Military
vehicles rushing towards Podjeva (KIC)
Strict control of the Prishtina-Podjeva highway
PRISHTINA, Dec 19 (KIC) - Today (Saturday), at around 8:30 AM, a large group of tanks,
APCs, rocket launchers, cannons and trucks full of soldiers was spotted rushing towards
Podjeva (Northeastern Kosova) in the Prishtina Podjeva highway.
Many extra checkpoints were set up in the villages of Lluzhan and Besi. An eywitness told
KIC that while the police was checking all the vehicles, harsh violence was being used. He
said that he spoted a policeman hitting a driver of a vehicle in front of his wife and
kids.
Is the planned crackdown starting in the region of Llap (Northeastern Kosova) as well?
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Scores of Albanians Arrested in Kapeshnica and
Zatra Neighbourhoods in Peja Thursday
PRISHTINA, Dec 18 (KIC) - The LDK Information Commission in Peja publicized today morning
the names of 33 Albanians arrested ysterday (Thursday) by Serb military and police forces
in the Kapeshnica and Zatra neighbourhods of the town of Peja.
Serb forces cracked down brutally on Albanian households, having first sealed off the
neighbourhoods and put a heavy presence of military and police equipment in place.
The following Albanians were reported arrested Thursday: Jusuf, Mustafë, Isa, Jusuf and
Jahja Lataj; Beqir and Enis Hoxha; Haxhi, Shefqet, Besim and Bekim Ukella; Driton
Kelmendi; Arben and Metë Qaka; Nexhdet Ibishi; Bajram, Alkin and Lulzim Zeli; Ali and
Agim Hoti; Arian Belegu; Tomor Zeka; Hivzi Kelmendi; Ram Hoti; Xhevdet Ukella; Lulzim
Brala; Agron Kollçaku; Hysen Hyseni; Hydaverd Kelmendi and Minush Hoxha, all of them from
Peja, and Binak Ademaj, resident of Loxha village, and Sami Gashi, resident of Baran.
Other Albanians are reported arrested, too, but their names have not yet been learned by
LDK sources.
Around 20:00 the members of the Lataj family were released, as well as Nexhdet Ibishi,
Arian Belegu, Alkin, Lulzim and Bajram Zeli, Sami Gashi, Lulzim Brala, Ali and Agim Hoti,
and Hysen Hyseni, sources said. The Albanians were abused physically, with some sustaining
body injuries, they added.
Two young Albanians, Ergyl and Kujtim Kabashi, and their father, Shyqri, were gravely
abused by police on the street before being thrown onto the Bistrica River, LDK sources
said.
Serbian police forces and armed Serbs in plain clothes have been roaming the streets of
Peja. A lot of damage has been caused to Albanian-owned businesses, at a time Albanians
have by and large chosen to stay indoors in this highly volatile situation caused by Serb
action.
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Second Report from Peja: Police Raids and Arrests
of Albanians Continue in Kapeshnica and Zatra
At least 100 Albanian households have been raided so far, LDK sources said
PRISHTINA, Dec 18 (KIC) - Serbian forces continued today (Friday) their campaign of raids
on Albanian houses in the Kapeshnica and Zatra neighbourhoods. At least 100 Albanian
households have been raided so far, LDK sources said, adding that more Albanians were
arrested today.
Serbian forces patrolling the town have been engaged today in the ill-treatment and the
robbing of Albanian passers-by.
The Serb police raiding Albanian houses routinely beat up family members, smash up house
furniture, and loot household valuables.
The LDK chapter in Peja reported that of 45 Albanian arrested in Kapeshnica in the past
couple of days only 11 have been released. Those freed spoke of the brutal police
treatment, sometimes resulting in body injuries, while in Serb custody. Nexhdet Ibishi
(29) was amongst those with grave body injuries.
The LDK said Sadik Berisha and his son, who had found shelter in Kapeshnica having been
driven from their homes, have ben arrested, as well as Afrim Muriqi from Loxha.
Amongst those arrested is also Riza Uka (20), a mentally-handicapped person, a student
with the "Ramiz Sadiku" Special School in Peja.
The LDK chapter in Peja said the person whose photo has been printed by Serb media,
referring to him as one of the perpetrators of the killing of six Serbs on Monday, is
Behar Muji (18), also a mentally ill person. The LDK said he has been for more than a year
abroad for treatment.
The Albanian political organizations in Peja have called on international factors to
intervene so that the Serbian terror and violence is brought to an end, as well as the
ordeal the Albanian population is going through.
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Serbian Troops Crack Down on Deçan Villages
PRISHTINA, Dec 18 (KIC) - At 5:30 a.m. today (Friday), heavy Serbian police forces, in
mechanized units and tanks, headed to the Deçan area, the LDK chapter in Peja said,
adding that the convoy left the Peja military barracks.
During yesterday's attack against Deçan villages, Serbian police forces arrested 25
Albanians, the LDK chapter in Gjakova reported.
Four Albanians are known by name so far: Brahë A. Beqiraj from Baballoq, Musa L. Kasumaj,
Hazir L. Kasumaj, and a youth surnamed Vishaj from Gramaçel village.
The arrested in the Deçan villages are reported to be held in custody in Gjakova.
Meanwhile, Serb police took the bodies of two still unidentified Albanians, killed
yesterday in Gllogjan, to the town morgue in Gjakova.
The Gjakova hospital is being held sealed off by Serb forces, local Albanian sources said.
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Serb-installed Official in Fushë Kosova Found
Dead, Albanians Ill-treated
PRISHTINA, Dec 18 (KIC) - The Serb-installed deputy municipal leader in Fushë Kosova
('Kosovo Polje'), Zvonko Bojanic, was found killed today morning at a location called
'Kroi i Mbretit' on the Prishtina-Peja highway.
Radio Belgrade reported the Serb official was abducted Thursday evening in his house at
Sllatinë village by five unknown persons.
Meanwhile, LDK sources said a number of Albanian civilians were ill-treated today morning
by Serb forces backed up by an armoured vehicle in the entrance to the village of
Sllatinë e Madhe.
Among those beaten up unconscious were Shefki Osmani and Agim Berisha from Sllatina and
Besim Shala from Henc village, the LDK said, adding that other Albanians were reported
ill-treated, too.
Serb forces were reported staying in the entrance to Sllatina later in the day, and a
volatile situation prevailing in the municipality of Fushë Kosova at large.
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Fresh Serbian Forces Arrive in
Kosova on a Daily Basis
"Serbian military and police presence appears to be increasing on the roads and
in the cities" in Kosova, State Department Spokesman James Rubin said Wednesday in
Washington
PRISHTINA, Dec 18 (KIC) - Serbia sent fresh forces into Kosova today via the north-eastern
town of Podujeva.
LDK sources in Podujeva said around 10 a.m. seven lorryloads of Serb forces passed through
Podujeva in the direction of Prishtina.
Serb police forces left Mitrovica for Skenderaj today.
LDK sources said busloads of Serb policemen arrived in the town of Ferizaj in the past
couple of days.
President Rugova's advisor, Xhemail Mustafa, warned last Friday that Serbia was bringing
in fresh troops in Kosova, in clear breach of international resolutions on Kosova.
"Serbian military and police presence appears to be increasing on the roads and in
the cities" in Kosova, State Department Spokesman James Rubin said Wednesday in
Washington. "US monitors have also seen a pattern of combined military and police
checkpoints and have raised the matter with the [Serb] police authorities", he added.
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World Agencies
US official blasts Milosevic
for rights violations (AP)
By Deborah Charles
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Dec 18 - A senior U.S. official accused Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic on Friday of human rights violations and said unless the situation changed there
would be no progess for the troubled country.
Harold Koh, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told
reporters he was distressed by the human rights situation in the southern Serbian province
of Kosovo.
"I have heard accounts of brutal kilings on all sides," Koh said, expressing
regret for this week's slaying of six Serb teenagers in a cafe in Pec and the murder of a
local official who worked in the nearby town of Kosovo Polje.
"The United States deplores violence on all sides and urges all parties to the
conflict to avert a new cycle of retaliatory violence," he said.
A fragile ceasefire in the restive province, which has been embroiled in fighting for most
of this year, has been tested several times this week in shootings and clashes that killed
at least 46 people -- both ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
Koh also condemned a Serbian government crackdown on ethnic-Albanian language media in
Kosovo this week which followed the Serb killings.
The oldest newspaper in the province did not publish on Friday after the Serbian
government warned it and other newspapers to stop promoting intolerance.
"These acts constitute an outrageous attack on free speech, and violate human rights
standards enshrined in the Serbian Constitution, the Constitution of the Federal Republic
and all applicable international law," Koh said.
"The United States condemns these acts as the latest round in the Milosevic regime's
self destructive attacks on its own civil society," he said.
Koh also said he saw other violations of human rights in the province, in hospitals,
detention centres and in actions against ordinary citizens.
"I saw a tired and demoralised population and a human rights catastrophe that is
still unfolding," he said.
"There is a strong pattern of contempt by the Milosevic regime for human rights and
international law."
Koh urged Milosevic to improve the situation in the country.
"As long as a free press is silenced, as long as university professors are purged in
favour of politically-reliable successors, as long as humanitarian violations
persist...there can be no progress on the larger issues that confront all Serbians,"
he said.
"Without respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, Serbia and the
Federal Republic can only continue as pariahs throughout Europe."
U.S. officials urged Milosevic to withdraw many of his forces from Kosovo in October under
threat of NATO air strikes. Nearly 1,900 people have been killed and 250,000 left homeless
in fighting between Yugoslav security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas this year.
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Kosovo truce appears unraveling, verifiers
powerless to stop it (AP)
8.18 a.m. ET (1319 GMT) December 18, 1998
By Dave Carpenter, Associated Press
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) — The body of a prominent Serbian official was found today
just hours after he was kidnapped in Kosovo, apparently by ethnic Albanian guerrillas,
Serb sources reported.
The body of Zvonko Bojanic, the district mayor of Kosovo Polje, a town just three miles
west of Pristina, was found by the main east-west road in the disputed Serbian province,
the Serb-run Media Center said.
The circumstances of Bojanic's death remained unclear, and there was no independent
confirmation of the report, which came just hours after Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebels
vowed revenge for the killing of 36 guerrillas in a border clash this weekend.
The report did not say who found the mayor's body but cited relatives who witnessed five
masked rebels in guerrilla uniforms abduct Bojanic last night from his home.
U.S.-led diplomatic efforts have failed to narrow the gap between ethnic Albanians —
who seek independence for Kosovo — and the Serbs who refuse giving them more than
autonomy within Serbia, the main republic of Yugoslavia. The simmering tensions have
stoked fears of a major outburst of violence that could spill beyond the borders of Kosovo
and involve ethnic Albanians elsewhere.
On Thursday, Serb police cracked down on a suspected rebel-controlled village, reportedly
killing two guerrillas and capturing 34 in a day-long battle.
Serb authorities said they raided the village of Glodjane in search of gunmen who
slaughtered six young Serbs, including four teen-agers, on Monday in a bar in Pec, 45
miles west of Pristina, the provincial capital.
Police also sealed off a northwestern district of Pec as part of the sweep. An armored
personnel carrier and police officers wearing flak jackets blocked a bridge leading to the
Kapesnica district. Police snipers looked down from surrounding rooftops.
The barroom massacre, which took place hours after Yugoslav army troops killed 36 Kosovo
Liberation Army rebels near the Albanian border, enraged the Serb population. Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic threatened to crush ethnic Albanian "terrorists.''
In a statement Thursday, the KLA denied responsibility for the Pec killings and blamed the
Serb secret police for the slayings.
"We are convinced that this is the act of Serb secret police in order to further
strain relations between Serbs and Albanians,'' the rebel statement said. "The
murders of more than 30 of our soldiers and commanders will not induce us to take revenge
on the civilian population — we shall take revenge on the Serb police and the
military.''
The recriminations have raised concern that the Oct. 12 truce, which ended months of
fighting in this rebellious Serb province, is unraveling. The October agreement between
Milosevic and U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke was designed to buy time for Serbs and Kosovo's
ethnic Albanians, to negotiate a long-term agreement on the province's future.
Under the accord, Milosevic agreed to allow up to 2,000 unarmed international civilians to
verify compliance on the ground. But the verifiers were unable to enter Glodjane, six
miles south of Pec during Thursday's fighting.
American and other officials held talks with Serbian police in an unsuccessful attempt to
calm the situation.
The state-run Borba newspaper called Thursday for the withdrawal of international
verifiers and U.S. envoys from Kosovo, saying they are "direct instigators and
helpers of the crimes committed by Albanian terrorists.''
Serbs rallied to protest the killings for the second straight day Thursday, this time in
front of the headquarters of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
which runs the verifying force.
Meanwhile, Serbia announced a media crackdown in Kosovo, warning the province's ethnic
Albanian newspapers to cease support for "terrorism'' or face legal charges under the
government's restrictive new media law.
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Violence threatens Kosovo ceasefire On brink of
explosion
Juliette Terzieff National Post
Kosovo appears on the brink of exploding into chaos as the worst violence since Yugoslav
forces burned and looted hundreds of ethnic Albanian homes this summer threatens to
dismantle a tenuous two-month ceasefire.
A four-hour firefight in a suburb of this city and in a nearby village early yesterday
involving members of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, the Yugoslav army, and police
added at least two more people to the week's rapidly growing body count.
More than 40 ethnic Albanians and six Serbs have died since Monday morning.
Witnesses reported the suburb was surrounded by heavily armed Serbian police forces.
Snipers took up positions on rooftops during the operation. Gun and artillery fire could
be heard.
Fighting in the 10-month conflict usually erupts outside Kosovo's cities. KLA units base
themselves among civilians in villages or in mountain camps, drawing Yugoslav fire. Now
observers are bracing themselves for a new phase in the conflict as the retribution
spirals out of control.
"This movement inside the province's cities is a bad sign," said a Western
official based in Pristina. "It means the old rules don't apply anymore and may mean
there are now no rules."
Police in Pec arrested nine ethnic Albanians yesterday in connection with Monday's slaying
of six Serb youths in a Pec cafe.
Yesterday police killed two people wearing camouflage uniforms with the insignia of the
KLA, armed with assault rifles and 60 mm calibre mortars, the Serb-run Media Centre in
Pristina reported.
By nightfall, Serb sources were reporting 34 people were arrested.
KLA operatives believe Serbian forces are attempting to provoke them into action, delaying
the release of the border casualties and using the young men's deaths to stir Serb
emotions.
Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic used the cafe killings incident to attack both ethnic
Albanians and the international community for failing to live up to promises to control
"terrorist gangs." Replays of emotional memorial and funeral services for the
men in Pec, attended by 5,000 Serbs, were broadcast on national television.
Western officials warned this month that a spiraling pattern of retribution appeared at
hand, after three ethnic Albanians -- a journalist, a KLA commander, and a student -- were
gunned down in their car on the streets of Pristina. "It has, thus far, been a very
poor month in Kosovo," said the Pristina-based Western official.
U.S.-led efforts to find a political solution to the conflict are stalled following the
rejection of a recent draft plan that stopped well short of the KLA's demands for
independence. "We will accept nothing less," said KLA spokesman Sabahudin Cena.
"Our children want to go to school, they want to go to discos. All things we miss
without our freedom." The Serbian side said the proposal would give too much power to
ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
American envoy Richard Holbrooke, the architect of the October ceasefire, was in Serbia on
Tuesday in an effort to shore up the agreement. Few details of his meeting with Mr.
Milosevic were made available.
"The gap between the Serbs and Albanians on the future of Kosovo . . . is very
grave," said Mr. Holbrooke, who called the killings in Pec "appalling beyond
words."
Observers note that this week's hostilities, except for the killing of the six Serbs, have
been "military on military." During the summer offensives launched by Milosevic
against the ethnic Albanian fighters, the bulk of casualties were civilian.
An estimated 250,000 were driven from their villages, only to return and find little left
of their former homes.
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"KLA operations will be exclusively against
police and the army of the Serbian criminal regime, not against civilians" (Reuters)
December 18, 1998
KOSOVO POLJE, Serbia (Reuters) -- A Serbian official was found dead in Kosovo on Friday
and the top international observer in the volatile province said he had expressed his
abhorrence to leading ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
The killing of local deputy mayor Zvonko Bojanic, who Serb sources said had been abducted
from his home by armed men in Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) uniforms, further raised
tensions in the region, where 46 people have been killed this week.
State television said Bojanic was abducted in full view of his family and two family
members were tied up with chains.
He was deputy mayor of Kosovo Polje, a town with a large Serb minority and a special role
in Serb consciousness.
Named after the site where Serb forces suffered a bloody defeat in 1389, heralding
centuries of Ottoman rule, it was also the place where, in 1987, Slobodan Milosevic, now
Yugoslav President, told Serbs "No one may beat you."
Hundreds of angry Serbs staged a demonstration in the town on Friday to protest against
the killing and there was a heavy police presence, including armored personnel carriers on
the road from the nearby regional capital Pristina.
"I strongly condemn this and all other terrorist acts, I am certain the international
community I represent will similarly condemn it," William Walker, head of the Kosovo
Verificatio Monitoring Mission (KVM), told a group of Serbs.
"The KLA leadership has been informed of my personal abhorrence and unacceptability
of criminal acts such as this," he told the Serbs, who had come to him for help in
finding relatives abducted during fighting several months ago.
The KLA's political representative issued a statement later denying involvement in the
killing, saying the organisation never killed civilians.
"We repeat that KLA operations will be exclusively against police and the army of the
Serbian criminal regime," the statement said. "We condemn the latest
action."
This was the second Serb killing this week, after six Serb youths died when masked gunmen
sprayed bullets around a bar in the western Kosovo town of Pec on Monday.
The Pec shootings prompted outrage among Serbs who urged Belgrade to respond. Milosevic,
whose forces drove more than a quarter of a million people from their homes in a crackdown
on Kosovo earlier this year, pledged to wipe out "terrorism."
Serbian police said on Thursday evening they had arrested 34 people in connection with the
incident, all of them alleged members of what it said was a notorious local criminal gang.
The KLA has denied responsibility for the killings.
A representative for the Kosovo Albanians' de facto leader, Ibrahim Rugova, on Friday said
the identity of the Pec killers had not been established and accused Belgrade of using the
deaths as a pretext to intimidate ethnic Albanians.
"This week has been one of the most tragic and the most difficult for Kosovo and its
people," Xhemalil Mustafa told a news conference, repeating an oft-expressed view
among ethnic Albanians that the West should deploy NATO troops rather than unarmed
observers.
Serb children in Pec pelted the orange armored vehicles of observers patrolling the town
with stones on Tuesday and adults spat at them, demanding that they leave and complaining
they had equated the youths' deaths with those of armed guerrillas.
Yugoslav troops killed 36 ethnic Albanian guerrillas trying to smuggle arms into Kosovo
from Albania early on Monday, shattering a fragile, two-month-old ceasefire.
The ethnic Albanian-run Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms said the
latest deaths had brought the number of dead it been able to identify to 1,865.
U.S. officials, who persuaded Milosevic to withdraw many of his forces in October under
threat of NATO air strikes, condemned the violence and urged restraint from both sides.
International monitors reported artillery fire in several villages in western Kosovo on
Thursday and security forces said they had killed two people in a sweep for guerrillas.
Telephone lines to the villages and to Pec were not working on Friday and the OSCE said it
had no information about them.
Mustafa also condemned a crackdown on ethnic-Albanian language media in Kosovo which
followed the Serb killings.
The oldest newspaper in the province did not publish on Friday after the Serbian
government warned it and other newspapers to stop promoting intolerance.
Albanian-language media sources said electricity at the editorial offices and printing
plant of the Bujku daily had been cut off after the newspaper received a warning from the
Serbian Information Ministry.
Veton Surroi, editor in chief of the other daily warned by the ministry, Koha Ditore,
pledged to continue printing.
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December 18, 1998
Ghost Town in Kosovo: Fearing Revenge, Albanians
Stay Home
By MIKE O'CONNOR
PEC, Yugoslavia -- Ethnic Albanians abandoned the streets of this western Kosovo town
Thursday afternoon, fearing vengeance for the killings of six Serbian youths in a cafe
this week.
The cafe shootings have enraged and galvanized Kosovo's frightened Serb minority. Revenge
killings of Albanians could destroy not only the tenuous cease-fire in this southern
Serbian province, but also the nearly stalled U.S. efforts to negotiate peace.
Serbian police in camouflage uniforms, their faces covered by masks or bandanas,
surrounded a neighborhood here where they said suspects in the cafe murders could be
hiding. Thursday evening, nervous police were hiding in darkened doorways and behind
garden walls, pointing assault rifles at ethnic Albanian homes.
Inside the neighborhood, the twisting cobblestone streets and ancient houses gave the
feeling of an abandoned village in the Middle Ages. Residents stayed hidden in their homes
with all lights out. Not even a cat ventured outside.
Just outside the city, paramilitary police units equipped with armored personnel carriers
combed villages, they said, also in search of suspects. Police mounted cannons and set up
at least one base in a village that, until Thursday, had been controlled by ethnic
Albanian rebels seeking independence for Kosovo, whose population is 90 percent ethnic
Albanian.
U.S. and European observers who are supposed to monitor any police or rebel movements were
barred from the area where police were advancing. The observers said they heard mortar
fire which they assumed was coming from police positions.
At nightfall, with heavy machine gun fire less than a mile from their new base, police
said the rebels were starting a counter-attack.
The extreme edginess in Pec stems from Monday's murders. Masked men sprayed automatic
weapons fire through a coffee shop frequented by ethnic Serb high school students, killing
six.
Since the slayings, foreign diplomats and Serbian officials have braced for revenge
attacks on ethnic Albanian civilians, fearing that the war -- largely fought in the
countryside until an uneasy truce negotiated by the Americans in October -- will now move
to Kosovo's cities, where Serbs and Albanians who live side by side could become locked in
an even more brutal cycle of killing.
Serbian authorities say their sweeps in and near this city Thursday brought in three men
who are tied to Monday's killings and another 14 who may have been. They also say two
guerrillas were killed fighting the police.
The rebels, known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, deny involvement in Monday's murders.
The main suspect, according to the Serbian authorities, is Ramush Haradinaj, the rebel
commander for this part of western Kosovo. Haradinaj is in his early 30s with a reputation
for being something of a dictator in areas under his control.
Serbian officials say Thursday's police action is aimed at trapping Haradinaj. But the
methods may only add to Albanians' hatred of the government.
"They rushed into our house and grabbed all the men, eight of us, and took us to the
police station," said Jusuf Lataj, the Muslim religious leader in a village near Pec.
"As soon as we got to the police station they began beating people."
One of those detained and questioned was Lataj's son, Jahja 21, who after release had
bright bruises across his back, a bruised and immobile left elbow, a badly bruised and
swollen right hand, and a left ear blackened by what he said was a kick in the head from
police.
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Kosovo leader sees armed groups accepting deal
(Reuters)
11:56 a.m. Dec 18, 1998 Eastern
PRAGUE, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the main ethnic Albanian party in
Kosovo, said on Friday he believed armed groups in the Serbian province would be willing
to accept a political deal being sought by Western mediators.
Rugova, in Prague to receive a prize from the private Czech foundation People in Need,
reiterated his position that Kosovo should be independent but that an international
protectorate could be established there as an interim measure.
U.S. mediator Christopher Hill has been trying to forge a political settlement for Kosovo
and has put draft proposals to Serbian officials and leaders of the province's ethnic
Albanian majority.
``The best solution for Kosovo is independence with all guarantees for the Serbs and an
international protectorate as an interim stage,'' Rugova said.
Asked if the interim deal would persuade pro-independence fighters in Kosovo to put down
their arms, Rugova said: ``I think most Albanian groups are going to accept this interim
agreement and have been informed about it.''
Some 1,500 people have been killed this year in fighting between Yugoslav security forces
and ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
Hill has come up with a series of draft autonomy plans for Kosovo aimed at bridging the
gap between the ethnic Albanians' independence demands and the insistence of the Serbian
government that the province must remain under its control.
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