23 July 98
Financial Times
KOSOVO: OSCE warns of humanitarian crisis
By David Buchan in Belgrade
Kosovo faces a humanitarian disaster if the fighting
between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb security forces in the Balkan
province continues into winter, the leader of an international diplomatic
team warned yesterday.
Hansjörg Eiff, heading a 12-man delegation
from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said
the population (of Kosovo), "irrespective of national identity or affinity,
was already suffering terribly". He forecast this would get worse if there
were no ceasefire before winter.
According to the United Nations High Commission
for Refugees (UNHCR) and neighbouring governments, at least 90,000 people
have been displaced by the conflict in Kosovo.
After the fierce weekend fighting in the town
of Orahovac, Serb police were reported to have arrested 250 Albanians,
but were said to be freeing them gradually yesterday after interrogation.
Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas were said to have taken 50 Serb hostages
with them on their retreat from Orahovac north to their main base at Malisevo.
Mr Eiff said the Yugoslav authorities gave his
team from the OSCE, the pan-European conflict resolution organisation,
a list of Serb hostages whom they alleged the KLA had taken, while ethnic
Albanian leaders provided lists of prisoners they claimed Serb forces had
taken. Mr Eiff said he would ask the International Red Cross to investigate.
On Tuesday, UNHCR officials were the first foreign
officials to reach Orahovac. They reported seeing empty streets and hearing
sporadic gunfire. In five days of talks in Pristina and Belgrade, the OSCE
team got no further in persuading the Yugoslav authorities to allow Felipe
González, the former Spanish prime minister, into the country to
mediate between Serbs and Albanians.
The team also failed to get an audience with
Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslav president. But it was told by his ministers
the price of allowing Mr González into the country was Yugoslavia's
immediate readmission to the OSCE as a full member, a price neither the
US nor neighbouring Balkan states are prepared to pay.
Christopher Hill, US ambassador to Macedonia,
has shuttled between Mr Milosevic and the Albanians in Kosovo this week
with an autonomy plan for the province.
The plan, suggested on behalf of the Contact
Group of western states and Russia, appears to put Kosovo on a par with
the republics of Serbia and Montenegro within Yugoslavia, though it denies
the province formal republic status. But it faces opposition from the Serbs,
who want to keep their ancient province of Kosovo.
The Independent
Frontline diary - Internet monks cry out for peace
Visoki Decani, Kosovo
Late at night three sounds can be heard at the
Serbian Orthodox monastery of Visoki Decani, in western Kosovo near the
Albanian border: the chant of Midnight Mass, the crackle of Kalashnikovs
and the screech of modems.
The church contains the bones of knights who
fought at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Today, though, it isbecoming famous
as home to a new breed of warrior: the Serbian cybermonk.
In the comfortable little library filled with
leather-bound ecclesiastical works, one brother explained: "It's part of
our 'obedience'. One day we might be told to chop wood, the next to work
in the stables, and the next to work on the computers."
Yugoslav troops and police have been fighting
guerrillas of the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army for control of the area
round the church. The monastery became the still eye of the hurricane.
The monks tried to carry on as normal, but as the phone lines were down
they were unable to connect to the rest of the world.
The chief cybermonk is the thirtysomething Father
Sava. Because the lines are bad, even at the best of times, he sleeps during
the day to take advantage of better connections during the night.
In recent months he has been compiling lists
of journalists, politicians and diplomats, whom he bombards with e-mails
calling for peace between Serb and Albanian. As a result, the monks here
are not popular with the government of Slobodan Milosevic.
"Milosevic is playing a wicked game with the
emotions of Serbs here," Father Sava says. He predicts that unless there
is a peaceful compromise soon, the local Serbs in Kosovo, a small minority,
"will pay the price for Belgrade's behaviour".
The walls that the monks' predecessors built
around the church and monastery centuries ago have served them in good
stead recently. But, continuing their tradition, today's monks are building
Web pages. Click through their site, and you come to a page with a yellow
"NEW!" sign, similar to the ones on old- fashioned washing powder packets.
It appeals to Serbs and Albanians "to refrain from any use of violence"
and to "find a peaceful solution of the problem". A trenchant public statement
declares that in "21st-century Europe there is NO place for ethnically
cleansed territories, terror and crimes".
From the kitchens comes the smell of fresh bread.
Lunch is simple and strictly vegetarian. "Meat increases desire," explains
Father Sava.
Every night the brothers, mostly young and well-educated,
eat in silence while one of their number reads from the lives of the saints.
On the balcony a novice sits silently while his
mother and aunt sob their eyes out. The ashtray is overflowing. It is natural
to assume that they want their boy home before the monks are slaughtered
by the Albanians and church put to the torch. "Oh no!" Father Sava laughs,
"it always happens. It's got absolutely nothing to do with the fighting
at all."
Brought up in Communism, many families find it
hard to cope when their son announces he is to become a monk. It is considered
a shame on the family, and they come to try and dissuade him. "My father
said he'd never speak to me again," Sava says cheerfully.
Tonight, being Thursday, the monks will open
up the sarcophagus of their patron saint, King Stefan Decanski, who founded
the monastery before being murdered by his son in the 1330s. Then it is
back to cyberspace again.
Father Sava says he has often thought of logging
off to spend more time in contemplation, but duty calls. In this part of
Kosovo there are only a handful Serbs left, surrounded by tens of thousands
of hostile Albanians. Some have taken refuge near the monastery. Everyone
is very frightened here, but as Sava says: "For us monks it is different.
We think about death every day."
Tim Judah
The Guardian
UN watchmen accused of averting gaze from ethnic
abuses inside Macedonia
By Jonathan Steele in Gostivar, Macedonia
Thursday July 23, 1998
Unlike in Serbia's Kosovo province - where de
facto apartheid means Serbs and ethnic Albanians go to their own cafes,
schools and shops - Macedonia's two main communities still share amenities.
Yet for many Albanian Macedonians, the empty
mayoral chair in the western town of Gostivar is a more potent symbol than
the integration of public facilities. Mayor Rufi Osman recently started
a seven-year prison term for flying the Albanian flag over the town hall.
And the mayor of northern Tetovo, Alaedin Demiri, received 2 1/2 years
for a similar offence.
The mayors' supporters reject ministers' defence
of the sentences as punishment for "separatism".
"We accept the Macedonian state. That is not
the problem," says Menduh Thaci, the vice-president of the Democratic Party
of Albanians (PDSH). "The issue is equal rights." Foreign diplomats, he
says, are "obsessed with stability, but it's on the back of the Albanians
here".
What the diplomats fear is that the north-western
regions of Macedonia, where ethnic Albanians are in a majority, might try
to secede and join Albania proper. A string of Western ministers travels
ritually to the Macedonian capital, Skopje, to pledge support for President
Kiro Gligorov.
They also like to trumpet Unpredep - the border
force of foreign police and 750 American and Scandinavian troops who back
them - as the first United Nations peacekeeping mission to be put in place
before a war, in hopes of preventing a conflict. This week Kofi Annan,
the UN secretary- general, urged that the force be enlarged.
The official mandate of the United Nations Preventive
Deployment Force is to "strengthen Macedonia's security and stability".
>From hi-tech watchtowers in the forests bordering
Kosovo, the force guards Macedonia from a menace they call spill-over.
But Macedonia's Albanians say the danger is not spill-over from Kosovo's
communal independence fight, but existing abuses in Macedonia which the
UN forces and foreign diplomats are doing very little to alter.
Macedonia was the most reluctant of the four
republics that left Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Since independence,
its ruling elite has tried to develop a new identity by, among other moves,
defining the region's medieval churches as Macedonian Orthodox and by putting
frescoes on the banknotes.
It has also riled its neighbours. The Orthodox
church in Serbia refuses to accept the new ecclesiastical definitions,
Bulgaria refuses to accept Macedonian as a separate language, and Greece
even rejects the state's right to call itself Macedonia.
Albanians say a vital opportunity is being missed.
"The international forces in Macedonia haven't finished their job. They
should help to democratise this country," says Arben Xhaferi, the leader
of the PDSH. They support the government "because they want a quiet situation,
so we haven't had a transition from a communist state. We have just recycled
communists in power."
Mr Xhaferi broke from the main Albanian party,
the Party of Democratic Prosperity, which has five seats in the cabinet
of the governing coalition. He says the party failed to win restoration
of language and other rights.
"The government defines this state as mono-ethnic
and marginalises other ethnic groups," says Mr Xhaferi. There is very little
Albanian-language higher education, and Albanians are losing out in managerial
jobs, he claims. Less than 5 per cent of the country's army officers are
Albanian. Even in towns such as Tetovo and Gostivar where 85 per cent of
the population is Albanian, most policemen are Macedonian.
Blagoj Handziski, the foreign minister, says
it is unreasonable for one minority to be treated as a nation when the
country has four others - Turks, Serbs, Roma and Vlachs. "We cannot accept
any federalisation. We prefer a civil society with equal rights for all."
On the right, Macedonian chauvinism is rising.
The VMRO, a hardline party with a long pedigree of virulent nationalism,
calls for the government to sack its Albanian ministers. The party is gaining
support.
The number of Macedonians who support the Albanians
is tiny.
"Most people are Albanophobes, just as in Serbia,"
says Branko Geroski, the editor of Dnevnik. "The main issue here is the
inter-ethnic one inside the country. This will make the difference between
peace and war."
--
Kosova Information Centre - London
1 - UNITED NATIONS REPORT, JULY 21, 1998
UN PEACEKEEPING FORCE IN FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC
OF MACEDONIA STRENGTHENED
________________________
21 July 1998
UNITED NATIONS REPORT, JULY 21, 1998
(FYR Macedonia) (290)
UN PEACEKEEPING FORCE IN FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA STRENGTHENED
The Security Council July 21 unanimously agreed
to increase the size and extend the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force
in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The council authorized
the increase in troop strength for the UN Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP)
from 700 to 1,050. The force will remain in the former Yugoslav republic
until February 28, 1999. UNPREDEP was set up by the council in 1995 to
monitor and report on the situation along the borders with Yugoslavia and
Albania, any developments which could threaten the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia, and illicit arms trafficking. It was originally part of the
larger UN peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslav republics established
in 1992.
Calling UNPREDEP an
"extraordinarily successful mission," U.S. Ambassador Nancy Soderberg pointed
out that the UN operation "has helped to guard against the spillover of
the tension and conflict so pervasive in many other parts of the Balkan
region."
But Soderberg emphasized
that UNPREDEP'S mission is not over. "The current crisis in Kosovo reinforces
the need for the increase in and extension of UNPREDEP's current mandate,"
she said.
"By restoring UNPREDEP
troop numbers to their previous levels, we are highlighting our commitment
to the mission and to stability in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
We do not exclude consideration of a further increase if the situation
in the region requires it," she said.
In asking for the troops
increase, Secretary General Kofi Annan said the additional peacekeepers
will be stationed at nine new observation posts along the Kosovo and Albanian
borders. Two reserve platoons will carry out limited ground and air patrols.
KOSOVA UPDATE, JULY 22, 1998
___________________________________
Taken without permission, for fair use only.
U.S. to continue shuttle diplomacy over Kosovo
Balkans Twist: 'Greater Albania'
Beset in a 'Free' Town of Kosovo
Kosovo Rebels Stumble As Gamble Backfires
Rebels Withdraw From Kosovo Town
Renewed fighting in key Kosovo town
___________________________________
U.S. to continue shuttle diplomacy over Kosovo
02:31 p.m Jul 22, 1998 Eastern
BRUSSELS, July 22 (Reuters) - The main U.S. mediator
to Serbia's Kosovo province will continue shuttling between Belgrade and
Pristina in search of a diplomatic breakthrough in the coming days, a senior
U.S. official said on Wednesday.
Christopher Hill, who
is formally U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia, will return to Belgrade on Thursday
and Pristina on Friday, and carry out renewed visits next week, the official
said after Hill briefed NATO ambassadors in Brussels.
Hill addressed ambassadors
at the 16-nation transatlantic alliance after meeting with Yugoslavian
President Slobodan Milosevic on Monday and ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim
Rugova on Tuesday.
The official, who asked
not to be named, said Hill was able to report "some progress" to the NATO
ambassadors, who themselves agreed on Wednesday to continue refining over
the summer NATO's range of options for helping in Kosovo if asked.
"It's not been easy,
but I would like to emphasise that some progress has been made. I think
there's an understanding that this can not be resolved on the battlefield.
There's no military solution," the U.S. official said, saying that Hill
was receiving this impression in both camps.
Albania's Interior Ministry
said on Wednesday shells from the fighting in the neighbouring Serbian
province landed on Albanian territory on Tuesday for the second time in
four days.
At the weekend Albania
accused the Yugoslav government of provocation and threatening Albanian
sovereignty.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________
WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 1998
Balkans Twist: 'Greater Albania'
• The Serb leader's drive for a 'Greater Serbia'
once brought NATO bombs.
Will ethnic Albanians try the same tack?
Justin Brown
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
PRISTINA, YUGOSLAVIA
In a trend with broad implications for the Balkans,
ethnic Albanians increasingly are calling for a new state that would unite
Albania, the Serb province of Kosovo, and parts of Macedonia and Montenegro.
Some claim the desire
for a "Greater Albania" is centuries old. But with recent violence in Kosovo
and a general unrest among ethnic Albanians, it's now coming to the surface.
"I believe that in their
souls, 99 percent of all Albanian people would love unification," says
Afrim Morina, vice president of the fringe Kosovo Party of Albanian National
Unity. "The waging of war in Kosovo has created a greater sense of solidarity,
suffering, and nationality. To me this is not surprising."
This scenario alarms
Western diplomats. A push for a Greater Albania could grow into the kind
of international conflict that would require NATO intervention.
A Greater Albania movement
could also undermine the 1995 peace agreement ending the Bosnian war by
encouraging other nationalities - particularly Serbs - to resume their
unfulfilled land claims.
It was Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's quest for a "Greater Serbia" that led NATO to bomb
Bosnian Serbs in 1995.
"As far as the question
of a Greater Albania is concerned ... let me start by saying we're against
it and that this would be a very dangerous development that could affect
the stability of the region," said US State Department spokesman James
Rubin July 20.
Kosovo is the southern
province of Serbia, inhabited by some 1.8 million ethnic Albanians, who
seem willing to fight for independence. Serbian police crackdowns aimed
at the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have fueled a storm of violence
since late February, killing more than 400 people and sending 70,000 ethnic
Albanians fleeing.
Fighting reached a new
peak this week in Orahovac, a city of 20,000 that neither Serbian nor KLA
forces has been able to control.
In the past five months,
thousands of Kosovar refugees have streamed into Albania, Macedonia, and
Montenegro, all of which have restive ethnic Albanian populations who sympathize
with the KLA.
In addition, the recent
military success of the KLA, which now controls about a third of Kosovo,
has for the moment taken the future of Kosovo off the negotiating table
and onto the battlefield, making the dream of a Greater Albania attainable
in some people's eyes.
The KLA's success has
marginalized Kosovar Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, a US-backed pacifist
who favors independence, not unification.
More radical leaders
are gaining popularity. Jakup Krasniqi, the KLA's self-styled spokesman,
has been calling for a Greater Albania. Hydajet Hyseni, an increasingly
powerful political rival of Mr. Rugova, says he considers independence
to be a compromise.
"The best solution for
Albanians is not [independence]," Mr. Hyseni says. "The best solution for
Kosovo is unification with Albania."
The bold claims of the
ethnic Albanians dwarf the international community's desire to grant Kosovo
autonomy or republic status within Yugoslavia, a compromise Mr. Milosevic
has indicated he would consider.
More than a quarter
of Macedonia's 2 million people are ethnic Albanian, and they are concentrated
in the west of the country, which borders Kosovo.
The KLA may be active
there: Three strong explosions reportedly shook the Macedonian capital,
Skopje, and two locations near the border July 21.
Montenegro, the tiny
republic that, along with Serbia, makes up postwar Yugoslavia, has some
20,000 ethnic Albanians, but more are coming in daily.
In Albania, a country
of 3 million that is still recovering from the civil unrest of two years
ago, politicians are increasingly playing the Kosovo card to gain support.
Northern Albania has been used as a KLA training ground and is a source
of arms for Kosovo.
Fighting between Serbs
and the KLA has already spilled over the Albanian border on more than one
occasion, Albanian officials say.
Although Albanians throughout
the Balkans share customs and language, they have been separated for at
least 600 years, dating back to the Ottoman Empire's expansion into the
Balkans in the early 15th century.
Albania became an independent
state after the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, but ethnic Albanian populations
still existed in Macedonia and Kosovo, which were part of Serbia, and in
Montenegro, which was independent.
Albania was deeply isolated
under the postwar communism of Enver Hoxha. Ethnic brethren found more
freedom in Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia.
During the 1970s and
'80s, ethnic Albanian intellectualism was cultivated at the University
of Pristina in the autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo. Ethnic Albanians
in Macedonia and Montenegro were influenced, but Albania itself was hardly
penetrated.
Even after Milosevic
stripped Kosovo of its autonomy in 1989, Pristina remained a center of
Albanian nationalist thought, inspired by the formation of an underground
university in 1991.
Today, ethnic Albanians
in Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro are more closely linked to each other
than they are to Albania. Yet, a unified nationalist spirit exists.
"It's true that, inside
every Albanian's heart, there's a desire for unification," says Muhamet
Hamiti of the Kosovo Information Center, which is closely tied to Rugova.
"But it's not politically realistic. It's only wishful thinking."
___________________________________
Wednesday, July 22, 1998
COLUMN ONE
Beset in a 'Free' Town of Kosovo
Swollen with refugees, Malisevo is a stronghold of ethnic Albanian rebels. Rich in the will to fight Serbian forces, it is also rife with political tension, fear and shortages of everything from food to guns.
By DAVID HOLLEY, Times Staff Writer
MALISEVO, Yugoslavia--Here in the heart of what
ethnic Albanians in southern Yugoslavia often call "free" territory, the
arrogant, young Kosovo Liberation Army military police officer was clearly
enjoying his newfound authority.
Pointing to a blue sign
showing still and video cameras with big Xs marked through them, he asserted
that interviews with anyone except official guerrilla spokesmen are banned.
"You might end up talking to a spy and get the wrong information," he said.
By taking and holding
such a large town as Malisevo, the guerrillas have many ethnic Albanians
in this separatist province in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia believing
that their long-cherished goal of an independent Kosovo may be within their
grasp. But this revolutionary stronghold, while rich in the will to fight,
is also rife with political tension, fear and shortages of everything from
guns to food.
Malisevo's guerrilla
rulers act more like dictators than democrats. Because there is no properly
functioning government, the refugees flooding in from areas hit by Serbian
attacks are threatening to overwhelm the rebels' ability to cope.
Fighters and civilians
on both sides, Serbian and Albanian, are dying almost daily in clashes
along the border of rebel-held territory, as the guerrillas try to expand
their control and Serbian police fight to keep a cordon in place or push
the rebel army back. The guerrillas struggle to keep open weapons-running
routes from Albania, while the Yugoslav army fights to shut them down.
The guerrilla movement
has grown so explosively in the past few months that it is still seriously
disorganized. Even the police officer's effort at media control was ineffective.
After sternly issuing his warning, he stomped off up a hillside road, leaving
a visitor and his translator free to wander the dusty streets of this market
town, sip Cokes at a sidewalk cafe--and chat up residents.
"I would rather say
this town is besieged than that it is liberated," said Idriz Zogaj, a local
photo shop owner. "It is surrounded by Serb forces. We are afraid they
will massacre the women, the children and the old men. For myself, I don't
care. I'm willing to sacrifice myself. All the young men are willing to
die."
There are not enough
guns, he added, for everyone willing to fight.
As Zogaj spoke, tractors and horse-drawn carts on Malisevo's main road
jostled with cheap Yugoslav cars and more than a few Mercedes-Benzes, a
reflection of the rebels' strong political and financial ties to the Albanian
diaspora in Germany, Switzerland and Sweden.
Elderly Albanian farmers
with traditional white skullcaps, their wives bundled up in scarves, bounced
by in tractor-drawn carts. A grinning boy who looked no more than 10, waving
triumphantly to anyone he recognized, drove a tractor pulling a huge load
of Coca-Cola and other bottled drinks up the hill to an open-air market.
One side of the road
was lined by several surprisingly pleasant sidewalk cafes. Nearby vegetable
shops were filled with tomatoes, peppers, onions and watermelons.
On the opposite side
of the tree-lined main drag, dozens of men sold cigarettes from huge, neatly
stacked piles of smuggled Marlboro Lights and other foreign brands. Strewn
on the ground behind the cigarette sellers was a filthy collection of crushed
cardboard, plastic bottles, old bags and other garbage accumulated over
months of casual littering with no attempt at cleanup.
Malisevo--the only major
town held by the guerrillas--has become the rebel area's most important
distribution center for goods such as cigarettes and bottled drinks, bought
for cash in Yugoslavia or neighboring countries and transported with relative
ease. Coca-Cola sold here is imported from nearby Macedonia, for example.
Short of Necessities
Yet a surface impression
of moderate prosperity and bustling markets belies growing shortages of
the things that really matter, residents said.
Zogaj and others estimated
that the population of Malisevo municipality, which includes 42 villages
and the main market town itself, has swollen from about 40,000 early this
year to about 100,000 as refugees pour in to escape Serbian attacks.
From late February to
early June--until warnings from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
forced some restraint on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic--Serbian
forces sought to crush the guerrillas in areas near Malisevo and tried
to clear civilians out of the arms-smuggling routes from Albania. As part
of that effort, many villages near the Albanian border or in districts
where the rebels operate were shelled or otherwise attacked.
Uprooted civilians fled
in various directions: into Albania, to government-held parts of Kosovo
and into guerrilla territory. Many men who had previously been passive
supporters of independence were so angered by Serbian attacks on ethnic
Albanian civilians that they flooded into the ranks of the guerrilla forces,
contributing mightily to their growth.
But for the rapidly
swelling population in the Malisevo area, supplies of basic foodstuffs
such as flour, sugar and vegetable oil--which are controlled by the Serbs
through a system of state-run shops--are already in short supply, several
men said. Since the upsurge of fighting in recent months, the government
has further tightened controls on those goods, making it difficult to buy
enough food to be brought into the "free" territories, they said.
"Yesterday a man came
to us who hadn't eaten for 24 hours, and he asked for five or 10 kilograms
of flour," Zogaj said. "The bakeries can't get flour anymore. People are
running out of the supplies they have in their homes."
Malisevo is largely
cut off from routine contact with the outside world by a series of Serbian
and rebel roadblocks, which journalists and some other international observers
are allowed to cross if they have the right documents and if the stretch
of road involved is not at that moment being fought over. Some goods--such
as the cigarettes--make it in through backwoods dirt tracks.
At the main government
roadblock between Pristina, the provincial capital, and Malisevo, at Stimlje,
uniformed Serbian police are backed up by an armored personnel carrier
with a machine gun on top.
The asphalt road then
winds toward Malisevo through about 10 miles of wooded mountains. Serbian
forces have a presence on the mountaintops, where artillery pieces and
tanks are hidden under camouflage nets.
But the road itself
is a no man's land. It passes through several shattered villages bereft
of movement save for a few forlorn dogs and cats.
In the hamlet of Crnoljevo,
red-tiled homes have holes blasted in their roofs and white walls. At the
badly damaged village mosque, the metal top of the minaret dangled haplessly.
A Sign Warns, 'Mines'
Villages come to life
again shortly before the Kosovo Liberation Army checkpoint at Blace, manned
by nervous young men toting Kalashnikov semiautomatic rifles. Some wore
the camouflage uniforms of rebel soldiers, and others were in the black
or dark blue outfits of the guerrillas' military police. A makeshift sign
warns, "Mines."
And on the outskirts
of Malisevo, life seems almost normal again: A large public swimming pool
was in use by dozens of children.
At one sidewalk cafe,
a man who gave only his first name, Jusuf, said he fled to Malisevo two
months ago with 27 relatives after police attacked his village of Komorane,
burned some houses, took over his home and set up a heavy machine gun at
his second-floor window.
Jusuf, 40, chose Malisevo
because he had relatives to turn to for help, but in any case he would
prefer being in territory controlled by the Kosovo Liberation Army over
being in a place, such as Pristina, controlled by Serbian authorities.
In government-controlled
areas, "if I want to buy some bread or cigarettes and a policeman stops
me, he'll ask for my ID, and when he sees I'm from Komorane [an area known
for sympathy for the guerrillas], I'll be immediately harassed, because
I'll be seen in the eyes of the government as a potential terrorist," Jusuf
explained.
While people like Jusuf
may prefer the conditions in Malisevo, they recognize that life could become
hell for people here, especially if Serbian police further tighten their
grip on the flow of people and goods.
Crops are ripening in
the fields, but not nearly enough farmland is under firm guerrilla control
for that food to supply the swollen population, residents said.
A few hundred yards
from the main intersection, in a third-floor room of an unfinished brick-and-concrete
building, Jakup Kastrati was worried about a more immediate problem.
Tough Eviction Notice
Kastrati, 44, head of
the local branch of Kosovo's largest political party, explained that he
had just received a strongly worded eviction notice from the guerrillas.
Kastrati and other party
loyalists were arguing with the rebels over control of a few rooms--including
his nearly bare one, decorated only by a poster of Ibrahim Rugova, the
president of an unofficial shadow government elected by Kosovo's ethnic
Albanians. But the conflict reflected a far greater struggle across Kosovo
between the guerrillas, who are moving rapidly to assert political authority
over the entire independence movement, and the moderate Rugova.
Rugova, the politician
most favored by Washington, also supports independence--a goal the United
States opposes. But he has long said it should be achieved by nonviolent
means. Rugova is searching for some formula that would allow him to assert
control over the rebels and represent them in peace negotiations. The guerrillas,
meanwhile, are trying to push Rugova out of the equation.
The eviction notice
warned that if Kastrati and his colleagues fail to turn over their party
offices to the Kosovo Liberation Army, "the premises will be taken, and
the people responsible will have to take responsibility before the military
institutions."
The notice was signed
by Gani Krasniqi, whom Kastrati identified as a former deputy head of the
local branch of Rugova's Democratic Alliance of Kosovo.
However heavy-handed
the rebels may be in asserting their authority, they can count on a vast
reservoir of anger among ethnic Albanians against Serbs.
"I'm a photographer
by occupation," shopkeeper Zogaj said. "Every month, three weeks of work
is just to pay my taxes and bills. But an ordinary [Serbian] policeman
can drop by my shop and force me to develop his photos for free. At the
cafe near my shop, the police used to drop by and have drinks and food
and refuse to pay. One time, one of the policeman said [in ridicule of
ethnic Albanians' hopes for independence], 'Do you have any Republic of
Kosovo to eat?' "
Despite the danger,
the difficulties and the suffering, many people are remarkably upbeat.
Jusuf, the man who fled
here with his relatives from Komorane, said his 8-year-old son will attend
school in Malisevo this fall.
"Unless," he added,
"Komorane is a free area by then."
Copyright 1998 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
___________________________________
Kosovo Rebels Stumble As Gamble Backfires
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 22, 1998; Page A01
BELA CRVKA, Yugoslavia, July 21—An attempt by
the insurgent Kosovo Liberation Army to seize a city north of here has
led to a significant setback for the separatist guerrilla group and allegations
of execution-style slayings, mass detentions and other human rights abuses
by the Serbs.
In the largest strategic
gamble of the widening conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the
Serbian province of Kosovo, members of the guerrilla movement strolled
into the picturesque hillside city of Orahovac last Friday, fired their
guns into the air and announced they were taking control.
The attempt to gain
a foothold in the city of 20,000 was the first step in what some Kosovo
Liberation Army sources described as a new strategy by the guerrillas to
take their fight for Kosovo's independence into the province's urban centers
-- a move that would mark a potentially significant escalation of the five-month-old
conflict in which more than 300 people have been killed.
But the guerrillas'
action in Orahovac proved disastrous for the city and its residents. Fleeing
civilians said it led to a military setback for the guerrillas and human
rights atrocities by Serbian forces similar to some reported during the
war in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995.
After three days of
intense fighting and shelling by Yugoslav militia and regular army troops
began producing heavy guerrilla and civilian casualties, hundreds of guerrillas
were forced to withdraw from the city and flee with more than 15,000 refugees
toward their nearby stronghold in the city of Malisevo to the northeast.
The city's southern
end is now virtually empty, except for Serbian security personnel, while
the northern end is still the site of sniping and fleeting gun battles,
according to refugee accounts and recent visitors to the city, which is
about 30 miles southwest of Pristina, the provincial capital. At least
30 homes of ethnic Albanians located near the central police station have
been destroyed, while Serbian neighborhoods remain relatively untouched.
As in several earlier
clashes between the guerrillas and Serbian security personnel, refugees
from the fighting have begun offering unconfirmed allegations of atrocities
in the midst of the battle. Hidajete Ramaj and Skender Sylka said in an
interview at a refugee center south of Orahovac today that they each witnessed
the execution-style slaying of seven ethnic Albanian men by an irregular
unit of Serbian policemen.
The slayings allegedly
occurred after the policemen had stayed for three days in one of two homes
in a family compound and plundered most of its contents. "There were 15
men in the basement . . . and we wanted to go surrender. We had no weapons,"
Sylka said. The police beat on the door to their house and "when we came
out with our hands up, they were holding automatic weapons and wearing
gray scarves tied around their head. They opened fire and we tried to go
back into the house. Then they threw a grenade into the front room of the
basement" and it wounded a young boy, he said.
Ramaj said her husband,
Xhemajl, was the first to emerge from the basement and the first to be
gunned down. "He was saying, 'Wait just a minute, we've got to talk. There
are women and children inside,' " she said. "We have two boys and three
daughters. Now I don't know what to do or where to go." Both witnesses
said the police set the corpses on fire before leaving, although some were
only partially burned and had to be buried afterward.
These allegations could
not be verified. But other refugees have separately provided unconfirmed
accounts of additional atrocities, including the hanging and burning of
ethnic Albanians on lamp posts and the sniping of innocent civilians in
fields or on city streets. Members of an international monitoring team
have been told that at one point in the fighting, Serbian militia tied
ethnic Albanians to posts and placed them in the middle of a key road as
shields.
Several sources in the
city of Prizren, southeast of Orahovac, also reported today that Serbian
militia had bused more than 500 people away from the fighting in two convoys
and separated them by sex. Women and children were released immediately,
while more than 150 men were detained for questioning at a firehouse in
Prizren. Some were later released, but others remained in detention tonight
-- a circumstance that one of the monitors said was highly worrisome.
"We are doing everything
we can to stay on top of this situation" through the night, the official
said.
According to an independent
human rights expert in Prizren, who said he has spoken with scores of refugees,
the battle for Orahovac began in earnest on Friday evening, hours after
the guerrillas had tried to seize control of the city by demanding that
all Serbian civilians turn in their arms. The guerrillas had already dug
trenches and established a checkpoint here at Bela Crvka -- a village of
roughly 2,500 people -- to control access to the city from the south, while
other fighters converged on it from the north.
Serb residents in the
suburban villages of Retia and Repterusa reportedly agreed to surrender
their arms, but Serbs in the nearby village of Hoca instead called for
Yugoslav army and militia help, and other Serbs rang a bell in a downtown
church. Government forces and armed civilians swiftly established a special
military headquarters at the Park Hotel, and began shelling several villages
held by the Kosovo Liberation Army from both inside and outside the city
as dusk fell.
Bela Crvka was furiously
attacked and many of its homes now have no roofs; others were burned to
the ground. According to unconfirmed reports, the guerrillas suffered more
than 50 casualties before withdrawing, while the Serbs lost more than 40
policemen and regular army troops. Until now, such troops have only occasionally
been directly involved in battles with the guerrillas. But the fact that
many took part in the defense of Orahovac underscores the government's
commitment to keeping the cities of Kosovo out of rebel hands.
Kosovo, a province of
Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, has a population that is 90 percent
ethnic Albanian. Serbs control the police and other key governing institutions.
The debris of the battle
also makes clear that the government still has access to vastly superior
firepower, including long-range artillery and Praga armored vehicles carrying
antiaircraft cannon capable of penetrating virtually any building. According
to Serbian sources, the Kosovo Liberation Army has recently acquired German-made
Armbrust antitank missiles and Russian antiaircraft Gatling guns, but evidently
lacks large numbers of either weapon.
Besides the setback
at Orahovac, the Kosovo Liberation Army also was hit hard this week by
the government's ambush of an estimated 750 insurgents who were attempting
to infiltrate into southern Kosovo from Albania.
At least 30 guerrillas
were killed, and hundreds more are said to be missing.
Said one member, "It
was the result of a traitorous act."
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
___________________________________
Wednesday July 22 12:40 PM EDT
Rebels Withdraw From Kosovo Town
ANNE THOMPSON Associated Press Writer
ORAHOVAC, Yugoslavia (AP) - Ethnic Albanian rebels
withdrew under cover of darkness early today from their last positions
in this strategic Kosovo town as international monitors visited the site
of one of the biggest battles in weeks.
Serb police, shielded
beneath large umbrellas from the blistering summer sun, stared toward the
wooded hills for signs of snipers. But Serb officials said the Kosovo Liberation
Army, which is fighting for independence from Serbia, had pulled back several
miles to the north.
Convoys of Serb police
waving large Serbian flags rumbled along the road from the provincial capital
of Pristina, 30 miles to the east.
In Pristina, the Kosovo
Information Center, which is close to ethnic Albanian politicians, claimed
15,000 people had fled Orahovac to escape the fighting, which began Friday
with a strong attack by the KLA.
The Albanian center
said Serb police dragged civilians from their homes and shot them. It quoted
witnesses as saying police also shot civilians who took refuge in the town
mosque.
The reports could not
be independently confirmed.
Earlier today, the U.N.
refugee agency cast doubt on claims that the town of 20,000 inhabitants
was completely in Serb hands, saying the area resounded with gunfire and
occasional explosions when its staff visited late Tuesday.
By this morning, however,
Orahovac was quiet. The streets were empty except for Serb police behind
sandbagged abutments. A dead horse lay on the pavement.
The fighting around
Orahovac cast doubt on the possibility of a negotiated settlement between
Serbia, the dominant republic of Yugoslavia, and ethnic Albanians, who
make up 90 percent of Kosovo's population.
Kosovo Albanians said
at least 36 ethnic Albanians had been killed in the fighting.
The capture of Orahovac
would have expanded the nearly 40 percent of Kosovo the KLA is said to
control - and given the rebels command of a key road.
Germany's foreign minister
said NATO would likely have to get involved to end the violence.
"On both sides, there
is a lack of serious effort to contain the armed violence and resume negotiations,"
Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said in Bonn, Germany.
Also today, a group
of Russian diplomats, part of an international observer group in Kosovo,
arrived for their first visit since the fighting began. The observers issued
no statement.
The Kosovo Information
Center claimed Serb forces, which moved into the town Saturday, were still
shelling KLA positions in Orahovac on Tuesday and that fighting was also
raging in outlying villages.
In Pristina, the self-styled
Kosovo Albanian parliament, controlled by moderate Ibrahim Rugova, issued
a statement today acknowledging the "growth of the liberation struggle
in Kosovo." The reference was seen as an overture to the KLA in hopes of
winning agreement to join Rugova in talks with the government.
The fighting led the
U.N. Security Council to vote Tuesday to expand the peacekeeping force
in Macedonia by about 300 troops, mostly to strengthen security along borders
with Kosovo and Albania. U.S. troops will make up about one-third of the
1,000-plus force.
Ending a visit to Kosovo,
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe issued a report
today noting an influx of armed fighters from neighboring Albania, increased
abductions by both sides and growing shortages of food and medicines.
___________________________________
Wednesday July 22 10:11 AM EDT
Renewed fighting in key Kosovo town
ORAHOVAC, Yugoslavia, July 22 (UPI) - What began
as concentrated sniper fire from the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation
Army into the town of Orahovac has turned into a fierce renewed battle.
The town has been the
focal point of fighting between Serb forces and the KLA for four days _
first taken by rebel forces and than retaken by Yugoslav army troops and
special Serb police.
Most of the 20,000-plus
largely ethnic Albanian population has fled the town, at least 12,000 of
them by foot to Malisevo, telling accounts of widespread civilian deaths
and government artillery attacks.
Albanian and British
television news reports say Malisevo is under KLA control but has thousands
of refugees wandering through the streets.
Responding to fears
the violence may spread into neighboring Macedonia, the U.N. Security Council
approved Tuesday an expansion of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Macedonia.
The Macedonian Defense
Ministry reports today it has dispatched extra troops to its border to
halt what it claims is massive arms smuggling by ethnic Albanian rebels.
Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador
to Macedonia Christopher Hill conferred with the moderate ethnic Albanian
leader Ibrahim Rugova, after meeting with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
a day earlier.
Hill told reporters
in Belgrade he had nothing to report.
Orahovac is about 35
miles southwest of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.
The Kosovo Albanian
news agency reports today that Kosovo Liberation Army units have taken
as prisoners "a large number" of armed Serbs during the fighting at Orahovac.
NATO Secretary-General
Javier Solana arrived in Skopje, Macedonia, today to have talks with all
sides in the Kosovo conflict.
At issue in the fighting
in Kosovo is the desire by many of the ethnic Albanian inhabitants to turn
the province into an independent country.
Copyright 1998 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
BACK to PAGE ONE
BACK to PAGE ONE_______________________________________________________________________
|
Homepage
Inhaltsverzeichnis - Contents Seite erstellt am 23.7.1998 |
||
Dillinger
Straße 41
86637
Wertingen
|
|||
Telefon
08272 - 98974
Fax
08272 - 98975
|
|||
E-mail
wplarre@dillingen.baynet.de
|