NEWS: KOSOVA
UPDATE, JULY 25, 1998
___________________________________
Taken without permission, for fair use only.
Heavy fighting reported in central Kosovo
Kosovo guerrillas could work with coalition
Kosovo refugees live eight to a room in Albania
U.S. `PREPARED TO ACT ALONE IN KOSOVO IF NECESSARY
Kosovo Leader Seeks Intervention
International community debates action in Kosovo
amid pleas for help
Police Abuse Is Reported In Kosovo
___________________________________
Heavy fighting reported in central Kosovo
07:26 a.m. Jul 25, 1998 Eastern
By Douglas Hamilton
PRISTINA, Serbia, July 25 (Reuters) - Heavy fighting
was reported on Saturday between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Yugoslav
troops at two points on the road connecting Kosovos two main cities, Pristina
and Pec.
Each side accused the
other of starting the battles and other clashes reported on Saturday in
the neighbouring rural municipalities of Stimlje, Klina and Glogovac, and
Malisevo.
The aim of the fighting
was not clear. There was speculation that government forces might be trying
again to open the main east-west highway, cut for months by the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) which is fighting for the independence of the south
Serbian province from Yugoslavia.
All roads leading to
the area were sealed off by police or army checkpoints and reporters were
barred. But columns of black smoke were visible to reporters near Stimlje
and the thumps of artillery rounds could be heard in the distance.
The Serbian media centre
in Pristina said heavily armed guerrillas attacked Yugoslav army positions
at Komorane around the Pristina-Pec road early on Friday evening and fighting
was still going on.
It said the guerrillas
had attacked a Yugoslav army convoy, using rocket propelled grenade launchers
and mortars. No casualty figures were available.
Traffic was being turned
back at a police checkpoint on the way to Komorane, which lies about 25
km (15 miles) west of Pristina.
The ethnic Albanian
Kosovo Information Centre said Yugoslav army special forces with camouflaged
faces began attacks before dawn on villages around Stimlje, south of Komorane.
KLA forces also launched
their "strongest attack ever" on Kijevo, a village further west on the
Pristina-to-Pec road, the Serbian media centre said.
It said self-defence
units among the 64 Serb families trapped for months in the village defended
themselves successfully, and police reinforcements were sent in early on
Saturday morning.
The Kosovo Information
Centre said ethnic Albanian villages around Kijevo had come under attack
from Serbian security forces.
Serbian sources said
the Yugoslav army had also fired back when it came under fire near Suva
Reka, wounding two KLA fighters. It said 10 armed guerrillas surrendered.
The renewed fighting
could deal a further blow to efforts to establish a peace process in the
province of 1.8 million people, where ethnic Albanians who outnumber Serbs
by nine to one want an end to years of harsh Serbian rule.
The Kosovo Information
Centre said there had been "a let-up in the intensity of Serb gunfire"
on KLA-held villages in the western border area with Albania, used by the
guerrillas as a rear base for mustering and training their fighters.
Yugoslavia this week
announced it was extending military control over the border area to create
a five km (three mile) wide buffer zone along the mountainous 120 km (75
mile) frontier.
The Western European
Union defence organisation said the situation in Kosovo was deteriorating
so fast that the chances of a peace settlement were now minute.
Diplomatic sources said
NATO allies were being urged to provide immediate help to Albania to check
the influx of ethnic Albanian fighters using its lawless northern territory
as the launchpad for KLA infiltration of Kosovo.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________
Kosovo guerrillas could work with coalition
11:30 a.m. Jul 24, 1998 Eastern
PRISTINA, Serbia, July 24 (Reuters) - The Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), which has defied civilian control in fighting for
independence of the Serbian province, could accept a party coalition as
its political wing, a guerrilla leader said.
Lum Haxhiu spoke in
an interview with the ethnic Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore published on
Friday and picked up by the independent Serbian news agency Beta.
All the major ethnic
Albanian parties, which inaugurated their "parliament" on July 16, seek
statehood for Kosovo, where Albanians outnumber Serbs by nine to one, but
have failed in efforts to influence the KLA.
The rebels' seizure
of roughly half of Kosovo in their battle with Serbian state security forces
since March has marginalised a long, ineffective non-violent campaign for
independence by civilians led by Ibrahim Rugova.
Haxhiu was quoted as
saying that no single Kosovo Albanian party could become the KLA's political
arm but a coalition of parties which had coordinated a joint stance with
the guerrillas could represent them.
"No single Albanian
party can become the political wing of the KLA, but if all political forces
united, then the KLA general staff could examine, and would be certain
to find some solution or way for, joint action," Haxhiu said.
He was one of several
KLA officers who met special U.S. peace envoy Richard Holbrooke in the
village of Junik, a guerrilla stronghold, a month ago.
It was unclear how much
weight his words carried since the KLA command structure has remained largely
a mystery.
Haxhiu urged the Kosovo
Albanian parties to unite as soon as possible and find a common language
with the KLA to be "even stronger and closer to freedom.
"The status of Kosovo
should be an independent state... I told Holbrooke to recognise the independence
of Kosovo and I will be the first to turn in my gun," he said in the interview.
Serbia has ruled out
allowing Kosovo to secede and the international community rejects independence
too, fearing any change of borders would open a Balkan pandora's box involving
aggrieved minorities in several contiguous countries.
Belgrade, which stripped
Kosovo of its regional autonomy in 1989, has offered to discuss a restoration
of self-rule and sought talks with ethnic Albanian political leaders.
But the Kosovo Albanians
say they will now accept nothing less than full independence and, after
an initial round of talks, have ruled out further contacts until fighting
stops.
The two sides trade
accusations of aggression. Kosovo Albanian leaders have also demanded the
withdrawal of security forces from Kosovo as a condition for talks but
this has been rejected by Belgrade as tantamount to ceding the province.
The self-styled parliament
of separatist political parties said in a declaration released on Thursday
that possibilities for a peaceful settlement with Serbia had not been exhausted.
But they said prospects
for dialogue had dimmed markedly and Kosovo, a province of 1.9 million
people, seemed to be sliding into full-blown war.
At least 440 people
have died and more than 300 are missing in the five-month-old conflict
between the increasingly well-armed and organised KLA and Serbian state
security forces.
In Belgrade on Friday,
Serbian Refugee Commissioner Bratislava Morina said there were 40,000 temporarily
displaced persons of all nationalities inside Kosovo.
International refugee
agencies reckon that around 75,000 people in total have been uprooted by
the fighting, many of them fleeing to lawless, impoverished northern Albania
or to Montenegro, another Yugoslav republic.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________
Kosovo refugees live eight to a room in Albania
09:31 a.m. Jul 24, 1998 Eastern
By Llazar Semini
TROPOJE, Albania, July 24 (Reuters) - Almost two
months after fleeing fighting in the Serbian province of Kosovo, some 10,000
ethnic Albanians are still living in impossibly cramped conditions in private
homes in impoverished northern Albania.
The refugees -- mostly
women, children and old people -- have been taken in by their ethnic brethren
and are totally dependent on aid supplied by international relief agencies.
"All the international
organisations are coordinating their work to arrange supplies of everything
the refugees need," said Esmeralda Cami of the Albanian Red Cross. "But
the winter will be difficult."
Nefe, a young woman
from the Kosovo village of Junik, has been sharing a two-room flat in Tropoje
with 11 other people since fleeing the Serbian-ruled province in early
June.
She sleeps in a bedroom
with her four children, mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law, while the
four-member Albanian family who took them in live in the kitchen.
"We cannot thank our
Albanian brethren enough for their generosity in welcoming us here," she
told Reuters.
"But we are eight people
in a room and they are four in the kitchen, making life very difficult
for them and for us. We would like to go to our relatives in southern Albania
but we've got no man to take care of us.
"It has been almost
two months now in this town and it does not seem we will ever leave this
poor place."
Almost all able-bodied
men from the refugee families have joined the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA),
which is fighting for independence from Serbia for the province, 90 percent
of whose population is ethnic Albanian.
"Men have remained behind
in Kosovo to fight, even boys as young as 15 years old," said Nefe's mother-in-law,
who did not give her name.
At least 440 people
have been killed and more than 300 are missing in the five-month old conflict
between the increasingly well-armed KLA and Serbian security forces.
Tropoje, 240 km (150
miles) northeast of Tirana, has been transformed by the KLA into a virtual
military base, with guerrilla fighters thronging the streets and engaging
in target practice.
There are no reports
of tensions between the local people and their reluctant guests, but the
situation clearly puts considerable strain on both sides.
Xhevdet Hoxha, head
of Tropoje district council, said it was becoming increasingly difficult
to supply food and other aid to refugees dispersed in private homes and
efforts should be made to re-house them elsewhere.
"Their accommodation
by local families was good and indispensable in the emergency situation,
but now it is getting difficult," Hoxha said.
"Despite the international
aid, their presence is putting great strain on us, because of lack of accommodation
and money. And we do not know if there will be another influx. The only
solution would be their moving to other towns in Albania."
Food prices in the region
-- the poorest part of Europe's poorest country -- have increased significantly
since the refugees came.
The area was fairly
lawless even before the Kosovo crisis erupted and aid agencies have had
their cars stolen by armed gangs.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________
U.S. `PREPARED TO ACT ALONE' IN KOSOVO IF NECESSARY
From Tribune News Services
July 24, 1998
WASHINGTON -- The United States is "prepared to
act alone" militarily if necessary to end fighting between Serbian troops
and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, U.S. officials told lawmakers Thursday.
The Clinton administration
prefers a diplomatic solution or acting in concert with NATO but has not
ruled out unilateral military action, said Walter Slocombe, undersecretary
of defense for policy.
"We're prepared to act
alone if necessary," Slocombe said when asked at a hearing of the House
International Relations Committee to clarify the U.S. position on Kosovo.
"We haven't ruled it out. But . . . there's a distinction between whether
the United States believes it has the legal authority to act alone and
whether it would in fact in a concrete situation actually do so."
Rep. Lee Hamilton of
Indiana, the committee's ranking Democrat who asked the question, suggested
U.S. allies such as France and Germany believe a mandate is needed from
the UN Security Council for military action in the Serbian province. That
would be problematic, Hamilton said, because permanent members China and
Russia could veto any resolution.
Robert Gelbard, the
president's special representative for conflicts in the Balkans, said the
administration believes it needs no approval for any military action from
the United Nations because its charter and international law give the United
States broad authority in cases of defense.
Hamilton noted the George
Bush administration's 1992 "Christmas warning" to Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic remains in effect. In that, the United States said it would use
air power if Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant power then trying to quell the
independence movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, mounted a similar campaign
of ethnic cleansing.
"There's no question
we maintain that we have the right to act unilaterally," Slocombe said.
"There's a difference between preparing--in the sense that we're getting
ready to do it and it's our preferred course of action--and saying, `If
it came to that and that is what our interests required, that's what we're
going to do.' "
Gelbard said the Kosovo
conflict has "entered a new and potentially more dangerous phase" because
Milosevic has refused to stop his forces in the province as the Kosovo
Albanian resistance movement grows rapidly.
Extremist elements of
the resistance, led by the Kosovo Liberation Army, are seeking to secede
from Yugoslavia, which they accuse of abusing the human and political rights
of ethnic Albanians, who comprise 90 percent of the province's population.
More moderate ethnic Albanian groups also want independence but may settle
for political autonomy, which the Clinton administration supports.
Gelbard accused each
side of committing atrocities, including kidnapping and murdering civilians.
He said fighting this week in Orahovac, which caused almost all of the
20,000 Serb and ethnic Albanian residents to flee, and reports of Serbian
shells falling on Albanian territory "underscore the urgency of the situation
and the regional ramifications of continued conflict."
The Kosovo Liberation
Army "will not be able to shoot its way out of Yugoslavia, but neither
can Belgrade maintain its authority in Kosovo with a nightstick clutched
in an iron hand," Gelbard said. "There is no battlefield solution for either
side."
Gelbard demanded that
Milosevic pull back his forces and initiate talks with Kosovo Albanian
leaders for a political settlement and cease-fire as well as other concessions.
Until then, severe political
and economic sanctions will continue as will a growing threat of military
action, Gelbard said. NATO planning is almost complete, he said.
The United States worries
about the humanitarian crisis among more than 80,000 people displaced by
fighting. Serbia has cut off food from ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
So far, the administration
has contributed $24 million to relief efforts. Some lawmakers said that
frozen Yugoslav assets should be used.
In Brussels, a diplomat
said the European Union has decided to send a high-ranking delegation to
Belgrade and Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, to express the bloc's concern
at the deteriorating situation.
___________________________________
Friday July 24 10:55 AM EDT
Kosovo Leader Seeks Intervention
ISMET HAJDARI Associated Press Writer
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - A top ethnic Albanian
politician demanded international action to stop fighting in Kosovo today
and warned violence could spill into neighboring regions.
"Serbian military and
police forces continue with attacks and massacres against the Albanian
population," said Ibrahim Rugova, a moderate leader of ethnic Albanians
in separatist Kosovo province.
"We demand international
protection for Kosovo and its people in order to stop further conflict
that could spread to a wider region," he said .
Rugova was to meet with
Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador to neighboring Macedonia, who is
trying to kickstart stalled peace talks. Hill arrived in the provincial
capital of Pristina today.
The rebel Kosovo Liberation
Army indicated it would not recognize any agreement worked out with Rugova.
In an interview published in the ethnic Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore,
a KLA officer identified as Lum Haxhiu said the "KLA cannot be controlled
by any Albanian political force because it's a national army, a people's
army, and its policy is national, not a party policy."
He reiterated that KLA
would settle for nothing less than full independence for Kosovo, a southern
province in Serb-led Yugoslavia that has a population of 2 million people
- 90 percent of them ethnic Albanians. Hundreds of people have been killed
since Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic started a crackdown on Albanian
militants in late February.
Rugova also wants independence,
but does not advocate violence.
As well as the United
States, the European Union is trying to get the two sides together and
has scheduled a peace mission to Kosovo next week. Washington has said
it supports that effort but has not ruled out military force to stop the
killing.
"We are prepared to
act alone if necessary," Walter Slocombe, undersecretary of defense for
policy, said Thursday following word of the EU mission. U.S. participation
in a NATO operation in the southern Serbian republic also is possible,
he said.
In neighboring Macedonia,
NATO's secretary general said the military alliance continues planning
"a wide range of options."
"Our obligation is to
be prepared if necessary," said Secretary-General Javier Solana.
Serbs and Kosovo Albanians
accused each other of summary executions, beatings and other atrocities
during the fierce fighting in the last week for the central town of Orahovac.
With areas around the town inaccessible because of road blocks put up by
both sides, it's difficult to assess the conflicting reports.
___________________________________
ABCNEWS
WIRE:July 24, 5:56 p.m.
International community debates action in Kosovo amid pleas for help
= ^Associated Press Writer=
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) _ Ethnic Albanians appealed
to relief organizations on Friday to speed medical supplies to Kosovo villages
coping with an influx of refugees from recent fighting. Meanwhile, U.S.
diplomacy accelerated in the search for peace.
U.S. envoy Christopher
Hill met with ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova to explore ways to
reach a cease-fire and arrange talks with the government on Kosovo's future.
Negotiators are trying
to reconcile the ethnic Albanians' aspirations for independence for the
Serbian province, where they outnumber Serbs 9-to-1, with the Yugoslav
government's refusal to grant more than autonomy.
"One has to help work
on something that will ultimately be something that both sides will accept,"
said Hill, the U.S. ambassador to neighboring Macedonia.
The Kosovo Liberation
Army, which is fighting for full independence for the southern province
of 2 million people, has said it would refuse to recognize any agreement
worked out with Rugova.
The search for peace
has taken on new urgency since heavy fighting broke out around the town
of Orahovac, 30 miles southwest of Pristina, the capital. Serb police drove
off the Kosovo Liberation Army Wednesday after a six-day battle.
Thousands of civilians
left the area, fleeing to KLA-controlled villages _ where food, medicine
and other supplies already were in short supply.
In Malisevo, a Kosovo
Liberation Army stronghold about 25 miles south of Pristina, Dr. Rama Morina
was trying to cope with the thousands of refugees in an overcrowded, poorly
equipped clinic that was down to only four IV bags.
He said six women had
given birth in the past few days, some on the floor because the shortage
of beds.
"There are many sick
children and no help is coming," he said. "It's a catastrophe."
Hundreds of people have
been killed since Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic began a crackdown
on Albanian militants in late February.
Copyright 1998 AP News Service. All rights reserved.
___________________________________
Police Abuse Is Reported In Kosovo
Ethnic Albanian Suspects Allegedly Were Brutalized
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 24, 1998; Page A27
PRIZREN, Yugoslavia, July 23—Selahudin, 49, an
ethnic Albanian, lifted his shirt to display bloody wounds and dark bruises
as he described repeated beatings over the past three days by Serbian police
who wanted to know which Albanians had fired on Serbian forces during a
four-day battle for the city of Orahovac.
Selahudin's experience
suggests that even though the battle in Kosovo province ended Monday with
a Serbian victory, police are still trying to find and punish supporters
of the ethnic-Albanian guerrilla group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army.
It will be a daunting task, since virtually all of the ethnic Albanians
who compose 90 percent of the population of Kosovo -- a province of Serbia,
Yugoslavia's dominant republic -- support the guerrillas' aim of winning
independence.
The accounts given today
by Selahudin and two other ethnic Albanians who said they had just been
released by police were nearly identical: They were detained with several
hundred other men in Orahovac and brought by truck to the police and fire
station here in Prizren, about 15 miles to the south, where officials examined
their shoulders for bruises from the recoil of a rifle and their arms for
telltale powder burns.
Most of the men were
released, but an undetermined number are still detained in uncertain conditions,
the three men said. Under Yugoslav criminal procedures, the government
has no obligation to provide information on the status of those who have
been detained -- or even acknowledge the detention -- before they are formally
prosecuted.
Selahudin -- who asked
that his last name not be used out of fear of retribution -- said the bruises
on his arms and legs came from being kicked and the bloody wounds on the
top of his head, ear, lip and back were caused by blows from a truncheon.
He said that policemen yelled "Kosovo is ours" while he was being beaten
and that other men suffered broken teeth and noses.
He and another ethnic
Albanian, Xhevded, 44, said they had been handcuffed with five other men
for 10 hours to a utility pole near a Serbian police garrison in Orahovac
and used as human shields against a nighttime guerrilla attack.
Their account, like
many of the vivid allegations circulating here in the battle's aftermath,
was impossible to verify independently. But international monitors investigating
the growing hostility between ethnic Albanians and the Serbs who control
key local government institutions are already looking into these and other
charges of human rights abuses in and around Orahovac.
Questions are being
raised over fresh graves in an ethnic-Albanian cemetery on the outskirts
of Prizren, the chief municipality in southeastern Kosovo. Ten grave markers
have been placed in mounds of dirt at the cemetery, with the names of Orahovac
residents on six, according to ethnic-Albanian sources. But four of the
markers display only the numbers 1, 4, 8 and 10.
Several witnesses produced
photos they took clandestinely of the Wednesday afternoon burial in response
to calls from neighbors alarmed by the presence of Serbian security personnel
at the site. The pictures show a yellow backhoe used to dig a hole roughly
45 feet wide and 20 feet long but do not indicate how deep the hole was
or whether it contained more than 10 bodies, as several witnesses alleged.
Suspicions about the
burial were fanned in part because preparation of the graves ceased when
international monitors arrived on the scene Wednesday morning and resumed
as soon as they departed. Serbian officials initially told the visitors
they were widening a road.
Western officials who
visited Orahovac and Bela Crkva, a nearby village where fighting was particularly
fierce, have said they do not believe the Serbian claim that only a few
dozen people died in the battle. Ethnic Albanians have reported that just
a few hours before foreign reporters were allowed into the city on Wednesday,
tractors picked up a number of corpses and carted them away. That account
could not be confirmed.
Meanwhile, in a sign
that local Serbian authorities have consolidated their control in Orahovac,
the Yugoslav government announced today that water, electrical power and
telephone service have been restored there. It also renewed an appeal to
the estimated 15,000 residents who fled to return to their homes.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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