Kosova Crisis Center
link to alb-net
Two officers and a serbian soldier
captured prisoners (KP)
Skėnderaj, May 13th (Kosovapress) Last tuesday, about 15 o'clock pm., the observer unit
of KLA in the village of Prekaz i Poshtėm, captured two officers and a serbian soldier,
whose name is Dragan Mirosavljeviq-Kesha, about 26 year old. It has been captured too,
their personal armament and the gold ornaments they had looted from the albanians. While,
yesterday, during the early hours of the morning, in this village fierce fighting have
taken place, between the KLA forces and the ēetnik gangs. The fighting have taken place
from the vicinity of 20 meters. The serbian forces had engaged their special units and
some tanks and prags. In the quarters of Lushtaku and Kodra, of these village, many
serbian militars have remained killed, while there have not been losses from the ranks of
KLA.
Fierce fighting in Arllat e Kisharekė (KP)
Komoran, May 13th (Kosovapress) Today, around 9.30 o'clock, the serbian police from
Gllogoci have brought two tractors and tens of albanians and they have positioned them
under the bridge of Komoran, along the road Komoran-Llapushnik. Meanwhile, yesterday in
the afternoon, the serbian forces moved three tanks from the village Kisharekė and they
are placing them in the quarter Ibriqi of Komoran. After 20 o'clock, five trucks and four
cars with serbian forces have come in Kisharekė. Mainly about 21 o'clock, in these
villages fierce fighting have taken place between the KLA soldiers and the forces. Today,
about 10.25 o'clock, fierce fighting have taken place in the quarter of Bytyqve of
Arallat. After some hours of fighting, the serbian forces have been repelled.
The village of Krasmirofc
has been shelled (KP)
Skėnderaj, May 14th (Kosovapress) Yesterday,the military and police serb forces have
burned again the village of Prelloc and shelled the village of Krasmirofc.In mountain of
Domesticity a strong denotation has been heard.After the observation has been finished it
has been known that a rocket three meters long has exploded.Fortunately there are no
injured people although the civil population has been accommodated near this place.
The citizens are in danger from mines
Skenderaj,May 14th (Kosovapress) There have been two injured people because they have felt
in a mine field in the way from Mikushnica to Prelloc.The 114 Brigade 114 „Fehmi
Lladrovci" to care when they move from one village to the other because the serb
forces have minefield many places in Drenicės.
War Report From Shtime (KP)
Shtime,May 14th (Kosovapress) The soldiers of KLA have heroically resisted during the
offensive of serb forces which lasted 25 days.After one serb terrorist intervention
against civil population the special units of KLA have obstructed serb armoured vehicles
for 6 hours to protect the removal civil people.Because the serb forces have shelled
towards the civil population, there have been killed 5 people.We still do not have
information about their identity.Meanwhile there have been executed the following men:
Halil Hysenaj (40), Danush Ramadani (72), Mehmet Shasivari (68), all of them from
Jeserci.There is suspected that have been more disappeared and killed people.
Also in primary school of Shtime 50-60 young albanians are being retained. In the villages
of Budakovė, jezerc, Llanisht, Greiēefc, Papaz, Topillė and Vėrshec all houses have
been already burned.Also there have been burned the tends in which the civil population
has been accommodated.According to someinformation, columns with population of these
region has been deported towards Albania.While the people who remained in the mountain are
in very bad conditions. Last night, after midnight,there have been executed the following
men: Danish Armadas (72) Lumbar, Mermen Sanitaria (73) Jezebel (paralized old men), Sharp
Data (56), Vėrshec of Suhareke(also paralyzed man), Haggish Babyish Ukėzmajli (60)
Jezebel, Hal il hymenal (40) Petroleum. About 50 tractors have been destroyed,after the
police has taken the oil from them.
NATO Bombs Said To Kill 100
Albanians In Kosova (Reuters)
By Philippa Fletcher
BELGRADE (Reuters) - At least 100 ethnic Albanians were killed and dozens were injured
when NATO bombed a village in south-west Kosova during the night, survivors and civil
defense officials said Friday.
The allegation, if true, would mark one of the Western alliance's deadliest blunders so
far in the Yugoslavia crisis.
The Civil Defense Information Center for the Kosova region was quoted by Yugoslavia's
state news agency Tanjug as saying 100 people were killed and some 50 injured. Ethnic
Albanian Fehmi Ahmeta told reporters at the scene seven members of his family were among
100 dead.
NATO said it had conducted its heaviest night of raids on Yugoslavia since launching its
air war on March 24, but could not confirm the bombing of Korisa village.
Ahmeta said Korisa was hit by six missiles at around 11:30 p.m. (2130 GMT) Thursday.
Dismembered bodies were scattered around, several of them badly charred and some still
smoking.
Ahmeta said the village had been packed with some 500 refugees who had been hiding in the
woods for the past 10 days and were spending the night there before returning home.
Serbs Round Albanian Refugees Under Bridges so NATO Can Hit Them
From The New York Times
``There are now reports of Kosovar people being rounded up and herded under bridges so that when NATO aircraft attack these bridges, these people can be displayed as civilian casualties,'' British Defense Minister John Spellar told reporters in London.
Hillary Clinton Visits Albanian Refugees in Macedonia (NY Times)
Hillary Clinton in the refugee camp. Photo by BBC.
Seeing for herself the plight of Kosova Albanians, first lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton said today that America and its allies will not let ``the evil'' perpetrated
against them by Slobodan Milosevic prevent refugees from returning to their homeland.
Hundreds of smiling refugee children crowded the fence at the Stenkovec camp in Macedonia
as the first lady entered the tent city, accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill,
a key figure in failed negotiations with Milosevic.
One 11-year-old boy, Fatos Rexhep, walked up to her and
presented her with a UNICEF cap. Later, the boy told reporters he had been at the camp for
two weeks after Serb police drove his family from Kosova, telling his father they would
kill his children if they did not leave.
The boy said his father died of a heart attack en route to safety in Macedonia.
``I want to send a message to the refugees that we do not intend to let the evil which
Milosevic perpetrated against these people keep them away from their homeland and their
homes,'' Mrs. Clinton said. ``That is a very basic, fundamental commitment that is shared
not only by those in the U.S. who are committed to this effort but our allies as well.''
Albana Pireva, 18, said the trip ``shows she cares and wants to know about the way we
live.''
``We are glad she's coming to visit,'' said Milihate Pronaj, 19. ``We're expecting her to
tell us something new, something for our future.''
Mrs. Clinton told reporters the story of one refugee woman
losing her children in the crowd being pushed onto a train by the Serb forces — the
fate of many of 240,000 Kosovans now in Macedonia.
"Think about those trains,'' she said, comparing the exodus to the films
"Schindler's List'' and "Sophie's Choice,'' in which a mother is forced to
choose between her two children.
"Think about what that means to be driving people from their homes, separating
families, loading them into trains at the end of this violent century that we should have
learned something from,'' she said.
Hundreds of refugees, many of them children, gathered around as she spoke in blistering
heat. She thanked them by clasping her hands above her head.
A combined KLA and US flag at a refugee camp. Photo
by BBC.
The crowd began to chant "NATO'' and "UCHK'' (the Albanian abbreviation
for the Kosova Liberation Army, whose guerrillas are fighting Serb forces).
An old woman came forward smiling and embraced Mrs. Clinton, kissing her on both cheeks.
The huge camp, with some 23,000 refugees, is the main tent city where Kosova Albanians
with relatives in the United States are screened for possible transport to America.
Nearly one-third of the some 780,000 ethnic Albanian refugees who have fled or been
expelled since March by Serbian forces from Kosova, a neighboring province of Yugoslavia's
Serb republic, are in Macedonia. Most are in Albania.
Apaches May See Some Action Soon (NY Times)
``We are ready to go. We are sick and tired of waiting here for a month without doing what we are trained to do,'' said an Apache pilot, prevented from giving his name by U.S. military regulations.
The long delay in deploying U.S. Apache helicopters in
Kosova may be coming to an end after the gunships' Albania-based artillery support units
held their first live-fire exercises today.
The units fired some 100 rounds from 105 mm howitzers at a range 30 miles northeast of
Tirana's Rinas airport.
Family Leaves Ft. Dix to Join their
Sons in Florida (CNN)
FORT DIX, New Jersey (CNN) -- A Kosovar family packed up what little belongings they had
Thursday and became the first refugees to leave Fort Dix in southern New Jersey and go
live with relatives already in America.
The couple, Beqiri Dalipi and his wife Serbie, and their youngest son, Halil, 7, arrived
at the military base less than a week ago with the second wave of refugees from countries
neighboring Kosova.
They and five other families have been identified as having relatives in the United
States, allowing them to leave the camp relatively quickly.
The Dalipis are going to live with the couple's two sons in Pompano Beach, Florida, said
Lavinia Limon, director of the Office of Refugee Settlement for the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
Both sons are college students and have been living in the United States for the past four
years.
The family was expected to arrive Thursday evening in Florida and be reunited with their
sons, Luan, 22, and Driton, 19, said Ed Bligh, of the International Rescue Committee in
New York, which is sponsoring the family and will assist them with resettlement.
'A terrible ordeal'
"My parents have been through a terrible ordeal," Luan said in a statement.
"We look forward to seeing them. We are very, very happy."
He also said the family was requesting privacy during what will be an emotional time for
them.
Luan, a college junior, said his parents were forced at gunpoint from their home in a
suburb of the Kosova capitol of Pristina.
Their restaurant and grocery store were looted, said Nasi Lesku, a Fort Lauderdale
businessman helping the family.
The family lived with friends for three weeks before driving to Macedonia, Luan said. They
were twice turned back by Serbian soldiers at the border, but were finally permitted to
enter and stayed in the Stenkovic refugee camp for several weeks, he said.
Search for sponsors
Close to 1,800 refugees have been relocated at Fort Dix within the past week. Several
hundred more are expected before the week ends.
The government has been working to find sponsors for the refugees, including families,
churches and charities, which are willing to help the people find apartments and jobs,
assist with school enrollment and arrange for them to take English classes.
Most refugees will be assigned a city where they can receive one month's apartment rent.
After the first month, the Department of Health and Human Services will provide medical
assistance and cash grants similar to state welfare payments.
Blair: My pledge to the refugees
(BBC)
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair writes for BBC News Online
It is no exaggeration to say what is happening in Kosova is racial genocide. No
exaggeration to brand the behaviour of Milosevic's forces as evil.
It is something we had hoped we would never experience again in Europe. Thousands
murdered. One hundred thousand men missing. Hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee
their homes and their country, robbed of anything of value at gun-point.
There will be no apologies from Milosevic for this campaign of ethnic cleansing, no
efforts made to avoid civilian casualties.
There will be no apologies simply because the terrible atrocities happening in Kosova are
not accidents but the results of a deliberate policy. They are designed to force the
majority population out of Kosova.
These atrocities cannot be seen, of course, because the Serbs will not allow journalists
or TV crews to report what is happening behind Kosova's closed borders for themselves. But
that does not make the atrocities any less real or terrible or newsworthy.
Never forget the refugees
It is why it is vital we never tire of hearing the refugees' stories. There has been some
powerful reporting of their suffering, not least on the BBC. Fergal Keane and his
colleagues in the region have used all their skills to convey the horror these innocent
people have experienced.
But these exceptional journalists would be the first to accept that they cannot tell the
whole story, that they can only touch the surface. For nothing can prepare you for the
camps and the plight of these people - their fear, the horrors they have lived through as
I found myself when I visited Macedonia last week.
I heard first-hand of women raped, of children watching their fathers dragged away to be
shot. I was told of whole villages, their villages, torched as they were forced to flee.
These refugees are the reason we are engaged in this conflict. We have pledged they will
return. It is a pledge I repeat today.
Nato remains united
There are no half measures to Milosevic's brutality. There can be no half measures about
how we deal with it.
He is determined to wipe a people from the face of his country. Nato is determined to stop
him. And we will. We are united in our determination to right this wrong and reverse the
ethnic cleansing.
The whole of the Nato alliance is clear about our aims. They are not excessive but they
must be met. We want his troops out, the refugees back home, and international military
force allowed in to keep the peace so they can rebuilt their lives in safety. Until then,
the air campaign goes on.
And, as Milosevic knows, the air campaign is working. The last few days have been the most
successful so far. Day by day, night by night, his war machine is being destroyed.
He has suffered huge damage to his air defences. We are destroying his capacity to
re-fuel, re-arm and direct the forces carrying out his vile policies on the ground in
Kosova. And increasingly, Nato is targeting these forces themselves. The equivalent of of
a whole brigade has already been destroyed. As the summer weather settles, these losses
will grow.
We will prevail
I take no pleasure from this campaign. Nor do the other Nato leaders. We tried hard to
avoid this war. We made every effort over months of negotiations to find a peaceful
solution.
But even when Milosevic was talking peace, he was planning war. He used the cover of the
peace talks, entered into sincerely by others, to build up his forces so he could
intensify the ethnic cleansing.
Such conduct is nothing new from him. He has been responsible for starting five wars. The
consequences have been terrible. He must be stopped - and he will be.
We will keep working on the diplomatic track for a solution. But there can be no
compromise on our minimum demands. There will be no fudge, no half-baked deals.
We owe it to the refugees to ensure they can return to their homes in safety. And when
they do, every other would-be dictator in the world will know that the international
community will not stand by and let them kill at will, destabilise a region, destroy a
people. It is a just cause - and we will succeed.
It was also announced on Friday that Mr Blair would be donating the 5,000 DM he received for winning the Charlemagne Prize for European achievement to Kosova refugees charities.
The KLA has appointed an
experienced military planner (BBC)
By BBC Balkans reporter Nigel Margerison
The Kosova Liberation Army has confirmed it has appointed a former Brigadier General in
the Croatian army, Agim Ceku as its new leader.
Mr Ceku is a Kosova Albanian with a wealth of military experience both fighting with and
against the Serbs.
He replaces Sylejman Selimi, a political appointee who had no formal military training and
has been criticised following recent major setbacks for the KLA.
Mr Ceku graduated from the Belgrade military academy and served in the Yugoslav army as an
artillery captain.
In 1991 he defected to the newly-formed Croatian army and was decorated nine times.
He took part in several battles against Serb forces in Bosnia and Croatia and in 1995 was
one of the key planners behind Operation Storm in which the Croats drove the Serbs out of
the Krajina region of eastern Croatia. He left the Croatian army in February this year.
Red Cross go back to Kosova (BBC)
The International Red Cross is going back to Kosova for the first time since the start of
the NATO bombing campaign.
A small team of officials has left Belgrade to drive to the Kosova capital Pristina with
two trucks carrying emergency supplies.
They said their main task would be to find out what was needed in Kosova and to assess the
state of the roads there with a view to bringing in larger convoys.
The team has no military escort, but the BBC correspondent in Geneva says the Red Cross
has had verbal assurances from President Milosovic that it will be protected from attack.
A United Nations fact-finding mission is also going to Kosova next week for its first
direct look at the situation there.
Proud to Be an American: Witness
to Kosovars' Arrival (DefenseLink)
By 1st Lt. Mike Nachshen, USAF Special to the American Forces Press Service
MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. -- I was on the flight line helping escort about 325
reporters when Tower Air 747, call sign Kosova One, touched down May 5 at 4:18 p.m.
As the wide-bodied plane descended with a manifest of more than 400 Kosovar refugees, a
hush fell over the assembled reporters. The only sound was that of the aircraft's wheels
making contact with the tarmac.
What struck me was that I was watching history in the making, and that I was playing a
small (extremely small) part in this momentous event. A few moments later, the first
refugees began departing the plane and boarding buses that would take them to their
temporary home at nearby Fort Dix.
I was less than 100 feet from the refugees, and was able to see their faces as they
stepped off the plane.
The first person I saw walk down the stairs was a little boy, probably 7 or 8 years old.
His face and clothes were dirty, he clutched a ragged teddy bear in his right hand and a
small blue plastic bag in his right -- at that moment in time, that was everything he
owned.
He squinted into the bright light at the hundreds of reporters, VIPs and uniformed people
there and made his way toward the bus. Then a woman, holding the hands of her two small
children, walked off the plane, followed by a man bent with old age who wore a traditional
skullcap on his head.
As the refugees continued to disembark, I tried to put myself in their shoes. I tried to
imagine what it must have been like to be chased out of their homeland at gunpoint, to see
loved ones murdered and raped and homes burnt to the ground, to walk hundreds of miles to
a squalid refugee camp, then board a plane and, finally, arrive in a country where there
would be enough to eat, a bed to sleep in, and a military that protects, not persecutes,
its citizens.
I think I must have got a speck of dust in my eyes, because they started to water and
wouldn't stop. About an hour later, I was in a gym in the Fort Dix Kosovar compound,
informally dubbed "The Village."
As various officials briefed the new arrivals, I found myself looking at our Kosovar
guests. I think they were bewildered, overwhelmed -- and touched -- by all the attention
they were receiving.
I watched small children play. They ran around, wrestled with each other, played tag, and
did everything they could to drive their mothers nuts. What really struck me was that
these kids, despite what they'd been through, played the same way American kids do.
Then, the floor of the gym was swarming with large men wearing black suits and sunglasses,
speaking into hand-held microphones and looking everywhere for bad guys.
Moments later, first lady Hillary Clinton took the mike. She talked for about 10 minutes
-- I don't remember everything she said, because what stands out in my mind happened after
she started to leave. As she headed toward the door, the refugees stood up, and started
chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A."
Everyone was on their feet, from little old ladies in babushka scarves to teen-agers
wearing blue jeans and Miami Dolphin jackets. The gym was shaking from their enthusiastic
clapping and foot-stomping.
I can't tell you how proud I felt at that moment. Even now, days after the event, I can
still hear them chanting and can still see them on their feet, cheering with everything
they had. Words, and the television footage that has dominated the evening news, cannot
capture the outpouring of emotion in that room.
I'm sure they felt relief and gratitude because they were no longer in harm's way, but I
also think they felt something more. I think these people were genuinely ecstatic about
being in America, a country that espouses the values of liberty, equality and justice, a
country with laws that protect people against the kind of hatred the Kosovars escaped.
And a country willing to take a stand, and lead our NATO allies against a brutal dictator
who uses thug-like tactics to accomplish his goals. It's probably safe to say that every
other airman and soldier in the gym was caught up in the pep-rally feel of the moment.
Several GIs were shouting and clapping along with the refugees.
I also think there must have been a lot of dust in the room, because the three soldiers
standing next to me were rubbing their eyes. As I listened to these people who had been
chased out of their homeland fill the gym with their voices, I realized that this was why
I had joined the Air Force -- to serve my country and make the world a better, safer
place.
I have never felt more proud to wear my uniform, and I have never felt so proud to be a
citizen of America -- the greatest country in the world.
[First Lt. Mike Nachshen is deputy chief of public affairs at McGuire Air Force Base,
N.J.]