Kosova Crisis Center
link to alb-net
U2, Tom Petty, Will Smith Aid
Kosova Refugees
By Kevin Raub
Rocktropolis
U2, Tom Petty, Will Smith, John Popper, 'NSync, and Hanson are just a few of the mega
names who have donated some sweet memorabilia to a Yahoo!-sponsored online auction to
raise money for the refugees of Kosova.
A few of the items on the auction block include such rare finds as a lithograph of U2's
Best Of album cover art signed by all four band members; an autographed copy of Tom
Petty's Playback box set; an autographed harmonica from Blues Traveler frontman John
Popper; an autographed copy of Will Smith's latest album, Big Willie Style; an
'NSync-cover issue of
Teen People signed by all five heartthrobs; an autographed copy of Hanson's official
magazine, MOE; and an Elvis Presley doll commemorating his 1968 TV special in Hawaii.
All items (pending current sales) are available online at Yahoo! Auctions
http://auctions.yahoo.com) and will help raise money for war-torn Kosova. Other
high-profile people who have donated collectibles include General Colin Powell, Dennis
Hopper, James Cameron, and Shaquille O'Neal.
All proceeds from the online auction will go directly to the American Red Cross, which
needs an estimated $1 million each week to meet the emergency humanitarian needs of Kosova
refugees.
Texaco Sells Oil to Serbs While
U.S. Pilots Risk Their Lives to Hit Serbian Oil Refineries! (The Telegraph)
By Christopher Lockwood, Diplomatic Editor, in Washington and Tim King in Luxembourg
THE TELEGRAPH
THE European Union yesterday banned oil sales to Yugoslavia, but in a development that
will be regarded as scandalous in European capitals, America confirmed that it had no
plans to follow suit.
This means that while it is now illegal for any EU country to export oil to Slobodan
Milosevic, it remains perfectly legal for American companies to continue to fuel the Serb
war machine.
On April 10, two weeks into the conflict, the American firm Texaco shipped some 65,000
barrels of oil products into Bar, the Montenegrin port. The company said it was assured
that the products were for use in Montenegro but the port now serves as Yugoslavia's only
supply route for fuel. Other routes, including a pipeline from Hungary, or the land routes
from Croatia and Bulgaria have effectively been cut off.
The disclosure that American firms have been selling oil to Yugoslavia while America
pilots have been risking their lives to bomb refineries and storage facilities is likely
to undercut American efforts to moralise to the rest of the world. Texaco has now publicly
stated that it will no longer sell oil to Yugoslavia. But hundreds of other companies have
yet to do the same.
A US State Department official confirmed there were no plans to introduce the same sort of
legislation that EU foreign ministers yesterday adopted in Luxembourg, which renders it a
crime to sell oil to Yugoslavia. The embargo will be implemented on Friday.
Nato's communiqué on Kosova, published at the weekend, stops short of calling on all Nato
members to adopt legal instruments to halt the flow of oil. What Nato is committed to do,
however, is to interrupt the supply of oil, wherever it comes from, by means of a
"visit and search" regime that will board and inspect ships heading for Bar.
Since international law says ships can only be halted in pursuit of a United Nations
sanctions resolution, it is extremely uncertain what will happen if a Russian, or indeed
an American, oil tanker declines to be searched. Russia has refused to join an oil embargo
so the potential for conflict is high. If Russian ships were challenged on the high seas,
it might decide to give them military escorts.
Further economic restrictions were also placed on Yugoslavia and it emerged that the
European Commission would halt a promised package of economic assistance for Montenegro -
lest it fell into "the wrong hands".
Albania may take 1 million refugees (CNN)
MORINA, ALBANIA (CNN) -- The Albanian government has agreed to take as many as 1 million
refugees from Kosova, according to special envoy Dennis McNamara of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees.
In high level meetings, Albanian officials said they would take "as many refugees as
necessary, as many as 1 million people if that is what it takes," McNamara said.
The development came as Macedonia, which already has absorbed thousands of refugees, with
many now housed in camps as large as cities, said it would close its borders to new
arrivals until some of those already in Macedonia have moved out to new locations.
CNN's Tom Mintier said on Sunday that the border crossing at Blace, Macedonia, formerly
overflowing with refugees, was now nearly deserted.
Some refugees who could not obtain other transportation paid exorbitant taxi rates to
bring their families to the border crossing. One family spent the equivalent of $7,000.
The UNHCR said only a "handful" of refugees arrived in Macedonia on Saturday,
but on Friday, 1,914 arrived.
European Union Humanitarian Chief Emma Bonino traveled to Macedonia on Saturday after the
Macedonian government threatened to close its border with Kosova. She said closing the
border was "simply not acceptable."
Bonino met with a family of refugees in the Macedonian camp of Cegrane, where an estimated
31,000 refugees are staying.
In Albania: 5000 fresh arrivals
In Kukes, Albania more than 5,000 refugees arrived on Saturday -- on foot, in
wheelbarrows, carrying bundles and revealing tales of hardship.
CNN's Nic Robertson reported Sunday that one refugee told him that after the food ran out,
he fed his family with flowers and plants.
The steady influx of refugees from Kosova into Albania continued Saturday, with about 500
people arriving every hour, officials said.
Officials with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe told CNN they have
spotted a line of refugees more than six miles long from their vantage point on Albania's
border with Kosova.
Newly arrived refugees from Pec appeared very emotional and malnourished as they crossed
the border, observers said. The UNHCR said the refugees have reported incidents of Serb
attacks and mass killings in Pec.
In Brooklyn, a Warm Refuge for
Kosova Kin (NY Times)
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
NEW YORK -- After six terrifying weeks fleeing war at home in Kosova, Sytkije Deva and her
family had finally arrived at Kennedy International Airport late Saturday night to great
fanfare: They were showered with flowers and stuffed toys, surrounded by a gaggle of news
reporters, and fussed over by politicians making speeches in a language they did not
understand.
But when it was time to leave the airport and walk free into the streets of New York, Mrs.
Deva, 67, looking bewildered and frail in an oversized navy blue suit, stared up at her
sister Lili Erbeli and asked whether they were going to a refugee camp next.
Mrs. Erbeli, eyes brimming, bent over, took her eldest sister's hand and broke the good
news in rapid-fire Albanian. "You're coming home with me," she said, and helped
her rise from her seat.
That night, Mrs. Erbeli, 55, and her husband, Rex, 59, brought home to their three-bedroom
duplex in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn 14 of their Kosova kin: Mrs. Deva and her
husband, Musa, 72, their three grown children and their spouses, and six grandchildren,
ages 11 to 2.
They were undoubtedly among the world's luckiest exiles of war. They were among a
planeload of 102 who had landed at Kennedy on Saturday night from Skopje, Macedonia, via
London. They came as refugees into the United States, eligible for government benefits and
permanent residence in a mere three years. Most of all, unlike those who had arrived at
Fort Dix, N.J., last week, these refugees had relatives in New York to sponsor them and
take them directly home.
So on Saturday night, in a caravan of two Jeeps and a sedan, three generations of
Albanian-American Erbelis came to fetch three generations of their Kosova cousins.
At a hangar set up as a welcoming hall, they waited breathlessly behind a line of Port
Authority police officers. Lili Erbeli waited up front, dressed in red and black, the
colors of the Albanian flag, and as soon as she spotted a familiar face, hurried past the
police officers. Her American-born daughter, Albana, 26, followed, and threw her arms
around her eldest cousin, Bujar. Rex Erbeli, heretofore jovial, suddenly grew quiet and
escorted the elderly Musa Deva to a chair. Mrs. Erbeli covered her mouth and whispered,
"Look, how skinny!"
One by one, the American Erbelis embraced their old-country kin, the grown-ups' faces
streaked with tears, the children's cheeks covered with lipstick. The Erbelis'
granddaughter, Brianna, 8, opened a bag of toys she had brought from her own collection.
Their 12-year-old nephew Argjent began chatting with an 11-year-old cousin, Dren, whom he
had never met, and they seemed to hit it off immediately -- Dren telling his American
cousin of a friend who had been shot and killed with his father in their hometown of
Kosovska Mitrovica, and then, comparing notes on their favorite television programs.
At home in Sheepshead Bay it was a most unusual family reunion.
The extraordinary occasion was marked by a relatively quiet meal. Dinner was served in
shifts, for there were too many to fit around the 10-seat dining table. In the kitchen, an
efficient assembly line of Erbeli women cleared one set of plates and filled another with
chicken cutlets, peas and spoonfuls of rice pilaf. Tiny cups of Turkish coffee were passed
around, with bowls of flan that Mrs. Erbeli had prepared the night before.
Lili and Rex Erbeli seemed unfazed about making do with an extra 14 people. After all,
they said, closets had already been cleared and the refrigerator stocked with giant jugs
of juice and soda. Extra pillows and blankets had been found, and foam mattresses borrowed
from friends. Rex Erbeli joked that he would sleep on the balcony if he had to. Lili
Erbeli said they would simply have to share.
"You help them now or never," she said.
Thirty years ago, Rexhap and Liriej Erbeli were themselves refugees. Both teachers in
Yugoslavia and active in Albanian political causes, they were expelled, Erbeli said, for
hoisting an Albanian flag in Serbian territory. The International Rescue Committee, the
same relief agency that arranged to bring their relatives on Saturday, had arranged for
their own passage to the United States.
Neither Rex nor Lili Erbeli knew a word of English when they first arrived with a
5-month-old daughter, Arberesa -- now Betsy, 31. A friend of Erbeli's father met them at
the airport, put them up in his apartment for a week, and from there began their typical
immigrant's journey. He cleaned the presses at The Daily News, trimmed the hedges at a
Manhattan park, drove a cab (not knowing English or his way around, he once drove a
passenger who wanted to go to Greenwich, Conn., to Kennedy Airport instead).
Last year, Rex Erbeli retired as an office building manager in midtown Manhattan. Lili
Erbeli still works as a teacher's assistant at a nearby elementary school.
They have been active in Albanian-American organizations. They sent their girls back to
Kosova every summer, so they would not forget who they were. And members of their extended
family are active in the Kosova Liberation Army, the Kosova Albanian rebels who have been
fighting for independence. Albanian nationalism survived across the generations. Albana,
who is scheduled to graduate later this year from the Fashion Institute of Technology, has
tattooed the eagle of the Albanian flag on the small of her back. For a while, she
entertained the thought of fighting with the Kosova Liberation Army. Betsy has given her
daughter, Brianna, the middle name of Kosova.
When the NATO bombings began seven weeks ago, the Erbelis, like scores of Kosovars in New
York, were on the phone nearly every day with family members in Kosova. Mrs. Erbeli heard
of the houses that had been torched in their neighborhood. She heard the children in the
background asking Auntie Lili to send a helicopter to fetch them.
Shortly after the bombing started, Mrs. Erbeli lost contact. "That's it, I said, they
are dead," she remembered. "I was crazy for a few days."
She planted herself in front of the television, devouring any news she could get. For a
few days, her daughters recalled, she refused to leave the house, lest she miss a
telephone call.
The family in Kosova, it turned out, had hidden at home for eight days, leaving only when
a neighbor, a Serb, offered to help them get away. If they did not leave, the neighbor
told them, they would be killed. Two hours later, with a few bags packed with food and
clothes for the children, cash and jewelry, they left. Remembering the advice of Bosnian
refugees who came to their city some years ago, they also brought all the family photos
they could.
Sitting in the Erbelis' living room, Bujar Deva, 38, and his wife, Njeldez, 35, quietly
told this story early Sunday morning with the help of a cousin, Fatmir Kodra, who
translated. Their faces looked weary, and repeatedly they spoke of how unreal it still
seemed, being in New York.
After leaving their house in Kosova, they spent several nights in an abandoned trailer
near the Macedonian border, waiting for authorities to let them cross. The women and
children were separated from the men for a few days, but eventually, all ended up at the
home of relatives in Skopje.
They said they thought they could return home in a few weeks, but then came the news from
Kosovska Mitrovica: Their house had been burned, along with the liquor store that Bujar
Deva ran nearby. He whispered this, for he had yet to tell his parents.
While the Devas were considering their prospects in Macedonia, the Erbelis were rushing to
the offices of the International Rescue Committee in New York. They were among some 700
Albanian-Americans who filed papers to sponsor their extended families. Last Wednesday,
the call came in: all 14 of their relatives would be coming into Kennedy Airport on
Saturday.
That night, before heading to the airport, Rex Erbeli was describing his plans to set them
up here. "We're going to find an apartment for them, we're going to fix up the
apartment for them, we're going to find them a job," he said with great confidence.
Albana was saying she wanted her cousins to know freedom -- the freedom to hoist an
Albanian flag (she was bringing one to the airport), to play their own music, to be left
alone.
But would the Devas of Kosovska Mitrovica really want to stay?
"Who wants to go back?" Erbeli snapped, convinced that Slobodan Milosevic would
never let the Albanians live peacefully in Kosova. "They stop now, OK. Twenty years
from now, they start again."
For his part, Bujar Deva could not stop thinking about what he was leaving behind. When he
boarded the plane at Skopje on Saturday, he said he was thinking only how quickly he could
return. He could barely sleep an hour on that flight of more than nine hours.
"It's difficult to realize at this age," he said, "that you have to start
everything."
Situation Grave for Uprooted
Civilians, Kosova Rebel Leader Claims (NY Times)
By JOHN KIFNER
TIRANA, Albania -- Hundreds of thousands of uprooted Kosova Albanians are huddled in woods
and fields inside Kosova under the protection of Kosova Liberation Army fighters, a rebel
leader said in a telephone interview Sunday from inside the embattled Serbian province.
"Their situation is very difficult," said Hashim Thaci, the rebel leader.
"The food supply is running very low, the medical care is minimal and hygienic
conditions are very bad. We have the first signs of epidemics of various diseases among
the children."
He said that most of the civilians were under improvised tents. "These are pieces of
plastic over the trailers of tractors or just on the ground," he said. "Many
have been there since the beginning of the Serbian campaign, basically almost two months
ago."
In the telephone interview, arranged by rebel officials here in the Albanian capital,
Thaci said the area from which he was speaking, described as being in central Kosova, was
"relatively under the control" of the Kosova Liberation Army.
Neither his description of the condition of the refugees nor his comments about the
military situation could be independently confirmed. His description of the location of
the refugees seemed generally to match one issued this afternoon at the daily NATO
military briefing in Brussels, Belgium.
The briefer, Maj. Gen. Walter Jertz of Germany, produced maps showing several areas in
northeastern, central and southwestern Kosova as places where rebels were active and
refugees still inside the province were concentrated.
"It appears some sanctuary is being provided for these poor people," Jertz said.
Thaci said that clashes were continuing between the Serbian forces and the rebels. He said
the Yugoslav forces had been able to control or maintain road blocks on the major tarmac
roads, but contended that the Serbs had become much weaker and were not able to carry out
new offensives.
While conceding that, "Of course, if we compare, the Yugoslav troops are much better
armed," Thaci maintained that the rebels were benefiting from new recruits and
equipment.
Thaci also echoed the position of another top rebel official, Jakup Krasniqi, that the
guerrilla army would not allow itself to be disarmed, a central tenet of the proposed
peace agreement unveiled by Western and Russian diplomats in Germany last week.
Regarding the 700,000 refugees who had left Kosova and crossed into Albania, Macedonia and
Montenegro, a high official of the U.N. agency responsible for coordinating the relief
efforts in the area said Sunday that his agency was going broke because donor nations had
failed to make contributions.
"We have no cash," said Dennis McNamara, the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees' special representative for the region. The refugee agency and other relief
agencies were caught unprepared when ethnic Albanians began pouring over the borders at
the rate of 20,000 to 40,000 a day in late March and early April.
Since then, McNamara said, his agency has drawn up a Kosova refugee emergency budget of
$143 million through the end of June, predicated on the arrival of some 950,000 refugees.
"But we have received cash contribution of only $78 million," he said. "I
am extremely disappointed in donor countries."
War chronic from Llapusha (KP)
Malishevė, May 10th (Kosovapress) These days in Carralluk of Malisheve have been found 25
carbonized dead bodies.From the burnt bodies is understudy that they are bodies of
children, women and men.The dead bodies are discovered after the massacre in village of
Burim.There have been found also 36 man killed massacred,carbonized and some tens others
in Turjake Balinc Drenoc,Gurmadh and in some other villages of municipality of Malisheve.
After many attacks that our squads,platoons and Battalions of 122 Brigade of OZ of
Pashtriku, have undertaken during the last weak, they`ve caused many losses in military
and human to the enemy forces.Serbian terrorist forces unable to face with KLA units, the
are bombing civil population. For several times, serbian forces are attacking albanian
civil population placed in the mountains of Zatriqi, Turjak and in the mountains of
Damanek.
As result of these barbarious bombardments, 8 albanian civilians have been wounded in the
mountains of Turjaka, whereas 5 other civilians have been killed and 10 other have been
wounded in the mountains of Damanekut. Last night about 21°°o`clock, soldiers of the
I-st Battalion of the 122 Brigade of the OZ of Pashtrikut, have attacked serbian forces in
the village Marali, municipality of Malishevė. In this fierce and sudden attack, serbian
forces have been attacked with projectile-launcher and other weapons .Serbian forces
incurred big losses in military technique and in soldiers. On May 5th in Zatriq, serbian
forces after incurring big losses before few days, the returned in the village with
numerous forces. In the village, these terrorist forces found the 84 old man, Serfer Salih
Berisha from Zatriqi and they`ve massacred him by dividing in two pieces.
In Jezerc the fighting is going on
(KP)
Ferizaj, May 9th (Kosovapress) Starting from yesterday and up to this moment of our
report, fierce combats between KLA forces and Serbian terrorist forces are going on in the
OZ of Nerodime. These serbian bombardments with artillery are executed from serbian
positions in the direction of the villages Jezerc of Ferizaj and Mollapolc of Shtime.
Different calibers of artillery arsenal has been used by serbian forces to attack KLA
positions including here also tanks and projectile-launchers. KLA units are making strong
resistance and they have executed some successful attacks even with hand-grenades because
the confrontations are taking place in very close distance. There serbian soldiers being
killed and wounded whereas from our side, only one freedom soldier is wounded.
Serbian terrorists have bombarded albanian civil
population (KP)
Malishevė, May 9th (Kosovapress) In the past few days, serbian terrorists from their
military base in Lubizhdė, have attacked the civilian displaced population which is
placed now in the mountains of Domaneku. As result of these barbarious serbian attacks,
six people have been killed and ten others are wounded. The killed persons are: Rrahaman
Sefedin Gashi (22), from Sferka, Dritan Asllan Berisha (19), from Turjaka, a girl from
Gllareva, a 16 years boy from Astrazubi, a young girl from Astrazubi and another young man
from Drenoci of Malishevė. Our sources have not yet reached to identified all victims of
these barbarious serbian bombardments.
A possibility to secure the food
Vushtrri, May 9th (Kosovapress) With the help on the special unit of the OZ of Shala, an
electric generator has been secured in order to supply with electric energy one mill the.
This mill is working since before two days and is supplying the numerous needs for bread
of the displaced population placed in the northwestern part of Qiqavica.