KCC News

Kosova Crisis Center

Updated at 9:40 AM on July 19, 1999

KFOR expels six Serbs from Kosovo for spying

PRISTINA, Serbia, Jul 18, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) The NATO-led international Kosovo force (KFOR) last week expelled six Serb members of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's intelligence service from Kosovo, KFOR announced Saturday.

The agents were arrested in a building at Urosevac, south of Kosovo's main city Pristina, on July 5. The area is under British command.

Major Jung Joosten, a KFOR spokesman, said weapons and transmission equipment were seized. He did not give details.

MILOSEVIC AND UNFPA 'TEAM UP' TO TARGET KOSOVARS

"Stealth" Ethnic Cleansing to Continue with Help of UNFPA, and US Tax Dollars???

Population Research Institute (WASHINGTON, DC / KOSOVO) --- Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has invited the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to target the Kosovar population in a "reproductive health" campaign, according to a just-issued report from the Population Research Institute (PRI). Milosevic's goal is to engage in ethnic cleansing by reducing the Kosovars' high birthrate. The report cites an interview with Sterling Scruggs, UNFPA's head of external communication, in which Scruggs admits that the UNFPA was invited into Kosovo by Milosevic to conduct a reproductive health "needs assessment" among the Kosovar population. In addition, Scruggs confirmed, the UNFPA will conduct regular "reproductive health programs" in Kosovo in the coming months, as the persecuted ethnic group returns home . The UNFPA/Milosevic campaign will consist of the indiscriminate distribution of "reproductive health" supplies to the largely Muslim Kosovar population. These supplies include abortifacient "morning after" pills, crude IUDs no longer used in other Western countries, and "manual vacuum aspirators" (MVAs) used for early term abortions. While the UNFPA falsely claims that such MVAs are only used to remove the products of incomplete abortions, the PRI report cites first-hand documentary evidence that Albanian doctors and health care workers are being trained to use MVAs exclusively as abortion devices. The report also cites the testimony of a Kosovar refugee who received an abortion without informed consent. The PRI report, based on interviews with dozens of Kosovar refugee women, confirms that there is virtually no demand among the Kosovar population for "reproductive health" services; and that claims of widespread rape, promiscuity and male oppression were largely fabricated to justify shipments of "reproductive health" supplies to the region. "The Kosovar women are outspoken and strong," the report concludes, "The Kosovars are uninterested in 'reproductive health' supplies." In fact, the Kosovars pride themselves in having one of the highest birthrates in dying Europe. "Milosevic has been forced to withdraw his troops from Kosovo," the report concludes, "but, aided by the UNFPA, a new form of ethnic cleansing will continue under the guise of 'reproductive health'." "Shame on UNFPA for cooperating with a war criminal like Milosevic," said Steven W. Mosher of PRI. "This is nothing less than ethnic cleansing by other means. The Kosovars are proud of their children and their country, and Milosevic and UNFPA want to deprive them of both." At a time when the US Congress is considering restoring $25 million in US taxpayer dollars to the UNFPA, Mosher added that "We should not be violating the rights of Kosovar women or subsidizing the genocidal plans of war criminals." Two

2 US soldiers killed in Kosovo accident

Two American soldiers were killed when their armoured personnel carrier overturned during a peacekeeping patrol in Kosovo, a U.S. army spokesman said today.

Three soldiers were slightly injured in last night's accident, said Major Mark Ballesteros, speaking from U.S. sector headquarters in Gnjilane, southeast Kosovo.

Major Ballesteros said the incident, which occurred near Domorovce, 10 miles northeast of Gnjilane, was under investigation but it had definitely not been caused by hostile action.

The two deaths were the first suffered by U.S. troops in Kosovo since the NATO-led KFOR peace force entered the Yugoslav province in mid-June as Serbian troops withdrew in return for an end to NATO bombardment.

Ballesteros said the soldiers involved in the accident were assigned to Bravo Company of the Ninth Engineering Battalion, part of the First Infantry Division. The battalion is based in Schweinfurt, Germany.

The names of the dead were being withheld pending notification of their families.

Kosovo Invasion Plan Approved Days Before Yugoslav Climbdown

LONDON, Jul 18, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) The dramatic surrender of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic came only three days after Britain and the US finalized plans for a ground invasion of Kosovo, it was reported here Sunday.

The Observer newspaper said that the operation -- code-named B-Minus -- was to have been launched in the first week of September, with Britain contributing the largest contingent, 50,000 of the 170,000 troops, "almost the entire British army."

The invasion was intended to last six weeks, ending before the first snows of winter, according to the weekly, which cited a number of senior British military figures and unidentified NATO sources.

It quoted Britain's military number two, Air Marshal John Day, as saying that he believed Milosevic had become aware that US President Bill Clinton was ready to commit troops when he accepted western peace terms on June 3.

NATO was then "within days" of making a formal decision on ground forces, Air Marshal Day told the paper, expressing confidence that the 19-member alliance would have agreed.

He said that the ordered build-up of NATO forces around Kosovo to 45,000 troops, announced on May 25, was "a subtle way" of both moving to a full invasion force and cutting the time needed between a formal decision and the arrival of troops.

The Director of Joint Operations, Admiral Ian Garnett, said the initial border defenses would have been a "tough nut to crack" but once NATO troops were inside Kosovo with flatter ground, the Serbs "would have stood little chance."

According to the Observer, the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, US General Wesley Clark, fought an intensive battle with figures in the US government, especially Defense Secretary William Cohen, to win approval for the ground force.

Cohen appointed a secret planning team at NATO's headquarters in Mons, Belgium, nicknamed the "Jedi Knights", to prepare options for a land invasion, the newspaper reported.

He finally received Washington's approval on May 31 to send a heavy engineering brigade to build the key supply routes through Albania to the Kosovo border, and prepare the way for a ground invasion, said the Observer, citing NATO sources.

The Jedi Knights relied heavily on British plans for an invasion which the Ministry of Defense in London began drawing up from 12 June 1998. The ministry prepared six different plans of attack, including an option for the full invasion of Serbia itself, according to the paper.

With Downing Street's approval, Clark was given access to details of the private phone conversations between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Clinton to ensure he had a full understanding of their thinking, it added.

The top British military chief, the Chief of Defense Staff General Charles Guthrie, implicitly conceded that Britain had lobbied hard for a ground invasion.

Former Serb police found to be working for OSCE (The Irish Times)

Security guards now with the OSCE were seen in Serb uniform during the NATO bombing, Chris Stephen reports

KOSOVO: Former Serb policemen are working as security guards for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Kosovo, despite the role played by police in the ethnic cleansing of nearly one million Albanians.

An investigation by The Irish Times has found evidence that two OSCE staff members who worked with the mission earlier this year prior to NATO air strikes swapped their OSCE badges for police uniforms, only to resume work with the mission after the end of the bombing.

This is despite the UN resolution which brought the OSCE and other institutions into the province, which demands: "With drawls from Kosovo of all military, police and paramilitary forces according to a rapid timescale."

Serb police were the linchpin in the ethnic cleansing of the spring which saw an estimated 10,000 Albanian civilians slaughtered, thousands of homes put to the torch and more than 900,000 people forced to flee the province.

These officers were hired without being checked by the OSCE, which as well as supervising elections in the battered province is responsible for monitoring human rights and war crimes allegations.

The Irish Times has found witnesses to testify that two officers, Mr Milos Novakovic and Mr Slobodan Dermanovic, were seen in police uniforms during the NATO bombing campaign in Pristina.

Neighbours around Mr Nova Kovic's apartment, in the Bregui Diellit district, said that during his days working for the OSCE in the winter he would come onto the balcony of his fourth floor apartment and fire bursts of machine gun fire into the air.

"He was very fond of his gun. He would go out on the balcony in the night and fire away," said a tenant in the same block.

In his now empty apartment two full magazines from a Kalashnikov machine gun lie with a hand grenade, a metal police badge, a combat jacket and pair of boots.

Witnesses in another district, Dardanija, say Mr Dermanovic spent his war years in police uniform and carrying a Kalashnikov gun around the streets.

This has not stopped the OSCE re-employing him as a driver.

There is no evidence that either of these men participated in atrocities during the fighting, but Albanians say they are intimidated by their presence.

Another former driver was known under the previous mission for breaking the rules and wandering around the building with a pistol jammed into his trouser belt. He is now employed as a security guard.

Last night the OSCE press officer, Ms Urdur Gunnarsdottir, at first said there was no bar on police officers: "Not all MUP [Ministry of Interior] policemen were criminals."

One hour later she said: "We are now going over to a new policy. There are two cases who are being investigated. I cannot elaborate on the names you gave me. Everybody will be checked, also the cleaning ladies. It's pretty difficult for a person in a MUP uniform to pass a test."

She said that from now on, no local staff will work with the OSCE if they were either Serb police or guerrillas with the Kosovo Liberation Army. "If you were a MUP two months ago its bloody difficult to say you were not involved in anti-Albanian behaviour."

The former police officers were kept in work despite complaints by ethnic Albanian staff members.

They said they feel intimidated. "We don't feel safe with these guys around, these are the same police who attacked us," said one staff member.

One Western supervisor told one of his Albanian employees that the need to hire Serbs overrode any vetting procedure: "I told him a lot of things but he said it's an order from Kiri [Mr Kiri Vanhaven, a Finnish senior administrator] to employ Serbs."

This is in contrast to NATO. At its headquarters, two blocks from the OSCE, spokesman Maj Jan Joosten said all local employees were first checked with a NATO intelligence unit, which has compiled a database of suspected police and ethnic Albanian guerrillas, none of whom are hired.

Maj Joosten said NATO did not share this intelligence with the OSCE.

The OSCE was unable to say why it did not perform similar checks, though Albanian staff say the personnel office is under pressure to ensure the mission hires Serbs as well as Albanians.

This has proved difficult because the majority of Serbs have left Kosovo, which has a 90 per cent Albanian majority. Figures this week show that 39 Serbs and other minorities have been hired, compared to 76 ethnic Albanians.

This has led to some comic situations in the front office with Albanian visitors refusing to speak Serb to the guards, and the guards in turn unable to understand their Albanian.

Thursday July 15 2:19 PM ET

Italian Troops Alone Found 748 Bodies In Kosovo So Far

PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - Italian peacekeeping troops have found a total of 748 bodies and 31 mass graves scattered through western Kosovo, their sector commander said Thursday.

Brigadier General Mauro Del Vecchio also said the west-northwest zone of Kosovo suffered the worst destruction at the hands of Serbian security forces before they ended a purge of ethnic Albanians and withdrew from the province in return for a halt to NATO air strikes.

``I think the degree of devastation was so high because the population in our area of operations was very homogeneous. So when the people were driven out, the destruction was systematic and organized,'' he told a news briefing.

About 75 percent of the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian housing in a region with a 457,000 population before the conflict had been destroyed or damaged.

The NATO-dominated KFOR peace force entered the southern province of Serbia in mid-June. Italian, German, French, U.S. and British troops were assigned sectors and have taken the lead in uncovering mass graves and assessing conditions for U.N. authorities charged with rebuilding Kosovo.

Del Vecchio said his Multinational Brigade West, which includes Spanish and Portuguese units, had confirmed 31 of 43 mass grave sites reported by ethnic Albanians. A total of 748 bodies had been found, he said without clarifying whether all had been in mass graves.

Ethnic Albanian locals told Italian officers last week there were 350 bodies on one hill alone above the village of Ljubenic but Del Vecchio said a search had turned up only five so far.

Twenty other bodies were said by locals to have been removed by relatives. ``We haven't found the other 320 but this area is very rough and mountainous. So we are still searching and have neither positive nor negative conclusions.''

U.N. war crimes investigators have fanned throughout Kosovo in the wake of NATO troops. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and several top aides have been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal. NATO believes tens of thousands of civilians may have been killed.

Del Vecchio said the Italian sector was virtually bereft of people when the Italians arrived in mid-June but 62 percent of the original population had since returned despite the widespread destruction.

Throughout Kosovo, around 606,000 of the almost one million ethnic Albanians driven from their homes over the past year had now come back, he said.

Meanwhile, around 75 percent of the estimated 200,000 Serb population, a 10 percent minority in Kosovo, had fled elsewhere in Serbia for fear of reprisals. Many of their vacated homes have been plundered and burned by embittered ethnic Albanians.

A complete artillery battalion is guarding one Serb enclave, Gorazdevac, around the clock, Del Vecchio said.

KFOR's presence has deterred some violence -- hundreds of perpetrators have been detained by peacekeepers. But anarchy persists in wide areas of Kosovo, especially at night, because of delays in recruiting armed international police who will operate under U.N. mandate.

Del Vecchio said there was only intermittent electricity in the Italian-run zone, garbage-collecting and firefighting equipment were out of order, food could be found only in small shops and phones functioned only in one town, Klina.

``In conclusion, I would say there is an urgent need to establish U.N. structures for temporary administration in the towns and villages, and for an international police force and judicial organization,'' he said.

Pristina Residents Get Traditional Pedestrian Space Back

PRISHTINA, Kosova, Jul 17, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Thousands of Pristina's inhabitants on Friday renewed a lost tradition as the main thoroughfare, Mother Teresa Street, was closed to traffic to allow pedestrians a long summer evening stroll.

Cars were banned from 6:00 p.m. until midnight, and couples, families and groups of friends wasted no time occupying the roadway, as popcorn vendors and cafe tables took over parts of the sidewalks.

British paratroopers kept a casually alert eye on things, one saying the trial run would continue through the weekend in another move towards bringing normality back to the Kosovars' lives.

Residents of Kosovo's provincial capital used to have access to the street every evening until the early 1990s, when Belgrade began to crack down on ethnic Albanians, and the gatherings became a cover for political dissent.

Vlora, 16, said the event was "very beautiful because people are happy."

With her friend Shqipe, also 16, and four other girls, she was eating popcorn and sharing the experience ethnic Albanians invariably describe as newly-found freedom.

Kujtim Preniqi, 27, and his girlfriend had come back to Kosovo two weeks ago from Switzerland, where they live.

Preniqi said he had been waiting for this time to come, adding that Kosovo would only find its place within the European framework as a multi-cultural society.

Farther up the street, Kanan Avdulhu, 25, walked slowly, bending down to hold his son Vigilent's hands as he and the toddler shared the street with the others.

Saturday is the boy's first birthday, Avdulhu said, and "he is in freedom."

"I don't remember being able to go out at this hour," he added. "I was like a clown for the Serbs, I was always afraid."

He expressed thanks to all who helped force Serb troops to withdraw from the province, adding: "my son will say thank you."

Avdulhu described constant harassment from police and Serb civilians, but said that now on the street, "nobody will ask, 'what are you doing?'