Kosova Crisis Center
link to alb-net
KOSOVA-ALBANIAN BORDER (CNN) -- Evidence that the Kosova Liberation Army is preparing a comeback in its battle against Serb-led Yugoslav forces has been uncovered by CNN.
Correspondent Mike Boettcher was given exclusive access to the KLA's fourth brigade high in the fog-bound mountains this week along the Yugoslav-Albanian border.
Since NATO attacks on Yugoslavia began three weeks ago, there has been little sign of the KLA and only unconfirmed reports of skirmishes between the ethnic Albanian Kosovar troops and Serb forces.
But the KLA, which Belgrade claims to have forced out of Kosova at gunpoint, intends to return to what its members say is their rightful home.
Most of its fighters don't know if their families are dead, alive or eking out an existence in a refugee camp. Others have left families behind in countries such as England and Germany to take up arms.
It is also believed male Kosovars who have taken their families to refugee camps in neighboring Macedonia and Albania are now leaving the camps to join the KLA.
When CNN traveled with the KLA over a series of days this week, the guerrilla army showed signs of a gathering momentum aimed at striking back into the heart of Kosova.
The KLA claims to have altered a significant infiltration route along the Kosova-Albanian border and to control significant territory in southwest Yugoslavia. A steady stream of KLA soldiers moving into Kosova gave weight to their claims.
Boettcher reported that stockpiles of weapons and ammunition stored along their infiltration routes also bolstered their claims.
Against the odds
The 100 men of the KLA's fourth brigade were born in Jakova, Kosova, but most of them left the Yugoslav province years ago to study or work abroad, or, to escape arrest for being KLA sympathizers.
One man, a civil engineer, who was working in London until war broke out, was positive his fight was for the right reasons and that one day he would return home to Kosova.
"Yeah, I think so and I hope so, we must go back to fight for my country until my country can be free," he told Boettcher.
As CNN followed the brigade along a key infiltration route, the unit evaded sporadic artillery fire from nearby Yugoslav forces. A shattered farmhouse sometimes used by the KLA is evidence of the shelling, which the KLA claims has become less effective due to NATO airstrikes.
The KLA soldiers are also under constant harassment by Serb snipers.
But the KLA uses the unpredictable weather conditions in the mountainous region to advantage. Cold rain and fog reduces the effectiveness of the Yugoslav military but it also makes life difficult for a foot army forced to carry its weapons over rough terrain for many days at a time.
But all were united in their mindset. The trip back into Kosova is a one-way journey which they say involves only two choices: win back Kosova, or die trying.
Are the Serbs Fighting For
Mines in Kosova? Kosova Mine Said To Yield $1.56 Trillion Over Next 5 Years
By Dave Sharp
Last May, Mytilinaios SA [a Greek mining company] signed a five-year contract worth $519 Billion
with the state-owned RMHK Trepca [located in Kosova] and the Serbian agency of foreign
trade, in which Mytilinaios will forward one third of the mineral production in the
international market and also upgrade mining equipment and facilities. Trepca mines are on
the list of companies soon to be privatised, thus allowing the Greek company to buy stock.
The state-owned Trepca mining complex (Stari Trg) is worth about $5 billion as a piece of
real estate. Earning potential, however, is a different matter. The mine has not been
sold.
The referenced $519 billion contract with Greece obligates the state-owned mining facility
to deliver one third of the minerals it produces over five years to Mytilinaios SA, the
Greek mining company. This suggests that the remaining two thirds of minerals produced
over five years could be sold at a comparable price to other mining companies. The grand
total would be $1.56 Trillion - paid to the owner of the mining complex - for minerals
produced over five years.
Keep in mind that $1.56 Trillion would be wholesale cost. We haven't even discussed
mark-up yet.
Mining companies like Mytilinaios SA will sell minerals produced from the mine - lead,
zinc, cadmium, gold, silver - to the international market at a marked-up price. If the
mark-up is 200 percent, the net profit would be $1.56 Trillion.
Why Is Kosova so Valuable to Serbs?
Is it Because of Religious Shrines or Wealthy Mines: Below It All in Kosova, A War's
Glittering Prize (NY Times)
By Chris Hedges
The metal cage tumbled to the guts of the Stari [Trg] mine, with its glittering veins of
lead, zinc, cadmium, gold and silver, its stagnant pools of water and muck, its steamy
blasts, its miles of dank, gloomy tunnels and its vast stretches of Stygian darkness.
As the iron box rattled and squealed on the ear-popping journey, dropping at 18 feet a
second, it left behind the potent symbols of nationalism and ethnic identity scattered in
disarray on the ground above. Instead, in the shrill cacophony, it exposed the real worth
of Kosova.
The medieval Serbian monasteries and churches, crumbling mosques with silver domes and
spindly minarets and a dark stone tower brooding over the Field of Blackbirds, where the
Turks wiped out Serbian nobles 600 years ago and began 500 years of Ottoman rule, seemed
to evaporate in the thin air.
The fighting between the rebels of the Kosova Liberation Army, with their intoxicating
visions of an independent state, and the 50,000 Serbian soldiers and special policemen,
who rule the province of Kosova like a plantation, touched no one here. Neither did the
rattle of gunfire, the thud of mortars, the anguish of refugees and bodies of the recently
killed.
Half a mile underground, hissing rubber air hoses were looped along tunnel walls and small
lights hooked on the hard hats of miners bobbed in the inky universe. Worm-like diesel
loaders roared through the corridors, laden with sparkling ore, and huge drills snarled
and spat at the rock.
''There is over 30 percent lead and zinc in the ore,'' said Novak Bjelic, the mine's beefy
director. ''The war in Kosova is about the mines, nothing else. This is Serbia's Kuwait --
the heart of Kosova. We export to France, Switzerland, Greece, Sweden, the Czech Republic,
Russia and Belgium.
''We export to a firm in New York, but I would prefer not to name it. And in addition to
all this Kosova has 17 billion tons of coal reserves. Naturally, the Albanians want all
this for themselves.''
The sprawling state-owned Trepca mining complex, the most valuable piece of real estate in
the Balkans, is worth at least $5 billion and has made millions of dollars for the
Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, according to his critics. Serbia and its junior
partner, Montenegro, are what remains of Yugoslavia.
In March 1989, Mr. Milosevic revoked the autonomous status given to the ethnic Albanians,
who make up 90 percent of the two million people in Kosova, and he has refused to return
any kind of self-governance. He is trying to crush a mounting armed resistance to his
rule, and it appears that the mines, at least for a while, will earn him even more money.
The Stari [Trg] mine, with its warehouses, is ringed with smelting plants, 17 metal
treatment sites, freight yards, railroad lines, a power plant and the country's largest
battery plant.
''In the last three years we have mined 2,538,124 tons of lead and zinc crude ore,'' said
Mr. Bjelic, 58, ''and produced 286,502 tons of concentrated lead and zinc and 139,789 tons
of pure lead, zinc, cadmium, silver and gold.''
When the Nazis seized this corner of the Balkans in 1941, they handed over the hovels in
Pristina, the provincial capital, to the Italian fascists. But they kept the British-built
Trepca mines for the Reich, shipping out wagonloads of minerals for weapons and producing
the batteries that powered the U-boats. Submarine batteries, along with ammunition, are
still produced in the Trepca mines. The mining history reaches back to the Romans, who
hacked out silver from the quarries.
In 1988, as Yugoslavia began to disintegrate, the fiercest resistance to Mr. Milosevic's
vision of a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia roared out of the shafts of the four Trepca mines.
Angered by the growth of the Serbian nationalist movement led by Mr. Milosevic, the ethnic
Albanian miners, who made up 75 percent of the 23,000 employees, shut down the mines and
organized a 30-mile-long protest march to Pristina. They carried photos of Tito and
Yugoslav flags adorned with the Communist red star. The fealty shown to the old Yugoslavia
appears naive and quaint given the armed rebellion under way in the province.
''We believed in Yugoslavia,'' said Burhan Kavaja, the former director of the Stari [Trg]
mine, who was dismissed and imprisoned after the first strike. ''We wanted to belong. You
would never see an Albanian carry the state flag today. This conflict will only end now
with our independence. Until then the Serbs will loot the mineral wealth of Kosova.''
Mr. Milosevic promised the strikers that he would respect the province's autonomy and
remove nationalist Serbs from positions of power. The miners returned to the shafts.
A year later the miners, realizing that they had been betrayed, began a series of hunger
strikes and occupied the mines. The mine protests led to general strikes throughout
Kosova, making Trepca the nerve center of the resistance movement.
Serbian special policemen eventually seized the mine, carrying weakened miners out on
stretchers. When the province's autonomy was revoked, a state of emergency was declared.
The ethnic Albanian miners were replaced with Poles, Czechs and -- later -- Muslim
prisoners of war captured by the Serbs in Bosnia.
These days, no more than 15 percent of the current 15,000 mine workers are of Albanian
origin, the Government says, and most ethnic Albanians insist that the figures vastly
overestimate their numbers.
Branimir Dimitrijevic, one of the mine's managers, waded through a corridor filled with
water, slime and mud that reached up and wrapped itself around his black rubber boots. A
huge Swedish iron-cutting machine, one of four in the mine, whirled and belched like some
deep-sea monster. Spotlights mounted on its cab lit up a vein of ore, and as the minerals
oxidized, creating a suffocating heat, the miners were left gulping for air.
The workers, bare-chested and blackened with grime in the vast sweat house, stood aside
when a trolley loaded with chunks of rock rumbled down a tunnel on the iron tracks.
A few days ago, Mr. Dimitrijevic received the disturbing news that a factory two miles
away, where clothing for the miners is produced, had been seized by the rebels. Armed
separatist guerrillas now guard the gates, and Serbs avoid the dirt road to the factory.
No one has yet tried to take it back.
"We will never give up Trepca!" he shouted over the drilling. "Serbs will
fight to defend the mine. It is ours."
The list of massacred Albanians in
Llapushė
Malishevė, April 15th (Kosovapress)
As we have been informed by our sources, in the village Janqist of Malishevės on April
1st of this year, the serbian terrorist forces have killed in the most atrocious way, 7
albanians from the same village, which are as follows:
01. Hanife Rexhep Sopi (65)
02. Rexhep Hamzė Sopi (70)
03. Arif Tahir Sopi (60)
04. Hamzė Sopi (65)
05. Maliq Mehmet Sopi (28)
06. Hasan Asllan Sopi (18) and
07. Malush Ahmet Sopi (17)
During the same day, in Pagarushė have been killed: Ahmet Azem Kryeziu (43) from this
village; Burim Hasan Cen Gashi (80) from the village of Mleqani and Ramadan Ali Morina
(65) from the village Astrazubi; in Bellanicė has been killed Bislim Danė Shala (55)
from Banja. On April 2th, in Janqist has been killed Jahir Shaban Mazreku (32) from
Malisheva, in Bellanicė has been killed Mehmet Murat Gashi (18) from Bellanica and Haki
Ymer Telaku (24) from Banja; whereas in Pagarushė: Azem Hamzė Kryeziu (70) from
Pagarusha. Meanwhile in Arllat on April 4th, has been killed the 12 years old child Islam
Ramadan Kastrati from Nekoci of Drenica. All the massacred persons were unarmed civilians.
Fighting near Vasileva
Gllogoc, April 15th (Kosovapress) Yesterday, during the afternoon hours, the serbian
military police forces, embarked on a tractor, have tried to enter from the direction of
Sllatinė in the village of Vasilevė, commune of Gllogoc in order to loot and burn
albanian houses, they have been faced by a KLA observer unit and a fierce battle has taken
place there. There are reports on killed and wounded people from both sides, but the
number is not yet confirmed.
Mitrovica residents are being
expelled to Albania
Mitrovica, April 15th (Kosovapress) About 16.50 the serbian forces have embarked a very
long column of civil vehicles filled with albanian citizens from Mitrovica, which are
being spent in an organizative way toward the border with Albania; the column is very long
and is made up of automobiles, trucks, tractors, etc. It is embarked in the direction of
Skėnderaj. Today, the serbian forces have driven out of their houses tens of thousands of
albanian citizens of Mitrovica, who have stayed, up to now, surrounded by the police
cordons in the streets of the town.
Fighting report from the Operative Zone of Shala
Mitrovica, April 15th (Kosovapress) Massive serbian military police forces today, about
the hour 13.00, have violently obliged the albanian inhabitants of Shipolit and of the
quarter Tavnik to leave their houses. Up to now a big mass of people is staying outside
the houses, along the streets, surrounded by massive military police forces. At about
13.30, the serbs have set to fire Shipol, at 15.00 they have burnt Tavnik, too. Massive
enemy forces have blocked the road of Vaganicė which goes toward the mountains of Zmiq
and Qyqavicė. The alimentary reserves for the population of Mitrovica and the villages
around Qyqavicė have begun to run out. The danger of hunger is so present. Since 5
consecutive nights, the albanians quarters of Mitrovica are under grenade's attack from
Zveqani i vogėl where the enemy has positioned its heavy artillery. Last night in
Pasovė, the units of the second Battalion of the 141st Brigade, have broken a sneaky
effort of the enemy to come on the back of the KLA forces. The enemy suffered a soldier
killed. Yesterday about 17.00, in Tėrrnadrexhė the units of the IV Battalion have had
successful fighting for one hour and a half, killing at least 2 enemy soldiers. Yesterday,
the special unit of the Operative Zone of Shala, has destroyed a „pragė" of the
enemy. Yesterday, in Vaganicė two enemy policemen have been killed from the units of the
second Battalion of the 142d Brigade of the Operative Zone of Shala.
Ultimatum to leave has been given
to the inhabitants of Barileva village
Prishtinė, April 15th (Kosovapress) Last night, observer units of KLA have found four
massacred cadavers near the village of Barilevė, commune of Prishtina. All the massacred
civilians, whose identities is yet unknown, were young male. Meanwhile, today serbian
forces have given an ultimatum fro the inhabitants of the village of Barileve and for
other displaced people around, to leave the village immediately and to go in Albania. We
have no informations yet , if these people have already left. One convey with military
serbian trucks and with serbian civilians too, have gone in the villages of Balloc and
Herticė and they have started to provoke the population of these villages by shooting
with different kind of arms, aiming to frighten the population there and to force them to
leave from their houses. We still have no informations about their confrontations with
units of KLA.
Albanian civilians are used as
shields by serbian forces
Prishtinė, April 15th (Kosovapress) Since NATO airstrikes have started, serbian forces
tried to represent that the only victims of these airstrikes are civil population,
including here albanian population too, then in order to protect themselves from NATO air
strikes and KLA attacks, they are using always albanian population, including women. old
age people, children etc, as a living shield. Meanwhile they are trying to blame NATO for
the crimes that are executed by their attacks with grenades and by serbian airplanes.
Military-police organs itself are placed in the albanian house, and military arsenal is
being placed there too, and all this has happened after serbian terrorist forces has
forced the albanian civil population to leave from their homes by beaten them, killing,
burning,and destroying everything.
Qarshia e madhe of Gjakova, is being burnt in barbaric manner on March 24 of this year
even before the NATO airstrikes took place. After few days, serbian authorities said that
it were NATO missiles that destroyed this part of city trying to destroy a military
barrack, and that is not true. This kind of scenario is being repeated by serbian forces
even when the set on fire most of the houses in the main road of this city, and they
blamed NATO again for this. Before yesterday, on April 12th, serbian forces had pushed the
albanian civil population placed in Llapushnik, to walk in columns before the tanks, they
were naked and they were sent to Gllogoc. Before a week in the village Kralan, commune of
Gjakova, 400 men after being divided from their families and after being looted and beaten
cruelly, they were forced to undress and to move like this in the direction of Gjakova
under the escort of serbian terrorist forces.
In the valley of the village Risinoc, near Magura, there over than 1000 albanians placed
there and they are surrounded by serbian forces all around. Nearby, serbian forces have
placed their military arsenal. In the hills of Blinaja, over than 1500 inhabitants are
being placed there and they are under serbian enclosure for more than ten days and serbian
positions are being arranged around them. In Medvec, commune of Lipjan, near the hill of
Golesh, a anti-aircraft missile system is being placed there and all around these serbian
bases, albanian civil population is placed there to be used as shields from eventually
NATO airstrikes. In the same way they have acted in the village of Halilaq, of Fushė
Kosovė. These are not unique examples. Serbian forces are hidden everywhere, in the
cities, villages, hills and plains, in the places populated with serbian local people or
in the empty albanian houses. Serbian military convey in the recent days are undertaken
together with the albanian civil columns and in the end they are deportated in Albania of
Macedonia.
US admits Milosevic spies are
inside Nato (Daily Telegraph)
By Hugo Gurdon
SPIES have penetrated Nato and are channelling vital information back to President
Slobodan Milosevic, senior officials in Washington said yesterday.
Evidence of espionage within the 19-nation alliance had been mounting since the air war
began last month, and well-placed sources in Washington said that Belgrade was almost
certainly scoring some intelligence successes.
An official said: "The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as a former Communist country,
has a robust intelligence capability and they have directed all their efforts toward
collecting information through various sources on what Nato is planning. They are probably
acquiring a good deal of information by directing their efforts at Nato."
Fear that the Serbs were getting inside information broke open last week when The
Telegraph reported that France was being cut out of top-secret meetings because Washington
feared Paris would betray the alliance's military plans. Concern had grown amid evidence
that the Yugoslav authorities sometimes knew when and where the air strikes would come.
The Serbs had evacuated people from buildings sometimes just minutes before Nato missiles
or bombs destroyed them.
On repeated occasions, Milosevic appeared to have received advance warning of imminent
attacks. A factory where workers were staging a sit-down protest was cleared just five
minutes before Nato air power incinerated the plant. Serb commanders evacuated a barracks
following an urgent radio message ordering everyone out, again minutes before the missiles
and laser-guided bombs found their mark.
Two Interior Ministry buildings in the middle of Belgrade were empty on the night Nato
cruise missiles turned them both into fireballs. But they had been full of people with the
lights on in the windows just 24 hours earlier, again suggesting that the enemy knew the
attack was coming and when it was scheduled. Several news reports mentioned days before
the Belgrade attacks that the Interior and Defence ministries' buildings were high on the
alliance's target list, so it was possible that the timely evacuation involved nothing
more than the Serbs monitoring foreign news bulletins and being lucky with the timing.
It was not known whether the series of apparent tip-offs had anything to do with earlier
American and British suspicion of the French. There were no hints or guesses as to the
identity of the suspected spy or spies giving information about targets and timing.
Nato yesterday declined to comment, saying it had no information about any spying. On
Tuesday, however, Gen Wesley Clark, the Supreme Commander, said: "Nato remains very
vigilant in terms of protecting the security of its operations, and we are taking all
appropriate measures in that regard." It was not known whether procedures had been
tightened up since the evidence of spying began to accumulate. "I really cannot
comment as I know nothing about it," said James Shea, the Nato spokesman.
Officials were less circumspect in the American capital. One government source said the
Serbs were probably eavesdropping and intercepting electronic communications, many of
which were being carried on open rather than secure lines. But the source also suggested
that weaknesses were not only technical but human. Operation Allied Force was so big that
there could be weak links in the long security chain extending from the battle zone at one
end to 19 national governments at the other.
The Washington source said: "Operations security is always an issue. There are ways
we have to conduct business that make us vulnerable when we are facing the very robust
intelligence capability that Yugoslavia has." When war was waged by committee, as
with Nato in Yugoslavia, information useful to the enemy was always more likely to leak.
France kept in dark by allies: Are
French Spying for Serbs?
By Hugo Gurdon in Washington
FRANCE has been barred from some of Nato's top secret military plans because Washington
fears that they will be passed to the government of Slobodan Milosevic, a senior Western
military source said yesterday.
While Paris remains firmly committed to the political demands for the Yugoslav president
to back down over Kosova, the highly placed official said there were worries about a
Paris-Belgrade military axis. He said: "Washington has started cutting Paris out of
the loop on some operations because of the worry of information being handed either to the
Serbs direct or indirectly through the Russians."
Last year a French major serving at Nato headquarters in Brussels was arrested for
allegedly passing information about Alliance plans in Kosova to Yugoslavia. Earlier,
another French officer was accused of betraying Nato plans to arrest Radovan Karadzic, the
former Bosnian Serb leader. The officer was withdrawn from Bosnia after reports in the
Washington press.
The latest worries about the reliability of the French were restricted to their armed
forces. Diplomats stressed that the French remained firmly united with the Alliance in its
demands for ending the air campaign.
The White House and State Department are nevertheless watching Paris with suspicion. They
say they have reason to fear that France, possibly in concert with Russia, will try to
force a diplomatic fudge to bring the conflict to a halt. One former State Department
official said: "We have been waiting for the French to put a sharp stick in our
eye."
James Rubin, chief State Department spokesman, hinted at Washington's concerns yesterday
when he said: "Secretary [of State] Madeleine Albright's biggest task each day is to
ensure that the Nato allies remain as united as they've been remaining. . . Clearly there
are countries that are in touch with President Milosevic's regime, and that's fine with
us. We're not going to say their people can't do that, so long as they understand, both
the interlocutors and the Belgrade regime, that this bombing campaign will continue unless
President Milosevic. . . will accept Nato, an international presence."
Concerns are mounting at a time when Nato is opening a new diplomatic offensive in the
Balkans to probe for signs that Milosevic may be ready to back down. With foreign
ministers of Nato's 19 members due to meet and discuss strategy on Monday, and the bombing
now more effective because Serb forces have lost the cloud cover which protected them for
most of the first two weeks of the air war, the last thing Washington and London need is a
French initiative that would relieve pressure on Belgrade.
Sources close to President Clinton acknowledge that the United States and Britain exclude
France from some of their thinking. One Clinton administration official said: "There
are circles and circles within Nato. Look within the alliance - if there's going to be a
crack, it is going to come from certain places."