Die Bibel sagt  -  The Bible says
 

additional press news

Betreff:         [ALBANEWS] NEWS: KOSOVA UPDATE.
Datum:         Thu, 10 Sep 1998 10:41:11 -0400
    Von:         Sokol Rama <sokolrama@sprynet.com>

Taken without permission, for fair use only.

Kosovo Refugees Flee Serb Tanks
          AP 09/10
US Moves To Stop Kosovo Catastrophe
          AP 09/10
Serbs pound deserted Kosovo Albanian villages
          REUTERS  09/10
Big Kosovo refugee group crosses into Albania
          REUTERS  09/10
Aid For Kosovo Refugees
          September 10/98
_________________________

Thursday September 10 3:07 AM EDT
Kosovo Refugees Flee Serb Tanks
ADAM BROWN Associated Press Writer

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Refugee officials say as many as 25,000 civilians, driven from their homes in southwestern Kosovo, are desperately trying to escape a pincer strike by Serb troops and tanks that blasted their villages.
     The latest victims of the crackdown on ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province fled on tractors and wagons heaped with their belongings, clogging a dirt road Wednesday in a column seven miles long, according to Western observers who visited the area.
     In a news release Wednesday, the Geneva-based United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned it "fears slaughter may occur if a shell hits the column of people."
     Kosovo is in southern Serbia, the dominant of two republics left in the Yugoslav Federation. Its population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, most of whom back the rebels' armed struggle for independence after decades of repression by Serbian authorities.
     One official said the current refugee situation threatens to create as many as 25 new ghost towns in Kosovo, where dozens of villages already have been charred and emptied in the face of shelling or clashes between Serb security forces and ethnic Albanian rebels.
     Fernando del Mundo, a UNHCR spokesman, described a chaotic exodus that apparently began Tuesday from villages in an area about 18 miles south of Pec, Kosovo's second-largest city.
     "They're panicking and going everywhere, but they don't know which way to go," said del Mundo, who heard shelling and saw billows of smoke in the area Wednesday. "The shelling is closing in like a pincer."
     Tens of thousands of others remain dangerously close to the shelling and may also soon flee, he said, swelling the number of Kosovo refugees from its current estimate of 265,000.
     Western officials fear the worst if urgent help isn't provided for the 50,000 or so refugees now living in the hills and forests and facing starvation or freezing.
     "If something isn't done soon, we can expect a humanitarian drama within weeks," Belgian Foreign Minister Erik Derycke said in Pristina after meeting with ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova.
     The United Nations estimated this week that 600 to 700 civilians have been killed in six months of fighting between Serb-led forces and Kosovo Albanian rebels.
     While world leaders have condemned the Serbs for killing civilians and for their scorched-earth tactics targeting ethnic Albanian villages, the Serbs also accuse the militants of massacring Serb civilians.
     Western officials have held out the threat of military intervention for months if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic doesn't halt the offensive. But such plans have been stymied by the failure to reach an international consensus and by the difficulties of mounting an effective military action in the mountainous region.
     NATO's southern European commander, Adm. T. Joseph Lopez, said Wednesday that the alliance would need about 50,000 troops to monitor a possible peace agreement or cease-fire in Kosovo.
     President Clinton released $20 million in aid for Kosovo refugees Wednesday. The White House said the money, added to an earlier U.S. contribution of $11 million, will go to U.N. and private agencies providing food and shelter for refugees.
     But a U.S. State Department official said no amount of aid will help unless the Serbian government allows secure access to the area.
_________________________

Thursday September 10 2:17 AM EDT
US Moves To Stop Kosovo Catastrophe
DAVID BRISCOE Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - An additional $20 million in U.S. aid is being sent to Kosovo, where U.S. officials say a humanitarian disaster looms with thousands of refugees fleeing persistent Serb shelling of ethnic Albanian villages.
     Even as President Clinton released the money from special emergency funds Wednesday, the State Department's top official on refugee issues expressed skepticism it would be effective without a pullback by forces directed by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
     "No amount of aid is going to be ... able to avert this catastrophe unless the authorities pull back and allow access in a secure environment," Assistant Secretary of State Julia V. Taft told reporters.
     None of the U.S. aid will go to Yugoslav or Serb government agencies, Taft said. It adds to $11 million previously released to U.N. and private agencies providing food and shelter for some of the estimated 265,000 ethnic Albanians who have fled their homes in Kosovo.
     The announcement came as Serb forces shelled five villages in southwestern Kosovo, sending thousands of families into a mass exodus along dirt roads, carrying belongings in tractors and wagons. The action was part of Milosevic's violent crackdown on the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.
     The aid announcement came as NATO's Southern European commander, U.S. Navy Adm. T. Joseph Lopez, said Wednesday the alliance would need about 50,000 troops if it has to monitor a peace agreement in the province similar to the agreement reached for nearby Bosnia.
     NATO military planners have been considering a wide range of options for Kosovo, where hundreds have died in six months of battle between Serb-led forces and Kosovo Albanian rebels who demand independence from Serbia.
     "If we are invited in, as NATO ... to support a peace agreement, as we've done in Bosnia, then I think we are prepared to do that. Whether or not that is a good idea ... is a political question and I would not speculate on that," Lopez said.
________________________

Serbs pound deserted Kosovo Albanian villages
06:34 a.m. Sep 10, 1998 Eastern
By Kurt Schork

KRUSEVAC, Serbia, Sept 10 (Reuters) - Serbian police and army units on Thursday pounded western Kosovo villages deserted by their ethnic Albanian inhabitants, witnesses said.
     Reporters who reached the area said there was no sign of a column of up to 40,000 refugees reported by U.N. observers to be trapped between the villages of Krusevac and Istinic on Wednesday after fleeing the Serb advance.
     Houses were burning in Krusevac, Barane, Rausic and Celopek southeast of Pec, the main town in the region.
     No ethnic Albanians could be seen but piles of clothing and bedding littered roads between the villages, signs that refugees who had fled their homes had been forced to leave behind their belongings and continue on foot.
     Tractors and wagons were abandoned along the way, some tipped into drainage ditches, and cattle, dogs and horses wandered the streets untended.
     An armoured column of Serbian army forces pulled out of Celopek at about 7.30 a.m. on Thursday. It included 11 battle tanks, 11 armoured personnel carriers, three truck mounted anti-aircraft guns, a recovery vehicle and two fuel tankers.
     The column and all of the soldiers in it were mud splattered. The men were unshaven and haggard, clearly leaving the area after action.
     To the west of Celopek the minaret in Barane could be seen in the distance partially obscured by smoke from the burning village.
     Further to the west the mountains forming the border between Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro loomed in the mist.
     Reporters who reached the centre of Kotradic, south of Barane, could see fires burning on the horizon at all points of the compass around them.
     The centre of Krusevac was occupied by at least 100 Serbian police, backed by armoured vehicles. The men were forming up to leave the village, packing crates of ammunition and organising their forces.
     Serbian army troops were also in Krusevac including at least three tanks and two truck mounted anti-aircraft guns. Soldiers were crouched along tree lines looking west, a sign that they expected or had received fire from ethnic Albanians in the area.
     The operation south-east of Pec included at least one Serbian army brigade and a special police brigade, an Austrian defence attache told reporters in Pec.
     The whereabouts of the column of refugees were not obvious to reporters in the area who were blocked by Serbian police and army once they reached Krusevac.
     A Western diplomatic observer in Pec said he believed that workers of the International Red Cross and the United Nations were attempting to lead the column out of harm's way to a safer area but he said he had no idea where that might be.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
________________________

Big Kosovo refugee group crosses into Albania
07:21 a.m. Sep 10, 1998 Eastern

TIRANA, Sept 10 (Reuters) - A group of 130 ethnic Albanian refugees from the Serbian province of Kosovo crossed into Albania on Wednesday, the interior ministry said on Thursday.
     The ministry's spokesman said the group, largely made up of women, children and elderly people, was the largest to have crossed into Albania in the last two weeks.
     They arrived at the village of Vlahen, in Has district, north of Tirana.
     "In recent days there has been an average of 10-20 people coming. Yesterday it went up but I cannot say why," spokesman Artan Bizhga told Reuters.
     Up to 40,000 panicked ethnic Albanian refugees were trapped on a road in western Kosovo on Wednesday trying to flee an advancing Serbian armoured column, a UN official said.
     UN officials estimate that 265,000 people are now homeless in the province and that as many as 50,000 of those are living rough in forests and on hillsides across Kosovo, where 90 percent of the population is ethnic Albanian.
     More than 15,000 refugees have crossed into Albania since June, fleeing fighting between separatist guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army and Serbian security forces which flared up seven months ago.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
_________________________

Aid For Kosovo Refugees -

 (PITTSBURGH) -- A Pittsburgh-based relief agency is helping victims in the war between the Yugoslav and Kosovo Liberation armies. A container of supplies leaves World Vision's international distribution center this morning. The shipment of clothing, shoes, personal care items and medicine will arrive in Kosovo next month. As many as 265- thousand people have been left homeless as a result of the civil war. Relief workers have been able to reach only a handful of the refugees because of the fighting. The Red Cross in nearby Montenegro is already distributing a previous shipment. 

09 September 1998
TEXT: SHATTUCK STATEMENT ON KOSOVO IN PODGORICA SEPT. 8
(Informs Montenegrins of humanitarian crisis in Kosovo) (1300)

Podgorica, Montenegro -- John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, said September 8 that although he had come to the region focusing particularly on the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo, he was visiting neighboring Montenegro "to see firsthand the process of democratization and the gains that have been achieved here, over the last year and more."
     Shattuck pointed out that the "parliamentary and presidential elections, and the free and fair manner in which they were conducted, and the general broadening of the political system are very, very important objectives which the United States strongly supports."
     In the statement he made after talking with the president of Montenegro, Shattuck said, "In Kosovo it is clear that there is terrible human rights destruction and that hundreds of thousands of people are affected."
     The assistant secretary said the United States is calling for urgent investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague of the atrocities committed in Kosovo. In addition, he said, the United States is calling for an end to the violence and safe return by the refugees to their homes.
     When questioned as to what Montenegro can do to alleviate the crisis in Kosovo, Shattuck said, "I think the solution about Kosovo above all depends upon an end to the violence. We have indicated to President Milosevic that he has the greatest responsibility here to end this violence. This is his personal responsibility.... We are also calling upon those who ... are engaged in violence and who are not part of the security forces, to stop so that refugees can return home."
     Ambassador Christopher Hill, special envoy on Kosovo and U.S. ambassador to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, continues to seek a negotiated solution to the Kosovo problem, Shattuck said. "He is discussing the matter with all relevant parties in Kosovo, as well as in Belgrade. Until those discussions are concluded and the views of all the parties are clear, the United States is going to support that process, but not seek any particular type of solution."
     Following is the text of a statement by the assistant secretary, followed by a transcript of a short question and answer session:

(Begin text)

STATEMENT BY JOHN SHATTUCK
ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR
Podgorica, Montenegro
SEPTEMBER 8, 1998

Thank you very much, Mr. President, and thank you for your gracious hospitality. I have come to Montenegro as a part of a visit to the region, particularly focused on the crisis in Kosovo. I wanted in particular to come to Montenegro to have an opportunity to see firsthand the process of democratization and the gains that have been achieved here, over the last year and more. As the president indicated, the parliamentary and presidential elections, and the free and fair manner in which they were conducted, and the general broadening of the political system are very, very important objectives which the United States strongly supports.
     During my brief visit to Montenegro, I have not only had an opportunity to meet with the president and the foreign minister and other members of the government, but also have spoken at length with the independent media, with representatives of human rights organizations and civil society, as well as viewed the work that's being done on behalf of displaced persons and refugees. I think, as the president indicated, we have broadly agreed on the great importance of democracy and the democratization process. Not only is the best method and path ahead for full development -- economic and political development in Montenegro, but also as the only way ultimately, to ensure that all rights are protected and great human rights catastrophes like Kosovo do not occur.
     I informed the president about the findings of my mission to Kosovo and my trip to Belgrade.
     In Kosovo it is clear that there is terrible human rights destruction and that hundreds of thousands of people are affected. There is no question in my mind, as the human rights expert, that violations of international humanitarian law have occurred and atrocities have been committed in great numbers against civilians. The United States is calling for urgent international investigation and work by the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague to investigate these atrocities. And above all, we are calling for an urgent end to the violence, a reduction in the security forces that are now in Kosovo, and also a political commitment to allow refugees to return to their homes in conditions where they are not afraid that when they go back they will be fired upon.
     We have indicated these concerns very bluntly to President Milosevic, and we have said that [the] international community urgently seeks to have this grave humanitarian crisis ended.
     So, I want to thank the president and the people of Montenegro for their commitment to democracy and the process of democratization, and I look forward to another visit sometime in the future, perhaps even as a tourist. Thank you very much.

Q: Since you are an expert for democracy and human rights, what are you impressions about that issue in Montenegro?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHATTUCK: Well, as I said, I think there has been some very positive development recently, particularly over the last year. I want to particularly pay tribute to the independent media, who I think have had a very important role in this process of democratization. I think the government leaders, including the president, are committed to further democratization and to the process of creating, as the president indicated, a multi-ethnic society, where the rights of minorities are fully protected. Much work remains to be done in this area, but it is clear that is being worked on. I want to make clear that the United States considers Montenegro and its commitment to democracy to be a very high priority, and we will fully support this process.

Q: In which way can the United States solve the Kosovo problem and in which way can Montenegro join, to help solve the Kosovo problem?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHATTUCK: Well, I think the solution about Kosovo above all depends upon an end to the violence. We have indicated to President Milosevic that he has the greatest responsibility here to end this violence. This is his personal responsibility. And the world is certainly watching to see whether he takes that responsibility, and we will do all that we can do, to achieve a longer-term negotiated solution. We are also calling upon those who -- any who are engaged in violence -- who are not part of the security forces, to stop so that refugees can return home.

Q: What solution for Kosovo is most acceptable for the U.S. -- autonomy, third republic within Yugoslavia, or something else?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHATTUCK: The position of the United States is well known through the work of the Ambassador Hill, who is the principal negotiator for our government, and is seeking a negotiated solution to the problem. Ambassador Hill is continuing to work with all the relevant parties; he will be back in the region next week and will continue discussions. He is discussing this matter with all relevant parties in Kosovo, as well as in Belgrade. Until those discussions are concluded and the views of all the parties are clear, the United States is going to support that process, but not seek any particular type of solution. Last week it was announced that during the next period of time, there is going to be great deal of attention paid to looking at the kinds of institutions internally in Kosovo that can best protect the rights of all citizens and that approach has got very broad support, both in Kosovo and in Belgrade.

(End text/transcript)

09 September 1998
TEXT: CLINTON AUTHORIZES $20 MILLION FOR KOSOVO REFUGEES
(Directs Secretary Albright to obligate funds) (250)

Orlando, Florida -- The White House released a Presidential Determination September 9 authorizing $20 million in aid "to meet the urgent and unexpected needs of refugees, displaced persons, conflict victims, and other persons at risk due to the Kosovo crisis."
     Following is the text of the president's memorandum to Secretary of State Albright directing her to notify the appropriate congressional committees to obligate the funds:

(Begin text)

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Orlando, Florida)
September 9, 1998
Presidential Determination

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

SUBJECT: Determination Pursuant to Section 2(c)(1) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962, as Amended

Pursuant to section 2(c)(1) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962, as amended, 22 U.S.C. 2601(c)(1), I hereby determine that it is important to the national interest that up to $20,000,000 be made available from the U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund to meet the urgent and unexpected needs of refugees, displaced persons, conflict victims, and other persons at risk due to the Kosovo crisis. These funds may be used, as appropriate, to provide contributions to international and nongovernmental organizations.
     You are authorized and directed to inform the appropriate committees of the Congress of this determination and the obligation of funds under this authority and to publish it in the Federal Register.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON

Taken without permission, for fair use only.

Clinton Releases Funds for Kosovo
          AP 09/09
Belgrade accuses media of biased Kosovo coverage
          REUTERS 09/09
Whatever happened to the Kosovo Liberation Army?
          REUTERS 09/09
NATO could put 50,000 troops in Kosovo if cease-fire
          REUTERS 09/09
Thousands of refugees trapped on Kosovo road - UN
          REUTERS 09/09
Home to Nothing: Kosovo's Displaced
          The Christian Science Monitor 09/09
Serbs, Guerrillas Clash in Kosovo
          AP 09/09
Kosovo Albanians Surrender Arms
          AP 09/09
Milosevic cancels meeting with Belgium's Derycke
          REUTERS 09/09
Serbs show alleged Kosovo guerrilla execution site
          REUTERS 09/09
NATO completes plans for any Kosovo intervention
          REUTERS 09/09
NATO: 50,000 May Be Needed in Kosovo
          AP 09/09
Kosovo fighting traps thousands
          BBC 09/09
_____________________________

Wednesday September 9 3:33 PM EDT
Clinton Releases Funds for Kosovo
SUSANNE M. SCHAFER AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton released $20 million in aid for refugees in violence-torn Kosovo on Wednesday, but a State Department official said no amount of aid will help unless the Serbian government allows secure access to the area.
     The aid announcement came as NATO's Southern European commander said the alliance would need about 50,000 troops if it has to monitor a peace agreement in the province whose ethnic Albanian majority seeks independence from Serbia.
     White House officials with Clinton in Orlando, Fla., announced that the $20 million in aid comes from the U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance fund, which the president may draw upon.
     An estimated 265,000 refugees have been displaced due to Serb attacks on Kosovar Albanian villages, and Western government and private groups fear thousands could die without assistance.
     The money, added to an earlier contribution of $11 million, will go to U.N. and private agencies providing food and shelter for refugees in the province, the White House said. The United Nations is seeking $54 million worldwide to help avert a humanitarian crisis in Kosovo.
     Julia V. Taft, assistant secretary of state for refugee and migration affairs, said none of the funding would go to Serb authorities, blamed by U.S. officials for the flight of refugees into mountainous areas and for hindering relief efforts.
     "No amount of aid is going to be ... able to avert this catastrophe unless the authorities pull back and allow access in a secure environment," Taft told reporters.
     Taft described her recent trip to the province: "An area which has been the most densely populated of all the Balkans was virtually empty. It's empty because of the aggressive attacks by the Serbian security forces, maliciously attacking village after village."
     In another forum Wednesday, U.S. Adm. T. Joseph Lopez said if a cease-fire agreement can be achieved in Kosovo similar to the one in Bosnia, about 50,000 NATO troops would be needed to enforce the peace.
     Lopez, NATO commander for the region, emphasized that such a number "is not firm," because the situation in the turbulent province remains so unsettled, and a peace agreement is not yet in sight. "It's a fluid situation," he said.
     The four-star admiral who also leads U.S. naval forces in Europe said the size of Washington's contribution to such a force would be up to the nation's political leadership. He declined to speculate on it.
     NATO military planners have been considering a wide range of options for Kosovo, where hundreds have died in six months of battle between Serb-led forces and Kosovo Albanian rebels.
     The rebels want independence from Serbia, the dominant of two republics remaining in Yugoslavia. But Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic insists he has no intention of calling off his offensive, despite renewed appeals from American and European officials.
     While NATO is striving for a diplomatic solution to the turmoil, "we will be prepared" for military action should the diplomats come up empty-handed, Lopez said.
     "We are doing the planning now," he said, adding that the potential steps range from military strikes to support for humanitarian operations.
     The admiral acknowledged that U.S. political support for the operation in nearby Bosnia has had a contentious history, and launching a similar one in the region could be equally divisive.
     "If we are invited in, as NATO ... to support a peace agreement, as we've done in Bosnia, then I think we are prepared to do that. Whether or not that is a good idea ... is a political question and I would not speculate on that," Lopez said.
_________________________

Belgrade accuses media of biased Kosovo coverage
02:00 p.m Sep 09, 1998 Eastern
By Gordana Kukic

BELGRADE, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Belgrade authorities accused Western media on Wednesday of biased coverage in Kosovo and of encouraging the imposition of international sanctions against Serbia and Yugoslavia.
     Official spokesmen also criticised independent Serbian media for their coverage of the seven-month conflict in Serbia's Kosovo province, where the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) is fighting for independence.
     The KLA is backed by a vast majority of ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the 1.8 million Kosovo population.
     "Unfortunately, we have recorded obvious examples of media manipulation (in Kosovo), similar to reports seen during wars in the former Yugoslavia," Information Minister Aleksandar Vucic told Reuters.
     He said things were never black or white "but evidently it suits someone that the Serb side is always painted black and as the culprit."
     He accused some Western media organisations of taking instructions from their governments and said: "It is a question of a political decision of certain governments and their intention to shape public opinion to suit their interests and policies."
     A Serb security forces offensive against KLA guerrillas launched in July has driven the number of killed in Kosovo to more than 700 and the estimated number of people who fled their homes to 265,000.
     Yugoslav Information Secretary Goran Matic said on Tuesday that Serbia's defeat of ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo "has sparked a hysterical reaction" among the Western media.
     "Sections of the world media have demonised Serbs and Yugoslavia with the aim of bringing about Kosovo's secession from Serbia and its merger with Albania," he said.
     Matic accused the media of inflating the number of refugees and displaced people in Kosovo and of spreading claims about a humanitarian catastrophe.
     "By exaggerating the entire problem, they (media) are artificially creating a framework for fresh mistreatment of Serbia and Yugoslavia," he said.
     Western powers, fearing the Kosovo conflict could spill over into neighbouring countries and provoke another Balkan war, have imposed new sanctions against Belgrade and threatened use of force to end the violence in the province.
     Serbia's ruling party, the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), said on Tuesday some of Belgrade's independent media were guilty of "information subversion" and called for measures against them.
     SPS spokesman Ivica Dacic said "terrorism" was attacking the foundations of the state and it was therefore necessary to implement anti-terrorist measures against the media "such as are applied in all modern countries."
     Slavoljub Veselinovic, another SPS official, said Belgrade's independent Radio B92, the daily Nasa Borba and the weekly Vreme were foreign-financed and "persisted in information subversion."

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
_________________________

Whatever happened to the Kosovo Liberation Army?
03:38 a.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern
By Kurt Schork

MALISEVO, Serbia, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Burned-out, bullet- riddled shops in the centre of Malisevo, a town once proudly proclaimed the capital of liberated territory in Kosovo, have been bulldozed into oblivion.
     Only a few weeks ago Kalashnikov-toting soldiers of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) strolled the main street draped with bandoliers of ammunition, speaking confidently of victory.
     Cars carried KLA number plates and there were improvised signs of a civilian government by ethnic Albanians, for ethnic Albanians.
     It is now a rubble-strewn expanse. Packs of hungry dogs, not guerrilla fighters, roam Malisevo.
     Which raises the question: Whatever happened to the Kosovo Liberation Army?
     Regarded earlier this year as the world's fastest-growing guerrilla army, the KLA had convinced many observers, and many among the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo, that it posed a serious threat to Serbian rule.
     All the pieces seemed in place: funding from expatriate ethnic Albanians in Europe and America; weapons smuggled in from neighbouring Albania; and a cadre of officers trained by the Yugoslav army and experienced in Bosnia.
     There was a huge pool of eager recruits among Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population, including thousands of men easily organised into local militias along village lines.
     Beyond means, there was motive. Belgrade had ruled this southern Serbian province directly since 1989, compiling the worst human rights record in Europe along the way.
     Denied self-government, expelled from university and fired from their jobs, arbitrarily beaten and detained on a regular basis, Kosovar Albanians were primed for a fight.
     In a matter of months the KLA took nominal control of more than a third of Kosovo, cutting many of the province's main highways and moving at one point to within sight of Pristina, the provincial capital.
     The fact that the bulk of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla force had no military training, that its officers seemed more intent on controlling territory than on staging classic hit and run attacks somehow seemed irrelevant.
     Then the Serbian security forces struck back, using armour and artillery to retake the highways and pound KLA bases and villages suspected of supporting KLA activities.
     With few exceptions, the KLA has been unable or unwilling to stand and fight against Serbian police and army units. Where there have been set-piece engagements the KLA has lost.
     The ethnic Albanian population in rural areas where the KLA was active have been left virtually defenceless. Scores of villages have been destroyed, hundreds badly damaged. A quarter of a million people have been driven from their homes.
     The local militia forces that constituted the bulk of KLA manpower in the countryside have been devastated by these developments. The energies of thousands of fighting-age men are now consumed trying to provide for their refugee families.
     Thousands are Living in the barns of friends or relatives, or under sheets of plastic draped over tree branches in forests and on barren hillsides in remote parts of Kosovo.
     These men are now battling not for independence but for survival. They and their families face an exhausting winter.
     Whatever the conclusion of the current Serbian offensive, few observers expect the KLA to disappear or the problem of Kosovo, where 90 per cent of the population is ethnic Albanian, to have a final, peaceful solution anytime soon.
     A hard core of mobile, well-equipped fighting men remains. Reporters have found that ethnic Albanian men who were formerly apolitical, but whose villages have been recently destroyed, vow they will now join the KLA to get even.
     "The thing you need to know, the thing the world needs to know is that the Serbs are not destroying the KLA, they are only killing civilians and destroying villages," said Gani Gecaj, a 35-year-old KLA fighter from the village of Lausa.
     "We are still here, still ready to fight. And when the time is right, we will strike back and the Serbs will pay."
     KLA commanders have announced that they are regrouping and planning to adopt more traditional guerrilla tactics.
     Meanwhile, Western diplomats are scrambling to cobble together an agreement between Belgrade and Kosovar Albanian politicians for some form of autonomy far short of independence.
     This attempt to short-circuit the war has been met with extreme scepticism by KLA commanders in the field, raising the question whether any such deal could stop the fighting.
     "We are hopeful of a deal that will bring a cease-fire and buy some time in Kosovo," a Western diplomat, who asked not to be named, told Reuters this week.
     "Frankly, the KLA are an unknown part of that equation. They would be well-advised to give the negotiations a chance. They have done their part already, by pushing Kosovo forward as an issue at the highest international levels.
     "We (the West) neglected Kosovo and we shouldn't have, but that's over now and we are fully engaged. The KLA may not have achieved much on the battlefield, but they did achieve that."

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
________________________

NATO could put 50,000 troops in Kosovo if cease-fire
12:49 p.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern
By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - NATO could send 50,000 troops into Yugoslavia's troubled Kosovo province to keep peace if the Yugoslav government and Albanian separatists agree to a ceasefire, a top NATO military officer said on Wednesday.
     "My sense is that it will be ballpark 50,000 if you had a ceasefire agreement," U.S. Navy Adm. Joseph Lopez told reporters. But he stressed "that figure is not firm."
     U.S. negotiators have presented both sides in the Kosovo conflict with a draft for an interim agreement incorporating principles of self-government, sources close to the negotiations said Tuesday in Serbia. But they said the question of a ceasefire remained a major stumbling block.
     Lopez, based in Naples, Italy, as commander of NATO forces in southern Europe with responsibility for Kosovo, declined to predict how many U.S. troops might take part in such a peace force. And he did not detail other military contingency plans, including the use of force, that NATO is developing.
     "We prefer that there will be a diplomatic solution so that there won't be that necessity" to send in U.S. and other troops, he said at a breakfast meeting with journalists.
     NATO has drafted contingency plans for a range of military options for Kosovo including using troops to enforce any ceasefire or peace settlement but would not act without authorisation from the United Nations, a NATO official told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.
     Lopez stressed that while a peacekeeping operation in Kosovo might be similar to NATO's efforts in Bosnia, it would be complicated because it would be seen as an "occupying" military presence and would have to deal with ethnic Albanians who want independence from Yugoslavia.
     Ninety per cent of Kosovo's 1.8 million people are ethnic Albanians and most of them are are seeking independence.
     In Brussels, a NATO official told reporters after a meeting of ambassadors from the 16-nation military alliance that they had completed contingency planning for a full range of military options aimed at securing peace in the restive province.
     The official said the options included preventive deployments along Albania's border with Kosovo, limited or more extensive air strikes to end hostilities and bring conflicting parties to negotiation and ground forces backed by air power to help enforce any ceasefire or peace settlement.
     The transatlantic alliance would only take a decision to implement any of the options "with the backing of an appropriate legal basis," the official added, referring to a United Nations Security Council resolution authorising the use of force in Kosovo.
     The official also said NATO "hoped, would try very hard, would expect" to get Russian approval for any such request.
     Moscow has previously insisted it would veto the use of force to end hostilities in Kosovo.
     U.N. officials estimate that 265,000 people have been driven from their homes since fighting began in February between Serbian security forces and armed ethnic Albanian separatists.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
________________________

Thousands of refugees trapped on Kosovo road - UN
12:06 p.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern
By Kurt Schork

PEC, Serbia, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Up to 40,000 ethnic Albanian refugees were trapped on a road in western Kosovo on Wednesday trying to flee from an advancing Serbian armoured column, a U.N. official said.
     "There are tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, trapped on a 12 km (seven mile) stretch of road south of Pec and they are fleeing a pincer strike from the east," said Fernando del Mundo, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency.
     "I have just returned from the area and Serbian troops and tanks are moving towards the refugees from the east. The head of the column is near the village of Krusevac and its tail-end is 12 km to the rear."
     "The dirt road is jammed with tractors, wagons and cars. People are in a panic because they fled villages that were shelled and burned yesterday and spent the night in the open in the rain. They have little water or food and no shelter."
     Del Mundo told Reuters he had walked down the column of refugees for a distance of three km (1.8 miles) himself and spoken to western diplomatic observers who told him that could be as many as 40,000 people trapped.
     "When we were there the sounds of shooting and artillery rounds were clearly audible and were moving closer. We could see smoke spiralling from burning houses. If a shell should land on this refugee column it would be a real mess," del Mundo said.
     The UN spokesman said he visited a doctor in a small clinic in Krusevac who had treated 25 people for shrapnel wounds since Tuesday. The doctor reported that three of the wounded had died and that seven were in serious condition.
     Reporters who travelled to the Pec area on Wednesday saw Serbian army units backed by tanks moving to and through Decani toward the area where the refugees were trapped.
     Houses in a number of villages in the area were burning and small groups of refugees were occasionally spotted south and east of Pec trying to make their way to safety across fields.
     Comprised of exhausted women, children and old men, most of the refugee groups spotted by reporters were so disoriented by the 24 hours of terror they had just been through that they seemed uncertain where they were or which way to head.
     Kosovo is a southern province of Serbia but 90 per cent of the population is ethnic Albanian. Armed ethnic Albanian separatists have been fighting for independence since February.
     A recent counter-offensive by Serbian police and army units has smashed many strongholds of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), destroyed scores of ethnic Albanian villages and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes.
     The area south and east of Pec, where Wednesday's action was concentrated, had been a KLA stronghold and has been hit repeatedly by Serbian forces.
     UN officials estimate that 265,000 people are now homeless and that as many as 50,000 of those are living rough in forests and on hillsides across Kosovo.
     Relief experts warn that a humanitarian catastrophe looms in Kosovo if the numbers of people displaced continues to grow and suitable shelter is not found for them before the cooler weather begins in a few weeks.
_________________________

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1998
INTERNATIONAL
Home to Nothing: Kosovo's Displaced
• Belgrade's new tack: Force ethnic Albanians back to villages. Little shelter; winter looms.
Justin Brown
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

DRENICA, YUGOSLAVIA

There are no signs of human life along this 10-mile dirt road in southwest Kosovo. No children playing in the murky streams. No shepherds to watch the animals. No workers to pick the overripe tomatoes and peppers.
     Since the Serbian police and military attacked this stretch of western Drenica - the region west of the provincial capital of Pristina that has traditionally been a center of Albanian resistance - there are only empty villages and charred houses, abandoned cars and animals, bullet shells and tank tracks.
     Here, the 50-day Serbian offensive is over - because there are no ethnic Albanians left to resist.
     The war in Kosovo has entered a new phase, with Serbian forces focusing on the growing number of refugees, many of whom now live under plastic sheets or in crowded schoolhouses.
     This week the Serbs raided Ponorac, a village in southwestern Drenica that had swelled with some 15,000 internal refugees.
     "First the police destroyed and looted our houses," says Asllan Bajramaj, a local schoolteacher. "They said it was better for us to run to the woods, because Albanians don't belong here. Then they surrounded us with tanks and separated the men from the women and children. They beat the men and took them away."
     Ethnic Albanian villagers say the Serbs are trying to disperse the massive groups of internal refugees by arresting the men and then forcing them back to their destroyed villages - hoping their families will follow.
     "I can't go back to my village, because my house has been burned," says Haki Zenunaj, who had found refuge in Ponorac. "If the police don't kill me there, my Serbian neighbors will."
     Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, who are 90 percent of the region's population, have been calling for independence from Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic. Their armed resistance forces, known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), have fled to the woods after a massive Serbian offensive that has displaced more than 200,000 people.
     Since the fighting began in late February, more than 500 people have been killed, most of them ethnic Albanians.
     International officials have tried to exert pressure on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to stop the violence - but have so far failed.
     Mr. Milosevic resists international demands for experts to examine allegations of mass-grave sites. He also refuses to let up on the current offensive, which he says is aimed at "terrorists."
     Meanwhile, international officials are struggling to bring the Serbs and Albanians together. US diplomats said last week that leaders from both sides had agreed in principle to grant Kosovo interim autonomy. But the plan was dismissed by important hard-line elements in both Belgrade and Kosovo.
     Making matters worse, it is no longer clear who speaks for the ethnic Albanians. Ibrahim Rugova, a US-backed pacifist, appears to be losing popularity. The KLA, under different leadership, is becoming divided and has been left out of negotiations.
     AS winter approaches, the situation is desperate for some 50,000 refugees who are living in the open.
     "They burned our houses, our clothes ... every single thing we had," says Syleman Demaj, a refugee from Ponorac. "Winter is coming, and we have only the clothes on our backs."
     John Shattuck, US assistant secretary of State for human rights, toured the region recently with former Senate majority leader Bob Dole and cited "acts of punitive destruction on a massive scale."
     Reporters Sept. 7 stumbled upon a military operation near the village of Kraljane and were taken at gunpoint to the courtyard of an abandoned farmhouse and held for more than an hour.
     Asked about the tanks reporters had seen driving east, a Serb policeman laughed. "Don't worry, those are only tractors," he said. "They can't hurt anybody."
________________________

Wednesday September 9 10:34 AM EDT
Serbs, Guerrillas Clash in Kosovo
ISMET HAJDARI Associated Press Writer

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Police battled independence-minded Albanian militants today at a gold and zinc mine in Kosovo, a rare instance of fighting in the Serbian province's northwest.
     The state-run Tanjug news agency said fighting began after members of the Kosovo Liberation Army attacked police and guards at the Stari Trg mine, about 18 miles northwest of Pristina, Kosovo's capital. Tanjug said a mine employee was killed.
     Much of the fighting in recent weeks has been southwest of Pristina, with Serbian police and the Yugoslav army joining forces to push KLA fighters out of their strongholds. The Stari Trg area also is a guerrilla pocket, and it was possible that a similar government offensive had been ordered in that region.
     The Kosovo Information Center, supported by the Kosovo Albanian leadership, said explosions could be heard in the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, where the mine is located, and at Podujevo, farther east.
     Ninety percent of Kosovo's population is made up of ethnic Albanians, most of whom support the KLA's armed struggle for independence. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, the larger of the two Yugoslav republics.
     Hundreds of people, most of them ethnic Albanian, have been killed in the six-month Serbian crackdown on the guerrillas. More than 265,000 others have been forced to flee their shelled and burned villages.
     The Serbs have accused the militants of massacring Serb civilians in at least two cases.
     Seeking to back up their newest allegations, police Tuesday showed reporters and international observers the bodies of some alleged victims near the rebel stronghold of Glodjane, where they claimed about 40 Serb civilians were executed. They said they knew of more execution sites in the area.
     Reporters saw seven decomposed bodies - one beheaded and another missing limbs - lying on the ground under a heavy rain. Police said the bodies were those of Serb civilians. No more bodies could be immediately seen, despite police claims there were others, and no details on the victims were available.
     Police have reported about 170 Serbs missing in Kosovo since fighting started in early March. They claim the rebels kidnapped them. Earlier this month, police showed reporters the charred remains of what they said were burned bodies of Serb civilians in another former KLA stronghold.
     The government-run Politika daily in Belgrade said today that preliminary investigations of those alleged killings, in Klecka village, found 10 people were burned, including two children. Aleksandar Dobricanin, a Serb doctor in charge of the investigations, said some of the bones will be sent to Moscow and London for detailed analysis and identification.
_________________________

Wednesday September 9 5:40 AM EDT
Kosovo Albanians Surrender Arms
ADAM BROWN Associated Press Writer

ZHUR, Yugoslavia (AP) - With a "please" and a "thank you," Serb police collected dozens of rifles, machine guns and hand grenades from residents of this prosperous Kosovo Albanian village.
     "The police know now we have no guns," said Resat Gavazaj, a 53-year-old ethnic Albanian who helped organize the weekend weapons collection. "The fighting will never come here. We thank them very, very much."
     Down the road, residents said the Serbs' "polite" requests for their weapons, mostly bought for personal security, are backed by implicit threats to bomb and burn farms and villages where the inhabitants sympathize with armed resistance.
     After driving the secessionist Kosovo Liberation Army from most of its strongholds, Serb forces have launched a two-pronged campaign in an effort to wipe out the ethnic Albanian struggle for independence.
     Police have been encouraging Albanians to give up their arms and return to their homes, saying those who remain loyal to the government have nothing to fear. Serbian state television has aired scenes of Albanian civilians walking peacefully home past police, who help unload food and supplies for the refugees.
     For villages who do not cooperate, there's another message. While police were collecting arms from Zhur last weekend, hundred of troops were leveling four nearby villages, they accused of harboring secessionist rebels and refusing to lay down arms.
     Albanian sources said the attack killed at least 17 people, injured others and left thousands without homes, clothing or food.
     Many of the villages haven't been involved in fighting, but rampant gun smuggling from Albania has left military weapons on farms and in shops.
     Serbian authorities say they have collected thousands of weapons from ethnic Albanian villages throughout Kosovo in recent weeks. But Albanians interviewed this week near Zhur said the Serb campaign will only drive more Albanians into rebel ranks.
     "If I die with a gun in my hands, I die singing," said one bleary-eyed man who witnessed the destruction of his sister's village within miles of Kosovo's border with Albania. "I don't want to fight. But who can just watch this killing of their people."
     That spirit was echoed in the mountainside farming village of Jeskovo, four miles from Zhur.
     "I just farm," said one man who returned Tuesday to salvage silverware and other possessions from his burned-out home. "They took my television. They burned my home. They burned my tractor. Maybe I resist. What else can I do?"
________________________

Milosevic cancels meeting with Belgium's Derycke
07:43 a.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern

BRUSSELS, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has called off a meeting with Belgian Foreign Minister Erik Derycke, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, adding the move might have been prompted by an EU ban on Yugoslav flights.
     "Milosevic cancelled the meeting this morning with no reason given, but we think the decision to ban flights from Yugoslav airlines has had a psychological effect on the Yugoslav authorities," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hubert Cooreman told a news briefing.
     A ban on flights by Yugoslav carriers to European Union airports, to punish Belgrade's policy on the restive Serb province of Kosovo and agreed in principle in June, formally took effect in all 15 EU member countries on Wednesday.
     At least 500 people have been killed and thousands forced from their homes in a Serb offensive in Kosovo, where guerrillas are fighting for independence for the ethnic Albanians that make up 90 percent of the province's population.
     Derycke had been due to meet Milosevic on Wednesday to discuss the seven-month-old crisis in Kosovo and hammer home Belgium's condemnation of violence on either side.
     Derycke held talks with other members of the Yugoslav government on Tuesday and was due to meet Ibrahim Rugova, pacifist leader of the biggest ethnic Albanian party and other ethnic Albanian leaders in Pristina later on Wednesday. He is to meet Macedonian government officals on Thursday.
     "Belgium condemns acts of violence on all sides and will call on all parties to stop the violence immediately and unconditionally...and relaunch the process of reconciliation," said Cooreman. "It is important that we pass on this message, even if not directly with Milosevic."
     Yugoslavia's flag carrier Jugoslovenski Aerotransport (JAT) currently flies twice a week between Belgrade and Brussels.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserve
_________________________

Serbs show alleged Kosovo guerrilla execution site
10:46 a.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern
By Paul Iredale

GLODJANE, Serbia, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Serb police on Wednesday displayed what they said was a site used by ethnic Albanian guerrillas for executions, where several badly-decomposed corpses lay beside a fast-flowing drainage canal.
     Police said they had found 12 bodies at the site. They said they had information there could be up to 40 in the area.
     "There was an Albanian terrorist stronghold near the canal. It is a mass grave of brutally killed Serb civilians and probably other nationalities," police colonel Dragutin Adamovic told reporters at the site in western Kosovo.
     He said the victims, probably Serbs kidnapped in the area over the last few months by Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas had been shot on a bank above the canal and tipped over.
     At least three decaying corpses lay in a ditch beside the canal. Much of the trunk of one was missing, revealing the backbone, apparently eaten by wild animals. A foot stuck out the mud nearby.
     Police said three more bodies, killed within the past two weeks, had been floating face down in the canal when they found the site on Tuesday, but had been washed downstream by the heavy overnight rain.
     Reporters who saw the bodies on Tuesday said they appeared to be of young males, and one had at least 10 bullet holes in his back.
     Spent cartridges, which police said were from assault rifles and pistols, were scattered around the grassy bank. Adamovic pointed out what he said were bloodstains on the concrete lip of the culvert. Its opposite wall was pocked with up to 20 bullet holes.
     Grave human rights abuses by both sides have been reported in the seven months of fighting. At least 700 people have died and many more are missing.
     The KLA is fighting for independence for the Serb-ruled province, where 90 percent of the 1.8 million population are ethnic Albanians.
     More than 250,00 people have fled their homes and whole villages have been reduced to rubble in the Serb offensive. Aid organisations fear a major humanitarian catastrophe as the winter snows approach.
     Adamovic said the victims had been tortured before they were executed. But he was unable to show any evidence of this on the rotting corpses.
     "The firing squad shot them and they fell into the water. Some of the victims did not die immediately so they were shot again," he said pointing out pistol shells on the edge of the bank.
     He admitted there was no way of knowing yet the identities of the victims, but added: "Most of the kidnapped citizens were Serbs, those who were against the terrorists."
     Firemen were on hand to block off and drain the culvert, and Adamovic said it could give up more bodies. He said police had discovered grenade and shell traces on the other side of the culvert and what looked like shallow graves.
     Downstream from the canal, where the water cascades into a large pool and on down the Bistrica river to Lake Radonic three km (two miles) away, police were wading among the rocks, prodding at what could have been another body.
     Adamovic said police had not yet recovered the bodies that were floating in the culvert on Tuesday.
     They were washed away by the water during the night," he said. "We have to look for them."

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
________________________

NATO completes plans for any Kosovo intervention
07:46 a.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern

BRUSSELS, Sept 9 (Reuters) - NATO said on Wednesday it had completed contingency planning for a full range of military options aimed at securing peace in Yugoslavia's restive Kosovo province.
     "We have today completed contingency planning for the full range of options...to support the diplomatic effort," a NATO official told reporters after a meeting of ambassadors from the 16-nation military alliance.
     The official said the options included preventative deployments along Albania's border with Kosovo, limited or more extensive air strikes to end hostilities and bring conflicting parties to negotiation, and ground forces backed by air power to help enforce any ceasefire or peace settlement.
     The transatlantic alliance would only take a decision to implement any of the options "with the backing of an appropriate legal basis," the official added, referring to a United Nations Security Council resolution authorising the use of force in Kosovo.
     The official also said NATO "hoped, would try very hard, would expect" to get Russian approval for any such request.
     Moscow has previously insisted it would veto the use of force to end hostilities in Kosovo.
     UN officials estimate that 265,000 people have been driven from their homes since fighting began in February between Serbian security forces and armed ethnic Albanian separatists.
     Ninety per cent of Kosovo's 1.8 million people are ethnic Albanians and most are seeking independence.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
__________

September 9, 1998
NATO: 50,000 May Be Needed in Kosovo
Filed at 1:11 p.m. EDT
By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- NATO would need about 50,000 troops to monitor a peace agreement or cease-fire in Serbia's secessionist province of Kosovo, the alliance's Southern European commander said Wednesday.
     "My sense is, it would be ballpark 50,000, if you had a cease-fire agreement in the same sense you had peace support, as you did in Bosnia," U.S. Adm. T. Joseph Lopez told a group of defense writers.
     Lopez emphasized that such a number "is not firm," because the situation in the turbulent province remains so unsettled, and a peace agreement is not yet in sight. "It's a fluid situation," he said.
     The four-star admiral who also leads U.S. naval forces in Europe said the size of Washington's contribution to such a force is up to the nation's political leadership. He declined to speculate on it.
     NATO military planners have been considering a wide range of options for Kosovo, where hundreds have died and about 265,000 have been driven from their homes in six months of battle between Serb-led forces and Kosovo Albanian rebels.
     The rebels want independence from Serbia, the dominant of two republics remaining in Yugoslavia. But Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic insists he has no intention of calling off his offensive, despite renewed appeals from American and European officials.
     While NATO is striving for a diplomatic solution to the turmoil, "we will be prepared" for military action should the diplomats come up empty-handed, Lopez said.
     "We are doing the planning now," he said, adding that the potential steps range from military strikes to support for humanitarian operations.
     The admiral acknowledged that U.S. political support for the operation in nearby Bosnia has had a contentious history, and launching a similar one in the region could be equally divisive.
     "If we are invited in, as NATO ... to support a peace agreement, as we've done in Bosnia, then I think we are prepared to do that. Whether or not that is a good idea ... is a political question and I would not speculate on that," Lopez said.
---------

Wednesday, September 9, 1998 Published at 19:49 GMT 20:49 UK
Kosovo fighting traps thousands

The United Nations refugee agency says about 25,000 people are trapped by a new outbreak of fighting in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
     It said a column of people 12 km long - most of them women and children - were fleeing in a panic from shelling in western Kosovo, south of the town of Pec.
     A UN spokesman said there was a risk of heavy loss of life if a shell landed among the refugees. UN officials said they have little water, some are suffering from shrapnel wounds, and several are reported to have died.
     "They're panicking and going everywhere, but they don't know which way to go," said Fernando del Mundo, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Ghost towns

"The shelling is closing in like a pincer," he said, adding that the situation threatens to create as many as 25 ghost towns in southwestern Kosovo.
     "The dirt road is jammed with tractors, wagons and cars, " Mr del Mundo said. "If a shell should land on this refugee column it would be a real mess."
     The UN says more than 400,000 people have been displaced by the fighting in Kosovo between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian separatists.
     Aid workers have warned of many deaths from exposure or starvation as winter sets in.
     In Kosovo itself, Serb forensic investigators have searched a site where officials claim around 40 Serb civilians were executed by rebel forces.
     Serb police took reporters and international observers to the site near the rebel stronghold of Glodjane, 60 km southwest of Pristina.

Nato plans

International efforts to end the fighting have been stymied by the refusal of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to halt the offensive.
     Meanwhile Nato says it has completed its plans for a possible military intervention to bring an end to the conflict in Kosovo.
     The options range from limited air strikes to the deployment of ground troops to enforce a ceasefire.
     "We have completed contingency planning for the full range of options that may have to be used to support international diplomacy," an unnamed official was quoted as saying.
     Nato officials say that the aim is to support the diplomatic efforts to end the crisis, and that no action would be taken without authorisation from the United Nations Security Council.
     In Washington Nato's southern European commander, Admiral T. Joseph Lopez, said that the alliance would need about 50,000 troops to monitor a possible peace agreement or cease-fire in Kosovo.

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