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The Times

The West favours new talks, but the Serbs have already tasted victory,
reports Tom Walker in Malisevo
EU looks for peace in Kosovo ashes

THE Serbian and federal Yugoslav flags fluttered over a scorched Kosovo landscape devoid of guerrillas or any other form of life yesterday, as European and American diplomats tried to persuade a dispirited ethnic Albanian political hierarchy to negotiate with President Milosevic.
The Yugolav leader has again stolen a march on his enemies and the West, achieving what seemed impossible a month ago. Within three days his security forces have routed the Kosovo Liberation Army, scattering its guerrillas and recapturing nearly all the territory lost to the Albanians since March.
A troika of European Union diplomats, including Emyr Jones Parry, the Foreign Office political director, yesterday made the 40-minute trip through abandoned villages and fields from Pristina to Malisevo, the guerrilla stronghold that fell to the Serbs on Tuesday evening.
Mr Jones Parry said they were assessing to what extent the Serbs had contravened conditions set by the Contact Group designed to limit Belgrade's operation in Kosovo.
What they saw was clear: a virtual scorched-earth policy on the main Pristina-to-Pec highway and down its offshoot towards Malisevo. Scores of houses have been either shelled or put to the torch by the Serbs. "We're trying to bring these folks together, but whether that's possible after all this I don't know," said Mr Jones Parry, as the Serb police led the diplomats into Malisevo town centre.
Mr Jones Parry said the undoubted heavy involvement of the Yugoslav Army in the fall of Malisevo was being scrutinised by his delegation, which included Austrian and German Foreign Ministry representatives.
Minutes before they arrived, army tanks were being moved back from the main road and into the rolling scrubland that previously had helped to obscure the KLA guerrillas.
"The damage done doesn't square with things that have been said to us," said Mr Jones Parry, who will meet Mr Milosevic today. He said the calibre of ammunition used in the Serb offensive seemed incompatible with that needed simply to scare away guerrillas. For their part, the Serbs will argue that there have been relatively few casualties during the offensive.
The unknown factor is still the extent of the humanitarian catastrophe; the United Nations refugee agency says there are at least 107,000 Albanians now displaced within Kosovo, plus a similar number who have fled to Albania and Montenegro.
Western sources said Washington is pushing a mini-coup within the Albanian political leadership, aimed at sidelining the pacifist Ibrahim Rugova and promoting an as-yet unidentified personality closer to the guerrillas.
"The Albanians should realise they are not negotiating from a position of weakness," Mr Jones Parry said.

Leading Article

CRISIS IN KOSOVO
Peace in the Balkans is still a war away

In the last ten days the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian guerrillas fighting for independence from Serbia and the rump Yugoslavia it dominates, have suffered two crushing defeats. In Orohovac, the KLA's attempt to take their rural war to the cities was shattered by Serb heavy weapons. Malisevo, until Tuesday the centre of a stronghold "liberated area" where Serbs dared not go, is now the preserve of the Yugoslav National Army and the paramilitaries who follow in their wake. Thousands of refugees are once more on the move.
This double defeat ought, by some diplomatic logic, to represent the best hope for peace in the province. Both sides should be ready to negotiate; the Kosovars, because the viability of the military option has been undermined by the KLA's defeats; Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, because his victories give him a position of strength from which to negotiate an end to a conflict which jeopardises his hold on power. Yet Orahovac and Malisevo do not signal an end to the war. Efforts to provide a political path out of the quagmire have become no easier.
The missions of the last few weeks have merely confirmed the current impossibility of a negotiated solution. Ibrahim Rugova, the non-violent self-declared President of Kosovo, is the only Albanian political figure with electoral legitimacy, yet is regarded as irrelevant by the KLA, to whom he has steadily lost support. The KLA, not Rugova, now reflect Kosovar feeling. Yet the KLA - incoherent and diffuse, with little or no organisation - is unable to furnish a negotiator. Were any such figure to appear, Mr Milosevic would probably refuse to meet him, claiming he was a terrorist. Mr Milosevic is ready to talk to the now marginalised and ineffective Mr Rugova, whom he shunned for so long, but will only offer a more restricted autonomy than that he stripped away in 1989. Yet Mr Rugova and the KLA are united in their desire for nothing short of independence.
The international community, meanwhile, is adamant that independence is not an option. Its nightmare is of a Greater Albania, the union of Albania, Kosovo and western Macedonia advocated by many ethnic Albanians (including much of the KLA). An independent Kosovo would probably want to join such an entity; Albanian Macedonians would want to follow. The collapse of volatile Macedonia would draw in Greece and Bulgaria, neither of which acknowledges a separate Macedonian ethnicity, and perhaps Turkey. The potential for chaos is huge. And an independent Kosovo would unlock it.
Pleas for outside military intervention are unlikely to be answered. Governments will only despatch troops in support of a political strategy. But mutually exclusive demands make any strategy based on the two sides' consent impossible. It is also too early to impose a Dayton- style agreement; the parties have not yet fought through their differences. Only much greater atrocities than Mr Milosevic has so far perpetrated are likely to provoke intervention before a political strategy is apparent; and his comparative restraint since the Kosovo crackdown began in March shows he is unlikely to step over the brink.
Current attempts to find a resolution to the conflict in Kosovo are thus unlikely to succeed. Rather than disappear, the KLA will regroup in the hills. Mr Milosevic, encouraged by his successes, will continue his repression. An authoritative Kosovar negotiator is only likely to emerge from further conflict. And only when such a figure emerges is the outside world likely to intervene. Irreconcilable objectives, and the strength of the Kosovars' desire for independence - far stronger than others' desire to deny it to them - make compromise impossible. Only when that desire is tempered by horror of what is necessary to obtain it, and dogmatism weakened by exhaustion, will compromise be possible. The reality is that the war in Kosovo is still too inchoate to resolve. The tragedy is that only further bloodshed will provide the perspective that resolution requires.

The Daily Telegraph

Victorious Serbs loot fallen rebel capital
By Julius Strauss in Malisevo

SERBIAN police patrolled the deserted Albanian rebel capital of Malisevo last night, a potent symbol of the extent of the defeat suffered by the Kosovo Liberation Army in four days of fighting the Yugoslav army. Otherwise only a few stray dogs and long-horned cattle were left in a town that a week ago was a buzzing trade and logistics centre. Shops and restaurants, including the Europa, where only two days ago rebel army commanders had sipped warm beer, have been looted by the army and police, although they left behind much of the produce to rot on the shelves.
A television repair shop's door and windows were smashed and there was a mess of wires, transistors and bits of electronic tubing. Cans of hairspray had tumbled through the broken window in a neighbouring hairdresser's.
In the former local headquarters of the Kosovo Liberation Army, two bowls of what appeared to be tomato and noodle soup had been abandoned half-eaten and were beginning to attract flies. In the cupboard were administrative records written in Albanian.
Despite the mess of war, many of the buildings have survived intact, though on the road to Pec in the west many houses were reduced to blackened husks by days of shelling. Rebel barricades have been torn down and pushed aside and spent shell casings litter the road like confetti at a wedding. But the wholesale destruction of the rebel capital was avoided when civilians and defenders fled the army's onslaught.
In other parts of the town there were gruesome reminders of the killing that had occurred, although the corpses had been removed. One trail of heavy blood splatters led from a farm house, along a road for about 200 yards towards the centre, and into a small garden with a high stone wall. On the roads leading to Malisevo the only things moving were police Land Rovers, some armoured, and heavy army and police military vehicles.
The refugees who have fled the fighting, estimated at about 20,000 by the United Nations refugee agency, have taken to the hills. Even before the latest offensive began, their situation was becoming critical, and they have now been joined by many more who have fled villages the Serbs have destroyed in the past week.
Not all the news was good yesterday for the Yugoslav forces. Pockets of rebel Albanians were still holding out near Suva Reka and north of Orahovac. Journalists were turned back in both places by Serbian police who said that fresh assaults on the rebel positions were imminent. At Orahovac, one policeman said: "They are very well dug in and have put up great resistance."
In western Kosovo in the Decani region, much of which was "ethnically cleansed" by Serb forces in March and June, the rebels still control some territory. Down one disputed road near Djakovica, a Serbian police outpost had been cut off for more than two months. When visited by journalists yesterday the policemen were very nervous - one started shooting at imaginary guerrillas. They said their replacements had not reached them because their convoy had been attacked by rebels.
A troika of European diplomats - British, German and Austrian - were in Malisevo yesterday, brought by the Serbs to assess the situation on the ground. Wearing suits and travelling in smart bullet-proof cars, they stood out starkly against the dirt, blood and destruction of war.
The British representative, Emyr Jones Parry, was clearly affected by what he had seen. But asked what message he could carry today to the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, he said: "We will repeat a call for an end to violence." For Kosovo's Albanians that will be precious little.

Financial Times

KOSOVO: Serbs 'seize KLA base'
By David Buchan in London

Serb armed police claimed yesterday to have captured a stronghold of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) straddling supply lines to government forces on the province's western border with Albania.
The government said its forces had taken Lapusnik, which lies on the road from Pristina, the provincial capital, to the western city of Pec.
It made its claim on the fourth day of a Serb counter-offensive against armed ethnic Albanian separatists seeking Kosovo's independence from Serbia.
The tide of the war appears to be turning against the KLA guerrillas, whose military momentum faltered after their first attempt to seize a sizeable town, Orahovac, was beaten back a week ago by police and army.
The KLA have survived past Serb offensives and can draw on the support of the overwhelming number of Kosovars, 90 per cent of whom are ethnic Albanians, in the face of the Serbs' superior fire-power and equipment. Serb state television yesterday aired footage of KLA positions at Lapusnik, which it described as a "notorious terrorist base".
The Albanian government protested yesterday that Serb forces had lobbed several shells on to Albanian territory on Sunday night.
Western diplomats have, vainly, been trying to interest Mr Milosevic and the Kosovar separatists in a compromise giving Kosovo considerable autonomy.
Amid concern that the Kosovo conflict could spread, Robin Cook, the UK foreign secretary, is due to visit neighbouring Macedonia and Albania this week.

The Independent

Serb tanks roll on as EU urges peace
By Marcus Tanner

European diplomats launched another peace mission in the province of Kosovo yesterday in the wake of Serbian army victories that have routed Kosovo's guerrilla army and forced up to 100,000 civilians to flee their homes.
The diplomatic mission, led by an Austrian, Albert Rochan, deplored the upsurge in fighting in language that seemed at odds with the intensity of the battle raging for control of terrain and which has left hundreds dead in only a few days.
Mr Rochan said the European troika felt "deep concern" about the fighting, adding: "The violence has to stop immediately. We cannot tolerate the increasing amount of victims, the destruction, or the refugee situation."
The mission has two expressed aims. One is to unite the disparate Albanian groups in Kosovo behind one leader, preferably Ibrahim Rugova, the peaceable leader of the non-violent Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), so that the Albanians can speak with one voice to Belgrade. So far the divisions between the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the civilian parties over tactics have disabled them from speaking with one voice.
The second aim is to restart talks between the Albanian community - the majority of which is in Kosovo - and the government of Serbia.
The mission's first aim seemed to enjoy some success yesterday, as Mr Rugova announced he had succeeded in forming a united negotiating team, which included representatives of the KLA.
The second, more crucial goal, is as far from realisation as ever. As the Serbian army ploughs deeper into the heartland of the KLA, driving out the civilian population, the pressure on Belgrade to negotiate correspondingly declines.
Meanwhile, the Western powers and Nato have lost whatever clout they had in Belgrade by demonstrably backing away from their initial threat to intervene militarily in the Kosovo conflict.
It was announced on Tuesday that the Serbs had taken another important KLA bastion, the village of Malisevo. Observers found it empty, suggesting that the thousands of refugees who were there until last week were on another long march into the hills.
Last week, the Red Cross said many of the 40,000 civilians who fled fighting elsewhere in Kosovo had taken shelter in Malisevo. About 10 days ago the Serbs marched into another KLA stronghold, at Orahovac. The Serbs have also reopened the main roads running east-west in Kosovo, from the province's capital Pristina to Pec on the Albanian border.
Yesterday, the Serbs said they had surrounded a third KLA stronghold in the south-west, around Junik, trapping about 1,000 fighters.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it believed the last 10 days had increased the number of homeless civilians to at least 100,000, out of a population of about two million.
The sheer toothlessness of the European Union's latest peace mission has been underlined by the fact that Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic is not even bothering to meet the troika. Past precedent in the wars in Bosnia and Croatia suggests Mr Milosevic will not see any need to negotiate until his armies are doing less well in the field.

The Guardian

Kosovo pact raises hopes for talks
By Ismet Hajdari in Pristina
Thursday July 30, 1998

The leading Albanian politician in Kosovo said yesterday he had reached a compromise with other ethnic Albanians on forming a coalition government in a development which would be a big step towards securing peace talks on the future of the rebellious Yugoslav province.
Ibrahim Rugova gave no details of the plan except that it would include "all political forces" and "create pre-conditions for a dialogue" with the Serb-led Yugoslav government. He did not specify whether the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which is fighting for independence and has rejected Mr Rugova's leadership, would be included.
His announcement followed a Serb offensive launched at the end of last week which has succeeded in regaining control of key areas of the province from the KLA.
Albanian language media have speculated that Mr Rugova will offer the KLA the defence and interior ministries, giving it control of the provincial police.
Although Yugoslavia would probably not recognise Mr Rugova's "government", it could form the basis for an ethnic Albanian team to negotiate the status of the province with Yugoslavia's president, Slobodan Milosevic.
Arranging such talks has been the goal of United States and European diplomats since Mr Milosevic launched a bloody crackdown on Albanian militants in February.
Albanians form 90 per cent of the province's 2 million population.
Before his announcement, Mr Rugova met a European Union delegation which is in Kosovo as part of the latest international effort to halt the bloodshed.
"We cannot tolerate the increasing amount of victims, the destruction, the refugee situation," said Albert Rochan, the Austrian delegation leader. He called for an immediate end to the fighting.
The EU delegation, which also includes German and British diplomats, arrived as US officials said an American effort to forge a broad-based Albanian negotiating team was starting to bear fruit.
The inability of the Albanians to agree on the composition of a negotiating team has been a major stumbling block to international efforts to resolve the conflict.

ITN News

Angel of Mostar's father flies to her aid

The father of imprisoned aid worker Sally Becker is flying out to Kosovo on a mission to bring her home.
Jack Becker, from Brighton, was granted a visa by the Serb authorities yesterday and was boarding a flight at Gatwick Airport.
Doctors put Miss Becker - dubbed the Angel of Mostar for her humanitarian work - on an intravenous glucose drip after she collapsed in her prison cell after five days on hunger strike.
Mr Becker said: "The latest I have heard is that she has come round and this drip, I think, has saved her life."
He said from Gatwick Airport as he prepared to leave the country Mr Becker that he thought it unlikely he would be able to bring his daughter home yet.
He also dismissed accusations that his daughter, who has been leading humanitarian missions to the Balkans since the early 1990s, was a publicity-seeker.
"That's not so. She was coming out of Kosovo with refugees, and I believe two of the children were injured," he said.
"Had she managed to get across the border no-one would have known. The only reason the media is interested is because she got arrested."
Miss Becker is being held in Lipjan, near the Kosovan capital Pristina, after Serb authorities last week jailed her for 30 days for entering the country without a visa.
She collapsed when a British diplomat was visiting her in her prison cell.
Miss Becker, 37, from Hove, East Sussex, left Britain for Kosovo last month with a consignment of food, clothing and medicine for refugees fleeing fighting between the province's ethnic Albanian majority and Serb forces.
She was dubbed the Angel of Mostar after smuggling a group of Muslim children to safety from the besieged city during the Bosnian war in 1993.
--
Kosova Information Centre - London

Taken without permission, for fair use only.

Harried Monitors Still Searching for 20,000 Kosovo Refugees
EU looks for peace in Kosovo ashes
The violence has to stop immediately
Both Sides Lose Symbol of Trust in Kosovo
EU envoys to meet Milosevic as Kosovo tide turns
Kosovar Albanians die in police chase near the German border
___________________________________

NY TIMES
July 30, 1998

Harried Monitors Still Searching for 20,000 Kosovo Refugees

By MIKE O'CONNOR

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia -- Diplomats tracking human rights abuses in Kosovo say they have been unable to learn the fate of more than 20,000 civilians who fled on Tuesday from a Yugoslav government counteroffensive against ethnic Albanian rebels.
     As the government attacks continue and fears of rights violations grow, foreign monitors and aid workers say their movements are being restricted by Serbian authorities.
     The United States and other Western countries accused the Yugoslav government of brutality against civilians in past offensives, and after being threatened with military action by NATO, Yugoslav officials agreed to protect civilians and to allow foreign observers to monitor the Yugoslav military and police forces.
     But with the foreign observer mission badly understaffed and with access restricted, monitors have lost track of more than 20,000 refugees who fled Tuesday from Malisevo when the town came under attack from government troops.
     "We assume they are in great difficulty," said a European diplomat. "They must be scattered in the countryside in many places, but we don't know. There are many children and many elderly among them. Who knows what condition they are in."
     Despite these fears, diplomats also said they saw the possibility of negotiations between Yugoslavia and the ethnic Albanians on autonomy for Kosovo.
     On Saturday the government forces began their largest offensive against ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo province, where ethnic Albanians are about 90 percent of the population. In the last six months an organization called the Kosovo Liberation Army has grown from a small group of insurgents to a broadly based movement demanding independence for the province.
     The refugees from Malisevo are among an unknown number of people who are fleeing the fighting. "One has to hold the government responsible for creating these refugees," a senior Western diplomat said.
     He and other diplomats said they did not have enough information to decide if government forces had been so brutal that NATO action is needed. "I don't want to say we haven't crossed the line and then tomorrow morning find there are 1,000 people dead in a field somewhere," the senior diplomat said.
     Foreign diplomats said there is no exact test for recommending NATO military action or further sanctions against Yugoslavia, which now has only two republics, Serbia and Montenegro. Rather it is "a kind of consensus by all of us and our governments that would be reached if events became too terrible to countenance," one European said. "But for the moment we are not learning what the truth is about conditions in the field."
     The foreign observers, diplomats and military experts, from the United States, Russia and European countries, were turned back by Yugoslav authorities in several combat areas Wednesday, they said. Near one town they were barred from, Junik, they reported hearing the sounds of heavy combat.
     Ethnic Albanian political parties say 20 people were executed Tuesday by Yugoslav forces in Junik. A senior Western diplomat said Wednesday that he had raised that report with top Yugoslav officials but had got no satisfactory answer.
     Foreign diplomats and monitors said that in many areas where they were permitted, villages had been shelled and many homes burned.
     "From what we could see, it looked as if there was an attempt to take territory and move the civilian population out," one monitor said. "It looks as if the Yugoslav Army is trying to keep its own casualties low by laying back and using artillery and tanks. That can be very hard on civilians."
     Some foreign journalists, traveling in a group organized by government officials, visited Malisevo, which until the counteroffensive had been a rebel stronghold. They reported it to be deserted except for three families and an elderly man who said he had stayed to care for his cows.
     In Malisevo and area villages there were an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 ethnic Albanians until last week, when about 20,000 refugees arrived after government forces recaptured the city of Orahovac.
     U.N. relief officials who were able to reach Malisevo last Thursday described conditions as desperate. On Wednesday they said that they did not know what had happened to the people there and that access for relief workers in most of the province was blocked either by fighting or by government authorities.
     A Western diplomat said most refugees are probably in areas controlled by the rebels and would not go back to Malisevo or Orahovac even if the government offensive ended. "I think the Albanian public is terrorized by the security forces and not prepared to return unless there is a new security situation," he said.
     But diplomats also said they are close to arranging an alliance of ethnic Albanian groups that could negotiate with the Yugoslav government for some kind of autonomy for Kosovo. This may be difficult because, while Western governments say they do not want Kosovo to be independent, most ethnic Albanians say they will accept nothing less.
     The diplomats say the Albanian political leaders have agreed in principle to form a negotiating team, though they have not decided on the team's membership or who will lead it. The Kosovo Liberation Army was officially invited to join the alliance only Wednesday, but did not immediately respond, diplomats said.
___________________________________

THE LONDON TIMES
July 30 1998 EUROPE

The West favours new talks, but the Serbs have already tasted victory,
reports Tom Walker in Malisevo

EU looks for peace in Kosovo ashes

THE Serbian and federal Yugoslav flags fluttered over a scorched Kosovo landscape devoid of guerrillas or any other form of life yesterday, as European and American diplomats tried to persuade a dispirited ethnic Albanian political hierarchy to negotiate with President Milosevic.
     The Yugolav leader has again stolen a march on his enemies and the West, achieving what seemed impossible a month ago. Within three days his security forces have routed the Kosovo Liberation Army, scattering its guerrillas and recapturing nearly all the territory lost to the Albanians since March.
     A troika of European Union diplomats, including Emyr Jones Parry, the Foreign Office political director, yesterday made the 40-minute trip through abandoned villages and fields from Pristina to Malisevo, the guerrilla stronghold that fell to the Serbs on Tuesday evening.
     Mr Jones Parry said they were assessing to what extent the Serbs had contravened conditions set by the Contact Group designed to limit Belgrade's operation in Kosovo.
     What they saw was clear: a virtual scorched-earth policy on the main Pristina-to-Pec highway and down its offshoot towards Malisevo. Scores of houses have been either shelled or put to the torch by the Serbs.
     "We're trying to bring these folks together, but whether that's possible after all this I don't know," said Mr Jones Parry, as the Serb police led the diplomats into Malisevo town centre.
     Mr Jones Parry said the undoubted heavy involvement of the Yugoslav Army in the fall of Malisevo was being scrutinised by his delegation, which included Austrian and German Foreign Ministry representatives.
     Minutes before they arrived, army tanks were being moved back from the main road and into the rolling scrubland that previously had helped to obscure the KLA guerrillas.
     "The damage done doesn't square with things that have been said to us," said Mr Jones Parry, who will meet Mr Milosevic today. He said the calibre of ammunition used in the Serb offensive seemed incompatible with that needed simply to scare away guerrillas. For their part, the Serbs will argue that there have been relatively few casualties during the offensive.
     The unknown factor is still the extent of the humanitarian catastrophe; the United Nations refugee agency says there are at least 107,000 Albanians now displaced within Kosovo, plus a similar number who have fled to Albania and Montenegro.
     Western sources said Washington is pushing a mini-coup within the Albanian political leadership, aimed at sidelining the pacifist Ibrahim Rugova and promoting an as-yet unidentified personality closer to the guerrillas.
     "The Albanians should realise they are not negotiating from a position of weakness," Mr Jones Parry said.
___________________________________

Christian Science Monitor

The violence has to stop immediately

A team of European diplomats arriving in Kosovo announced "the violence has to stop immediately" before meeting ethnic Albanian leaders, still rattled by recent Serb victories. Meanwhile, a US effort to unite Kosovo's bickering ethnic Albanian leaders into a broad-based negotiating team was showing signs of progress, officials said. International observers have estimated the war has killed 500 people and displaced 150,000 others.
___________________________________

Wednesday, July 29, 1998

Both Sides Lose Symbol of Trust in Kosovo

Balkans: Slaying of legendary cleric--shot in back--takes away town's spirit of hope.

By RICHARD BOUDREAUX, Times Staff Writer
 
ORAHOVAC, Yugoslavia--His domain was sacred. So when Serbian troops and tanks blasted through the streets here last week, more than 1,000 terrified ethnic Albanians took refuge in the tekke, trusting that the legendary Baba Sheh Muhedin Shehu's 4-century-old house of worship was safe.
     Mystical leader of the dominant local Muslim sect, the Baba, 76, possessed reputed healing powers and a stature that transcended his following. He was one of the few people respected by both separatist-minded Albanians and the tiny Serbian minority that runs this town in Kosovo province.
     "They believed he was untouchable," said Nekip Shehu, a distant relative.
     But after five days of fighting between government forces and separatist guerrillas, the tekke was nearly deserted and the Baba was dead. It seems evident from a witness' account that Serbian combatants violated the holy compound and shot him in the back.
     In Kosovo's 5-month-old conflict, the battle of Orahovac was doubly significant. It was a new display of brutality by Serbian police and Yugoslav army troops against civilians. And it launched a string of setbacks for the rebels, who failed on their first try to seize an urban center and who on Tuesday abandoned their nearby stronghold, Malisevo, without a fight.
     The cleric's execution-style slaying, one of eight such Albanian deaths related by witnesses, added a poignant element of tragedy: It shattered what little trust had existed between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in the largest town hit by the fighting so far, making both sides doubtful that the place can ever recover.
     A week after the rebel retreat, Orahovac is eerily quiet. Its streets, rising gently up a hillside, are nearly deserted except for the police. A big majority of the town's tile-roofed buildings are standing, but the scattered pockets of destruction include a neighborhood of about 30 burned-out homes near the police station.
     Windows are broken everywhere and looting appears to have been widespread, although some goods remain on store shelves. Police on duty at one checkpoint lounge under beach umbrellas and sip canned cola lifted from an abandoned Albanian-owned shop.
     The dominant sound is the screechy megaphone of a Serbian functionary who drives around saying: "The town is free. Come out of your homes. There is no danger to anyone."
     But dozens of Albanians interviewed in their homes said they are too traumatized to venture beyond the city block they live on. And those who fled during the fighting to a temporary shelter several miles from here said they are reluctant to go home. An estimated 15,000 of the town's 22,000 inhabitants are gone.
     "There is no one in authority we can trust, no one who can guarantee our safety," said a 44-year-old Albanian doctor. Instead of reporting back to work at the town's Serb-run hospital, she has gathered a plastic bag of medicines donated by relatives and is treating people on her street.
     Serbs suffered less in the fighting but were equally disillusioned.
     "What hurts me most is that no one among our Albanian friends warned us that this [guerrilla] attack was coming," said Blagoje Milenkovic, a Serb whose big plastics factory here counted 360 Albanians among its 600 workers.
     The Baba, say people on each side of the ethnic divide, was perhaps the only figure who could have rebuilt their trust.
     Known universally by his honorific, roughly equivalent to father, the Baba settled blood feuds between Albanian families and helped the poor of both communities. His Sufi Muslim sect, Rufai Helveti, believes in mystical cures, but nonbelievers, including Serbs, turned to him to treat anything from depression to snakebites.
     "He was a respected citizen," said Zoran Grkovic, Serbian president of the Orahovac town council. "He was not a militant. He always said he didn't want war."
     The Baba shied away from the conflict--mindful, his relatives said, of the nine years he spent imprisoned by the former Yugoslav federation's Communist regime for his Albanian nationalist beliefs.
     But townspeople said he quietly blessed an agreement a month ago by Serbian and Albanian civic leaders to urge the Serbian police and the Kosovo Liberation Army not to fight over Orahovac, which was prospering from its vineyards and winery.
     People here had good reason to worry. Most of the 400 people killed in the conflict have been civilians. As in Kosovo as a whole, which has 2 million people, 90% of the population here is ethnic Albanian. Most of the people sympathize with the rebel army's demand for Kosovo's independence from Serbia, the dominant republic of the rump Yugoslavia.
     The leaders' effort was ignored, and each side now accuses the other's army of starting the battle.
     Grkovic, the town council leader, said that 1,000 guerrillas marched into Orahovac and its surrounding villages July 17, seized Serbian civilians and announced they were taking over. Ethnic Albanian townspeople said that government agents posing as rebels started the action by shooting at Serbian targets, provoking a retaliation against Albanian civilians that in turn drew in 150 rebels to protect them.
     In any event, rebel leaders in the heat of battle proclaimed an intent to capture Orahovac, but they were overwhelmed by government forces.
     The Serbs fired into neighborhoods with a ferocity aimed at terrorizing people as well as killing them, many residents said. Albanians suffered 48 of the 52 civilian deaths listed so far; the toll is rising as families venture out and search the ruins of their homes.
     News of executions had an even more chilling effect on those who survived.
     One fit a pattern of Serbian killing in previous Kosovo encounters. On July 20, three Serbian police officers wearing gray scarves showed up in the yard of a home where 15 men were hiding in a basement with dozens of women and children. Sami Ramaj, 23, said the men agreed, to save the others, to walk out one by one and surrender. They announced through the door that they were unarmed.
     Ramaj was the ninth to leave. As he walked into the yard, he recalled in an interview, he and the man in front of him saw the police shoot dead the other seven, who were standing in a row with their hands raised.
     The Baba was slain the next day, 24 hours after a harrowing experience that undermined his mystique.
     As the shelling moved closer to his tekke and destroyed part of an outer wall, he told the smoke-choked followers packed in the compound that, despite their faith, he could not guarantee their safety. Two people inside were already dead. His son arranged a brief cease-fire that allowed the rest to walk out unharmed.
     Left alone in the eight-building compound with his own family and the Baba, Nekip Shehu, the cleric's relative, heard the sound of windows breaking and intruders calling in Serbian: "Oh Baba Sheh! Oh Baba Sheh!"
     Shehu stayed hidden in his home about 40 feet away and did not look out. In an interview, he recalled the following exchange:
     "You don't have to break anything," the Baba told the intruders. "I have the keys. Whatever interests you, I will show you."
     "Is there anyone hiding in there with you?" asked one Serbian voice.
     "No, no one."
     Next Shehu heard several shots. An hour later, another relative found the Baba's body face down on the bloodied flagstone pavement outside his doorway. Family members, who last Friday buried him in the tekke beside the tombs of his 15 predecessors, said the Baba had at least two bullet wounds in the back.
     One sign of the town's distrustful divide is the story being spread this week by Serbian authorities that the rebels shot the cleric for refusing to back their cause openly.
     Told what the Baba's relative had overheard, the town council leader admitted having no evidence for his own claim. Then he said he was puzzled by the slaying.
     "I cannot imagine that anyone who didn't know what he meant to the community could have shot him that way," Grkovic said. "I knew him personally. His death is a huge loss. Maybe he could have helped us overcome our divisions."

Copyright 1998 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved
___________________________________

EU envoys to meet Milosevic as Kosovo tide turns

05:57 a.m. Jul 30, 1998 Eastern
By Mark Heinrich

BELGRADE, July 30 (Reuters) - European Union envoys meet Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday to push for talks to defuse the Kosovo conflict as the tide turns against ethnic Albanian separatists on the battlefield.
     A key question for diplomats was whether sudden heavy losses sustained by the rebels would overcome their aversion to a negotiated settlement or leave one party too weak and the other too strong for good-faith talks to get off the ground.
     Deep rivalries among ethnic Albanian political leaders, the guerrillas' resistance to civilian control and longstanding alienation between the Serb and Albanian communities could make the peace quest in Kosovo more difficult than it was in Bosnia.
     But hints of an opening for talks emerged on Wednesday when a senior Western diplomat said the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was weighing an invitation to be represented in an all-party Albanian executive to carry out negotiations with Belgrade.
     And Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the ethnic Albanian majority's longtime passive resistance to Serb domination which exploded into guerrilla war last February, reported progress in forming a common party front aligned with the KLA.
     He spoke in Pristina, the Kosovo provincial capital, after meeting EU envoys who then returned to Belgrade to meet Milosevic, who revoked Kosovo's autonomy in 1989 to consolidate his power on a platform of Serb nationalism.
     Milosevic's move nine years ago helped precipitate the breakup of old federal Yugoslavia as four of six republics, including Bosnia, seceded in wars lasting from 1991 to 1995.
     Kosovo, if unchecked, could prove the most disastrous turn in the Yugoslav conflict because, for the first time, fighting could suck in adjacent countries -- chaotic Albania, which the KLA uses as a rear base, and Macedonia with its restive Albanian minority.
     That spectre inspires foreign efforts to settle the Kosovo conflict. Diplomats want to do so before the freezing Balkan winter descends, which could threaten humanitarian catastrophe if many thousands of refugees remain on the run.
     EU envoys met Rugova and other Albanian civilian leaders in Pristina, in the east of Kosovo, while KLA insurgents suffered major setbacks at the hands of government troops in the centre and west of the Serbian province.
     The independent Belgrade daily Dnevni Telegraf quoted interior ministry sources as saying the offensive had left the KLA holding just 10 percent of Kosovo. Previous estimates ranged as high as 50 percent.
     Rugova demanded foreign intervention to stop Serbian forces from what he said were massacres of civilians and artillery and shooting barrages against non-military targets designed to wipe Albanian communities off the map, calling it ethnic cleansing.
     He spoke a day after the U.S. State Department said it was working with Rugova and other ethnic Albanian leaders to put together an "all-party executive" that could engage in negotiations with Serbia.
     Western powers have ruled out support for an independent Kosovo for fear this would destabilise nearby countries with aggrieved minorities, but wants a high degree of autonomy for the region within Yugoslavia's current borders.
     Belgrade has offered to discuss autonomy for Kosovo but scheduled talks were scuttled by the Albanians' failure to show up. They have insisted on independence and a withdrawal of security forces without reciprocal restraints on the KLA.
     NATO threatened intervention last spring over wanton Serb attacks on Albanian communities close to KLA activity. But the West has quietly tolerated Belgrade's new offensive, apparently hoping it will humble the KLA and encourage it to negotiate.
     But the KLA itself is split, with one faction favouring a solution involving minority Albanians in Macedonia, Greece and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro and a second set to accept the Rugova-led parallel parliament in Kosovo and join talks with Belgrade, the Belgrade newsletter VIP said on Thursday.
     Some observers fear the KLA's resounding losses over the past week might entrench a truculent hard core of guerrillas in the wooded hills where they would wage indefinite hit-and-run war, undermining any basis for a settlement.
     The senior Western diplomat said the heightened involvement of the Yugoslav army, with its devastating heavy weaponry, and further internal wrangling among the Albanians posed continued obstacles to a peace process in good faith.
     Albanian party differences over how to go beyond agreement in principle on setting up the negotiating executive were holding up its nomination, according to the diplomat.
     But he told reporters that Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo had accepted the idea of a "non-LDK chairman" with better contacts to the shadowy guerrillas.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________

BBC
Thursday, July 30, 1998 Published at 09:18 GMT 10:18 UK

Kosovar Albanians die in police chase near the German border

Six Kosovar Albanians are reported to have died in a road crash in Germany near the Czech border.
     The accident took place after police chased the bus when it failed to stop for checks before entering Germany.
     Sixteen more people were said to have been injured in the crash, near the small town of Weissenborn, twenty kilometres from the Czech border.
     Local police said they suspected one of the passengers to have been running an immigrant smuggling operation.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

28 July 1998

TRANSCRIPT: STATE DEPT. NOON BRIEFING, JULY 28, 1998
EXCERPTS

(Cambodian elections, Kosovo)  (4880)

State Department Spokesman James Rubin briefed.
.....
KOSOVO -- There are positive signs from Kosovar Albanians that an all-party executive can be established soon as a vehicle for their negotiations with the Serbs, Rubin said.
     It appears that the three US demands for such a group will be met, the spokesman said. They are that Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate head of the Albanian Democratic League, lead the all-party executive; that the all-party executive be based and operated in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo; and that all viewpoints from across the political spectrum -- including those of the Kosovo Liberation Army -- be reflected at the negotiating table.
     The key point, according to Rubin, is to start with a unified Kosovar Albanian side. The hope is that the all-party executive could soon achieve a reduction of violence to make settlement talks possible, Rubin said.
     The longer term goal is to discuss "enhanced status for Kosovo and much, much greater self-government for the people of Kosovo," the spokesman said. He emphasized that the creation of the all-party executive does not indicate a move towards Kosovo independence.

Following is the State Department transcript:

(begin transcript)

DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING INDEX
Tuesday, July 28, 1998

Briefer:  James P. Rubin
....
SERBIA (Kosovo)
4  Update on fighting in Kosovo
4-5  Large Number of Displaced Persons Caused by New Fighting
5-8 Ambassador Hill's Diplomatic Efforts/Discussions with the Parties
9 Russian Opposition to Military Action in Kosovo/Secretary Albright's Meeting with Foreign Minister Primakov

....
Q: Any update on Kosovo -- reports of new fighting there? And also reports that the Kosovar Albanians have perhaps reached an agreement on a delegation to meet with Milosevic.

RUBIN: Right. My understanding is that the fighting continues in Kosovo; the situation on the ground remains tense. There are reports that the Serb security forces are now in control of the highway between Pristina and Pec, where the most intense fighting occurred over the weekend. Also fighting continues around the towns of Malisevo and Orahovac.
     Some of our observers tried to get in these areas, but were unable to do so. We remain deeply concerned about the large number of displaced persons this new fighting has caused and that they are currently inaccessible to humanitarian assistance because of the fighting. It is our view that the number of internally displaced persons in Kosovo could now be as high as 100,000. We remain very concerned about the almost 75,000 people in Malisevo who have been trapped by the recent fighting and are unreachable by humanitarian efforts. In addition to the 20,000 internally displaced persons in Montenegro, we believe the number of refugees in Albania remains roughly the same at about 4,000.
     It is our view that both sides need to understand that they are not going to achieve their objective through the battlefield; they can only bring their objectives into being through discussions.
     I spoke to Ambassador Hill this morning and he has been working with the Albanian side - the Kosovar Albanian side - and there are signs that he will be able to put together an all-party executive that will have responsibilities to include negotiations with the Serbs. The three key points that we insisted on in getting such an all-party executive organized are on their way, we hope, to being achieved -- and that would be number one, that Ibrahim Rugova will be in charge; number two, that the all-party executive will be based in Pristina and run from Pristina so that those who have to live with the situation are in charge rather than outsiders who may have wildly unrealistic goals, but who don't have to live in the place where this is happening; and third, that all viewpoints from across the political spectrum will be reflected at the negotiating table.
     That is what we are hopeful we will be able to put together very shortly. Chris Hill - Ambassador Hill - met with President Milosevic today and yesterday, I believe, and made very clear to him that we are demanding restraint from his forces, and sent a very clear message to him to not let this situation spin out of control. It is correct, as we understand it, that the UCK -- the Kosovar Liberation Army -- has sought to counter-attack and close roads that were opened in recent days. Nevertheless, Ambassador Hill emphasized to Milosevic that the Serbs have to understand they will be held responsible for civilian fatalities in Kosovo.
     Finally, let me describe as best I can the path that might unfold, which is if you could get some negotiating pathway opened through this all-party executive, what you would be trying to achieve would be a reduction of violence in the immediate term so that the environment that would make talks possible could be created. Secondly, you would want to move from that to the kind of discussion about the principles that we've discussed before - that is, enhanced status for Kosovo and much, much greater self-government for the people of Kosovo. So that is the current state of play on the negotiating front.

Q:  Is the all-party executive a panel or a person?

RUBIN: It's essentially who would sit on the - who would be at the table for the Kosovar Albanians. It would be a group of people that would reflect all of the viewpoints that exist in Kosovo that would be led by Rugova and that would be based in Pristina.

Q:  So Rugova will head this panel?

RUBIN: The all-party executive. Exactly what happens after that is created and who may do day-to-day discussions with Ambassador Hill, whether there's proximity talks or direct discussions -- that's all much farther down the road. The key point was to start by getting a unified Albanian side so that we could pursue the kind of ideas we've been discussing with both sides on self-government and other matters.

Q: Do you know anything more today about the involvement of regular army forces on the Serb side?

RUBIN: I don't have any direct information. I don't think we have any reason to doubt that in some form or another, VJ forces are involved.

Q:  Did Hill raise this with Milosevic?

RUBIN: I think he made very clear that we do not - we are urging restraint on the part of the Serb forces, including the MUP and the Yugoslav Army, and that their use of force can risk spinning the situation out of control in a way that will make it impossible for the objectives of either side to be met.

Q: Jamie, did you all try re-delivery of the gear that they were not able to deliver yesterday?

RUBIN: I don't believe that has actually happened. Ambassador Hill did raise this with President Milosevic, who I understand made clear that he was going to try to resolve the matter. I think it's clear to us that there is no excuse for trying to interfere with the US effort to monitor the situation going on there. But I don't believe an actual attempt was made.

Q: Has Milosevic committed himself to sit down with the all-party executive, once constituted?

RUBIN: We are in discussions with Slobodan Milosevic and the Kosovar Albanians about the substance. Ambassador Hill made very clear to me that there are a lot of procedural issues that will continue to be discussed.
     From our standpoint what matters here is results, and there is no presumption that in this situation, in any way different than Dayton, that the bulk of the discussions will not be face-to-face discussion; that if we're going to have success here the way we had them in Dayton, it was because of separate work done by the United States with each of the parties and that the face-to-face discussions were not a place where issues were particularly resolved.

Q:  In other words --

RUBIN: In other words, I'm not ruling it out, but I'm saying that the near-term effort is to get a delegation, an executive that can speak for the full spectrum of Kosovar Albanian society and then work on the substance - reduction of the violence, the cease-fire efforts and more broadly, the self-government that we believe the people of Kosovo desperately deserve and need.

Q: To use the short-hand, then, once constituted, do they communicate through an American or a European?

RUBIN: There will be many different ways. We've been working very closely with the European Union which has officials who are there. Ambassador Hill is in touch with both sides on an hour-by-hour basis. I wouldn't rule out meetings; I'm just saying that isn't necessarily the preferred or necessary precondition for progress. The issue is results, not process.

Q: Jamie, I'm a little unclear. You say that Chris Hill thinks he's going to be able to get this panel together.

RUBIN: I think I said there are signs and that he hopes he will be able to put this together very soon.

Q:  Okay, so it's not yet together.

RUBIN:  Correct.

Q:  And can you tell us what sort of signs he's talking about?

RUBIN: Well, he's been talking to them and working with them and trying to organize this with them. So signals that he's getting are positive; he's hopeful that in the next very short period of time, we'll be able to arrange for that kind of all-party executive. But until such a thing is done, it is not done.

Q:  And these are signals coming from --

RUBIN:  Kosovar Albanian leaders.

Q:  Okay, Rugova and the UCK?

RUBIN: Well, Ambassador Hill is a very able diplomat, and is working with those Kosovar Albanians he thinks he needs to work with to put together the kind of all-party executive that I've described to you. I can't really get into more detail because he's the one doing that work. I'm trying to communicate to you the objectives of our discussion; but I can't give you an hour-by-hour account of everyone he's meeting with.

Q: Well, that wasn't what I was asking. Will this panel - I know you say it's going to include a cross-section of Kosovar Albanian thought. Will it include members of the KLA on the panel itself?

RUBIN: We are confident that the all-party executive will reflect the views of those who have either close ties with or otherwise reflect the views of the Kosovar Liberation Army.

Q: But not necessarily -- a KLA member won't necessarily be sitting on that panel?

RUBIN: I mean, again, as we've tried to communicate to you on several occasions, there is no one KLA. What you want to do is try to reflect the views of those who are fighting on the ground and try to have reflected in the all-party executive people who have influence over the actual fighters. But to say you need a guy with a KLA patch because there is a KLA is missing the true situation on the ground in Kosovo.
....

Taken without permission, for fair use only.

Ethnic Albanians Seek Coalition
End to Kosovo Violence Sought
More shelling by Serbs on Albanian land--ministry
Serb forces seize rebel Albanian stronghold
'Rich' Kosovo Costly for Serbs
After battle, Kosovo village is left empty
U.S. works to form Kosovo leadership team
ANALYSIS-West turns a blind eye to Serb offensive
Angel Of Mostar's Father Flies To Her Aid
• Becker collapse
___________________________________

Wednesday July 29 9:20 AM EDT

Ethnic Albanians Seek Coalition

ISMET HAJDARI Associated Press Writer

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Kosovo's leading ethnic Albanian politician said today he has reached a compromise with other Albanians on a coalition government, possibly a major step toward peace talks in the rebellious Yugoslav province.
     Ibrahim Rugova gave no details of the compromise plan except to say it would include "all political forces" and "create preconditions for a dialogue" with the Serb-led Yugoslav government.
     Although Yugoslavia would likely not recognize Rugova's "government," it could form the basis for an ethnic Albanian team to negotiate the status of the province with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
     Arranging those talks has been the goal of American and European diplomacy since Milosevic launched a crackdown on Albanian militants in February. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, which together with Montenegro forms Yugoslavia.
     Albanians make up 90 percent of the population in the province of 2 million people.
     Rugova did not specify whether the coalition would include the Kosovo Liberation Army, which is fighting for independence and has rejected Rugova's leadership.
     His announcement followed several Serb victories in an offensive launched Friday night. Serb police and army troops have regained control of key areas of the southern province.
     Earlier, Rugova met with a three-member European Union delegation, which arrived here in the latest international effort to halt the bloodshed.
     "Our message is very clear," said delegation leader Albert Rochan of Austria. "The violence has to stop immediately."
     The delegation also includes diplomats from Germany and Britain.
     In Washington, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Tuesday that U.S. envoy Christopher Hill was working with Rugova and other Albanian politicians to form an "all-party executive" to negotiate a cease-fire and self-government for Kosovo.
     The inability of the Albanians to agree on the composition of a negotiating team has been a major stumbling block to international efforts to resolve the conflict.
     Some hard-core members of the KLA want to unite all Albanian-speaking communities in the southern Balkans into a "Greater Albania," a plan rejected by Yugoslavia, as well as the United States, Russia and other major powers.
     Milosevic has offered to restore the autonomy he took away from Kosovo in 1989, but refuses to consider independence. The international community also opposes independence.
     Late Tuesday, police drove the KLA from its central Kosovo stronghold, Malisevo. In southwestern Kosovo, troops have surrounded another KLA bastion, Junik, trapping about 1,000 fighters, according to the Serbs.
     No reliable casualty figures were available.
     Since the fighting began, some 100,000 civilians have fled their homes, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
___________________________________

Wednesday July 29 7:30 AM EDT

End to Kosovo Violence Sought

ISMET HAJDARI Associated Press Writer

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - European diplomats arrived in Kosovo today for talks with ethnic Albanian leaders rattled by recent Serb battlefield gains, announcing "the violence has to stop immediately."
     "We cannot tolerate the increasing amount of victims, the destruction, the refugee situation," Albert Rochan, the Austrian delegation leader, said after meeting with moderate ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova.
     The meeting came on the heels of several Serb victories in an offensive launched Friday night. Police and army troops have managed to regain control of key areas of the province that had been under rebel control, a development that may lead the rebels to be more amenable to talks with the Serbs.
     The rebels' Kosovo Liberation Army is fighting for independence from Serbia, the dominant of two republics that make up the remainder of Yugoslavia.
     The EU delegation, which also includes diplomats from Germany and Britain, arrived as U.S. officials said an American effort to forge a broad-based Kosovo Albanian negotiating team was beginning to bear fruit.
     "Our message is very clear," delegation leader Rochan said today. "The violence has to stop immediately."
     In Washington, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Tuesday that U.S. envoy Christopher Hill was working with Rugova and other Albanian politicians to form an "all-party executive" to negotiate a cease-fire and self-government for Kosovo's dominant Albanian population. Ethnic Albanians represent 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people.
     The inability of the Albanians to agree on the composition of a negotiating team has been a major stumbling block to international efforts to resolve the conflict.
     The Kosovo Liberation Army, which grew dramatically after the government launched a crackdown on Albanian militants in February, has refused to accept Rugova as the leader of the Albanian community because he rejects violence.
     Some hard-core members of the KLA want to unite all Albanian-speaking communities in the southern Balkans into a "Greater Albania," a plan rejected by Yugoslavia, the United States, Russia and other major powers.
     Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has offered to restore the autonomy he took away from Kosovo in 1989, but refuses to consider independence. The international community also opposes independence.
     Late Tuesday, police drove the KLA from its major central Kosovo stronghold, Malisevo. In southwestern Kosovo, troops have surrounded another KLA bastion, Junik, trapping about 1,000 fighters, according to the Serbs.
     No reliable casualty figures were available.
     The upsurge in fighting during the past 10 days has increased to at least 100,000 the number of civilians forced to flee their homes, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said.
     Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that many of the 40,000 civilians who fled fighting in another town, Orahovac, had taken shelter in Malisevo.
___________________________________

More shelling by Serbs on Albanian land--ministry

05:35 a.m. Jul 29, 1998 Eastern

TIRANA, July 29 (Reuters) - Albania said on Wednesday that shells from fighting between Serb troops and Kosovo ethnic Albanian guerrillas were landing in Albanian territory.
     An interior ministry spokesman said shells fired by Serb forces had detonated in three Albanian border areas on Monday and Tuesday while fighting raged in Kosovo. No deaths or injuries on the Albanian side had been reported, he said.
     The Albanian news agency ATA said Prime Minister Fatos Nano and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook had discussed the situation in Kosovo on the telephone on Tuesday.
     On Monday Albania accused Serb forces of provoking Albanian troops along its border with Kosovo and called on Belgrade to respect its territorial integrity.
     It said Serb artillery shells and bullets had landed on its territory four times in just over a week, branding the incidents attempts to engulf Albania in a wider war.
     Serbia has denied firing shells into Albanian territory.
     Ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of Kosovo's population of 1.8 million. More than 500 have been killed in the last five months, another 300 are missing and thousands more displaced.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________

July 29 1998
EUROPE

Bianca Jagger, the former wife of Mick Jagger, leaving the Commons yesterday after telling a meeting there how she was held at gunpoint and interrogated by Serbian forces in Kosovo during a recent visit to make a news film for the BBC
Photograph: ANDRE CAMARA

Serb forces seize rebel Albanian stronghold

FROM TOM WALKER IN PRISTINA

THE Kosovo Liberation Army's main town of Malisevo was overrun by Serb security forces yesterday on the eve of a visit by a European Union diplomatic troika to assess the impact of the latest Serb offensives.
     With police now closing much of the province to the media and observers from the Contact Group - made up of Britain, Austria and Germany - it is hard to gauge the extent of the guerrillas' retreat after what, in many places, has been a three-day bombardment by the police and Yugoslav Army units.
     But Western officials preparing for the troika delegation gave a warning that the Europeans were taking a leaf from the American textbook of action diplomacy and would be pushing to get into the field to make personal assessments of the military balance. It is unlikely, however, that they will follow in the footsteps of Richard Holbrooke, the American special envoy, and meet KLA guerrillas. But the EU is anxious not to be seen taking a backseat in what has, so far, been largely a Washington-run attempt to bring Serbs and Albanians to the negotiating table.
     Knowing that they are about to come under intense scrutiny, the Serbs have mounted the biggest information blackout in the region since their Decane offensive in May. Reporters were turned back from most areas yesterday, and there were few clues as to what was going on behind closed doors.
     The fall of Malisevo, a serious strategic loss for the KLA, was hardly unexpected. The town had been all but abandoned by the KLA since the Yugoslav Army moved dozens of tanks at the weekend towards the nearby village of Lapusnik. The Serbs said there were no casualties on either side, an indication that the police and army simply drove in to the town.
     On the border yesterday fighting was more intense. Albanian sources claimed a family of 20 were executed by Serbs in the KLA's western command centre of Junik, despite displaying a white flag. The Serbs insisted that they were offering way of escape from the besieged town.
 __________________________________

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1998
INTERNATIONAL

'Rich' Kosovo Costly for Serbs

Justin Brown
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

PRISTINA, YUGOSLAVIA

Despite its rich mines, fertile land, and a consumer market of 2 million people, the southern province of Kosovo appears to be a money loser for Serbia.
     Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has used Kosovo's economic potential as one reason to justify his costly campaign against ethnic Albanian separatists in Yugoslavia's poorest region. His police and military forces are spending an estimated $2 million per day in the five-month-old guerrilla war, according to Serbian media reports and analysts in Belgrade.
     But the hefty price tag is unlikely to be earned back by Kosovo - even if a peace settlement is reached.
     The region's factories are outdated, the infrastructure cannot handle the population, and pollution from the few working industrial plants limits agricultural potential.
     "There is a lot of exaggeration about what Kosovo can give to an economy," says Ognjen Pribicevic, a professor of politics at Belgrade University. "The government wants to say Kosovo is economically valuable to justify the fighting. But that is not true."
     According to Mr. Pribicevic, the myth of economic wealth in Kosovo is part of a campaign by Mr. Milosevic to convince his people, and the world, that Kosovo is the very heart of Serbia, the dominant republic of Yugoslavia.
     Though Serbs view Kosovo as their spiritual and historical homeland, it is inhabited by a 90 percent ethnic Albanian population with centuries-old claims to the land.
     The ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is fighting for independence in a low-level conflict that has already cost more than 400 lives, mostly ethnic Albanian civilians.
     Diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting have been stymied by the KLA's lack of a political wing with which to negotiate.
     But in a sign that ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova may be open to working with the KLA, last week the Kosovo Albanian parliament, which is led by Mr. Rugova's Democratic League, recognized the KLA for the first time.
     The KLA has begun to shift its military focus from villages to cities, claiming they will make their way to the provincial capital of Pristina. But last week they unsuccessfully tried to take the southwestern city of Orahovac, and Yugoslav forces have launched a counteroffensive.
     Fighting has again escalated in recent days, with Serbian security forces reported to have retaken a key stronghold of ethnic Albanian guerrillas, who had blocked a major road. In another major development, Albanian and Yugoslav Army border guards reportedly exchanged fire.
     Even without fighting, the Serbian economy would be in shambles. Yugoslav officials release scant economic information, making analysis nearly impossible. But international observers estimate that Yugoslavia has a $2 billion per year trade deficit.
     It has begun paying pensioners and state workers by selling its state utilities to foreign investors. International sanctions, in response to Serbian aggression in Kosovo, compound the problem by blocking foreign investment.
     Efforts to inflate the economic value of Kosovo are focused on the mining industry, which Serbian officials say could bring the country billions of dollars if it were brought up to full capacity. Milos Simovic, the dean of economics at Pristina University and a former governor of Kosovo, says the region's mines could be among the European leaders in lead, zinc, and nickel.
     But Western economic analysts say the Serbian mining industry could barely stay afloat in a competitive, high-cost market.
     "Maybe the mines could be more productive, maybe even profitable," says a Western economic analyst in Belgrade. "But I don't think there can be vast flows of millions of dollars."
     Naip Zeka, a leading economic adviser to Rugova, says Kosovo's economy would be better off if some of the mining-industry-driven plants were shut down. Their pollution, he says, destroys the region's agricultural industry.
     But while the poor economy is bad for the Serbs, it may be worse for ethnic Albanians. An independent Kosovo would be among the poorest countries in Europe, analysts say.
     With no link to the sea, it would be surrounded by hostile Serbia, tiny Montenegro, and the impoverished states of Macedonia and Albania.
___________________________________

Wednesday July 29 11:16 AM ET

After battle, Kosovo village is left empty

MALISEVO, Serbia - Serbian forces controlled a rebel stronghold in Kosovo Wednesday, but nearly 20,000 ethnic Albanian refugees who fled to the area several days ago were nowhere in sight.
     Malisevo, the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) bastion, had been home to refugees fleeing fighting in nearby Orahovac one week ago.
     Western reporters escorted into the municipality of Malisevo in central-west Kosovo found little damage from fighting but smoke was seen rising from buildings on the horizon along the road into the area.
     Kosovo Albanian sources quoted contacts at the scene then as saying tens of thousands of refugees were fleeing in panic as government forces surged in and set about shelling and burning nearby hamlets. The sources spoke of the risk of a "massacre."
     On Tuesday, the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Information Center (KIC) quoted Xhevdet Bajraj, a writer among the refugees from Orahovac, as saying "the situation is dramatic. There is a danger of the Albanians being massacred by Serbian forces."
     Guerrillas seeking independence for Kosovo, an Albanian-majority province of Serbia, fled Malisevo on Tuesday in the face of Yugoslav federal and Serbian paramilitary police armored columns waging a big offensive to retake rebel terrain.
     Aside from a couple of gutted houses on Malisevo's fringe and a Yugoslav army armored transporter wrecked from a mine explosion at the side of the road, there was little sign of serious fighting for the guerrillas' longtime stronghold.
     Asked whether civilians were urged not to flee as government forces entered Malisevo, Serbian police said there was no time for this.
     Malisevo's rural municipality includes a large bathing pool filled by a natural spring, where hundreds have gathered in sweltering summer heat to cool off behind KLA lines that are now swept aside.
     In recent weeks the town has been filled with traders in basic local produce and cigarettes with KLA fighters in camouflage uniforms sometimes directing a motley traffic of cars, tractors and horse-drawn carts.
     Before the Serb offensive on Malisevo, international aid agencies reported that the displaced people there lacked sufficient food, hygiene and medicine.
     A spokesman at the Serbian-run Media Center in Pristina told Reuters that Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas abandoned Malisevo swiftly after being faced with "vastly superior numbers coming at them from three directions."
     Federal Yugoslavia's state news agency Tanjug said KLA insurgents had escaped into surrounding forest. "Police are now in full control of Malisevo and a broad tract of land around this strategically important town."
     Although the Serbs reclaimed the highway between Pristina and Pec in the far west where rebels prevail in countryside near the border of Albania, the road was closed again on Tuesday because of renewed guerrilla activity.
     European Union envoys may get a chance to see for themselves on Wednesday evidence of the Serb offensive on KLA-held territory. A "troika" of political directors from EU member states Austria, Britain and Germany was due to hold talks in Pristina, then tour a part of the recent combat zone, if safety considerations permitted.
     However the sound of heavy artillery detonations in the distance was audible throughout the night to reporters in Pristina. It was difficult to determine the direction of the fighting. But occasional detonations was still heard faintly in the morning.
     The EU trio will be looking closely at how civilians fared as the vastly superior force of army troops and special police conducted their counter-offensive to drive insurgents out of west-central Kosovo, and how much damage was done.
     There visit comes as diplomatic sources abroad said on Tuesday the Western powers were turning a blind eye to the Serbian offensive in the hope it would force the shadowy KLA to negotiate.
___________________________________

U.S. works to form Kosovo leadership team

06:57 p.m Jul 28, 1998 Eastern

WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - The United States is working with ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to put together an "all-party executive" that could engage in negotiations with Serbia to end the fighting, the State Department said on Tuesday.
     Department spokesman James Rubin said the U.S. ambassador in Belgrade, Christopher Hill, was spearheading the effort.
     "I spoke to Ambassador Hill this morning, and he has been working with the Albanian side, the Kosovar-Albanian side. And there are signs that he will be able to put together an all-party executive that will have responsibilities to include negotiations with the Serbs," Rubin said in his daily briefing.
     He enunciated three principles for the executive: it would be headed by ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, who is considered a moderate; it would be based and run from Kosovo's capital, Pristina rather than by Albanians outside Kosovo; and it would reflect all viewpoints across the political spectrum.
     Ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs nine-to-one in Kosovo. The West favours a settlement that would give them autonomy but stop short of outright independence from Yugoslavia.
     U.S. diplomatic steps came as clashes in recent days between Yugoslav security forces and guerrillas of the independence-seeking Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in the Serbian province.
     Rubin said the number of internally displaced people in Kosovo could now be as high as 100,000, including some 75,000 trapped by the fighting and unreachable by humanitarian efforts.
     U.N. refugee officials on the ground have estimated that at least 107,000 people were now internally displaced and that a total of 150,000 had fled since fighting began five months ago, including those who left Kosovo to become refugees in neighbouring Albania and Montenegro.
     Rubin said Hill met Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic twice in the past two days and warned him that Serbia would be held responsible for civilian deaths in Kosovo.
     "Ambassador Hill met with President Milosevic today and yesterday, I believe, and made very clear to him that we are demanding restraint from his forces and sent a very clear message to him to not let this situation spin out of control," Rubin said.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
___________________________________

ANALYSIS-West turns a blind eye to Serb offensive

02:40 p.m Jul 28, 1998 Eastern
By Paul Taylor, Diplomatic Editor

LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) - Western powers are turning a blind eye to an offensive by Serbian troops to recapture areas of Kosovo seized by ethnic Albanian separatists in the hope it will force the guerrillas to negotiate, diplomatic sources say.
     Governments which only weeks ago were threatening massive NATO air strikes to stop Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevics crackdown in the southern Serbian province have been virtually silent as his forces have inflicted defeats on the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the last 10 days.
     There is a general recognition that the KLA was getting too big for its boots and needed to be taken down a peg or two before there can be negotiations, a Western official involved in Kosovo policymaking said.
     The KLA were giving American diplomats the run-around, refusing to negotiate and acting as if they believed they could liberate Kosovo by force. No one will be too sad to see them get their comeuppance, provided it doesnt go too far, a West European diplomat said.
     The only expressions of outrage have come from German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, who is locked in a difficult election campaign, and his rival, Defence Minister Volker Ruehe, has firmly ruled out military intervention for now.
     The offensive by the Yugoslav army and police to regain control of key arteries and border areas has coincided with moves by West European governments to try to stop the flow of funds and weapons to the KLA from Albanian exiles abroad.
     Swiss police raided the homes of Kosovo Albanians on Monday and froze bank accounts on suspicion they were being used to fund the guerrilla war. The German government is also trying to stop KLA supporters extorting revolutionary taxes from the estimated 140,000 exiles living in Germany.
     At the same time, U.S. and European diplomats are engaged in a shuttle to try to revive negotiations between Belgrade and the ethnic Albanians, which hinge on putting together a Kosovar delegation with at least tacit support from the KLA.
     That might require elected Kosovo leader Ibrahim Rugova, whose pacifism is derided by the KLA, taking a back seat and allowing someone else to head the team.
     One source said such a delegation might be led by Adem Demaci, a critic of Rugova believed to enjoy credibility with the KLA.
     Once the balloon of euphoria is burst, KLA leaders may be more realistic about negotiating, the Western official said.
     The trick for the diplomats was to get talks going at a moment when both sides were prepared to be realistic, he said.
     There was a risk that Milosevic, who had talked recently to Western negotiators about accepting the need to change Kosovos status, would misinterpret the situation and try for a knock-out punch, the European diplomat said.
     Western observers would be monitoring closely to ensure Milosevics troops did not deliberately target civilians or systematically destroy villages in the sort of attacks that spurred outrage earlier this year.
     NATO military commanders have virtually completed a range of military options should allied governments choose to intervene, and one component was a swift, limited air strike that could be ordered in retaliation for any atrocity that generated pressure for a rapid response, a source in the alliance said.
     One of the main Western concerns is to prevent Albania, which is too weak to police its border with Kosovo, being sucked into the conflict by Yugoslav action against the KLA, which has established rear bases in northern Albania.
     The Albanian government has been playing up isolated incidents of Serbian shells landing across the border in the crackdown on KLA supply routes across the mountains.
     But diplomats said there was little enthusiasm in NATO for the idea, raised earlier this year, of a preventive Western military deployment in northern Albania to seal the border.
     It would be a long-term, heavy operation in a lawless area with no infrastructure, where NATO troops would have to bring everything including the Corn Flakes, one said.
     It would take substantial forces to interdict KLA weapons supplies and protect NATO troops from being taken hostage by gunmen or simply being pillaged by bandits, he said.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
_______________________________

Yahoo! News
Wednesday July 29, 1:31 PM

Angel Of Mostar's Father Flies To Her Aid

The father of imprisoned aid worker Sally Becker is flying out to Kosovo on a mission to bring her home.
     Jack Becker, from Brighton, has been granted a visa by the Serb authorities and is due to board a flight at Gatwick Airport.
     Doctors have put 37-year-old Miss Becker - dubbed the Angel of Mostar for her humanitarian work - on an intravenous glucose drip after she collapsed in her prison cell on the fifth day of her hunger strike.
     Mr Becker told GMTV: "The latest I have heard is that she has come round and this drip, I think, has saved her life."
     He thought it unlikely he would be able to bring his daughter home immediately and he dismissed accusations that his daughter, who has been leading humanitarian missions to the Balkans since the early 1990s, was a publicity-seeker.
     "That's not so. She was coming out of Kosovo with refugees, and I believe two of the children were injured," he said.
     "Had she managed to get across the border no-one would have known. The only reason the media is interested is because she got arrested."
     Miss Becker is being held in Lipjan, near the Kosovan capital Pristina, after Serb authorities last week jailed her for 30 days for entering the country without a visa.
     She collapsed when a British diplomat was visiting her in her prison cell.
     Miss Becker, from Hove, East Sussex, left Britain for Kosovo last month with a consignment of food, clothing and medicine for refugees fleeing fighting between the province's ethnic Albanian majority and Serb forces.
_____________

• Becker collapse: Sally Becker, the British aid worker, collapsed five days into a hunger strike in prison in Kosovo but was revived with an intravenous drip, British  diplomats in Belgrade said yesterday.

(Reuters)

29 July 1998

TEXT: DEPARTMENT OF STATE ISSUES TRAVEL ADVISORY FOR ALBANIA

(Updates, replaces travel advisory of August 15, 1997) (1150)

Washington -- Because the security situation in Albania remains a cause for concern in Albania due to the continuation of bombings and sporadic gunfire, as well as an increase in criminal activity, the Department of State recommends that American citizens continue to avoid unnecessary travel to Albania.
     A travel advisory issued July 24 stated that Albania has a high rate of violent crime and that the influx of refugees from Kosovo has increased the potential for criminal activity, especially in the northeastern part of the country. Criminal activity outside Tirana is especially prevalent. Crime is generally directed at targets of opportunity, not at Americans in particular, the advisory said.

Following is the text of the advisory:

(Begin text)

CONSULAR INFORMATION SHEET - ALBANIA

WARNING: The Department of State recommends that American citizens continue to avoid unnecessary travel to Albania. Because of the influx of refugees from Kosovo into the northeastern part of the country and the resulting potential for increased security problems, Americans are particularly cautioned against travel to that area.
     The security situation in Albania generally remains a cause for concern, due to the continuation of bombings and sporadic gunfire, mainly during the evening hours, as well as an increase in criminal activity. There has been an increase in the theft of vehicles at gunpoint, particularly four-wheel drive vehicles.
     The security situation outside Tirana remains even less stable than in the capital, and American citizens should avoid travel outside the capital unless absolutely necessary. The U.S. Embassy strongly recommends that American citizens avoid crowds and exercise caution at all times.

COUNTRY DESCRIPTION: Albania continues to undergo profound social, political, and economic change. Facilities for tourism are not well developed and many of the goods and services taken for granted in other European countries are not yet available. Hotel accommodations are limited outside of Tirana.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS: A passport is required, but a visa is not necessary for a tourist stay of up to 30 days. For stays exceeding 30 days, a free extension obtainable from the local police commissariat is required. This extension is subject to renewal after 30 days. To extend a stay beyond three months, a permit is required from the Ministry of Interior. The second extension and three-month permit are both subject to minimal fees. For additional information, please contact the Embassy of the Republic of Albania at 2100 S Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008, Tel: (202) 223-4942.

MEDICAL FACILITIES: Medical facilities are limited, and medicine is in short supply. There are periodic outbreaks of polio, cholera, and dysentery. Doctors and hospitals generally expect immediate cash payment for health services. U.S. medical insurance is not always valid outside the United States. The Medicare/Medicaid program does not provide payment for medical services outside the United States.
     Check with your own insurance company to confirm whether your policy applies overseas, including provision for medical evacuation. Ascertain whether payment will be made to the overseas hospital or doctor or whether you will be reimbursed later for expenses you incur. Some insurance policies also include coverage for psychiatric treatment and for disposition of remains in the event of death. Useful information on medical emergencies abroad, including overseas insurance programs, is provided in the Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs brochure "Medical Information for Americans Traveling Abroad," available via its home page and autofax service.
     The international travelers hotline of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be reached from the United States at 1-888-232-3228, via their autofax service at 1-888-232-3229, or their Internet site at http://www.cdc.gov.

CRIME INFORMATION: Albania has a high rate of violent crime. The influx of refugees from Kosovo has increased the potential for criminal activity, especially in the northeastern part of the country. Criminal activity outside Tirana is especially prevalent. Crime is generally directed at targets of opportunity, not at Americans in particular. The theft of vehicles, especially four-wheel drive vehicles, from foreigners at gunpoint has become increasingly common. The loss or theft of a U.S. passport should be reported immediately to the local police and the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. Useful information on safeguarding valuables and protecting personal safety while traveling abroad is provided in the Department of State's pamphlet "A Safe Trip Abroad." It is available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, via the Internet at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su-docs, or http://travel.state.gov.

ROAD SAFETY/TRAVEL CONDITIONS: Major roads are passable, but often in poor repair. Buses travel regularly between most major destinations, but may be unreliable and uncomfortable. Travelers have reported attacks by bands of thieves in all parts of the country. There are no commercial domestic flights and few rail connections.

AVIATION SAFETY OVERSIGHT: As there is no direct commercial air service at present, or economic authority to operate such service between the United States and Albania, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not assessed Albania's Civil Aviation Authority for compliance with international aviation safety standards for oversight of Albania's air carrier operations. For further information, travelers may contact the Department of Transportation within the U.S. at 1-800-322-7873, or visit the FAA Internet Home Page at http://www.faa.gov/avr/iasa.htm. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) separately assesses some foreign air carriers for suitability as official providers of air services. For information regarding the DOD policy on specific carriers, travelers may contact the Pentagon at 1-703-697-7288.

CRIMINAL PENALTIES: U.S. citizens are subject to the laws of the country in which they are traveling. Penalties for possession, use and dealing of illegal drugs in Albania are severe, and convicted offenders can expect jail sentences and fines.

CURRENCY REGULATIONS: Credit cards and travelers checks are not accepted in Albania except at the major new hotels in Tirana. Personal checks are not accepted anywhere.

REGISTRATION AND EMBASSY LOCATION: U.S. citizens visiting or remaining in Albania are strongly recommended to register at the U.S. Embassy and obtain updated information on travel and security within Albania. The U.S. Embassy in Tirana is located at Rruga E Elbasanit 103, tel: (355) (42) 32875, fax: (355) (42) 32222.
     Department of State travel information publications are available at Internet address: http://travel.state.gov. U.S. travelers may hear recorded information by calling (202) 647-5225 from a touchtone telephone, or receive information by automated telefax by dialing (202) 647-3000 from their fax machine.
     This replaces the Consular Information Sheet dated August 15, 1997, to update the warning, entry requirements, medical facilities, crime information, road safety, and aviation safety oversight, and Internet addresses.

(End text)
 

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