Kosova Crisis Center

link to alb-net

E-MAIL US

LOCATE YOUR RELATIVES

LETTERS OF SUPPORT

• Ex-president Berisha suggests Albanian federation
• Dole Predicts Kosova Independence
• U.S. to drop troops in Kosova ``emergency'' exercise
• French arrest four in Kosova mass grave case
• NATO mulled invasion force of 150,000 for Kosova

Ex-president Berisha suggests Albanian federation

TIRANA, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Albanian opposition leader and former President Sali Berisha said on Thursday that Albanians living throughout the Balkans might unite in a federation if authorities continued to treat them as second-class citizens.

``We are not seeking to change borders,'' he told a convention of his Democratic Party in Tirana. But Albanian minorities in Kosova, Macedonia, Montenegro and Greece should not be poorly treated, he said.

``If anti-Albanian racism...is not halted, one cannot exclude the possibility that Albanians will unite...to form a federation of free Albanians in the Balkans as a fundamental condition of survival.''

Berisha, who lost power in 1997 after months of anarchy in Albania which followed the collapse of fraudulent investment schemes, did not elaborate on how such a federation would work.

Some three million Albanians live in Albania proper, about two million in Kosova and several hundred thousand in Macedonia and Montenegro.

Berisha said his party favoured an independent Kosova as the only way to have stability in the region. He also supported the right of Montenegro to hold a referendum on whether to remain part of Yugoslavia alongside Serbia.


Dole Predicts Kosova Independence

.c The Associated Press

By TOM RAUM

WASHINGTON (AP) - Independence for Kosova appears an inevitable outcome of the continuing ethnic strife in the Balkans, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole told a Senate hearing Tuesday.

``I believe independence will be forthcoming. It should be,'' the Kansas Republican, who has served as a special envoy to Kosova, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

However, Dole cautioned that Kosova's Albanians, in particular the Kosova Liberation Army, could lose the support of the international community, as well as that of Congress, if they don't follow Democratic principles.

Dole, the 1996 GOP presidential nominee, criticized both the Republican Bush administration and the Democratic Clinton administration for not being firmer in dealing with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Much bloodshed could have been avoided, he said. ``We could and should have acted against Milosevic much earlier,'' Dole said.

``Early intervention is far less costly and often just as effective as belated intervention. ... Half measures yield half results,'' he said.

He cited a ``litany of missed opportunities.''

Dole served as a go-between with Kosova Albanians for the Clinton administration this year in an effort to get Kosova support for a peace plan.

More recently, he traveled to the region in July in his capacity as chairman of the International Commission on Missing Persons.

While Milosevic's Serb military and police did great damage to Albanian homes and businesses, ``his forces did remarkably little damage to Kosova's infrastructure and natural resources.''

He said multibillion-dollar reconstruction projects many had envisioned may not be necessary.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on European affairs, criticized Clinton administration policy as ``based on empty threats'' and raised the prospect of ``an endless international presence on the ground.


U.S. to drop troops in Kosova ``emergency'' exercise

MONS, Belgium, Sept 30 (Reuters) - U.S. Army troops will parachute into parts of Kosova on Friday in an exercise designed to demonstrate that combat forces can get there quickly if the need arises.

In addition to practising for an emergency, the operation may be intended as a warning to Belgrade against any provocation in Kosova, where NATO has deployed some 50,000 KFOR peacekeeping troops.

The exercise involves 150 paratroopers from the Southern European Task Force in Vicenza, Italy, and seven C-130 Hercules transport planes from the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany.

``This peacetime training operation is intended to exercise the ability of a combat force to rapidly deploy to a contingency area should the need arise,'' a news release from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Power Europe (SHAPE) said on Thursday.

The troops will parachute into ``designated drop zones in Kosova where they will conduct small unit tactical training,'' it said, without specifying where the troops were being sent.

Alliance military commanders have expressed concern over reports that Serb army, police or paramilitary forces have infiltrated the province or remained there under cover after the June 20 deadline for quitting the territory.

The government in Belgrade has repeatedly criticised NATO and the United Nations for their conduct in Kosova, complaining that they are not protecting Serbs from ethnic Albanians.

Belgrade recently played down a warning from a senior Serb general that the army could return to Kosova by force to protect Serbian interests.

A United Nations resolution on Kosova gives Serbia the right to return a small number of officials to liaise with NATO and the United Nations, mark and clear minefields, protect Serbian sites and man key border crossings.

NATO has said it is too early to think about allowing uniformed Serbian personnel back into Kosova and would react quickly if they were to appear without warning in any bid to test KFOR.

Command of the Kosova peacekeeping force is due to handed over next week to a German general, Kalus Reinhardt, who replaces Britain's Lieutenant General Sir Mike Jackson.


French arrest four in Kosova mass grave case

Prishtina, Sept 28 (Reuters) - French forces have arrested four men suspected of involvement in the abduction of ethnic Albanians whose bodies were later found in a mass grave, peacekeepers said on Tuesday.

The KFOR peacekeeping force said seven of the 28 bodies in the grave had so far been identified as being from a group of 23 men from the same street in the city of Mitrovica.

The men were reported missing after a raid by alleged Serb paramilitaries on Popovic Street in April.

``Men were separated from women and children, and 23 were abducted and maybe killed on the same day in Mitrovica but later buried out of town,'' said Colonel Claude Vicaire, the head of the French gendarmerie unit which investigated the case.

Vicaire declined to reveal the ethnic identity of those arrested but French sources said they were Serbs.

The gendarmes' investigation led to the discovery of the mass grave near the village of Vidomiric, north of Mitrovica.

``A team of two investigators flew to a European country where a witness drew a plan of where the bodies were. When they came back it was localised and uncovered,'' Vicaire told a news conference, declining to give more exact details.

He said items belonging to some of the missing men had been found in the apartments of those arrested.

A French forensic team working under the auspices of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has exhumed the 28 bodies from the grave site in the past few days.

Kelly Moore, a spokeswoman for the tribunal, said the Hague- based court had not so far sought jurisdiction in the case.

``This is an investigation which was initiated and carried out by the gendarmerie,'' she told Reuters.

``As of right now, the tribunal has not sought deferral of the case. But we are very interested in this case and the gendarmerie has been cooperating with us about it,'' she said.


NATO mulled invasion force of 150,000 for Kosova

ROME, Sept 30 (Reuters) - NATO considered sending 150,000 ground troops into Kosova if air raids failed to end the conflict, NATO's next Secretary-General Lord George Robertson said in an interview on Thursday.

Robertson, asked by Rome daily La Repubblica if NATO had planned an invasion of Kosova at the height of the conflict, said: ``We had prepared that option.''

``At the start, we thought air strikes would be sufficient and in the end we were proved right,'' he said.

``But when the weeks went by and nothing was changing, we considered the idea of an operation which would have involved 150,000 soldiers.''

Robertson's comments appeared to be the first time a senior NATO official stated publicly that a ground operation was on the drawing board and put a figure on the number of soldiers the alliance was considering sending into Kosova.

At the end of an 11-week bombing campaign in June, some 50,000 peacekeeping troops were sent into Kosova to ensure the safe return of around one million ethnic Albanians expelled from the province by Serb forces.

Robertson, British defence minister during NATO's raids against Yugoslavia, said in the interview he did not see the future role of the 19-member defence alliance as that of global policeman.

``NATO will confine its actions to the area defined by the (North Atlantic) Treaty,'' he said. ``That's already a big enough problem.''

Robertson is due to take over from Spain's Javier Solana as NATO secretary-general next month.