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Wednesday, Feb. 17, 1999, 5:00 PM.
KLA only needs time, training -- Western observers
PRISTINA, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Kosova are not yet an effective
army but need only time and training to make life hard for Serbian security forces, a
Western counter-insurgency specialist said on Wednesday.
``I rate the KLA (Kosova Liberation Army) about the way they rate themselves, which is
that they have no tactical knowledge whatsoever,'' said an international monitor with vast
experience of guerrilla forces around the globe.
``They bounce around like they have seen in films but in a proper military confrontation
with the Serbs they must lose because they have no sense of how to use ground.''
``Having said that, the KLA has money and weapons and high morale. It's just a matter of a
bit of time and training.''
The monitor, who asked not to be named, is a retired senior officer in a European army now
serving with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's 1,200-strong Kosova
Verification Mission.
The KLA's military capability and potential bears directly on peace talks on Kosova under
way in Rambouillet, outside Paris, between Serbian and ethnic Albanian delegations.
The six-nation Contact Group sponsoring the talks insists that neither side could hope to
prevail in a military conflict.
But Yugoslav army and Serbian special police units reckon they could eradicate the
lightly-armed KLA if Western diplomats and human rights officials would quit harassing
them about collateral civilian casualties, which they say are inevitable.
An estimated 2,000 people, among them women and children, were killed in the past 11
months of the insurgency, which during the peak of fighting last summer forced an
estimated 250,000 people from their homes.
The fledgling KLA, which has been fighting for independence for only one year, thinks it
can now hold its own against government forces and bleed them dry in the Serbian province,
where 90 percent of the people are ethnic Albanian.
Both sides have indicated they would prefer to take their chances on the battlefield
rather than agree a peace deal that leaves them disadvantaged in Kosova.
With the Contact Group offering a compromise of autonomy for Kosova, to be secured by the
deployment of up to 30,000 NATO troops, both parties to the talks are nervous that their
battlefield ambitions are about to be foreclosed.
Each seems to be manoeuvring to ensure that the other is held responsible for a breakdown
in the talks, if one occurs.
The KVM monitor who spoke to Reuters said the KLA has more men and weapons than it can
properly utilise without proper training. He illustrated this by citing their use of a new
sniper rifle that can accurately fire an armour-piercing bullet over a distance of one
mile (1.6 km).
``I see lots of these Barrett 50-calibre sniper rifles in the hands of the KLA but they
are using them to cover a piece of ground that's only 50 metres (yards) wide,'' he said.
``That's a complete waste of a sophisticated weapon. They can do a lot better with a bit
of basic training.''
Last year the KLA smuggled most of its arms and ammunition into Kosova across the border
from neighbouring Albania over routes that are now mined and regularly patrolled by
Yugoslav army border troops.
In response, the KLA says it is now getting arms and ammunition on the black market inside
Yugoslavia. A top KLA zone commander said on Tuesday that 80 percent of his troops'
weapons had been captured or purchased from Serbian forces.
Bodies of Two Unidentified Civilians Found in Rahovec
PRISHTINA, Feb 17 (KIC) - The Serb police brought today (Wednesday) the bodies of two
unidentified persons in the town morgue of Prizren, local sources said.
Witnesses told the chapter of the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in
Rahovec [Orahovac] that the two bodies were found at a location called "Te
Rrasat", outside the town of Rahovec.
Their identity has not been learned yet.
They were both males and in civilian cloths, sources said, adding that they were killed
with firearms.
Serb Police Opens Fire Towards Civilian's Car in Prizren
PRISHTINA, Feb 17 (KIC) - At around 21:00 on Tuesday evening the Serb police opened fire
in the direction of a car with civilians on board, in the "Mazllum Kėpuska"
neighborhood in Prizren.
The local LDK chapter in Prizren said the police sealed off shortly the whole are. Heavy
Serb police forces were seen roaming the area until today (Wednesday) morning.
The OSCE spokesman for the KVM regional center in Prizren, Simon Gerry, said the police
arrested last evening three persons who apparanty were in the car shot at by the police.
They are being still held in custody, he was quoted as saying, failing to tell anything
about his identity or the reason they are being held.
Serb Force Resume Shelling LLapashtica Village Wednesday
PRISHTINA, 17 Feb (KIC) - At around 10:00 in the morning today (Wednesday), Serb forces
started pounding with mortar fire the village of Llapshtica, the local LDK chapter in
Podujeva said.
Sounds of heavy detonation could be heard in the town of Podujeva, the source said.
The village was fired onto by the Serb forces on two occasions on Tuesday.
Ambassador William Walker, head of the OSCE Kosova Verification Mission paid a visit to
the area on Tuesday where he met with the KLA commander of the LLapi operative zone.
During the course of afternoon and evening hours on Tuesday, heavy skirmishes were fought
between the Serb forces and KLA fighters near the village of Godishnjak.
Several Albanians were arrested by the Serbian police in Podujeva, sources said.
Gani Selmani, resident of Repa village and Sahit Tahiri (20), Gazmend Tahiri (22) Avni
Tahiri (23), all residents of Zhiti village were released yesterday after having been held
for two days in Serb police custody. They were reportedly tortured severely.
Rufi Osmani released from prison, and (temporarily) out of
politics
Prishtina, 16 February (ARTA) 2230CET --
After president Gligorov refused to decree the Amnesty Law, and the Macedonian parliament
adopted it for the second time, it became clear that it was a matter of hours when the
former mayors and chairmen of municipality councils Rufi Osmani, Alajdin Demiri, Refik
Dauti and Vebi Bexheti would be released from prison. This eventually happened. The day
the law was adopted, they left the "Idrizovo" prison and the Tetova municipality
prison.
The new coalition in power thus fulfilled one of the promises it had given that it would
solve the case of political prisoners in spite of objections from a part of opposition and
a part of media. It was seen from the debates in the Parliament, during the readoption of
the law, that the whole thing of keeping the national flags on the masts at the
municipality buildings and the police intervention was a classical political action. The
Minister of Justice Vlado Kambovski literally silenced the former Prime Minister Branko
Crvenkovski asking him to show the court decision or the decision of the government where
the police had the duty to remove the flags the way they did. He read the decision of the
Constitutional Court which said that decisions of Tetova and Gostivar municipalities about
putting the national flags at the municipality buildings were revoked and that was all. It
became clear that the then Prime Minister, and the Minister of Internal Affairs Tomislav
Cokrevski interpreted this based on the removal of the legal basis for putting the flags
and on the fact that by not removing the flags by the municipality officials this meant
that the decision of Constitutional Court is not respected. Without any decision from a
court or the government they ordered the police intervention in Tetova and Gostivar July
7, 1997. There were three human casualties in Gostivar and many others were beaten up and
maltreated. Farcical trials of local municipality leaders were organized after these
events which are examples of political trials.
The actions in Macedonia were undertaken to devaluate the denar
After such an outcome of the case, a question is raised: was there, according to present
Justice Minister, no valid court or a Government decision for the police intervention in
Tetova and Gostivar, or is this at least a surpass of authorities of Prime Minister and
the Justice Minister, instead of obeying state duties as the then government explained the
action? Naturally, it was clear that the government decided to make the move to divert the
attention of the public from the decision to devaluate the denar the same today. Now, when
the government coalition of the Social Democratic Alliance (SDSM) is not in power, it is
clear from this time distance that one of the most efficient levies in the internal and
external plan was to hold the tension between nationalities at an explosive level. The
whole story regarding the flags was worse with the casualties and the people who were
beaten up and maltreated in their houses and ended up in prison. The Amnesty Law brought
freedom to the political prisoners but it did not clarify things as they were supposed to.
The least the Parliament can do is to form a new investigating commission which would
investigate into the Gostivar case and give a full satisfaction to the population who were
maltreated, and normally to locate the responsibility of those ordering the intervention
and those taking part in it. It is absurd that the brutality of the action, which is not
hidden - the local TV channels showed the scenes of people being beaten up - not to
initiate at least a disciplinary procedure against some policemen. The only satisfactorily
option for the four local officials is a revision of the case. In case this is not
approved, justice must be sought at the European court in Strasbourg.
Gostivar was elimination of political opponents
This must be the case, first of all, with Rufi Osmani because everything that happened
after the events of Gostivar is clearly an elimination of a political opponent. Although
there was no Constitutional Court decision, he was charged with calling on the people to
physically resist the removal of the flag. It is also a fact that he was kept at gunpoint
at his office by special police forces during the time of the incident in the Gostivar
streets. Ironically, during the days of the readoption of the law, Macedonian president,
with tears in his face, called on the population of Macedonia to make their influence
"one or the other way" on the Macedonian government to revoke decision for
establishing diplomatic relations with People's Republic of China (Taiwan). His calling is
of equal intensity with the words of Rufi Osmani which brought him 13 years and 8 months
in prison. After their release from prison, Rufi Osmani said Arben Xhaferi and Albanian
Democratic Party (PDSH) are "a part of my painful political past", and he would
dedicate his time to his family, his health and science. He confirmed thus his definitive
parting with his party, first of all with its present leadership. There was much talk
about their disagreements and the climax of all was the refusal of Rufi Osmani to meet the
leader of Albanian Democratic Party (PDSH) at the prison of Idrizova. It's a different
thing whether Osmani is definitely leaving politics. This counts not only for the
speculations that he would form a new party which could easily gain the empty space which
results from a silent disappearance of Democratic Prosperity Party (PPD) and the entering
of Albanian Democratic Party (PDSH) in the government, whereby a space is opened for
someone from aside, who has nothing to do with compromises which are necessary when you
take part in the government, to take a more radical stand regarding the collective rights
of Albanians.
Landmine ban is defied on border
FROM JAMES PETTIFER IN PRIZREN
SERB military engineers in Kosova are laying tens of thousands of internationally outlawed
anti-personnel landmines along key corridors on the Albanian border in a desperate attempt
to stop the flow of weapons and ammunition reaching Kosova Liberation Army units.
The minefields are in the hills near Gorozup, above the River Drina valley, 18 miles west
of here and east of the KLA strongholds in the Tropojė region of Albania, near the border
with Montenegro.
A team of experts from the International Committee of the Red Cross is compiling a report
on the situation to be sent to Western governments. A Red Cross spokesman in Geneva said
yesterday: "Reports coming in from our Kosova delegation concern us a great
deal."
Yugoslavia is one of the largest manufacturers among the 25 countries that still make
mines. The December 1997 Ottawa accord bans their use, and Yugoslavia is among the 123
signatories to the agreement. But in Kosova seven different types of sophisticated
anti-personnel mines have been found by munitions experts attached to the Kosova
Verification Mission run by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
In accordance with an October 1998 agreement on Kosova, Yugoslavia is allowed to maintain
a three-mile no-go zone along its border. Privately, OSCE monitors say that it is far
wider in some places.
In theory Serb Army escorts ensure the safety of all border visits by monitors. In
practice this allows the Serbs to lay huge minefields. "We have to work with them on
that basis," one former British Army officer said.
Serb military sources see mines as a regrettable necessity, given the inaccessible nature
of the boundary between Albania and Montenegro.
For now, the hostilities have been brought to a standstill by the worst winter in ten
years and the hope that the Paris peace negotiations will prove fruitful. But, whatever
the outcome at Rambouillet, the menace of the minefields will remain.
Fierce clashes - Walker visits the KLA Llap Operative Zone
Podujevė, 16 February (ARTA) 2230CET --
Shooting and shelling was witnessed today, as of 1000CET, from the Serb military positions
in Tabet e Llapashticės, aimed against KLA positions and the villages of Llapashticė e
Epėrme, Katunishtė and Gllamnik. The exchange of fire continued through the greater part
of the day, the "KD" correspondent informed.
Fierce attacks began at around 1300CET, from the Serb police and military force positions
in Lupē i Poshtėm, Lluzhan, Sallabajė, taking over the villages of Majac, Lupē i
Poshtėm, Godishnjak and Buricė.
There are reports that Serb police\military forces used heavy weaponry starting from praga
(anti-air vehicles), mine launchers to cannons. There are no reports on eventual damages,
however the people travelling to Prishtina through Lluzhan said that: "thick smoke
could be seen in the village of Godishnjak, most probably coming from burning
houses".
The KLA maintained great resistance, keeping its positions, CDHRF sources in Podujevė
inform.
The police was present in a large number, today also, exercising strict control. They
arrested Beqir and Arsim Mustafa, from Gllamnik, owners of the bus
"Mentori-tours", near the "Besiana" Motel, at around 1000CET. They
were arrested in their working place. They were sent to the police station where they were
subjected to maltreatment.
"They were held at the police station in Podujevė for about 2 hours, during which
time they underwent maltreatment. They were not even told the reason of the arrest",
tells their brother.
With the mediation of the OSCE mission in Podujevė, the residents of the village of Lupē
made an attempt to go back to their homes, but the Serb forces did not allow them, even
though they had previously given them permission.
New military and police forces continued to arrive from Serbia to Kosova, during the
evening hours and throughout the night last night.
According to CDHRF sources in Podujevė, "a large military convoy, composed of 20
tanks, tens of transporters and many other military vehicles and fighting machinery,
arrived from the direction of Serbia last night at around 2100CET. Serb military forces
also arrived from Serbia late last night, going in the direction of Prishtina".
Large military\police presence was witnessed on Tuesday in the road axis
Mėrdar-Podujeva-Prishtina, particularly in certain localities, such as Shtedim, near the
"Besiana" Motel, Lluzhan etc.
In the meantime, increased Serb police forces continue to control the roads of Podujevė
proper. Military planes started flying at around 1500CET today. They flew at a very low
altitude, and mainly in the direction of the war afflicted villages.
Meanwhile, the head of Kosova Verification Mission, William Walker visited Podujevė on
Tuesday. After staying at the mission's office in Podujevė, he along with his staff and
escorted by journalists, went to the village of Llapashticė, at the Llap Operative Zone,
where he met KLA commander for Llap operative zone, Commandant Remi. Concerning the visit,
Walker told journalists that it was a regular one.
Milosevic Rejects Foreign Troops
RAMBOUILLET, France (AP) - Slobodan Milosevic dealt a blow today to prospects for a Kosova
peace deal, rejecting a take-it-or-leave-it proposal that foreign troops enforce any
accord.
The Yugoslav president's defiance increased chances of NATO intervention, with only three
days remaining until a deadline set by world powers for Serbia and ethnic Albanians to
reach an agreement at talks in France.
U.S. envoy Christopher Hill, who met with Milosevic in the Yugoslav capital Tuesday night,
and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright both warned Milosevic that he will suffer
airstrikes if he doesn't accept an agreement by Saturday at noon.
But the Yugoslav leader showed no signs of budging.
In a statement issued in Yugoslavia today by the official Tanjug news agency, Milosevic
said ``our negative stand on the presence of foreign troops is not only the attitude of
the leadership, but also of all citizens of our country.''
A top Western diplomat at the talks in France, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
mediators were ``not surprised'' by Milosevic's defiance.
International mediators, led by the United States, brought Serbs and secessionist ethnic
Albanians to the negotiating table to end a conflict that has cost an estimated 2,000
lives and left hundreds of thousands homeless in Kosova, a province in southern Serbia,
the dominant of the two Yugoslav republics.
The deployment of an international force is the key element of the deal proposed by the
United States and backed by other powers at the conference outside Paris. As many as
30,000 NATO troops, including some 4,000 American soldiers, would be sent to Kosova to
police the agreement.
In an effort to forge a deal, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and his French
counterpart, Hubert Vedrine, today came to the 14th-century chateau where the talks have
been held since Feb. 6.
Albright telephoned Milosevic from Washington on Tuesday and told him the Kosova Albanians
appear ready to sign the agreement and she expects him to do the same, State Department
spokesman James P. Rubin said.
But Milosevic showed no more willingness to do so than the Serbian officials at the talks.
In his statement, Milosevic reiterated the Serb stand that there can be no independence
for Kosova and that all ethnic communities in the province should have the same rights.
Ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of the population.
``Our delegation in Rambouillet is negotiating in good faith,'' declared Milosevic.
His statement, along with other defiant signals sent by his government, seemed to offer
little hope the Serb delegation would back down and sign the peace deal despite the danger
of NATO military action.
Milan Komnenic, Yugoslavia's information minister, told reporters today the Serbs are
willing to make ``major concessions'' to Kosova Albanians, but would never allow foreign
troops on their soil.
``If they bomb Serbia, there will be no more negotiations and a solution for Kosova would
be postponed for several years,'' Komnenic said in front of the Rambouillet chateau.
Tanjug quoted Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic as warning that NATO attacks on
Yugoslavia would mean the end of any negotiations on the province.
Serbian state television, which reflects Milosevic's views, aired defiant statements from
government officials and statements by ordinary Serbs saying the government should not
back down.
The Serbs had counted on Russia to back up their rejection of foreign troops. But a NATO
source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Russians have told the 16-nation
military alliance they are willing to go along with a NATO deployment as part of a
three-year interim peace deal.
The source also said Russians may eventually participate in a peacekeeping operation, as
they do in the NATO-led force in Bosnia.
But a senior Russian Defense Ministry official said NATO's insistence on sending troops
was the ``most crude and simplistic way'' of solving the conflict.
``There are no diplomatic, legal, political or especially economic levers in the
alliance's arsenal, just naked military force,'' said Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov, one of
Russia's most outspoken critics of NATO.
Russian officials still oppose NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia in the event the peace
talks fail.
U.S. Presence in Kosova Would Be Open-Ended Balkans:
Citing troop deployment to Bosnia, Albright says 'artificial deadline doesn't work.'
By NORMAN KEMPSTER, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON--Tacitly acknowledging that the Clinton administration blundered by setting a
deadline that it couldn't keep for getting peacekeeping forces out of Bosnia, Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright said Tuesday that if U.S. troops are sent to Kosova, another
Balkan hot spot, the commitment will be open-ended. "We really learned a lesson, I
think, in Bosnia that setting an artificial deadline doesn't work," Albright said.
Three years after a peace agreement was reached, U.S. troops remain in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
But the administration faces opposition on Capitol Hill to an open-ended commitment of
troops.
A spokesman for newly elected House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said the House may
vote soon on a nonbinding resolution on the wisdom of sending troops to Kosova. Albright
insisted Tuesday that NATO peacekeepers must be part of any agreement to end the ethnic
violence in Kosova, a separatist province of Serbia that is predominantly ethnic Albanian.
She warned that unless Serbia withdraws its opposition to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization deployment, it will face a bombing campaign by the United States and its
allies. Albright's remarks escalated a war of nerves with Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic by spelling out Washington's bottom-line positions for the Kosova peace talks
now in their second week at a chateau near Paris.
Earlier, NATO had threatened a bombing campaign if Serbia blocked an agreement. "No
NATO force is a deal-breaker from our perspective, and if there is no agreement, then the
Serbs need to know that we have said earlier [that] whichever side cratered the talks
would be held responsible, and in the Serb case, that means that it would be followed by
NATO bombing," Albright said in an interview on ABC-TV. Milosevic was defiant
Tuesday. Associated Press reported that in a statement issued after a meeting with U.S.
envoy Christopher Hill in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, Milosevic said that
"our negative stand about the presence of foreign troops is not only the attitude of
the leadership but also of all citizens of our country."
Albright had ordered Hill to go to Belgrade to deliver a warning in person to Milosevic
that Washington will insist on a NATO-led force. U.S. officials said there is no doubt
that Milosevic is calling the shots for Serbian negotiators now engaged in the peace talks
outside Paris even though he has not appeared at Rambouillet, the conference site. Serbian
President Milan Milutinovic, a Milosevic lieutenant and the leader of the Serbian
delegation, has said his government will never accept a foreign military force on its
territory.
The United States has agreed to contribute about 4,000 troops to a 28,000-strong NATO
force to police a Kosova agreement. Albright said the administration will not make the
same mistake in Kosova that it made in 1995, when it set a one-year time limit on a
peacekeeping force in Bosnia. Clinton's one-year deadline was extended for another year in
1996 and eliminated entirely in 1997. Today, there are about 6,700 U.S. troops in Bosnia,
down from a high of 22,500.
Albright said that any withdrawal of the NATO force in Kosova would depend on the
achievement of certain "benchmarks," including local elections and the
establishment of a police force that would be acceptable to both sides. Elaborating on
Albright's comments, State Department spokesman James B. Foley said, "The peace
implementation force would be able to withdraw when the Kosova institutions are up and
running and considered to be self-sustainable and that stability has itself become
self-sustaining." When a questioner suggested that it could take a very long time to
meet that standard, Foley said, "Well, theoretically you're right." But he said
the Contact Group, a six-nation consortium that coordinates Balkan peace efforts, will
insist that the institutions be created in a relatively short time.
"Maybe the benchmarks themselves can contain timelines, but that's different from
there being a specific timeline attached to withdrawal," he said. NATO has said it
will send peacekeepers to the embattled province only if the Serbian government and the
ethnic Albanian rebels agree to a cease-fire and actually stop fighting. The purpose of
the NATO force would be to disarm government and rebel troops and to keep order until an
ethnically neutral police force could be trained and deployed. The United States and its
allies in the Contact Group have ordered the warring factions to complete their work at
Rambouillet by Saturday.
Although differences remain on both sides, the ethnic Albanians have accepted the broad
outlines of the Contact Group's proposal to give them a large measure of self-rule short
of their objective of full independence. The ethnic Albanian side has also endorsed the
NATO peacekeeping force. "We take the deadline for agreement on Saturday very
seriously," State Department spokesman Foley said Tuesday.
NATO Troops To Be In Kosova 'Within Hours' Of Deal
By Ian Geoghegan
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO said Wednesday it would have up to 6,000 peacekeeping troops
ready to move into Kosova within hours of any peace deal.
The international community has set a deadline of noon (1100 GMT) Saturday for Serbian and
ethnic Albanian leaders to reach a peace agreement at talks that are midway through their
second week at Rambouillet in France.
If there is no deal, NATO remains on standby to launch air strikes against Serb targets.
``We really are into the critical end game now,'' a NATO official said.
``We're still hoping for a political agreement by Saturday. We always knew the main
business would be done in the last 48 hours, and international pressure (for a deal) is
enormous.''
``On the other hand...our other option, the use of force, is still on the table. Our
aircraft are still in place,'' said the official, who asked not to be identified. He
added: ``We hope it won't go that way.''
Authorities in Serbia, of which Kosova is a province, have repeatedly said they will not
accept a foreign peacekeeping force, whose deployment would probably have to enshrined in
any eventual peace agreement.
Nevertheless, NATO officials said military chiefs had approved Operation Joint Guardian
late Tuesday and NATO ambassadors, meeting on a daily basis at alliance headquarters in
Brussels, would give it the green light later Wednesday.
``This will give us a detailed plan ready for implementation,'' the NATO official said,
adding that the advance force would be sent to Kosova ``within hours'' of any peace deal
requiring NATO implementation.
That initial force would include the 2,300-strong, primarily French, extraction force in
Macedonia, a U.S. Marine expeditionary unit currently aboard the U.S.S. Nassau in the
Adriatic, and elements of NATO's German-based Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) under
British Lieutenant-General Michael Jackson.
``That's 5,000-6,000 people in total available for immediate deployment,'' the NATO
official said.
Alliance officials said ARRC men and equipment were already moving to the Aegean port of
Thessaloniki in Greece, from where most of the eventual peace force of 28,000 would be
deployed.
Serbia's sister republic, Montenegro, said earlier it would allow NATO forces to use the
Adriatic port of Bar to deploy peacekeeping troops into Kosova, a landlocked region.
NATO allies Britain, Germany, France and Italy were also shipping equipment to Greece for
four mechanized battalions to support the advance force within a few days, officials said.
``We want to limit to a minimum the time between the signatures on an agreement and K-day,
the beginning of NATO-led implementation,'' an alliance official said. ``We want to avoid
a vacuum that could be exploited by either party to undermine or unravel any peace
settlement.''
The advance guard would move swiftly to set up a secure communications route between
Macedonia and Pristina, which has the only airfield in Kosova, NATO officials said.
Responding to Russian Defense Ministry comments that NATO planning to send troops to
Kosova was ``a very crude and simplistic'' way of resolving the conflict, NATO officials
said Russia remained on board to play a peacekeeping role if needed.
``We believe Russia would not object to a peacekeeping force if a deal called for that,''
one said. ``NATO has been encouraged by the constructive solidarity Russia has shown in
exercising pressure on Belgrade.''
Kosova Talks Go On Despite Milosevic Rebuff
By Crispian Balmer
RAMBOUILLET, France (Reuters) - Mediators plowed ahead Wednesday with efforts to craft a
Kosova peace deal despite an apparent rebuff from Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
over a NATO peace force on which the plan hinges.
U.S. envoy Chris Hill and two other mediators resumed work on the text of a 60-page draft
accord between Serbs and ethnic Albanians after Hill returned, reportedly empty-handed,
from a brief visit to Belgrade Tuesday evening.
The official Tanjug news agency said in the Yugoslav capital that Milosevic had stood firm
in his opposition to the deployment of a proposed 30,000 NATO peacekeeping troops in
Kosova to enforce an autonomy agreement if one can be reached.
``About the question of foreign troops, President Milosevic said a negative opinion was
shared not only by (Yugoslav) politicians but by people from the left and right of the
political spectrum,'' Tanjug said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who sent Hill to see Milosevic, had earlier said
the issue of deployment of NATO forces was a ``deal breaker'' as far as Washington was
concerned.
The State Department had said Hill was to give Milosevic a stern warning that he must make
concessions or face the threat of NATO air strikes.
There was no immediate comment on the outcome of Hill's trip from officials in
Rambouillet, the small market town southwest of Paris where the talks aimed at ending
nearly a year of violence in Kosova went into their 11th day Wednesday.
``Chris hasn't characterized it at all,'' Phil Reeker, a spokesman for the mediators,
said. ``He went to take his message. He laid it all out to make sure there could be no
ambiguity in our position.''
Some Serb sources said Milosevic's words might not necessarily mean a final rejection of
the peacekeeping force.
Western diplomats observing the talks have repeatedly said they expect any serious dealing
to be done only in the last day or so before a Saturday mid-day deadline for an agreement
set by the big-power Contact Group.
According to Tanjug, Milosevic ``noted that he expected a successful and lasting agreement
to be reached, in line with the adopted principles of the meeting in Rambouillet.''
In Rambouillet, Reeker said the mediators were revising the text of the draft accord to
take into account written reactions to it from the rival parties, who have so far held no
direct negotiations with each other.
Officials described as ``an important step'' the fact that the Serbian delegates had
finally handed over written responses, as the ethnic Albanians had previously done.
French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and his British counterpart Robin Cook were
expected to travel to Rambouillet Wednesday to pile further political pressure on the two
sides to seal an agreement by the Saturday deadline.
Diplomats said they had now received detailed replies from both delegations to Contact
Group draft documents covering autonomy and economic redevelopment for Kosova, a mainly
ethnic Albanian province of Serbia.
But sensitive sections on police and military arrangements have not yet been formally
presented. Officials have said this part of the plan was essentially non-negotiable,
sparking bitterness in both camps which consider the security aspects to be among the most
important.
``For us Kosova is not an economic problem. It is a political problem and, above all, a
military problem. We must have a say in the way the military aspects are resolved,'' said
a source close to the ethnic Albanians.
The Kosova Liberation Army, which is strongly represented at Rambouillet, has been
battling Serb forces in a bid to gain independence. More than 2,000 people have died and
hundreds of thousands have been left homeless in the fighting.
Security annex unnegotiable?
Rambouillet, 16 February (ARTA) 2230CET --
No essential change seems to have been made in the twelfth day at Rambouillet. Serbs
continue not to cooperate with international mediators, not handing in any objections to
the drafts proposed so far.
The Albanian side shows readiness to cooperate, passing by several of the drafts and
annexes proposed. Annex 4 and annex 4A, which have to do with economy and reconstruction,
as well as humanitarian assistance, were discussed on Tuesday.
According to some claims from the Chateau, the most problematic issue remains the draft on
security issues. "Koha Ditore" sources say that this annex is unnegotiable.
There are even claims that this annex will be issued just before the conference in
Rambouillet ends, namely on Saturday noon.
In other words, this annex will not be given to the negotiating parties, despite requests
by the Albanian side, which is determined to know the fate of the KLA.
The pat position, which the Serb side imposed by not cooperating with the mediators,
resulted with Ambassadors Hill, Petritsch and Mayorsky, travelling to Belgrade to meet
Milosevic. Sources say that this is an effort to evade the negotiation stalemate. NATO, on
the other hand, is now finalizing operation plans.
U.S. Negotiator at Kosova Talks Visits Milosevic
By JANE PERLEZ
PARIS -- The man who is most likely to make or break the Kosova peace talks, President
Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, was visited in Belgrade on Tuesday night by the chief
American negotiator, who brought him an account of the proceedings so far.
Clinton administration officials said the negotiator, Ambassador Christopher Hill, was
also instructed to repeat to Milosevic privately what he has been told publicly by the
West: Agree to a NATO-led ground force in Kosova or NATO planes will bomb Serbia.
With a Saturday deadline for the end of the talks approaching, the pressure was increasing
on Milosevic, who has ruled Kosova with an iron hand in the last 10 years and in the last
year has turned it into the site of another violent Balkan conflict.
Hill, who negotiated with Milosevic at the Dayton talks that ended the war in Bosnia, left
the meeting without comment after nearly four hours with the Yugoslav leader. After Hill's
departure, Milosevic's office issued a statement reiterating his "negative
position" on allowing foreign troops into Kosova.
However, diplomats are expected to continue pressing Milosevic. The Yugoslav leader, a
master at finding cracks in Western expressions of unity and at tactical maneuvers, is
expected to keep the suspense mounting on his final position until the last minute, and
Tuesday's meeting was the first of what some diplomats believe are likely to be several
visits to Milosevic as the countdown to Saturday rolls on.
The State Department said on Tuesday that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had phoned
Milosevic earlier on Tuesday and asked him to see Hill, who is the ambassador to
Macedonia. The other two negotiators at the Kosova talks are Wolfgang Petritsch of
Austria, representing the European Union, and Boris Mayorsky of Russia.
Because Milosevic declined to attend the talks himself, Hill was left with little choice
but to fly from Paris to Belgrade to see him.
The Serbian and ethnic Albanian delegations to the talks remain at Rambouillet, 30 miles
south of Paris, where they have been staying since the talks began at a 14th-century
castle there 10 days ago.
NATO has authorized its secretary general, Javier Solana, to order air strikes against
military targets in Kosova and in Serbia if Milosevic does not accept a settlement that
has at its heart a force of 28,000 NATO-led peacekeepers.
The bitterest pill for Milosevic to swallow is the presence of foreign soldiers in Kosova,
which is a province of Serbia and has been described repeatedly by Milosevic as sovereign
territory.
At the castle in Rambouillet, the ethnic Albanian delegates, whom Albright praised during
a visit there on Sunday for their readiness to sign a peace deal, expressed uneasiness
about some aspects of the plan. They were still waiting, two of them said, to see the most
important documents. These included the plans for how the Serbian security police, who
have been held responsible by the United States for the massacre of ethnic Albanian
civilians, would be dispersed from Kosova and for how peacekeepers would be deployed.
Vertan Surroi, a newspaper publisher and a key delegate for the ethnic Albanian side, said
the Kosova Liberation Army, which has been fighting an insurgency against the Serbs for
the last year, should be allowed to keep some kind of "officer structure." One
of the demands of the peace plan is that the guerrillas give up their weapons.
Speaking by phone from the castle, Surroi said of the demand to demilitarize the
guerrillas: "It is my feeling you cannot go from an existing stage to expect the
whole thing to disband. There should be a midway."
But Surroi said everything depended on Milosevic's agreeing to the 28,000 troops in
Kosova.
Hashim Thaci, political director of the rebel Kosova Liberation Army, said the ethnic
Albanian delegation was prepared to sign an agreement that "guarantees peace and that
the people of Kosova are free to have a democratic state."
Asked whether he was insisting that the ethnic Albanians, who make up more than 90 percent
of the population of Kosova, should be allowed to call a referendum on their future after
three years, Thaci said as much but without using the word "referendum."
"It is the right of the people of Kosova that at the end of the interim period they
be allowed to decide their own fate," he said.
The notion of a referendum has been pushed by the ethnic Albanians -- and is anathema to
the Serbs -- because the Albanians would easily win a referendum on whether Kosova should
become independent. But independence is opposed by the Serbs and by the West.
Under the terms of the agreement that has been put to both sides at Rambouillet, Kosova
would become autonomous with the right to develop its own parliament, police, courts and
other institutions. The future of the autonomy would be decided at the end of three years. |
