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Updated at 4:10 PM
on June 21, 1999
Until now 50 civilians were injured
as result of the land mines settled by the Serb forces
Prishtinë, June 21, (Kosovapress) According to the MCF association, 50 Kosovar civilians
were injured as result of the mines during the last 10 days. These civilians fell in mines
in their own houses settled by the Serb forces.
The MCF association published a declaration where they requested from the KFOR forces help
to clean the territory and the civilian houses from the land and booby mines for the
people who are currently returning in their homes.
News Brief From KosovaPress
June 20 (Kosovapress)
Lipjan: In Gadime of Epërme in Lipjan, Shefqet Veliu, aged 30 from this village
was killed by a mine.
Shtime: Since last night three civilians from the village of Gllavica of Shtima were
injured in a mine field and booby traps set by Serb forces. One was a child under 10 years
of age.
Ferizaj: Yesterday afternoon a large number of civilians protested in the streets of
Ferizaj against the deployment of Russian and Greek troops in the area. On a sign written
in Albanian and English civilians demanded: "American forces here, Greek and Russian
forces out!"
Ferizaj: In Ferizaj a large bakery, local radio and the local postal office opened today.
A rudimentary bus service has also begun to areas around Ferizaj, including destinations
such as Kaçanik, Hanin e Elezit, and Shtima.
Shtime: In Shtima there are still no stores which can provide flour to bake bread.
Prishtinë: Locals are returning in droves to their homes from which they were driven by
Serb civilians and troops.
Ferizaj: Investigations to uncover 6 mass graves in the village of Slivovë and
Koshare of Ferizaj are going on.
Suharekë: A dead body of an unidentified person has been found last night near the
village Grejqeç of Suhareka.
Ferizaj: Bread Factory in Ferizaj started to work today.
Ferizaj: Radio-Ferizaj restarted broadcasting in albanian. This local radio-station has
been closed by force since 1990.
Ferizaj: Sources from Operation Zone of Nerodime informed that local administration has
started to work in the municipalities of Ferizaj, Kaçanik, Shtime and Lipjan.
Flora Brovina - in the hospital of the Pozharevci
prison
June 20, (Kosovapress) According to our information, Flora Brovina, who was transferred
from the Lipjani prison in that of Pozharevci, she is in the very bad health condition.
Valbona Salihu from U.S. in her letter directed to our agency quoted the words of the
sister of Flora Brovina " Flora was transformed in the Pozharevc prison in order not
to be helped by the International Forces. She also says that She has informed the
"Writers in Prison" community of the PEN-Club which is holding an assembly in
Varsava and she hopes that they will began an initiative to release the Kosovar activist
from Prishtina Flora Brovina.
From the other sources of Hans-Joachim Lankschit, is known that Serb advocate of Flora
Brovina, Zhivoin Jokanoviq a day before said that he is not allowed anymore to be in the
contact with his client.
12 massacred dead bodies found in the
Drenoc-Rahovec road
Rahovec, June 19, (Kosovapress)
On June 17, in the Drenoc-Rahovec road, near the place called Remnik, 12 massacred dead
bodies were found. 6 of this dead bodies are identified while the 6 others between whom is
a dead body of a woman, could have not been identified yet. According to our sources the
following dead bodies were identified:
Sadri Fazli Krasniqi (aged 24) from Senoci
Fadil Brahim Krasniqi (aged 23) from Senoci
Ukë Sadik Krasniqi (aged 32) from Postoseli
Reshat Zeka (aged 19) from Potoqani i Ulët
Adem Morina (aged 18) from Vajaka dhe
Lavdim Bytyqi (aged 19) from Brestoci.
These dead bodies were buried on June 17, while the other 6 bodies are to be identified.
KFOR finds documents of the Russian
soldiers in Prizren (Radio21)
KFOR forces found in Prizren documents of the Russian soldiers who participated in the
ranks of the Yugoslav army in Kosova. The documents were found in some houses in the
neighbourhood of Bazhdarhane.
Albanian citizens in Prizren protested today against the transfer of their relatives in
Prokupje, in Serbia and asked their release.
290 Albanian civilians from Prizren have been transferred in the prison of Prokupje, in
Serbia.
Testimony of one of the survivors of the Kralan
massacre
One of the survivors of the Kralan massacre in Klina, told Kosova Press news agency that
90 Albanian civilians, almost all males, have been executed and burned with oil, acid and
alcohol, by the Serb forces on April 2, this year.
The survivor, Hysen Krasniqi, 20 years old, told Kosova Press that he was one of the
civilians separated from the long queue of the Albanian civilians coming from Klina and
the villages around.
He had been wounded with four bullets.
Serb paramilitaries separated 500 up to 700 Albanian males. After that, the column with
women and children alone have been forced to move towards Albania, whereas the males were
brutally beaten.
The paramilitaries separated then the old people and the ones in bad health and send them
towards Albania on vehicles.
Some 90 of the males were kept behind. They were forced to undress and kneel and the
paramilitaries maltreated them using different means.
On April 2, the Serb paramilitaries forced the males to stay undressed under the rain,
with their hands up, until 4.00 AM.
At around 9.00 AM, they separated the males in groups of ten persons each and confiscated
everything worthy and all the money they had.
"I was told after to put my hands in my back, look down and move towards a house.
They ordered nine others to do the same. While moving towards this house, I heard
shooting. I understood they were going to execute all of us. They lined us with our faces
in front of the wall and began to shoot from the left side, at the beginning of the row. I
was wounded. I fell down. I heard somebody screaming. I heard some other shootings and I
got three other wounds", the survivor says.
He escaped after the Serb paramilitaries left. He went to the mountain, walking two
kilometres until he found UCK soldiers.
Kosova Finally Liberated - All
Serbian Troops Are Out; 2 British Soldiers Killed from Mines; KLA Signs and Agreement to
Demilitarize; EU Pledges Aid (CNN)
BONN, Germany (CNN) -- World leaders looked toward the future of the Balkans Monday as
Yugoslavia's Kosova province began its adjustment to peace.
In Kosova, an explosion from a land mine or booby trap killed two British soldiers Monday,
causing the first NATO casualties since the peacekeepers moved into the province June 12.
In quick succession on Sunday, Yugoslav troops completed their withdrawal from the
province and NATO declared its bombing campaign officially over. Early Monday, the pro-
independence Kosova Liberation Army signed a demilitarization agreement.
And in Belgrade, Yugoslav media reported that President Slobodan Milosevic's government
had asked the country's parliament to convene in order to lift the state of war in effect
since the March 24 start of NATO airstrikes.
"What we are witnessing is not an end but a new beginning," said British Foreign
Secretary Robin Cook, in Luxembourg for a meeting of European foreign ministers.
"Today at this meeting we are discussing ... how the European Union can fulfill its
lead role for the reconstruction of Kosova."
The same issue was on the table in Bonn, Germany, where EU leaders and U.S. President Bill
Clinton met a day after the close of the Group of Eight summit in Cologne.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose country holds the EU's chairmanship, announced
again his plan to convene a meeting in Sarajevo to discuss Kosova recovery plans. The
meeting, most likely in July, will include not only NATO and its allies, but all the
Balkan nations affected by the Kosova conflict.
"We want to send a clear signal that the region can very much rely on the fact that
we are not just talking about providing assistance, but that we really want to help, and
will help," Schroeder said.
But Schroeder and Clinton were clear that any aid provided to Yugoslavia would only
benefit the country's citizens, and not help Milosevic rebuild Yugoslavia's shattered
economy and infrastructure.
"It is important that if the Serbs want to keep Mr. Milosevic, that at least they not
freeze to death this winter, and that their hospitals not be forced to close,"
Clinton said Monday. "In terms of rebuilding bridges so people can go to work, I
don't buy that. That's part of economic reconstruction and I don't think we should help.
Not a bit, not a penny."
The leaders came to no conclusions about the cost of the Balkans aid, but said the
Sarajevo meeting would begin the process of determining that.
"It will probably cost a lot more than people think it will, but it will be cheaper
than more war," Clinton said.
Demilitarizing the KLA
Outside Prishtina, the Kosova capital, KLA political chief Hashim Thaci signed the
demilitarization agreement early Monday, essentially eliminating the rebels as a fighting
force.
"KLA has been fighting to achieve what we have achieved today," said Thaci.
"KLA hasn't won the war only. Democratic world has won this war."
NATO's KFOR commander, Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson, said the KLA agreed to a cease-fire. The
KLA also promised not to plant mines and not to set up checkpoints or barriers. Jackson
said the rebels also agreed to take off their uniforms and to respect the authority of
peacekeeping forces in Kosova.
Under the agreement, effective immediately, rebels must give up heavy weapons and stop
carrying guns in much of Kosova. Within the next 30 days, they must place in storage
anything larger than a pistol or hunting rifle. Total demilitarization must be completed
within 90 days.
"Today marks a turning point in KFOR's mission," said Jackson. "I emphasize
once again we are here to establish a climate of peace and security for all the people of
Kosova. I hope that all -- and I stress that word all -- who have left in fear will
return."
Thousands of Serbs, fearing reprisals from the KLA and returning Albanian refugees, fled
Kosova as Yugoslav troops pulled out.
Under the terms of the agreement, Thaci pledged the KLA would not seek revenge for the
Yugoslav troops' so-called ethnic cleansing campaign. But U.S. officials said privately
they could not rule out some dissension among more militant KLA factions.
Clinton and other world leaders have called on returning ethnic Albanian refugees to
refrain from retaliating against their Serb neighbors.
The flood of Serbs out of Kosova has spurred alarm on the part of refugee agencies. Judith
Kumin, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the situation in
Serbia was "a very grim one," with high unemployment, low food stocks and
virtually no accommodations.
"It was clear to our field teams that at least 50,000 people had arrived in or
transited through the areas of central Serbia," she said.
Gurkhas killed clearing ammunition
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians were returning to the homes they
abandoned despite pleas from international officials to wait until mines and booby traps
have been removed.
Mines are a very real problem in Kosova -- a land mine or booby trap claimed the lives of
two British soldiers Monday, NATO's first casualties since the peacekeepers entered Kosova
just over a week ago. The soldiers, both Nepalese Gurkhas, among the toughest in the
British army, were killed while clearing ammunition from a school near the village of
Negrovce, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Prishtina. The blast also killed two
civilians and injured another. But the refugees continued to stream back into the
province.
"The picture in the municipality of Kukes, in northern Albania, has changed
dramatically in just a week. Seven days ago there were around 112,000 refugees in
Kukes," said Kumin. "Today there are fewer than 35,000, with less than 5,000
left in camps."
Kumin said most of the refugees hailed from the southwestern part of Kosova, with fewer
people returning to other parts which were badly damaged during the conflict.
Some 135,000 Albanians have come back to Kosova since the war ended, and thousands more
have come out of hiding within the province.
As the refugees returned, the KLA's Thaci voiced concern about a number of prominent
Albanian intellectuals and political activists believed to be prisoners of the Yugoslavs.
"There are many Albanian political prisoners in Serbia ... who have been kidnapped
and we know nothing about their fate," Thaci said.
Agreement to Disband Kosova Army
Includes Pledge to Consider Provisional Army (NY Times)
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
PRISHTINA, Kosova -- The agreement reached early on Monday to disband the Kosova
Liberation Army included, at the insistence of its commanders, a pledge by the NATO allies
to consider letting the rebels form a provisional army for Kosova modeled on the United
States National Guard.
The agreement, signed in the dead of night after a frenetic weekend of military and
political wrangling from a mountainous rebel redoubt in central Kosova to the capitals of
Europe, gave no timetable for creating an army and no details of its size or mission.
But the inclusion of the pledge ensures that even after laying down its arms, the Kosova
Liberation Army can pursue its ambition to remain an organized political and military
force in the Yugoslav province.
While NATO stopped far short of endorsing the idea, promising only to give it "due
consideration" as the future of Kosova is debated in the months ahead, the rebel
group's leaders spoke on Monday as though an army for a free Kosova was, in their minds, a
foregone conclusion.
"We will form an army according to NATO's standards, while at the same time staying
loyal to our national and historical traditions," Gen. Agin Ceku, the group's
commander in the war against Yugoslav forces, said in an interview after the announcement.
What to do with the rebel group - said to include 10,000 hardened fighters and some 30,000
irregulars who joined after being driven from their homes by President Slobodan
Milosevic's crackdown this spring - has proven to be one of NATO's foremost challenges as
its peacekeepers have moved to exert control over Kosova. The consideration of an army -
let alone the creation of one - is sure to infuriate Yugoslavia, which accused NATO of
aiding the rebels' cause throughout the 78 days of bombing. But even some NATO allies,
particularly Germany, opposed including the pledge in the final document. The objections
delayed its approval and signing until the early hours of Monday morning, even though
rebel commanders and NATO officials had reached an agreement late Saturday night, toasting
it with Bushmill's Irish whiskey at General Ceku's wartime home in the mountains of
central Kosova.
Germany relented only after Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright met the German
Foreign Minister, Joshka Fischer, over dinner on Sunday night at the conference of the
major industrial powers in Cologne and explained that the rebel leaders would not agree to
disarm unless the agreement included the provision.
The State Department's spokesman, James P. Rubin, who appeared at a news conference in
Prishtina on Monday with the rebels' political leader, Hashim Thaci, said the paragraph
outlining the notion of an armed force was "an expression of the aspirations of the
Kosova Liberation Army," and, for now, nothing more.
"This is a decision for the future, as part of the process that determines the final
status of Kosova," said Rubin, who took part in the final flurry of negotiations with
rebel leaders on Saturday at their wartime headquarters near the village of Lapusnik.
Before the war with Yugoslavia, the United States and other NATO nations strongly opposed
independence for Kosova, but the abortive peace accord negotiated in Rambouillet, France
on the eve of the bombing, called for an international consideration of the province's
future within three years. Milosevic rejected that deal, but with NATO in control of the
province, calls for a resolution of its status could well come sooner.
Thaci signed the agreement on behalf of all the Kosova Liberation Army's commanders just
after midnight on Monday, only hours after the last Yugoslav soldiers and special police
officers left Kosova on Sunday, formally handing over control of the province to NATO's
growing peacekeeping force.
The NATO commander here, Lieut. Gen. Sir Michael Jackson, said the agreement was a turning
point in the peacekeeping operation, known as KFOR, enhancing the sense of security across
Kosova by ensuring the rebels' return "to civilian life will begin rapidly."
"Very soon, therefore KFOR, will be the only military security presence here,"
General Jackson said at a news conference in Prishtina. "And that is how it should
be."
Under the agreement, the rebels must immediately respect a ceasefire and renounce the use
of force. They must also stop setting up checkpoints, laying mines or conducting any other
"military, security or training related activities," though the agreement did
not deny them the right to self-defense, a sign of the on-going volatility in Kosova.
Within seven days, the rebels and NATO will agree on storage sites for all of their
weapons, except for pistols and non-automatic rifles, like shotguns. They must also clear
any minefields or boobytraps, vacate any fortifications used during the war and assemble
in authorized locations agreed to by NATO's commanders.
Within 30 days, they will no longer be permitted to carry prohibited weapons, including
all automatic rifles, like AK-47's, any weapon 12.7 millimeter or larger, and all
missiles, mines, grenades or other explosives. Once those weapons are stored, they will be
under joint control of the rebels and NATO for 60 days, after which NATO will assume
complete control. NATO's military commanders had initially proposed that the group's
fighters stop wearing their uniforms or other insignia within 30 days, but in another
concession to the group's leaders, they agreed to give them 90 days before they must
officially disband as a uniformed force.
"General Ceku said we had to ease them out of their role," a senior diplomat
involved in the talks said. "We couldn't just throw them out in the cold." That
will ensure that the visible presence of the group, which spread to virtually every city
and village in Kosova as the Serb forces withdrew over the last 11 days, remains through
the summer. Thousands of Serb civilians have fled Kosova, citing the presence of the
fighters, whom they fear as terrorists bent on violent domination.
At his news conference, General Jackson again pledged that NATO would be even-handed in
enforcing the peace, protecting all of the province's civilians, Albanians, Serbs and
Gypsies. " I hope all - and I stress all -- who left in fear will return," he
said.
General Jackson also apologized for the widespread looting and burning of Serb homes on
Sunday - in several instances under the watch of NATO troops - as the last Yugoslav Army
and police units withdrew. Referring in particular to the village of Grace, where several
homes were destroyed by Albanians, he said, "On that occasion we fell short of what I
would have wanted."
General Jackson also took pains to emphasize the document signed on Monday was "an
unilateral undertaking" on the part of the rebels to abide by the conditions laid out
in the United Nations Security Council resolution governing NATO's peacekeeping mission.
He insisted it was not a formal pact with NATO, like the one with Yugoslav generals that
laid out the deadlines for withdrawing their troops, underscoring the sensitivity of
appearing to endorse the creation of a provisional army.
In fact, that part of the agreement proved to be the final obstacle in talks that began on
the military level in Albania on Tuesday and continued straight through Saturday, when Mr.
Thaci become involved as the rebels' "commander in chief." The paragraph dealing
with an army was repeatedly inserted and taken out, until NATO's negotiators realized that
the rebels would not agree without it.
"We had to show them respect," the senior diplomat said. "These are
fighters who have been through a lot." With the concessions, the rebel leaders
clearly were pleased with the agreement, even though, for now, it means handing over their
weapons to NATO. "The K.L.A. has been fighting to achieve what we have achieved
today," Mr. Thaci said.
He added the K.L.A. would be transformed "in both the political and military
aspect." As for the military, he said the group would seek only to "become a
defensive army." The agreement also called for the rebels to be given "special
consideration" for posts with a new civilian police force in Kosova "in view of
the expertise they have developed."
Once the deal was signed, President Clinton and Secretary Albright called Mr. Thaci early
on Monday to express support for the rebels' willingness to abide by NATO's demands and
begin a transition to ordinary civilian life.
"They understood that it was a very difficult decision for the KLA after for so long
pursing their objectives through military means," Mr. Rubin said, "that it was a
difficult act of political courage to transform this organization."
The Horrors of Kosova (NYT
Editorial)
During the NATO bombing of Kosova, when Serbia controlled reporters' access to the region,
journalists could document atrocities only by interviewing the ethnic Albanians who had
fled to refugee camps.
News reports of their accounts usually carried the words "could not be independently
confirmed." They can be now. Journalists have fanned out through Kosova, and the
confirmation is horrifying.
Ethnic Albanians offer reporters crumpled lists of the dead and lead them to burned
mosques, the remains of bodies and fresh graves dug by friends and family to bury the
victims.
There were no battles on these killing fields. The victims were civilians -- largely men
of fighting age, but also young children, women, old people and especially those who ran
out of Deutsche marks for the marauding Serbian paramilitaries or special police. The
British Government now says that at least 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians were killed in
hundreds of massacres.
An American official called this number "conservative in the extreme."
The most urgent task for NATO is to prevent more killings.
A significant number of ethnic Albanians arrested for political activity in Kosova before
the war have been transferred to prisons outside the province, where they are in peril.
Their safe return should be a high priority.
The dimension of the horrors should strengthen the West's resolve to allow only a token
scattering of Serbian security forces into Kosova, and to keep Russian peacekeepers from
acting as Serb surrogates.
It is now impossible to contemplate softening the extended self-rule that the peace deal
promises Kosova, even after NATO leaves.
The scale of brutality will complicate reconstruction.
Thousands of families lost not only all their possessions, but also their breadwinners.
Survivors, especially children, need psychological help. NATO forces will also have to pay
special attention to demilitarizing the Albanian guerrillas quickly and protecting Serbian
civilians who remain, as revenge will continue to be a strong temptation.
Trials of Serbian officials, paramilitary and police commanders, and particularly brutal
troops are crucial -- for the sake of justice and historical accuracy, and also to head
off revenge killings. Preparations for such trials went badly in Bosnia. NATO forces there
did not make helping investigators a priority. Many of the crimes were old. Investigators
were stymied by Serbian and Bosnian Serb authorities, who controlled the important sites.
The war-crimes tribunal should have an easier time in Kosova. NATO has moved quickly to
secure crime sites.
Providing logistical help for investigators and land-mine clearance are also high on the
peacekeepers' list.
The atrocities are fresh and Serbian forces will not be around to get in the way, though
they were able to dig up some graves and destroy some evidence.
Still, the investigation must move as fast as possible to prevent evidence tampering. NATO
should be ready to arrest people when there is convincing evidence they committed serious
atrocities -- rather than let them escape from Kosova -- even before they are formally
indicted. Governments should be generous in lending staff to the tribunal and giving
money. Washington has pledged $9 million, an important start.
It would be useful for the tribunal to encourage independent journalists from Serbia and
Russia to report on the new and powerful evidence of atrocities.
Virtually all Russia's coverage of crimes against Albanian Kosovars came on its
independent NTV, and that was very limited. Serbia's tiny independent media were shut down
and persecuted during the war, and their harassment has only continued.
The West should help these groups resume broadcasting out of neighboring Montenegro.
Even these brave journalists, however, have shown little interest in what their fellow
Serbs were doing to Albanian Kosovars during the war.
What is perhaps most sobering about the scale of the atrocities is that even as their
countrymen were killing many thousands of innocents, the vast majority of Serbs chose not
to notice, or not to care.
Veton Surroi: After Hiding for
Months, Albanian Is Local Hero (NY Times)
By CARLOTTA GALL
PRISTINA, Kosova -- Veton Surroi believes he owes his life to looters in a utility truck.
The prominent publisher, a member of the Albanian delegation to the Kosova peace talks in
France last spring, was one of the few leaders of the Albanian community to remain in
Prishtina throughout the last three months of turmoil and survive.
Once, on one of his rare ventures outside to swap safe houses, Surroi saw three armed men
climb out of a special police car and come toward him.
"I was scared as hell," he recalled in an interview Sunday in the looted offices
of his newspaper, Koha Ditore, Kosova's main Albanian-language daily.
"I was saved by a utility truck that came by," he said. The men in the truck
were looters and drew the interest of the police. "I went quickly down a side street.
It gave me time to get away."
It was just one of several close shaves in the 11 weeks he lay low in Prishtina, Kosova's
capital, evading Serb police squads and paramilitary groups who were herding Albanians out
of the city and hunting down eminent intellectuals.
Surroi was almost certainly a target. After the human rights lawyer Bajram Kelmendi was
killed on March 24 on the first night of violence in Prishtina, Surroi went underground.
He has emerged as something of a hero to local Albanians, one of the few who stuck it out
throughout the NATO bombing and the Serb rampage, refusing to flee to neighboring
Macedonia or Albania. He looks weary, a little thinner, with dark smudges under his eyes
and a closely trimmed beard.
Sitting smoking his trademark pipe, he said the decision to stay was a moral one. "I
thought that as somebody who signed the Paris accords, I had taken some responsibility and
could not go out. I thought 'I am going to suffer the consequences.'
"Also the people here in Koha Ditore, we are kind of a family. I was absolutely not
going to leave while others were here."
Surroi, son of a Yugoslav diplomat, who grew up largely abroad and speaks fluent English
and Spanish, also admitted that he had misread both Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
and NATO.
"I thought it would be shorter. I had miscalculated Milosevic and overestimated NATO.
I thought they would move much faster in their targeting. The first week they looked like
the sisters of mercy. It drove me crazy."
Although Surroi routinely denies any political ambitions, he is often mentioned by
diplomats and foreign observers as a potential political leader of Kosova. His stint
underground in Prishtina is likely to enhance his image among local Albanians.
Asked what he intends to do now, he joked: "First, I am thinking how to get an
espresso machine into the office." His newspaper offices were looted of equipment and
his printing presses across town were destroyed. On top of that, Prishtina still has no
water and there is not a single cafe in town serving coffee, the favorite drink of the
Balkans.
"We need strong democratic institutions. Koha Ditore is a strong institution and has
survived," Surroi said, drawing on his pipe. "It needs to be independent and a
pillar of society through which citizens can be informed."
Surroi clearly intends to rebuild his newspaper, which for the past six weeks has been
published in Macedonia by some editors who did escape. He wants, he said, to help nurture
new political figures and parties.
He is critical of the two men who are currently the main rivals for the political loyalty
of Kosova Albanians -- Hashim Thachi, the young commander from the Kosova Liberation Army,
and Ibrahim Rugova, the writer long seen as the leader of Kosova's Albanians, who has lost
ground over the past year to the KLA and whose image suffered during the war because of
his televised meetings with Milosevic.
The two should help to form a consensus government that would work closely with the U.N.
mission that is to run Kosova for the foreseeable future, Surroi said. Elections should
not be held before next spring or summer, he said.
Despite strong urging from the international community, Thaci and Rugova have not met
since the Kosova peace talks collapsed in March after the Albanian delegation signed an
accord but the Yugoslavs refused, Surroi said.
Rugova, who initially stayed in Prishtina and went to Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, on
at least two occasions to see Milosevic, eventually left in May for Italy. Thaci's
whereabouts are difficult to determine -- he is often in Albania's capital, Tirana, but
also in Kosova with his guerrillas.
Surroi, by contrast, can say with truth that he has suffered along with the people of
Kosova.
Recalling his time in hiding, he said the low point was staying with four families crammed
into one house and realizing that his presence was endangering them. "I was thinking,
'Why should they pay the price, why is my life worth more than that of a 13-year-old
kid?"' Surroi said.
That pushed him to move another time. His only moments outside were the four times he
changed his hiding place. He believes he was not caught because he avoided the telephones,
which he said police were tapping, and which soon went down anyway. He was careful even
about garbage that might give away his presence, he said.
He started out staying with relatives, and ended up in the homes of vague acquaintances.
His 64-year-old mother was with him all the time. "She is a strange kind of
revolutionary," he said, laughing.
Benefit Concert for Kosovar
Children to be held in Munich Olympic Stadium will include Michael Jackson, Luciano
Pavarotti, Slash, Luther Vandross and more! See it Live on the Internet (MCY)
A concert to benefit the children of Kosova will take place
on Sunday, June 27th, 1999 in Munich Olympic Stadium. You can see it live by
connecting to MCY.com's web site at http://www.mcy.com/munichwebcast/
Sponsors of this event are MCY.com, Michael Jackson and
Friends, the International Federation of Red Cross, UNESCO and Nelson Mandela Children's
Fund. |