albanians. (?!!)
Likewise, such a superfluous and prejudiced view is noted also in the analysis of the Albanian government stand to the Kosova crisis. At least, the lack of a clear and coherent policy (or very clear and very coherent) of the Albanian government to Kosova crisis has lost faith and likewise is unimportant for the Albanians, not only in Kosova. The only policy conducted by the government is the "denunciation of the nationalist card" of the opposition and to prepare this denunciation non-existing facts are invented. The report concludes that the Northern part of Albania is out of the Tirana authorities control and on this bases are issued the relevant recommendations for the international community. But the local observers confirm that while the government has not managed to establish control on most of the territory of the country, the only party of the territory the government controls is precisely the Northern part of Albania together with its coastal line where smuggling enlivens.
But, actually the critical matter in the Albanian politics is not the above-described situation, or the lack of the country control by the government, neither is the non-institutional control by the government on the strategic smuggling areas, but its lack of legitimacy and its final loss of credibility. In the report, it is stated that the Albanian authorities support the efforts by the Contact Group, but what does it matter, when the Albanian government actually controls only its offices and the smuggling roads.
Investigation ordered_______________________________________________________________________
into alleged police
torture of AlbaniansOFFICIAL investigation has been ordered into the case of alleged police torture of two Albanian teenagers apprehended and later convicted and sentenced to three years' imprisonment on theft charges. Chief George Athanassiou, deputy chief Nikolaos Koutsakis and the 10 officers of the Stylida police precinct involved in the incident have all been ordered to give sworn testimony by the Pthiotida prefecture police directorate. The 10 officers allegedly extracted a confession from the two teenagers after severely beating both and torturing one of the two by dousing his chest and stomach with alcohol and setting him on fire.
The Albanian embassy in Athens has lodged an official demarche with the Greek foreign ministry requesting an explanation for the incident. "We submitted a note to the foreign ministry asking them to inform us as to how this happened," embassy counsellor Costa Gazeli told Flash radio. "We don't believe this is an official policy generally witnessed but a matter of individuals."
The Stylida precinct is situated near the city of Lamia, central Greece where the two youths had worked for a year as agricultural hands before their employer stopped paying them. The items they were accused of stealing were found in an abandoned truck where they had found refuge with another Albanian national. According to the Pthiotida chief of police, Athanassiou has taken scheduled leave, but other reports indicated that he was forced to go on vacation as a result of the incident.
Meanwhile, the Lamia Bar Association yesterday called a general assembly to review the case because the Albanian youths were improperly tried without legal counsel. The two minors were convicted and sentenced in a special emergency procedure which must take place within 48 hours of the crime.
SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING THE CULPABILITY OF SLOBODAN MILOSEVIC FOR WAR CRIMES (Senate - July 17,1998)
S. Con. Res. 105
Whereas there is reason to mark the beginning of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia with Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power beginning in 1987, when he whipped up and exploited extreme nationalism among Serbs, and specifically in Kosovo, including support for violence against non-Serbs who were labeled as threats;
Whereas there is reason to believe that as President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic was responsible for the conception and direction of a war of aggression,the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the torture and rape of tens of thousands and the forced displacement of nearly 3,000,000 people, and that mass rape and forced impregnation were among the tools used to wage this war;
Whereas `ethnic cleansing' has been carried out in the former Yugoslavia in such a consistent and systematic way that it had to be directed by the senior politicalleadership in Serbia, and Slobodan Milosevic has held such power within Serbia that he is responsible for the conception and direction of this policy;
Whereas, as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Slobodan Milosevic is responsible for the conception and direction ofassaults by Yugoslavian and Serbian military, security, special police, and other forces on innocent civilians in Kosovo which have so far resulted in an estimated 300 people dead or missing and the forced displacement of tens of thousands, and such assaults continue;
Whereas on May 25, 1993, United Nations Security Council Resolution 827 created the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia located in The Hague, the Netherlands (hereafter in this resolution referred to as the `Tribunal'), and gave it jurisdiction over all crimes arising out of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia;
Whereas this Tribunal has publicly indicted 60 people for war crimes or crimes against humanity arising out of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and has issued a number of secret indictments that have only been made public upon the apprehension of the indicted persons;
Whereas it is incumbent upon the United States and all other nations to support the Tribunal, and the United States has done so by providing, since 1992, funding in the amount of $54,000,000 in assessed payments and more than $11,000,000 in voluntary and in-kind contributions to the Tribunal and the War Crimes Commission which preceded it, and by supplying information collected by the United States that can aid the Tribunal's investigations, prosecutions, and adjudications;
Whereas any lasting, peaceful solution to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia must be based upon justice for all, including the most senior officials of the government or governments responsible for conceiving, organizing, initiating, directing, and sustaining the Yugoslav conflict and whose forces have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide; and
Whereas Slobodan Milosevic has been the single person who has been in the highest government offices in an aggressor state since before the inception of theconflict in the former Yugoslavia, who has had the power to decide for peace and instead decided for war, who has had the power to minimize illegal actions by subordinates and allies and hold responsible those who committed such actions, but did not, and who is once again directing a campaign of ethnic cleansing against innocent civilians in Kosovo while treating with contempt international efforts to achieve a fair and peaceful settlement to the question of the future statusof Kosovo: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that--
(1) the United States should publicly declare that it considers that there is reason to believe that Slobodan Milosevic , President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide;
(2) the United States should make collection of information that can be supplied to the Tribunal for use as evidence to support an indictment and trial of President Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide a high priority;
(3) any such information concerning President Slobodan Milosevic already collected by the United States should be provided to the Tribunal as soon as possible;
(4) the United States should provide a fair share of any additional financial or personnel resources that may be required by the Tribunal in order to enable the Tribunal to adequately address preparation for, indictment of, prosecution of, and adjudication of allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity posed against President Slobodan Milosevic and any other person arising from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, including in Kosovo;
(5) the United States should engage with other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other interested states in a discussion ofinformation any such state may hold relating to allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity posed against President Slobodan Milosevic and any other person arising from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, including in Kosovo, and press such states to promptly provide all such information to the Tribunal;
(6) the United States should engage with other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other interested states in a discussion of measures to be taken to apprehend indicted war criminals and persons indicted for crimes against humanity with the objective of concluding a plan of action that will result in these indictees' prompt delivery into the custody of the Tribunal; and
(7) the United States should urge the Tribunal to promptly review all information relating to President Slobodan Milosevic's possible criminal culpability for conceiving, directing, and sustaining a variety of actions in the former Yugoslavia, including Kosovo, that have had the effect of genocide, of other crimes against humanity, or of war crimes, with a view toward prompt issuance of a public indictment of Milosevic .
SEC. 2. The Secretary of the Senate shall transmit a copy of this resolution to the President.
Passed the Senate July 17, 1998.
Attest:
Secretary.
Speechs BY Senators Alphonse D'Amato and Joseph
Biden (cosponsers in favor of the resolution)
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent
that the Foreign Relations Committee be discharged from further consideration
of S. Con. Res. 105, and, further, that the Senate proceed to its immediate
consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 105) expressing
the sense of the Congress regarding the culpability of Slobodan Milosevic
for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the former Yugoslavia,
and for other purposes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the
immediate consideration of the concurrent resolution?
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded
to consider the resolution.
Mr. D'AMATO addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I believe we are about
to take historic action that is so important, because, to date, what we
have been doing is pleading, negotiating, hoping while the world burns
in front of us. When I say `the world,' I am talking of technically the
people in this war-torn area of Kosovo.
It is incredible that
90 percent of the population there are ethnic Albanians under withering
attack. In today's New York Times, it graphically speaks about it on the
front page.
As a witness to this,
a former paramilitary, former police officer in the Serbian police, said
he can no longer stay there and work there as he watched innocent women
and children being raped, killed, tortured and savaged--3 million people
on the move, ethnic cleansing, moving them out of their homes, moving themout
of their communities all because of one thing--all because of their ethnicity.
What we do today is
the least we should be doing; and that is calling for the United States
to, yes, utilize the provisions that the United Nations set up in termsof
Security Council Resolution 827 creating the International Criminal Tribunal.
This man can and should
be charged as the war crime criminal that he is. The documentation has
already been chronicled in one of the best reports, which I have submitted
to this body. The conclusions are inescapable. It is called `War Crimes
and the Issue of Responsibility,' prepared by Norman Cigar and Paul Williams.
It documents the systematic slaughter and use of paramilitary groups against
innocent civilians. There is no doubt that not only did he know about that
but that he continues to perpetuate this kind of conduct.
To summarize briefly
what Resolution 105 does, it says that we, the United States, should publicly
declare its considered reasons to believe that Milosevic has committed
war crimes; that we make the checks of information that can be supplied
to the Tribunal as evidence to support an indictment and trial of Milosevic
for war crimes against humanity and genocide; that we should undertake
it as a high priority; all of the information that we collect should be
provided to the Tribunal as soon as possible; and, thereafter, that we
coordinate our activities with our allies, members of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organizationand others interested in a matter of discussion of what
we can and should be doing to apprehend this war criminal and others.
Yes. Mr. President,
the time has come to gather the evidence and to submit it to the Tribunal,
and to see to it that this man is branded as the war criminal that heis
instead of us all sitting back silently as innocent lives continue to be
taken.
Mr. President, I thank
all of the Members of the U.S. Senate for the relatively short period of
time Senator Lieberman and I began this effort in terms of gathering cosponsors
and support several days ago.
It makes me proud to
be a Member of this body, for people to come together in this way to see,
yes, the indictment of this war criminal. And he is one of the most evil
men of our period of time. Make no mistake about it.
Mr. BIDEN. Madam President, I rise today as a
co-sponsor in support of S. Con. Res. 105, which expresses the sense of
the Congress regarding the culpability of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes,
crimes against humanity, and genocide in the former Yugoslavia.
Yugoslav President Milosevic
is the walking definition of an unscrupulous politician. I have come to
understand the stark truth that the only thing that matters to Milosevic
is his own political survival. The only thing.
Since his rise to power
in Serbia in the late 1980's, he has been a failure at everything he has
attempted--except, I regret to say, in staying in power.
Slobodan Milosevic has
been an unmitigated disaster for the Serbian people.
As a result of his insane
attempt at creating a `Greater Serbia,' the centuries-old Serbian culture
in the Krajina and Western Slavonia in Croatia has been extinguished, the
Bosnian Serb community has been decimated and impoverished, and Serbian
life in Kosovo seems on the verge of eradication.
Of course, that is only
half of the story, for Slobodan Milosevic has also been a curse for many
of the neighboring peoples of the Serbs. His vile `ethnic cleansing' led
to a quarter-million deaths and more than two million refugees and displaced
persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnian Muslims, Bosnian Croats, and
Croats in Croatia were brutalized and murdered.
Most recently, Milosevic's
special police storm troopers have moved their grisly activities to Kosovo
where they are visiting upon the ethnic Albanian population the same horrors
suffered by the Bosnians and Croats.
I would like to add
a personal note. I believe that I am one of only a very few Senators who
have met Milosevic , and I am certain that I am the only one who ever called
him a war criminal to his face.
In April 1993, on the
first of my many trips to Bosnia, I also stopped off in Belgrade to see
Milosevic . In the course of a lengthy meeting that went on late into the
evening, I went through the entire litany of the horrors that his Serbian
troops had perpetrated and were continuing to perpetrate. Of course, Milosevicprotested
that he had no control over any of this.
Nonetheless, he later
asked if I wanted to meet Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader who
has subsequently been indicted as a war criminal. I said yes, and twenty
minutes later Karadzic came running up the steps of Milosevic's palace,
totally out of breath. Rather interesting for a guy who supposedly had
no influence in Bosnia!
After all this, Milosevic
looked across the table and asked, `What do you think of me?'
I answered, `I think
you're a damn war criminal!'
Milosevic's reaction
was like water off a duck's back. He just resumed talking as if nothing
had happened. He might as well have said, `lots of luck in your sophomore
year!' This is one brazen guy.
Mr. President, I said
earlier that the only thing Milosevic cares about is his political survival.
I believe that for the first time there is a reasonable chance that he
may be failing in this arena too.
In the person of Milo
Djukanovic, the dynamic, young reformist President of Montenegro, the junior
partner of Serbia in the Yugoslav Federation, the democratic opposition
to Milosevic has both a new leader and a constitutional means of expressing
its opposition. We must continue to support Djukanovic and Montenegro in
their struggle.
In the meantime, as
S. Con. Res. 105 urges, the international community should speedily bring
Milosevic to trial before the International Tribunal in the Hague for his
criminal behavior.
There is no possibility
for lasting peace in the Balkans until Serbia has a democratic government,
willing to live in peace and equality with its non-Serb citizens and non-Serb
neighbors. Removing Milosevic from power is the sine qua non for this to
happen, and S. Con. Res. 105 charts the path.
I thank the Chair and
yield the floor.
Mr. President, I ask
unanimous consent that the amendments at the desk, the resolution, and
the preamble be agreed to, that the resolution, as amended, be agreed to,
that the preamble be agreed to, as amended, and that the motion to reconsider
be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the resolution
appear at this point in the Record.
______________________________________________________________________
Opinions expressed/published on BosNews/BosNet-B
DO NOT necessarily reflect the views of (all of the members of) Editorial
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The ethnic Albanian province displays a paranoia that may yet propel it into an all-out conflict, writes Anthony Loyd
Drums of war quell Kosovo deal hopes
AN insurgent army, failing diplomacy, nervous
soldiers, the clenched- fist salutes of roadside children, pounding propaganda,
contagious paranoia, secret police and a growing body count: Kosovo feels
at the brink of madness that usually precedes war. On paper it is a conflict
that the Serbs have lost, but one that will be fought anyway.
President Milosevic's Yugoslav National Army
(JNA), though underpaid, ill-equipped and demoralised, remains one of East
Europe's most powerful armies. However, its hands will be tied in a coming
war by international pressure to avoid too high a civilian death toll and
stresses within Yugoslavia. Montenegro, whose conscripts are fighting Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas crossing the forested border from Albania,
is unlikely to stand by Belgrade should these troops be used in the densely
populated interior.
The demography of Kosovo alone suggests that
Serbian military victory would be impossible. More than 90 per cent of
its two million people are ethnic Albanians and, short of a scorched earth
policy, it is hard to see how the security forces could crush a popular
movement.
Ranged against Belgrade's forces are the KLA
fighters. Growing by the day in numbers, strength, organisation and equipment,
this force already controls more than 40 per cent of Kosovo's territory.
Far from being a haphazard conglomeration of peasants, the KLA has a hardcore
cadre that evidently has been established for some years.
Many Kosovo villagers speak openly of having
known who their local KLA commander was by 1995, and admit to having been
armed and structured since that time. Indeed, the hierarchical Albanian
family and clan units, with their secretive nature and skill at having
operated for years in a society devolved from Serb control, have proved
an ideal template on which to superimpose a guerrilla command organisation.
In a coming fight they will prove a hard force to break.
In late February and early March this year Mr
Milosevic used Interior Ministry Special Police units to wipe out two villages
regarded as KLA hotbeds. But this move succeeded only in goading KLA cells
elsewhere into action.
While the West bases its entire negotiating position
on a compromise solution involving a broad-based autonomy for the province
and dealing with the Albanian moderate, Ibrahim Rugova, the drum roll towards
war has accelerated over the past three months, making both the option
of autonomy and the credibility of Mr Rugova obsolete. The KLA wants full
independence. The Kosovans want full independence.
With the pumping-out of vitriolic propaganda
by both sides, it is not uncommon to meet Albanians who talk of Serb policemen
cutting the foetuses out of pregnant women, or Serbs who say Albanian parents
throw their children in front of cars to fund the KLA with insurance money.
No one has witnessed either.
"The Slavs are barbarians," one Albanian doctor
told me. "They do not want to live with us any more, and we do not want
to live with them."
When intellectuals start talking in such a way,
you know instinctively that inter-ethnic harmony is over bar the shooting.
On one hand, the loss of Kosovo should herald
the end for Mr Milosevic and his strategy of a Greater Serbia. Most Serbs
in Serbia admit to caring not at all for the fate of the people in the
province.
Nevertheless, they would be happy to blame its
loss on the unpopular Yugoslav President, whose disastrous economic policies
have little support.
But Mr Milosevic, a master of personal survival
at the expense of his people, could yet play a trump card. He knows that
the West is disturbed by the prospect of an independent Kosovo. A KLA force
invigorated by victory would prove a destabilising influence on the Albanian
populations in Macedonia as well as in northern Albania.
Moreover, if Kosovo gains its independence, becoming
free to unify with whomever it wishes on the strength of majority vote
alone, then the Bosnian Serbs of Republika Srpska could be used by Belgrade
to make similar demands in exchange for loss of Kosovo, fraying the delicate
Dayton peace accord in Bosnia which has prevented them from unification
with Serbia proper.
As the summer begins to fade into autumn in Kosovo,
the international community may well find itself side by side with Belgrade's
strategy of ragged containment in Kosovo, sacrificing justice for pragmatism,
while Mr Milosevic once again emerges with renewed prowess.
Serbs foil rebel bid to overrun first town
FROM DOUGLAS HAMILTON IN MALISEVO
SERB security forces said they were in full control of the southwest Kosovo town of Orahovac yesterday, despite sporadic sniper fire from pockets of Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas.
The Serbs drove the separatist KLA out of the
centre on Sunday after two days of fighting in which the guerrillas tried
to storm the police station and capture their first town in the five-month
conflict.
Reporters said Orahovac was sealed off on all
sides by Serb and KLA roadblocks.
Nervous KLA soldiers near the guerrilla stronghold
of Malisevo, ten miles north of Orahovac, said fighting was still going
on and that Serbs were using artillery.
A Serb security source who refused to be identified
said: "We could not permit the KLA to take a large urban area and create
an unofficial separatist capital."
The town, where ethnic Albanians make up 80 per
cent of the peacetime population of 20,000, is 37 miles southwest of Pristina.
It is close to the southern edge of a swath of western Kosovo between Pristina
and the Albanian border that is largely under the control of KLA fighters.
Fighting for Orahovac, and clashes between the
Yugoslav Army and KLA guerrillas ambushed while trying to cross into Kosovo
near Deravica from training grounds in northern Albania, have cost heavy
casualties.
(Reuters)
The Daily Telegraph
West plays waiting game over Kosovo
By Patrick Bishop
DIPLOMATIC efforts to end the war in Kosovo are being stalled while the international community awaits developments on the battlefield.
Moves by Germany and France to call a peace conference
like the one that resolved the Bosnian conflict have received a cool reception
from Britain and America. They are against intervention while the Serbs
and their ethnic Albanian separatist adversaries believe that they can
still make gains by fighting on.
The attitude of the powers engaged in trying
to broker a settlement in Kosovo has changed since last month. Then, the
six-nation Contact Group threatened Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president,
with air strikes unless he reined in his special forces fighting with the
guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). But KLA military successes
and confusion over who represents ethnic Albanian opinion have diminished
the pressure on the outside world to come up with a quick fix.
Nonetheless, Germany has approached America to
test the idea of an international conference similar to the one at Dayton,
Ohio, in 1995. Then, the parties in the Bosnian war were brought together
and kept isolated from the outside world until they emerged with a comprehensive
settlement.
The idea, with French backing, was privately
put to the United States ambassador to France, Felix Rohatyn. But America,
like Britain, is unimpressed with the idea. The Dayton deal was done when
the Serbs were exhausted and the Muslim and Croat forces were on the offensive,
buoyed up by a Nato bombing campaign that amounted to an intervention on
their behalf.
"We're not sure that the situation is ripe for
a Dayton-style conference," said a British diplomat yesterday. "The KLA
are making gains. They have to be persuaded that there is something to
be gained from negotiations." The German intervention seems to stem from
domestic political considerations rather than from a conviction that the
circumstances for peace exist.
Diplomatic efforts are suffering from the fact
that the situation in Kosovo has become enormously confused and complicated
since the conflict turned violent in February. What had seemed like a re-run
of the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaigns of the the Bosnian war changed
character when the KLA went on the offensive, seizing control over large
parts of the region, while Mr Milosevic's forces seemed to heed outside
calls for constraint.
The international community's uneasiness over
the ethnic Albanian cause has intensified since it became clear that most
Kosovars would no longer be satisfied with the autonomy that is all the
outside world is prepared to advocate. Spokesmen for the KLA said at the
weekend that they aimed to create an independent Albania from "the Albanian
lands of Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro". An irredentist Albanian state
shattering existing borders is what Western powers are struggling to prevent.
Fighters trapped as rebels retreat
By Philip Smucker in Orahovac
ETHNIC Albanian guerrillas retreated from positions
in central Kosovo yesterday but there were reports of hundreds being trapped
inside Orahovac.
Refugees said that young men between the ages
of 20 and 30 had been prevented from leaving Orahovac yesterday. The withdrawal
is seen as a huge set-back to the the Kosovo Liberation Army. Rebel leaders
had vowed that the city would be their first step towards the total "conquest
and liberation" of Kosovo.
A Serbian security forces tour that led up to
the edge of the city uncovered scores of demolished homes raked by heavy
shelling. Serbian police officials said that 13 Serbian civilians were
missing and 20 Albanians and gipsies were also missing. Albanian civilians
said that scores of Serbian police and Albanians had been killed in the
fighting that has lasted for four days.
Interviews with frightened refugees standing
two miles from the smoking city indicated that the death toll was much
higher than Serbian officials had revealed. They said that in one town
near to Belicrkva, 10 Albanian civilians had been killed.
Serbian security forces showed journalists a
petrol station full of women and children, many of them in tears and complaining
that they were being mistreated. In an adjacent room there were an estimated
40 men separated from their families.
On the road leading from the south of the city
there were signs of a fierce battle that had ended in victory for Serbian
forces. There were abandoned trenches and bloated farm animals in addition
to overturned barricades that the police said had been broken down by heavy
Serb armour.
There were rumours of summary execution and reports
of many Albanians being tied up with rope outside of their homes. One refugee,
who gave his name as Sali, said that he had seen four men tied up outside
one home. He said that the KLA had beat a hasty retreat from most positions
in Orahovac.
The Serbs claimed to have lost only one policeman
in the fighting.
The Independent
Serbs take hold in chaos of Kosovo
By Rupert Cornwell
As fighting raged across Kosovo yesterday, Serb
forces claimed to have regained full control of Orahovac, 40 miles south-west
of the provincial capital Pristina - thus denying ethnic Albanian rebels
what would have been their biggest prize of the five-month war.
Sporadic gunfire was still to be heard around
Orahovac and roadblocks sealed off the town, whose normal population is
20,000, from the outside world. But guerrillas in the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA) said the Serbs were now using artillery to quell the fighting.
It is beyond doubt that the battles of the last
few days in Orahovac and elsewhere have been among the fiercest since February.
Serbian forces killed 90 KLA fighters, while some 40 Serbian troops have
been taken prisoner. There have also been reports of summary executions
of ethnic Albanians by security forces. If so, the death toll since February
will be more than 400 - and the military escalation shows every sign continuing.
In the past week, tens of thousands of new refugees
have fled to the neighbouring Yugoslav republic of Monte-negro. New Serb
detachments - including 50 armoured vehicles this weekend alone, according
to one Belgrade daily - are being despatched to Kosovo. For their part,
the rebels are now threatening to deploy heavier weapons. Indeed, one KLA
commander spoke of a "new type of war, which will end up in Pristina".
Most alarming of all for the Western powers, the nightmare possibility
of a war spilling over beyond the borders of Yugoslavia seems to be moving
closer. Serb authorities claimed 16 "foreigners" were among the Albanians
involved in the clashes at the weekend - five of them from Macedonia, a
quarter of whose population is of Albanian extraction. It was unclear how
many had been killed or captured.
As for the diplomatic exchanges between Belgrade
and Tirana, these are starting to sound like the verbal prelude to war.
Albania accuses the Yugoslav forces of "barbarian acts" in firing two mortar
shells into its territory. Belgrade retorts that the government in Tirana,
by allowing weapons and men across its frontier to join the KLA, was tolerating
"terrorist activities" and "grave violations of the state border".
All of which makes the international peace-making
effort more urgent, yet more difficult, by the day. It also further reduces
the room for manoeuvre of Ibrahim Rugova, the Albanian political leader
who advocates a non-violent solution to the crisis, but whose prestige
has been sapped by the battlefield successes of the KLA.
Greece, which has enjoyed reasonable relations
with Albania and is traditionally close to the orthodox Serbia, again offered
its services as a mediator yesterday; but perhaps the most hopeful longer-term
development came from the Hague, where Serbian politicians opposed to President
Slobodan Milosevic met Robert Gelbard, the chief US envoy to the Balkans.
The discussions, according to Mr Gelbard, focused
less on the crisis in Kosovo than the political and economic dead end Serbia
had reached under Mr Milosevic. A way out will not be found overnight,
but for the first time in 18 months his opponents are making common cause
against him.
The Guardian
The plight of Sally Becker
To her supporters she's an angel who plucked babies from the horrors of war. To her critics she's a busybody who put those very babies in danger. And now she's in prison
By Gary Younge
Tuesday July 21, 1998
Sally Becker is under fire again. The Angel of
Mostar, who dodged bullets to save souls in Bosnia and Chechenya, has had
her wings clipped by Yugoslav soldiers in Kosovo. Now she is starting a
30-day jail sentence after being caught trying to smuggle a Albanian family
out of the region and into Albania.
"It seems like she kept on pushing and just pushed
too far this time.
But that's her," says an acquaintance. "She saw
a family that needed help and tried to save them. Once she gets a bee in
her bonnet she just won't be stopped." It is this mixture of altruism and
adventurism that has drawn Becker, a freelance aid worker, criticism and
acclaim in equal measure. Her missions are not just about fighting the
human misery of war but the institutional stasis that she claims prevents
larger organisations such as the United Nations and national governments
from reacting swiftly and effectively when they are needed. It was this
independence and direct approach that made her a tabloid dream - an "angel
destined to save babes of war" gushed the Mirror, "the courage of a heroine
with no credentials," praised the Northern Echo.
But it also brought her into constant conflict
with almost anyone who was restricted by the trivialities of international
treaties, diplomatic protocol or bilateral resolutions. The UN and national
governments were tip-toeing around a diplomatic minefield in an attempt
to secure peace, save lives and maintain dialogue between the warring factions.
The Balkans conflict was about as complicated as wars get and officials
argued that the last thing the situation needed was a maverick, high- profile
humanitarian accountable to no one and determined to play God. Relations
between Becker and the UN reached a particularly low point after she flew
25 wounded children and 28 family members out of the besieged town of Nova
Bila in 1994. The UN accused her of compromising their neutrality, violating
a no-fly zone and, to her fury, endangering those she was trying to save.
"She is a nice lady with a good heart but it
is a big ugly world out there and you need to do your homework, get the
paperwork done, get the visas in order," said Sylvana Foa, a spokesman
for the UN High Commission for Refugees. "She helped raise the profile
of medical evacuation but we don't want every granny with a bus turning
up in Bosnia. We don't want to say 'you're a pain in the neck, but this
is a war zone'." Becker threatened to sue and accused the UN of being overly
bureaucratic, mendacious and jealous. "As far as the UN is concerned I
am public enemy number one," she said. "But we got the people out and that's
all that matters. This kind of arguing disgusts me." The truth was actually
somewhere in the middle. Those who have met her insist Becker is not a
publicity-seeking "granny with a bus" but a committed individual who wanted
to make some sense out of senseless carnage.
'The political impasse in Bosnia made it inevitable
that people like Becker would pop up,' says a journalist who met Becker
in Mostar. "All the talks and summits were going nowhere and the ethnic
cleansing was still going on and there was this vacuum there for anyone
who just wanted to do something. And at the end of the day she did save
some lives. She did more for Bosnia than the likes of (peace negotiator)
David Owen." The charge that Becker was more interested in making headlines
than saving lives also seem to be unsubstantiated. There is a difference
between seeking publicity and gaining it. Here was a 37-year- old woman
from East Sussex risking her life to save destitute people from a vicious
and internecine conflict.
And if that were not enough for the tabloids
there was soon romance and a hint of scandal as she fell in love with a
married doctor, Duncan Stewart, who helped fund and lead her Operation
Angel Convoy in December 1993. (The two are still together.) In a war that
few people understood anymore, and even fewer are still following, Becker
provided an engaging, personal route to an impersonal, long-running story.
"She isn't reckless, she's extraordinarily kind-hearted. I think that's
what first attracted me to Sally and what I fell in love with," says Stewart.
"She gets involved and her enthusiasm is infectious." Some of those who
signed up for the mission in 1993 remembered her differently. They spoke
of fist fights breaking out among the volunteers and the three people who
went to hospital with hypothermia." What she is good at is one-woman operations.
She is a disaster at organising large-scale convoys," says John Morrison
from Hull who travelled to Mostar with his wife on Becker's mission.
Jerry Genesio, director of the US Veterans for
Peace and one of the six convoy members who finally travelled into Mostar,
accuses Becker of taking unnecessary risks. He says she refused a Spanish
UN commander's offer of an armoured car to leave Mostar, and became "hysterical"
when he then refused to allow her to lead the convoy out of the city to
the town of Metkovic, where the press was waiting.
Once her plan to hand out £50 notes to
refugee families she had brought to Britain was foiled when she simply
lost the cash somewhere in Birmingham, along with her Post Office savings
book.
Critics said her missions were often shambolic,
unfocused and misguided. UN officials accused her of dumping children in
a hospital; she said she saved them. Critics said she assisted in ethnic
cleansing by moving people from their homes; once again she said she was
simply saving lives. "It is easy to sneer from the outside and when it
comes to Becker there are plenty of things you could sneer at," says one
journalist.
"But anyone who was there knows how easy it is
to be cynical." The irony is that usually Becker usually ended up seeking
assistance from the very people she spent so much time criticising. More
than once she got herself into a difficult situation and then demanded
that the United Nations or the British army used their might, contacts
and diplomatic skills to get her out.
Which brings us back to a cell in Lipjan prison,
only a 15 minute drive from Pristina. Becker left Britain on June 21 with
a team of 26 women volunteers, in a convoy of 10 vehicles to deliver medical
supplies, an ambulance and clothes to Kosovo - undoubtedly frustrated by
the inaction of the British and other governments. Rescuing a family was
not on the itinerary but she went ahead and tried to do it anyway. She
did not have a visa and she was arrested on two border violations.
The Foreign Office, that sclerotic dinosaur which
takes so long to lumber in to action, is looking at the precise nature
of her trial and sentence tomorrow. Meanwhile, interest in the people Sally
Becker went to help, the ethnic Albanians who are facing persecution by
the Serbs in Kosovo, is waning. We know that Becker is in jail. But the
family she tried to rescue? Nobody knows.
--
Kosova Information Centre - London
Fight for Rahovac; Serb shelling in Albania's
territory; Thousands Flee Pejë;
'Angel' in Serb prison ; Russia/Greece/Albania.
___________________________________
Taken without permission, for fair use only.
Heavy Fighting Resumes in Kosovo
Serbs control Kosovo town despite sniping
Kosovo fighting rages for one town
Savage Kosovo Fighting Kills 110; 50 Serbs Kidnapped
Battle continues for Kosovo town
Rebels Claim First Capture of Kosovo City
Thousands Flee As Lawlessness Spreads in Kosovo
'Angel' starts Kosovo prison sentence
Diplomat visits British aid worker in Kosovo
jail
Russia blames Albanians for clashes, urges talks
Albania asks Greece to mediate in Kosovo fighting
US envoy backs new Serb opposition
___________________________________
Monday July 20 10:14 AM EDT
Serbs, Albanians Battle in Kosovo
ADAM BROWN Associated Press Writer
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Serb forces have clashed
with rebels for control of a central Kosovo town in some of the bloodiest
fighting yet in the secessionist province's 5-month-old war.
At least 100 people
may have been killed Saturday and early Sunday during house-to-house fighting
in the town of Orahovac and near the province's border with Albania, according
to figures released by both sides.
The pro-government Serb
Media Center said police captured most of Orahovac early Sunday. But explosions
and machine-gun fire echoed in the surrounding hills throughout the day
and reporters said it wasn't clear if either side controlled the town.
Kosovo is located in
southern Serbia, the dominant of two republics that make up the remainder
of Yugoslavia. Ethnic Albanians, who outnumber Serbs 9-to-1 in Kosovo,
are demanding independence from Serbia.
The recent fighting
sent hundreds of terrified villagers streaming into the surrounding hills.
The Kosovo Information Center said two civilians were killed and four were
wounded in the Orahovac area. Two teen-agers died in two other villages
east of the town.
A local Kosovo Liberation
Army commander said earlier he was using rocket launchers and vehicle-mounted
machine guns to repel a counterattack by hundreds of police on Orahovac,
about 30 miles southwest of the provincial capital, Pristina.
Ethnic Albanian guerrillas
launched an offensive on the town late Friday in an apparent attempt to
add territory to the 30 percent of the province they already hold. Rebels
have killed at least 30 Serb policemen and captured nearly all of Orahovac
during the fighting, the KLA commander said on condition of anonymity.
The ethnic Albanian
daily Bujku claimed today that rebel forces controlled 80 percent of Orahovac
late Sunday, quoting its reporter on the scene. There were no new reports
on Orahovac early today.
Regardless of which
side prevails, the battle for control of the town of stone and brick houses
perched along steep hillsides marks an important turning point in the Kosovo
fighting.
The KLA had never mounted
such a large-scale attack so deep into the province, nor had it displayed
such sophisticated weaponry, discipline and military skills.
In other fighting, the
Serb Media Center in Pristina said at least 20 ethnic-Albanian rebels were
killed early Sunday when a few hundred tried to cross the Albanian-Yugoslav
border northwest of Djakovica, the scene of an even bigger attempted incursion
on Saturday.
The center claimed today
that 16 foreigners were among the armed Albanians who clashed with the
Yugoslav border guards during the weekend. The center did not provide nationalities
or say how many of the foreigners were killed or arrested.
A Yugoslav army statement
said Saturday that about 1,000 "terrorists" had tried to cross from Albania
into Kosovo west of the town of Decani. About 30 guerrillas were "liquidated"
in the failed crossing, it said.
In still another border
clash, Yugoslav forces shelled the village of Padesh Saturday in an attempt
to further disrupt the guerrillas' gun-smuggling network. Albanian border
guards near Padesh reported seeing the bodies of dead and wounded victims,
but gave no casualty count.
Albania's deputy interior
minister, Ilir Cano, said two Serb mortar rounds landed inside Albanian
territory.
That prompted the Albanian
government to issue a stern protest to the Yugoslavs. Conversely, the Yugoslav
government protested what it called a series of attempted rebel incursions
across the border.
In a recent interview
with the German language network Sat.1, KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi said
the guerrillas' goal was to unite all Albanian communities in Kosovo, the
other Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, and Macedonia.
The United States and
the Europeans oppose plans for a "Greater Albania," and the growth of the
KLA has caused those governments to reconsider their hard-line stand against
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who has agreed to negotiate autonomy
but not independence for Kosovo.
___________________________________
Monday July 20 8:06 AM EDT
Serbs control Kosovo town despite sniping
By Douglas Hamilton
PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - Serb security forces
said they were in full control of the southwest Kosovo town of Orahovac
Monday despite sporadic sniper fire from pockets of Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) guerrillas.
The Serbs drove the
separatist KLA out of the center of Orahovac Sunday after two days of fighting
in which the guerrillas tried to storm the police station and capture their
first town in the five-month conflict.
A Serb security source
who refused to be identified told Reuters: "We could not let Orahovac fall,
not because of its strategic importance but because of its political significance.
"We could not permit
the KLA to take a large urban area under their control and create an unofficial
separatist capital."
The town, where ethnic
Albanians make up 80 percent of the peacetime population of 20,000, is
60 km (40 miles) southwest of Pristina.
It is close to the southern
edge of a swathe of western Kosovo between Pristina and the Albanian border
which is largely under the control of KLA fighters seeking independence
from Serbia.
Western diplomatic monitors
in Pristina who were granted free access to the battle areas this month
at the insistence of international mediators said it was unlikely they
would make an inspection tour of Orahovac Monday.
They planned instead
to go to Belgrade to report on the fighting to ambassadors of the the Big
Power Contact Group -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany
and Italy -- who are overseeing international peace efforts.
The fighting for Orahovac
and clashes between the Yugoslav army and KLA guerrillas ambushed while
trying cross into Kosovo near Djeravica from training grounds in northern
Albania cost the heaviest casualties of the crisis.
There was no immediate
word of the fate of 40 Serbs reported to have been taken hostage in Orahovac
during the weekend or official figures for the number of dead in the town.
Official Serb sources
said the Albanian death toll in the army's border ambushes Saturday and
Sunday was around 30 but Belgrade media reported that at least 90 uniformed
KLA fighters were killed.
___________________________________
Monday July 20 9:08 AM EDT
Kosovo fighting rages for one town
ORAHOVAC, Yugoslavia, July 20 (UPI) - Fierce fighting
continues in the central Kosovo town of Orahovac, first taken by ethnic
Albanians and under bitter counterattack from Serbian forces.
Serbian leaders claim
they have recaptured the town, but the Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas,
made up of ethnic Albanians, say they have trapped as many as 200 Serb
police within the town.
British Broadcasting
Corp. reports from Orahovac describe continuing mortar and machinegun fire,
as most of the civilian population flees on tractors and horse-drawn wagons.
KLA commanders have
put a high priority on the three-day battle to occupy the town and hold
on to it, saying success will mark their biggest victory yet.
More than 100 casualties
are reported.
Fighting has also broken
out near the Albanian border to Kosovo, where special Serb police and Yugoslav
army troops claim to have blocked a move to cross into the province by
KLA reinforcements.
Meanwhile, Albania's
Deputy Interior Minister Ilir Cano today charged Serbs had fired mortar
rounds into Albanian territory and warned, "These dangerous incidents could
have very dangerous consequences."
Serbian news reports
report the Yugoslav army saying foreign Islamic fighters have tried to
enter Kosovo and join the KLA.
Copyright 1998 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
___________________________________
TNet
Savage Kosovo Fighting Kills 110; 50 Serbs Kidnapped
[July 20, 1998] -- Belgrade and Tirana accused
each other of sending troops across the Albania-Yugoslavia border on Sunday
as the death toll from weekend clashes in troubled Kosovo province reached
at least 110.
Meanwhile, Serb media
has claimed ethnic Albanian separatists kidnapped more than 50 Serb workers
during the weekend battle in Kosovo, while two Serbs were killed by snipers.
The Serbs, working for a medical center and businesses in the town of Orahovac,
were abducted by separatists with the Kosovo Liberation Army when they
seized control of the southwestern city Friday, the Serb daily Jedinstvo
reported.
Fighting continued between
Serb police and Kosovo Albanian separatists for control of Orahovac, 40
miles southwest of the provincial capital Pristina.
Serb sources said police
had regained control of the town center.
Informed sources here
said at least 110 people were killed Saturday and Sunday when the Yugoslav
army clashed with hundreds of separatists trying to enter the province
from neighboring Albania.
The fighting occurred
in the mountainous region of southwestern Kosovo, the main route for the
cross-border transport of people and arms.
The most serious clash
was early Saturday, when a group of around 1,000 separatists tried to enter
Kosovo. At least 90 were killed, according to the informed sources in Pristina.
Yugoslav army sources
earlier put Saturday's death toll at 30. They said the dead all wore the
uniform of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which is fighting for independence
for the Serbian province.
At least 20 separatists
were killed overnight in three further clashes with Yugoslav army border
guards in the same region, around Djeravica, the Pristina sources said.
They added that several
hundred separatists had again tried to enter Kosovo from Albania overnight.
The latest toll brought
to more than 460 the number of people killed in clashes between separatists
and Yugoslav forces in Kosovo since February, while thousands have fled
their homes.
Saturday, the Albanian
government warned the escalating clashes were "a provocation" threatening
the tiny republic's sovereignty and territory and aimed at involving Tirana
in "a very dangerous regional conflict."
"Serb operations are
a provocation and a threat for the integrity and the sovereignty of our
country and are aimed at involving Albania in a very dangerous regional
conflict," said the Albanian government.
It urged the international
community to "take extraordinary measures to stop, by any means, the fascist
aggression Belgrade is inflicting on the Albanian population of Kosovo,"
which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.
Albanian Foreign Minister
Paskal Milo told a newspaper Sunday that his country "expresses its fraternal
solidarity and supports the just struggle of Albanians in Kosovo."
They (the Kosovo Albanians)
"are defending their land from medieval extermination perpetrated by the
Serb military machine in Kosovo," Milo added.
Yugoslavia is made up
of Serbia, the dominant partner, and Montenegro.
Belgrade meanwhile accused
Albania of "benevolence" towards the Kosovo separatists and "grossly violating"
Yugoslavia's sovereignty, in a federal foreign ministry protest note submitted
to the Albanian embassy.
The ministry said there
were five incidents at the border in two days with "serious consequences,"
and put the responsibility for them on the Albanian government.
"This shows that the
Albanian government is benevolent toward terrorist activities and serious
violations on the state borders," the ministry note said.
Meanwhile in Orahovac,
Serb police had regained control of most of the town Sunday, including
the police station and a road linking Orahovac with Prizren further south,
the Serb information center here said.
It said security forces
had also recaptured a post office and a power station.
The center did not give
any figures for casualties on either side, but the Kosovo (Albanian) information
center, which is close to the separatist Kosovo Democratic League (LDK),
quoted LDK officials as saying that three Albanians were killed in the
clashes.
That report was not
independently confirmed.
Other parts of Orahovac
where Serbs live were cleared of blockades, the center added. The town
has a population of some 15,000, mainly Albanians.
___________________________________
BBCNEWS
Monday, July 20, 1998 Published at 02:29 GMT
03:29 UK
Battle continues for Kosovo town
Serb forces and ethnic Albanian rebels have been
continuing their battle for the town of Orahovac in the Serbian province
of Kosovo.
The Serbs said they
re-took the town, but Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas said they had trapped
up to 200 Serb police in the centre.
BBC Defence Correspondent
Mark Laity, who was at the scene, said morale among the KLA was high.
He said fighting was
continuing in the town centre, with a steady crack of sniper fire and rattle
of machine-guns. He saw several columns of smoke rising.
Correspondents said
hundreds of civilians were fleeing the area on tractors and horse-drawn
wagons.
New strategy
One of the KLA commanders in the town said the
assault was a deliberate shift of strategy for the organisation to move
into urban areas.
Until now it has relied
on hit-and-run tactics of striking and then disappearing before the more
heavily armed Serbs can react.
Our correspondent says
such tactics contain risks for the KLA, because seizing territory gives
the Serbs more chance to effectively use their tanks and artillery against
the lightly-equipped guerrillas.
The battle for Orahovac
has lasted three days. If the guerrillas take it, it will be their biggest
victory of the conflict.
The town is in the southwest
of Kosovo, 30 miles (50km) from the capital Pristina. It has a population
of around 15,000, mainly ethnic Albanians
Border clashes continue
Fighting also erupted near the Albanian border,
where the Serbs said they had frustrated another attempt by the KLA to
get large numbers of reinforcements into Kosovo. Some reports said there
were up to 90 dead.
There are fears the
war could spread after Albania's deputy interior minister, Ilir Cano, accused
the Serbs of firing two mortar rounds into Albanian territory.
He said: "These dangerous
incidents could have very dangerous consequences."
Belgrade and Tirana at loggerheads
Tirana has lodged a formal protest and demanded
a meeting with the Yugoslav authorities.
The Yugoslav army denied
violating the border.
In a separate development,
the Serbian Journalists' Association reported the Yugoslav army as saying
that a group which tried to enter Kosovo on Saturday included 16 foreign
Islamic fighters.
It said documents found
at the scene showed that they were five Macedonian citizens of Albanian
nationality, six Saudi Arabian nationals, one Yemeni, and four people registered
in Briden in Germany whose names suggested that they were of Arab origin.
The Army said it thought
they were Islamic fighters organised as a special formation of the KLA's
third group.
Meanwhile, the Albanian
Government has denied allegations - broadcast by Serbian state television
- that there are about 300 Albanian army officers in Kosovo.
The Deputy Defence Minister,
Ilir Bocka, said the Albanian army was not involved in any action outside
the country's borders.
He said the allegation
was aimed at involving Albania in a very dangerous conflict which threatened
the whole region.
Serbian television said
the Albanian officers were commanding operations by the separatist Kosovo
Liberation Army. It said its report was based on statements by detained
guerrilla fighters.
___________________________________
THE NEW YORK TIMES
July 20, 1998
Rebels Claim First Capture of Kosovo City
By MIKE O'CONNOR
ORAHOVAC, Yugoslavia — In what could be the beginning
of a significant new phase of the fighting in the Serbian province of Kosovo,
ethnic Albanian separatists said Sunday that they had taken Orahovac, their
first city, and that they would use their newly acquired weapons to keep
it.
Serbian forces were
counterattacking Sunday afternoon, but the separatist forces seemed confident
and kept up heavy firing against what they said were the remaining four
government positions in the city.
No matter what the outcome
of this battle, the separatists of the Kosovo Liberation Army are once
again showing that international efforts to support ethnic Albanian political
leaders who want to end the conflict with negotiations may fail. The politicians
have little influence over the insurgents, who are armed with artillery
and surface-to-air missiles that they say are smuggled in, and they increasingly
believe that they can win militarily.
"This is the first step
taken to intensify the quality of the war from warfare against rural areas
to the stage of moving against urban areas," said the ethnic Albanian commander
of the attack, who would give only his nom de guerre, Snake. He said the
insurgents' strategy was now to take over other cities and eventually to
capture the provincial capital, Pristina.
Tall columns of smoke
twisted into the sky Sunday from Orahovac, whose population is estimated
at 20,000. Cannon fire came in spurts. Serbian artillery rounds sent ethnic
Albanian soldiers toppling over one another for cover in houses and bunkers,
but Albanian officers said their forces were returning fire with their
own artillery.
On hills at the edge
of the city, where the houses overlook patches of dark green and lime-colored
crops, sniper bullets whizzed and whined through short stalks of corn.
Ethnic Albanian civilians, who said their homes were being hit by Serbian
shells, were fleeing the city. They inched sideways, their backs hard against
building walls, then dodged across open spaces as they tried to get out
of the way of the fighting.
Western military observers
said that if the rebels have the weapons they claim to have, they might
well be able to keep control of this city.
The population of Kosovo
is about 90 percent ethnic Albanians, many of whom want an independent
country. Serbia and Montenegro are the only two republics remaining in
Yugoslavia. Kosovo was once semi-autonomous, but Serbia revoked that status
in 1989.
Recently, under pressure
from Western governments, the Yugoslav forces have reduced larger-scale
attacks on rebel areas. Some foreign officials have said the government
forces behaved so brutally against civilians that their actions encouraged
people to join or openly support the rebels.
Now, however, some foreign
diplomats say Serbian reluctance to order soldiers to retake territory
is leading the rebels to assume they have little to fear from government
forces.
"Instead of calming
things down and letting us figure out how to get everyone to the negotiation
table, what we've done is give the Albanian fighters a feeling of euphoria,"
said a Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This makes
them bolder, and it also makes other Albanians want to join them."
Support for the insurgents
began to grow early this year as many ethnic Albanians in Kosovo said they
had lost faith in the ability of their political leaders to find a way
to make the Serbian government give them autonomy.
The insurgents have
made surprising military advances. After six months of fighting, they now
contend that they control about 40 percent of the territory of Kosovo,
although the figure is open to dispute.
In an effort to shift
the focus back to peaceful negotiations, Western diplomats, led by the
United States, have tried to foster cooperation among the traditional Albanian
political leaders.
But this has failed,
say diplomats involved in the efforts, as ethnic Albanian politicians quarreled
over who would lead the coalition the West is trying to create. The result,
at least for now, they say, is that the rebels have become even more attractive
to the ethnic Albanians.
A member of the team
of ethnic Albanian political leaders who are supposed to be discussing
strategy for negotiations with the Serbian government said team members
bickered so much that they could seldom agree on anything.
"Time is running out,
and there is no consensus." said the politician, who spoke on condition
of anonymity. He said that without negotiations, the rebels were "the only
way to gain independence," adding, "The politicians have lost contact with
the people and don't see how desperate they are for freedom."
The member of the negotiating
team, along with many other ethnic Albanians, said most of their political
leaders look to Western governments for support instead of listening to
average people in Kosovo.
"These so-called leaders
think they can govern Kosovo by having their picture taken with Bill Clinton,"
the politician said. "Maybe that used to work, but it doesn't now. Now
you have to go the people. You have to see how they yearn for their own
country."
In Malisevo, the first
town up the twisting road from Orahovac, many of the people were in rebel
uniform Sunday. An American 105-millimeter recoilless rifle, bolted to
the bed of a pickup truck, was on its way to the fighting.
Behind the high walls
that surround the clusters of homes where extended families live in the
traditional ethnic Albanian way, people were receiving refugees.
Two brothers sat on
the red-and-black carpets with intricate diamond and square patterns that
spread across the floor of their compound's communal room. They asked to
remain anonymous because another brother is a soldier in the Kosovo Liberation
Army.
His picture was on the
wall. There were also fuzzy black-and-white photographs and fading drawings
of Albanian national heroes.
"We don't have President
Rugova's picture," said the elder brother, referring to Ibrahim Rugova,
the political leader of Kosovo Albanians and the man American diplomats
say they hope can lead negotiations to end the conflict.
The younger brother
added: "Rugova should have been here at least once to see us. We have waited
for him, and for the democratic countries, but no one came. Now we are
tired of waiting."
___________________________________
Washington Post
Thousands Flee As Lawlessness Spreads in Kosovo
Conflict Between Serbs, Ethnic Albanians Leaves Pec a Ghost Town After Dark
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 20, 1998; Page A12
PEC, Yugoslavia, July 19—Bajram, an ethnic Albanian
who has lived here for 40 years, was standing in a bread line in pitch
darkness at 4:30 a.m. a few days ago when a half-dozen Serbian policemen
approached in an armored vehicle. After taunting the group, the policemen
became enraged at Bajram because his papers stated that he was born near
a village where several Serbian policemen had just been shot.
For the next 30 minutes
in the back of the armored vehicle, Bajram, 45, said, "they beat me, on
one side and then the other," while cruising up and down the streets of
Pec, the second-largest city in Kosovo. They used numchucks -- two metal
nightsticks joined by a short chain -- as well as the butts of their rifles
and the tips of their boots, before dumping him onto a deserted street
and ordering him at gunpoint to lie down in a ditch.
During the beating,
Bajram, said, the policemen repeatedly threatened to kill him, saying,
"you will never eat Serbia's bread again." It was their effort to hammer
home the Serbs' claim to undisputed dominion over everything in Kosovo,
a province of Serbia -- Yugoslavia's dominant republic -- where ethnic
Albanians comprise 90 percent of the population.
Bajram's bruises and
scars are just part of the evidence that Kosovo is rapidly becoming a lawless
territory, in which kidnappings, beatings and other acts of violence are
turning the lives of citizens upside down. The open warfare between Serbs
and ethnic Albanians that has touched dozens of villages and towns has
not yet spread to Pec, but the city is suffused with an atmosphere of fear
and, sometimes, terror.
As many as a third of
the city's 40,000 inhabitants have fled in the past two weeks, most traveling
by foot over mountain passes as high as 5,000 feet to avoid Serbian checkpoints
and reach relative safety in the neighboring Yugoslav republic of Montenegro.
According to the United Nations, more than 14,300 refugees from Kosovo
have been registered in Montenegro since March, including at least 7,200
ethnic Albanians and 2,000 Serbs from the province's western region.
They are fleeing a city
where few people go out to socialize, where almost no one has a steady
job, where cultural performances have been halted for months and where
even private celebrations to mark holidays or high school graduations are
discouraged for fear of attracting the unwanted attention of Serbian police.
At least 17 Serbs and six ethnic Albanians have disappeared from Pec and
surrounding villages since mid-May, according to the Pristina-based Humanitarian
Law Center; they are presumed to be victims of kidnappings by ethnic Albanian
guerrillas or government security personnel.
Loxha, a 55-year old
ethnic Albanian interviewed at a refugee center near the Montenegrin city
of Rozaje, said he left a suburb of Pec with five relatives "because a
lot of shootings were going on. Everyone [nearby] abandoned their houses.
We hate wars. If I were to go back, I would not feel safe."
Many who fled evidently
were alarmed by brief fighting last week between the Serbian militia and
members of the ethnic Albanian rebel group known as the Kosovo Liberation
Army, over control of Lodja, a village two miles southeast of Pec. Most
of the houses along the road leading there are abandoned, with Serbian
snipers peering out of windows piled with sandbags and a large police detail
blocking all traffic from reaching the village. Smoke could be seen rising
from houses in the village on Friday, but it remained under Kosovo Liberation
Army control.
Fighting in outlying
areas has caused an influx of more than 36,000 refugees into the city,
most of whom are staying with friends or relatives whose resources already
are stretched thin.
Almost none of the residents
of Pec venture outside after dark, turning what was once a vibrant city
of musicians, traders and tourists into a ghost town at night. Under normal
conditions, the streets of most Balkan towns are thronged on Saturday night
with flirting teenagers and strolling families. In Pec last evening, a
reporter encountered only a few stray dogs and one couple during a 90-minute
walk in the city center.
The woman, Mirjana Ilic,
said most of her friends are unemployed and that she now lives off the
street-gambling winnings of her husband, Sefkija Zejnelagic. "Milosevic
and Rugova, these are the people who are making trouble," Mirjana said,
speaking of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and ethnic Albanian leader
Ibrahim Rugova. "The two sides are making mistakes, but I as a Serb say
Serbs are making more mistakes."
Ilic, who spoke as Serbian
police sang nationalist songs at a nearby cafe, said she felt safe walking
late at night. But she warned an ethnic Albanian that "when the guys with
painted faces [Serbian special police] come, you'll have no protection."
During the day, city
residents are forced to spend much of their time foraging in shops for
scarce food, such as cooking oil, bread, flour, sugar, butter and macaroni.
For much of the past four months, Serbian officials have clamped an unofficial
embargo on shipments of these and other goods to Kosovo; three weeks ago,
they declared in a letter to businessmen in the province that shipments
of roughly 40 commodities would be restricted.
The results of what
some aid workers have called a "slow strangulation" of the province have
been catastrophic for many businesses here. A trade association in Pristina,
the provincial capital, reported last week that nearly one-third of all
the province's egg-laying chickens have died because farmers cannot obtain
chicken feed, causing a doubling of egg prices in the last month.
It is "an effort to
squeeze the population into submission," said the local director of a humanitarian
organization in a letter last week to special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke,
who has been nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In response,
State Department spokesman James P. Rubin issued a statement in Washington
last week saying that "we have seen this kind of intimidation tactic before
and condemn such action as a violation of human rights."
Despite the protests,
what little food comes in has been funneled to state-run stores, which
are managed by Serbs; private stores run by ethnic Albanians can sell only
the produce they obtain in the province. Moreover, many of the state stores
maintain lists of "permitted" customers, most of whom happen to be Serbs.
Kujtim, 27, an ethnic
Albanian who has lived in Pec all his life, said he tried Saturday to buy
several of the 350 loafs of bread available at a state-run store called
Agropromet. But the owner told him: "This bread is not for Albanians; it
is only for Serbs." Asked his reaction to hearing that, Kujtim shrugged
and said, "we are used to being treated this way, like a person who has
no rights."
Bajram, the man who
was beaten, said he has never been involved in politics or other provocative
activities. But he lost his identification card that evening and fears
that if he is stopped on the street by Serbian police, he could become
one of the "disappeared." But, in a Catch 22 situation, he cannot get new
identification without crossing Serbian checkpoints to reach officials
in his former hometown, which is convulsed in ethnic fighting.
"I am," Bajram said,
"a prisoner in my own home."
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
___________________________________
THE LONDON TIMES
July 20 1998 EUROPE
'Angel' starts Kosovo prison sentence
FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN BELGRADE
A BRITISH diplomat who yesterday visited Sally
Becker, the British aid worker, in Kosovo's only women's prison said she
seemed to be in good health.
David Slinn, First Secretary
at the British Embassy in Belgrade, said: "I talked to her for about 40
minutes. The conditions seemed pretty good." Becker began a month-long
jail sentence in Djakovica, Kosovo, at the weekend after being convicted
by Serb authorities of having illegally entered across the Albanian border.
Becker, 37, known as the Angel of Mostar after she rescued 25 wounded children
from the southern Bosnian town, was arrested by Yugoslav soldiers in a
frontier region above Junik, western Kosovo. Serb sources said she was
trying to smuggle refugees into Albania.
___________________________________
Diplomat visits British aid worker in Kosovo jail
01:18 p.m Jul 19, 1998 Eastern
By Douglas Hamilton
PRISTINA, Serbia, July 19 (Reuters) - A British
diplomat visited jailed aid worker Sally Becker on Sunday in Kosovo's only
women's prison and said she seemed in generally good health.
Becker was sentenced
to a month in jail on Saturday after being arrested by the Yugoslav army
while trying to smuggle a refugee family into Albania.
The 37-year-old humanitarian,
known as the Angel of Mostar for her daring freelance aid missions during
the Bosnian war, was being held in Lipljan, 25 km (15 miles) south of the
provincial capital, Pristina, Belgrade-based diplomat David Slinn told
Reuters in Pristina.
"I talked to her for
about 40 minutes," he said. "The conditions seemed pretty good. It's in
a pleasant rural setting and the prison governor was very helpful."
Slinn said Becker was
worried about the Albanian children who had been with her.
Sources in Pristina
said Becker may not have to serve the complete sentence but would be expelled
from Yugoslavia.
Serbian sources said
Becker was detained on Friday by Yugoslav soldiers patrolling an area where
fighting with separatist guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
had ended only 15 minutes earlier.
The Serbians said Becker
was unharmed. There was no immediate word of the fate of the ethnic Albanian
family from Kosovo she was accompanying.
Thousands of ethnic
Albanians have fled across the mountain border to Albania during more than
four months of fighting between Serbian security forces and the KLA.
Becker, a self-proclaimed
enemy of bureaucratic red tape in war zones, was reported to have crossed
into Kosovo illegally from northern Albania.
She made her reputation
in 1993 when she rescued 25 wounded children from the Moslem sector of
the southern Bosnian town of Mostar while it was under Croat tank, artillery
and sniper fire.
She clashed repeatedly
then with official U.N. aid workers, who accused her of acting irresponsibly
in Bosnia and later in Chechnya when it was under attack by the Russian
army in 1995.
"She has a flair for
publicity and she has achieved some results but they've come at what I'd
call plainly unacceptable risk to those she's helped and to herself," one
aid source in Chechnya said.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________
Russia blames Albanians for clashes, urges talks
07:52 a.m. Jul 20, 1998 Eastern
MOSCOW, July 20 (Reuters) - Russia accused Albanian
separatists of prolonging the conflict in Serbia's rebel province of Kosovo
and called on Monday for an immediate halt to military action and for a
return to negotiations.
"Despite all the attempts
by the international community the situation in Kosovo is still deteriorating.
It is happening due to openly provocative acts by Albanian fighters," Foreign
Ministry spokesman Vladimir Rakhmanin said in a statement.
"The Kosovo separatists
must immediately cease fire and return to the negotiating table to discuss
the whole complex of Kosovo's problems," Rakhmanin said.
Serb security forces
said they were in full control of the southwestern town of Orahovac on
Monday after three days of fighting in which Albanian guerrillas tried
to storm the police station and capture their first town in the five-month
conflict.
Rakhmanin also mentioned
an attempt by "major armed formations from Albania" to cross into Kosovo
as one of a number of "alarming provocations" by the separatists.
Russia is part of the
Big Power Contact Group -- also comprisisng the United States, Britain,
France, Germany and Italy -- who are overseeing international peace efforts.
Russia, a traditional
Serb ally, is against any use of force in Kosovo and insists on a purely
diplomatic solution. Western countries have suggested deploying NATO troops
in Albania to help solve the problem.
The fighting for Orahovac
and clashes between the Yugoslav army and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
guerrillas ambushed while trying to cross into Kosovo near Djeravica from
training grounds in northern Albania cost the heaviest casualties of the
crisis.
Official Serb sources
said the Albanian death toll in the army's border ambushes on Saturday
and Sunday was around 30. Belgrade media said at least 90 uniformed KLA
fighters died.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________
Albania asks Greece to mediate in Kosovo fighting
08:48 a.m. Jul 20, 1998 Eastern
By Dina Kyriakidou
TIRANA, July 20 (Reuters) - Albania asked Greece
on Monday to mediate to end violence in the troubled Kosovo region of Serbia,
where scores of ethnic Albanians were killed in fighting over the weekend.
"These senseless acts
of violence must stop," visiting Greek Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos
told reporters after meeting his Albanian counterpart Paskal Milo. "Mr.
Milo asked us to use our influence on Belgrade."
Pangalos said he would
meet with Kosovo representatives during his two-day visit to Tirana to
hear their views and that Greece would also speak with Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic.
Greece, a traditional
friend of fellow Orthodox Christian Serbia, has mended once-frayed relations
with Albania and is eager to see its tiny Balkan neighbour develop.
Relations between Tirana
and Belgrade took a plunge over the weekend after Serb artillery shells
landed in Albanian territory, according to Western observers.
Albania denounced the
attack as a provocation. Serbia denied responsibility.
Serb security forces
have for months been fighting the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
which wants independence for the majority ethnic Albanian region.
Western nations, who
support autonomy for Kosovo but want it to remain within Serbia, have pressured
Milosevic to end the crackdown in the province.
"Mr. Pangalos will hear
the Kosovo representatives and then speak with Belgrade to see if we can
get dialogue started," a Greek diplomat said. "It's important to have peace
in the region and to help Albania progress."
Greece, the second biggest
investor in Albania after Italy, is aiding its impoverished northern neighbour
with loans, technical and organisational skills.
Pangalos said he discussed
two of the issues that had strained relations between the two countries
in the past -- hundreds of thousands of illegal Albanians in Greece and
the large ethnic Greek minority in southern Albania.
He said both sides were
pleased with the legalisation of aliens and the teaching of the Greek language
in Albanian schools.
Copyright 1998 Reuters
Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________
Monday, July 20, 1998 Published at 15:22 GMT 16:22
UK
BBCNEWS
US envoy backs new Serb opposition
The American special envoy to the Balkans, Robert
Galbard, has welcomed the formation of a new Serbian opposition group.
After meeting leaders
of the group, the Alliance for Change, in The Hague, Mr Gelbard said it
was potentially an important and useful development.
The group includes the
former Yugoslav prime minister Milan Panic; the Serbian Orthodox bishop
of Kosovo; and organisers of the demonstrations in Belgrade eighteen months
ago.
The BBC correspondent
in The Hague says that what binds these people together is the belief that
the present crisis in Kosovo -- where ethnic-Albanian separatists are fighting
Serbian forces -- can be solved only in the wider context of democratic
change in Serbia.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
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