Serbian Forces Take away
Bodies of Massacred Albanians in Reçak
The Kosova Information Center (KIC) has learned this afternoon
Serbian forces wearing all kinds of uniforms - plain clothes, regular and special police,
as well as army fatigues - were involved in the operation to remove the bodies after a
two-day long operation to do this, apparently in a bid to tamper with the evidence, or
even destroy it in the face of universal shock and condemnation of the Serb atrocity
PRISHTINA, Jan 18 (KIC) - Serbian forces collected today (Monday)
afternoon the bodies of Albanians massacred in Reçak village on Friday.
Around 50 Albanian civilians were massacred by Serbian military and
paramilitary police forces that day, and their bodies had been laid in the local mosque in
Reçak. Most of the Albanians were executed, being shot at close range on the head or
neck; others had their eyes gouged and faces blown away: one was decapitated. Three women,
a 12-year-old boy, a three-month infant, are amongst the slain Albanians, most of whom
men, rounded up by Serbian infantry troops before being herded up the village and killed
in cold blood.
The Kosova Information Center (KIC) has learned this afternoon
Serbian forces wearing all kinds of uniforms - plain clothes, regular and special police,
as well as army fatigues - were involved in the operation to remove the bodies after a
two-day long operation to do this, apparently in a bid to tamper with the evidence, or
even destroy it.
The bodies of Albanians were dumped in a lorry, according to sources
which spoke on condition of anonymity, between 14:30 and 15:00 hrs today. They would
presumably be taken to capital Prishtina.
The Prishtina hospital has been sealed off by heavy police forces
today afternoon, probably in preparation for the arrival of the bodies of massacred
Albanians.
Serbian military and police forces, backed up by heavy weaponry,
shelled the village of Reçak and the outlying area for two days now in what was termed by
some as the 'battle for corpses'.
The international community called this a horrendous massacre of
Albanian civilians, while the Serbian regime claims they were 'terrorists'.
The Chief Prosecutor of the UN Yugoslav Tribunal, Louise Arbour, was
prevented today by Yugoslav authorities from entering into Kosova. She flew to Shkup/FYROM
and proceeded to the border, but was turned back, as expected.
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LATEST REPORT: Serbian Forces Continue
Shelling Shtime Area Late Afternoon Today
PRISHTINA, Jan 18 (KIC) - Serbian forces backed up by heavy weaponry
were shelling Reçak and the outlying area around 17:00 CET today (Monday), according to
local sources.
A source from the small town of Shtime said the sound of shelling
could be heard in the small town at the time, a member of the LDK Presidency told the KIC.
Serbian troops removed today afternoon the bodies of scores of
Albanians massacred by Serbian forces themselves in Reçak last Friday.
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Serbian Forces Shell Reçak and Outlying
Area For a Second Day in a Row
Louise Arbour turned back, everybody doubts NATO's resolve
PRISHTINA, Jan 18 (KIC) - Heavy Serbian forces shelled today
(Monday) the village of Reçak, municipality of Shtime, and the outlying area, 26 km south
of Prishtina, for a second day in a row.
The LDK chapter in Shtime told the KIC at 10:30 a.m. the Serbian
forces were shelling the Reçak area from four positions.
Meanwhile, just before noon, the KIC learned the Serbian shelling of
Reçak, and possibly outlying villages, was still continuing.
The entrance to Shtime from the road linking capital Prishtina and
this small town was blocked, LDK sources said. The Shtime-Ferizaj and Shtime-Prizren roads
had been blocked earlier in the day, sources said.
Meanwhile, sources from Ferizaj ('Urosevac') said Serb forces were
deployed late in the morning in the Koshare village and fired in the direction of
neighboring Shtime village.
Around 13:00 hrs, the shelling reportedly died down, but all Serb
forces involved in the attack against Reçak village were still in offensive positions.
Clashes were reported going on between Serbian forces and local
Albanian resistance forces in the Gryka e Carralevës (Carraleva gorge) on the
Prishtina-Prizren highway, south of Shtime, just before noon today.
The village of Reçak is the site of the massacre of 51 Albanians by
the Serbian military and paramilitary police forces on Friday.
Most of the Albanians were executed, being shot at close range on
the head or neck; others had their eyes gouged and faces blown away: one was decapitated.
Three women, a 12-year-old boy, a three-month infant, are amongst the slain Albanians,
most of whom men, rounded up by Serbian infantry troops before being herded up the village
and killed in cold blood.
The Serbian military and police troops moved into the Reçak area
yesterday and today, in what is presumably sinister Serbian scheme to tamper with the
bodies, or destroy the evidence of the carnage of Albanian civilians.
Arbour turned back, everybody doubts NATO's resolve
Chief Prosecutor of the UN Yugoslav Tribunal, Louise Arbour, was
prevented today by Yugoslav authorities from entering into Kosova. She flew to Shkup/FYROM
and proceeded to the border, but was turned back, as expected.
It was the investigation of the massacre in Reçak that NATO based
its latest policy on. Indeed, the meeting of the North-Atlantic Council at ambassadorial
level in Brussels Sunday evening produced nothing like a credible threat to Slobodan
Milosevic.
Everybody doubts NATO's resolve now. At least the Kosovars do. They
know a second Bosnia is occurring in Kosova, at a time the West vows it will prevent a
repeat of Bosnia, and is bombarding Belgrade with more press releases. It has been long
ago when Milosevic ceased heeding 'strongly-worded statements', the latest produced only
yesterday.
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Shooting Incident in Mitrovica, Five Serb
Policemen Reported Wounded
Albanians fleeing their homes in fear of Serb reprisals
PRISHTINA, Jan 18 (KIC) - A Serb police vehicle was shot at and at
least five policemen wounded around 10 a.m. today in the "Ura e Gjakut"
neihgbourhood in Mitrovica, local LDK sources said.
Heavy Serb police forces gathered in the scene, and blocked the road
to Shipol village in the outskirts of Mitrovica.
The Mitrovica hospital was sealed off by police, and a number of
Albanian households raided, the LDK chapter said.
A number of Albanians were reported beaten up.
The Ura e Gjakut and Shipol population started fleeing their homes
today, in fear of Serb reprisals for the unsolved incident.
A column of Serbian police forces involving 9 buses, 2 APCs, 3
jeeps, and 3 other vehicles full of personnel arrived at 9 o'clock in the morning in
Mitrovica from Raska, Serbia.
Some police troops left Mitrovica for Skenderaj at noon today, local
Albanian sources said.
Meanwhile, Serb army tanks were reported moving in the Podujeva area
today. Eleven Serb army tanks and an APC left the sports airfield at Dumosh, a few km
southeast of the town of Podujeva, and moved towards the Shajkovc village before
returning.
Huge Serbian army troops and tanks have been massed in the Podujeva
area for weeks now, and been on combat position in clear violation of the much talked
about internationally-brokered cease-fire which exists in paper only.
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200 Serb Soldiers Raid Albanian Family
Compounds in Planejë Village of Prizren
PRISHTINA, Jan 18 (KIC) - Heavy Serb army and police forces raided
two Albanian family compounds ( Shigjeqi and Shehu) in the village of Planejë,
municipality of Prizren, from 10:00 through 12:00 on Sunday, LDK sources in Prizren said.
The Serbian police herded the women, children and elderly members of
the two family compounds to the fields called 'Livadhi i Sokolit', where they were held
for two hours.
The Serb forces looted the households and smashed up furniture,
local sources said.
Serbian forces engaged in firing for three hours Sunday evening in
the Kosova-Albanian border area.
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Serb Army and Police Loots Albanian
Households in Tenezhdoll Village of Prishtina
PRISHTINA, Jan 18 (KIC) - Serbian army and police forces were
engaged in a looting campaign in the Tenezhdoll village, along the Prishtina-Podujeva,
today (Monday) the KIC has learned. Five lorries were waiting for dark to set in, before
actually taking away the looted appliances from Albanian households.
Britain warns Belgrade of
military action
LONDON, Jan 18 (AFP) - British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on
Monday warned Belgrade of possible NATO military action as he condemned the massacre of 45
ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo village of Racak. Cook reminded Serbian President Slobodan
Milosevic the threat of NATO air strikes last autumn was "only suspended because of
his agreements to cease fire, to withdraw part of his military units in Kosovo and to
return the rest to barracks."
He said that Britain would demand access to Kosovo for the
international war crimes tribunal when the United Nations Security Council meets in
emergency session later on Monday.
Earlier in the day, the chief prosecutor of the war crimes tribunal
in The Hague, Canadian Louise Arbour, was thwarted by Yugoslav border guards from entering
Kosovo to probe the massacre.
Cook said that Germany, France, Italy and Britain had agreed to
demand jointly via their ambassadors in Belgrade that army and police units in Racak last
Friday "must immediately be removed from duty while these murders are
investigated".
If peace was to be established and the "relentless cycle of
ethnic atrocity" broken, those responsible for the massacre must be brought to
justice, he told parliament.
"That would be the most fitting response to this atrocity. It
would also send a strong message to all officers serving in Kosovo that they will be held
to account for any offence they commit against humanitarian law."
Cook said of the massacre: "It is simply not credible that
those who were killed were the casualties of a military conflict.
"The eye-witness accounts of international observers make it
only too clear that they were murdered.
"In any commonsense understanding of the term, this was a war
crime."
But in a message to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which is
fighting for independence from Serbia, Cook said neither side could win the war and
political dialogue was the only way to restore stability to the strife-torn region.
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Albright warns Milosevic of "grave
mistake" over Kosovo
WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
on Monday warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic he would be a making a "grave
mistake" if he failed to comply with his international commitments in Kosovo.
Albright, speaking to reporters following a Martin Luther King Day event at a children's
hospital here, said that activation orders for retaliatory air strikes against Serb
positions "are on the table."
"(Milosevic) should understand that he would be making a grave
mistake if he were not to abide by, first of all, the commitments he made himself and
second, also what the international community is signaling in this kind of a
message," Albright said.
Albright also said it was "very important" that Louise
Arbour, the chief prosecutor of the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, who
was denied entry onto Kosovo earlier Monday, be allowed in.
Yugoslav border guards refused to allow Arbour in to investigate
Friday's massacre of 45 ethnic Albanians in the village of Racak in southern Kosovo which
is blamed on Serb security forces and has drawn worldwide condemnation.
"We expect that Milosevic will comply with his obligations,
which means that it is essential that he guarantees the safety and security of those
verifiers,"
"It is also very important that Louise Arbour ... be allowed
access. She is on her way."
Albright added that US General Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme
commander for Europe, and German General Klaus Naumann, head of the alliance's military
committee, would be meeting Milosevic "very soon" to reinforce the international
community's resolve.
The generals "are going to be meeting with Milosevic very soon
in order to make clear what came out (Sunday) from this emergency meeting of the North
Atlantic Council and making clear that the international community demands
compliance," Albright said.
"He has to understand what I have just said is that the
international community, in an emergency meeting, made clear that the (air strike)
activation order is on the table."
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Serbs Defy Pleas, Launch New Attack
By MELISSA EDDY Associated Press Writer
MALOPOLJE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Defying global outrage over the
massacre of civilians, Serb forces pounded villages Monday with tanks and artillery. The
government also barred the U.N. war crimes prosecutor from entering Kosovo and ordered the
chief U.S. peace verifier to leave.
Fighting spread Monday to northern Kosovo, where ethnic Albanian
rebels attacked a Serb vehicle, wounding five policemen in an ambush 25 miles northwest of
the provincial capital, Pristina.
The defiant moves after last week's massacre of 45 ethnic Albanian
civilians indicated President Slobodan Milosevic was willing to risk further international
pressure in his campaign against rebels seeking independence from the main Yugoslav
republic, Serbia.
NATO's supreme commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, and German Gen. Klaus
Naumann, planned to fly to the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade on Tuesday to warn Milosevic
he is facing military action unless he abides by the U.S.-negotiated Oct. 12 deal that
ended seven months of fighting.
The generals were to have gone to Belgrade on Monday but delayed the
visit after Yugoslav authorities said Milosevic was too busy to see them.
``I think a strong message will be brought to President Milosevic
about bringing those to justice who should be punished for this and coming into compliance
with the agreements that he made,'' White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said in
Washington.
Kosovo's Serb minority and Milosevic's ultra-nationalist allies have
been demanding the government crush the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army.
Tensions rose dramatically Saturday after international verifiers
found the bodies of 45 ethnic Albanians, including three women and a 12-year-old boy, in a
gully near the village of Racak (pronounced RAH-chak), 20 miles south of Pristina.
William Walker, the American head of the international peace
verification mission, accused Serb police of the massacre, despite government claims the
dead were guerrillas killed in combat.
The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Monday to
discuss the massacre.
``It's an emergency situation, and I think the council could not
stand idle while these things are happening,'' Brazil's U.N. ambassador and current
council president Celso Amorim told reporters as he entered the council chamber.
In Vienna, Austria, David Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, expressed outrage Monday over
Yugoslav authorities' ``scandalous attempt to present the cold-blooded slaughter and
mutilation of civilians as a military operation against terrorists.''
Late Monday, the Yugoslav government, in a statement distributed by
its Tanjug news agency, declared that Walker's comments were in ``flagrant violation of
the agreement made'' with the OSCE, which oversees the October agreement. The government
ordered Walker to leave Yugoslavia within 48 hours.
In Brussels, Belgium, NATO spokesman Dr. Jamie Shea called the
expulsion order ``outrageous.'' He told BBC TV he hoped Yugoslav authorities would ``come
to their senses and reconsider this unwise decision.''
Earlier Monday, Yugoslav guards at the Macedonian border turned back
U.N. war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour when she tried to cross into Kosovo to
investigate the massacre.
The United Nations insists its court in The Hague has jurisdiction
throughout the former Yugoslavia, including Kosovo. In a statement Monday, the Yugoslav
government said the U.N. court ``does not have and cannot have jurisdiction in Kosovo''
since the conflict is ``a clear matter of terrorism.''
In Jerusalem, several Israeli lawmakers argued Monday that the
Jewish state should break off relations with Yugoslavia over the latest massacre.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that Deputy Foreign
Minister Alexander Avdeyev was heading to Kosovo in an attempt to ease the recent
violence. And Albania's parliament called Monday on all Albanians to unite in support of
the ethnic Albanian community in Kosovo.
There was little sign, however, that the Yugoslav government was
prepared to soften its hard-line stand. On Monday, Serb forces unleashed tank and
artillery barrages on Racak and other nearby villages.
After the shelling, Serb officials removed the bodies of 40 of the
massacre victims from a mosque in Racak and transported them to a morgue in Pristina for
their own investigation.
U.N. officials in Geneva reported that 3,500 civilians had fled into
the hills to escape the latest fighting.
NATO threatened airstrikes last year to pressure Milosevic to call
off his offensive against ethnic Albanian rebels. Ethnic Albanians form about 90 percent
of Kosovo's 2 million people, and many want independence.
Milosevic agreed Oct. 12 to halt the offensive and begin talks with
the ethnic Albanians on Kosovo's future.
Both sides, however, have rejected U.S. proposals for expanded
self-rule for Kosovo. With diplomacy at a stalemate, prospects of a full-scale resumption
of fighting have increased.
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Albanian Parliament Urges NATO Strike In
Kosovo
By Benet Koleka
TIRANA, Albania (Reuters) - The Albanian parliament Monday urged
NATO to ``strike today'' in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo after Serbian forces were
blamed for the weekend massacre of 45 ethnic Albanians.
``Only armed intervention by NATO will end the bloodshed and create
conditions for the start of dialogue,'' the parliamentary resolution said.
``NATO should strike today because tomorrow peace will be bought
very dearly,'' said the resolution, which was unanimously approved by parliament after a
minute of silence in honor of the victims of Saturday's killings.
The resolution said warnings by the West had failed to make an
impact on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who stripped Kosovo of its of its
autonomy in 1989. Ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs nine to one in Kosovo.
``In Kosovo, he is recycling and using with more force the same
strategy he used in Bosnia until the military intervention of NATO,'' the resolution said.
Parliament called for unity among ethnic Albanian political and
``resistance'' forces in Kosovo, a reference to separatist guerrillas of the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA).
Albania wants the ethnic Albanian parties to form a team that would
be able to start talks on the province's future with Belgrade.
Albania's Socialist Prime Minister Pandeli Majko and opposition
Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha met to discuss the situation in the troubled
province.
It was the second meeting in less than a month between the two sides
that had previously been implacable enemies.
``I think there is nothing wrong with the fact that when the Serbs
are massacring us (the Albanian nation) we shake hands with each other,'' Majko said as he
stretched out his hand to clasp Berisha's.
Majko's deputy said the two politicians had discussed the need for
closer cooperation to influence the international community to prevent massacres and
contribute to a solution to the Kosovo crisis.
Albania urged the United Nations Sunday to intervene directly in
Kosovo after the latest massacre.
Friday, it sent tanks to its northern border with Serbia and put its
forces on alert after a Yugoslav minister accused it of being a haven for international
terrorists.
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Yugoslavia isolated but defiant on Kosovo
By Colin McIntyre
BELGRADE, Jan 19 - Yugoslavia was isolated but defiant on Tuesday
after snubbing both the West and its traditional ally Russia by expelling the head of an
observer mission in Kosovo and blocking an international investigation into an alleged
massacre of ethnic Albanians.
The Belgrade government announced on Monday that Ambassador William
Walker, a veteran U.S. diplomat heading the Kosovo Verification Mission monitoring a
three-month-old ceasefire in the province, had been declared "persona non grata"
and ordered to leave within 48 hours.
Walker, along with other Western officials, had laid the blame
squarely on Yugoslav security forces for the slaughter of 45 ethnic Albanians whose bodies
were discovered in the village of Racak at the weekend.
The latest move by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, along with
his decision to keep NATO Commander Wesley Clark waiting for an invitation to talk to him,
have catapulted the festering Kosovo situation back to crisis level.
In a strongly worded statement that did not rule out the use of
force, the United States warned Milosevic on Monday he was "playing with fire"
and demanded he reverse a decision to expel Walker.
National security officials met at the White House to discuss the
most serious Kosovo setback since last October, when U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke
brokered an 11th-hour ceasefire that averted NATO airstrikes against Yugoslav military
targets.
"The situation is as serious now -- perhaps more serious --
than it was in October," Holbrooke said in a CNN interview. He pointed out that NATO
then was "96 hours away from bombing."
In New York, U.N. Security Council members strongly condemned the
massacre and demanded an immediate investigation.
Walker, saying he was shocked at the decision to expel him, told
independent B-92 radio: "They could have had the decency to inform me personally
about this."
The European Union's envoy to Kosovo, Wolfgang Petritsch, said
Belgrade's move was unprecedented, adding that it had cast a completely new light on the
escalation of the conflict in the troubled province.
Even Russia, normally a staunch ally of fellow Orthodox Christian
Serbia, urged Belgrade to reconsider the decision to expel Walker, saying it could further
aggravate the tense situation and hamper the search for a political solution.
A statement from the Russian foreign ministry also called for an
international investigation into the massacre in Racak, and the punishment of those
responsible.
In Belgrade however Milosevic appeared unmoved by the growing
pressure from outside.
After barring U.N. war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour from entering
Kosovo on Monday to investigate the alleged massacre, Yugoslav authorities removed the
bodies of 40 of the victims to the provincial capital Pristina.
The head of Pristina's Forensic Medicine Institute, Professor Sasa
Dobricanin, was quoted by Serbian TV on Monday as saying post mortems would be carried
out, with the participation of a Finnish medical team.
Dobricanin has said the wounds of the victims in Racak could have
been inflicted on the bodies after death to make it appear they were massacred. Yugoslav
police say all victims, mostly men but including a woman and a 12-year-old boy, were
guerrillas killed in a shootout.
Arbour on Monday cast doubt over his investigation, telling the BBC:
"I think all these steps that are taken prior to granting us access are quite
shocking and carry no credibility."
In spite of being so blatantly defied, neither the United States nor
its European allies in NATO were ready to trigger NATO air strikes which were threatened
when negotiating the ceasefire in October.
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said that would be the last
resort, though adding on Monday: "The temperature may rise and we have to do
something more dramatic," echoing warnings from NATO's Clark that an all-out war
could be just around the corner.
Clark and General Klaus Naumann of NATO's military committee had
planned to leave for Belgrade on Monday morning to deliver a warning to Milosevic, but
their plane sat all day on the ground in Belgium waiting for word that he would receive
them.
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The crew were stood down until Tuesday for
another try.
NATO Braces For Balkans Action
Officials Outraged By Serb-Led Killings
U.S. Troops Prepare For Possible Attacks
American Peace Verifier Booted By Belgrade
(CBS) The U.S. and its allies faced a new crisis in the Balkans on
Monday, with Serbia's hard-line leader Slobodan Milosevic daring the West to carry out its
threats of force, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.
Despite international outrage over the massacre of ethnic Albanians,
Milosevic ordered Serb forces to continue mortar and machine-gun fire attacks Monday on
the small village of Racak.
Bodies were discovered over the weekend, scattered on a hillside and
heaped in a ravine. They were farmers, laborers, and old men shot at close range. Three
women were among the dead, and a 12-year old boy.
In all, 45 people from Racak were killed, ethnic Albanians from a
place so small that every survivor now shares a measure of anguish.
The Serbs claim the dead were rebels who had attacked Serb police.
Again on Monday, Serb forces pounded Racak, defying a NATO call to stop the offensive.
International peace monitors placed in Kosovo to oversee a
3-month-old cease-fire Monday watched it collapse.
"This seems to be part of an ongoing operation," said
ceasefire observer Arthur Marquardt. "It just seems to be that this is a plan."
The plan the U.S. and its European allies hoped for was a compromise
that would give some autonomy to the province of Kosovo, where most of the population is
ethnic Albanian and resentful of Serb rule.
However, the violence is producing a new tide of refugees, and a
generation of radicals.
A girl named Ramonda saw her six-year-old sister killed last fall.
This winter, she picked up a gun.
"It's a Kalashnikov, and it's just like one member of my
family," Ramonda says. "This is for me, everything."
Ramonda joined the province's rebel army, the Kosovo Liberation
Army, or KLA.
"I promise all the people, the Albanian people, that I will be
in a war," Ramonda says. "I will do everything until I die."
On Monday, Serb officials turned away Louise Arbour, the U.N.'s
chief war crimes prosecutor, who wanted to investigate the latest deaths in Kosovo.
They also ordered William Walker, the American diplomat who
expressed anger at the killings to leave the country.
"It's about as horrendous an event as I have seen," Walker
said.
Now more than just wrecking the cease-fire, Western officials worry
that Serb troops are destroying the evidence of a horrible crime.
The U.S. and its allies have been poised for months to take military
action against Serbia, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin.
Two top NATO officials plan to warn Milosevic that NATO is prepared
to act militarily against Yugoslav targets unless he abides by commitments to Kosovo
Albanians he agreed to three months ago, a senior official said Monday.
The warning will be conveyed directly to Milosevic in Belgrade on
Tuesday by Gen. Wesley Clark, supreme allied commander in Europe, and Gen. Klaus Naumann,
a German who chairs the NATO Military Committee.
Clark and Naumann will remind Milosevic that NATO is prepared to act
militarily if the alliance approves such a move. They also will demand that he reduce
military and police forces in Kosovo to the levels agreed to last fall, the official said,
adding that force levels have crept up in recent weeks.
They also will demand that Milosevic bring to justice those
responsible for the Racak massacre, said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin.
Some 400 NATO aircraft are on alert for possible air strikes. Also,
an armed force including hundreds of American troops in neighboring Macedonia are bracing
for a possible emergency evacuation of the peace monitors.
Tuesday's meeting will take place against a background of the most
serious crisis over Kosovo since last October when only a last-minute cease-fire averted
NATO air strikes against Yugoslav military targets.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Milosevic will be making
a "grave mistake" if he does not abide by the commitments he made last October
when he agreed to a cease-fire and promised to negotiate a political settlement with the
Kosovo Albanians. She called the atrocities "unacceptable" and said the
international community is united in condemning it.
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NATO to warn Milosevic
Military strikes possible if Serb violence in Kosovo continues
January 19, 1999
BY GEORGE GEDDA AND MELISSA EDDY Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Two top NATO officials today will warn Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic that the alliance will act militarily against Yugoslav
targets unless he abides by the commitments to Kosovo Albanians he agreed to three months
ago, a senior official said Monday.
The warning will be conveyed directly to Milosevic in Belgrade by
Gen. Wesley Clark, supreme allied commander in Europe, and Gen. Klaus Naumann, a German
who is chairman of the NATO Military Committee.
Clark and Naumann also will demand that Milosevic bring to justice
those responsible for the massacre Friday of 45 ethnic Albanians, said State Department
spokesman James P. Rubin. Ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of Kosovo's population.
A senior administration official said NATO authorities have been
told to be prepared to act on short notice to implement an air operation against
Yugoslavia similar to the one approved last October.
Yugoslavia decided earlier Monday to expel the American leader of
the Kosovo peace mission, William Walker. He was given until Wednesday to leave the
country. The Yugoslav decision was based on Walker's accusation that Serb police were
responsible for the massacre.
The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting Monday
to discuss the killings. The council strongly condemned the massacre and urged the
Yugoslav government to rescind its decision to expel Walker.
The mutilated bodies of the ethnic Albanian victims were found
Saturday 15 miles south of Pristina, Kosovo's capital.
Serb officials said the victims were guerrillas killed in combat,
although they included three women and a 12-year-old boy.
In Vienna, Austria, David Johnson, the U.S. ambassador to the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, expressed outrage Monday over
Yugoslav authorities' "scandalous attempt to present the cold-blooded slaughter and
mutilation of civilians as a military operation against terrorists."
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Milosevic will be making
a "grave mistake" if he does not abide by the commitments he made last October
when he agreed to a cease-fire and promised to negotiate a political settlement with the
Kosovo Albanians. She said the international community is united in condemning them.
Serb forces pounded Kosovo villages Monday with tanks and artillery.
The government also barred the UN war crimes prosecutor from entering Kosovo.
In northern Kosovo, ethnic Albanian rebels attacked a Serb vehicle,
wounding five police officers in an ambush.
Kosovo's Serb minority and Milosevic's ultranationalist allies have
been demanding that the government crush the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army.
Earlier Monday, Yugoslav guards at the Macedonian border turned back
a UN war crimes prosecutor when she tried to cross into Kosovo to investigate the
massacre.
The Yugoslav government said the UN court "does not have and
cannot have jurisdiction in Kosovo" since the conflict is "a clear matter of
terrorism."
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that Deputy Foreign
Minister Alexander Avdeyev was heading to Kosovo in an attempt to ease the violence. And
Albania's parliament called Monday on all Albanians to unite in support of the ethnic
Albanian community in Kosovo.
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Yugoslavs Order U.S. Envoy Out Massacre
Investigators Thwarted
By Guy Dinmore Special to The Washington Post Tuesday, January 19,
1999; Page A01
BELGRADE, Jan. 18—Yugoslavia ordered the U.S. diplomat who
heads the international peace-monitoring mission in Kosovo to leave the country within 48
hours, defying Western criticism following the killing of 45 ethnic Albanian villagers.
William Walker, who had blamed Friday's massacre in the village of
Racak on Serbian security forces, was declared persona non grata in an official statement
released through state media. Meanwhile, Louise Arbour, chief prosecutor for the
International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, was turned back by Yugoslav
border guards when she tried to enter Kosovo. The guards said she did not have a visa.
On the ground, the violence continued. Serbian forces reportedly
shelled Racak today with artillery and tanks, while Serbian police fought their way back
into the village and removed the bodies of 40 massacre victims from the local mosque.
Hundreds of civilians reportedly fled the area into nearby forests in freezing weather.
Diplomats described today's moves by Yugoslav and Serbian officials
as gestures of defiance directed toward Western governments seeking to mediate a
settlement of the 11-month-old conflict between Serbian security forces and ethnic
Albanian separatists in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.
After fighting raged in the province during the spring and summer, Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic agreed -- under threat of NATO military action -- to a cease-fire and
troop withdrawal in October.
But diplomats said that the peace process was close to total
collapse and expected a resumption of full-scale war, presenting NATO with the divisive
issue of whether to take military action. Milosevic refused to meet with U.S. Army Gen.
Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander, who was dispatched by the alliance to Belgrade to
warn the Serbian leader to respect the cease-fire. Diplomats said Clark was expected to
meet Milosevic in Belgrade on Tuesday.
In Washington, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin called
Walker's expulsion "unacceptable" and said Washington was calling for the order
to be reversed.
At the United Nations, Security Council President Celso Amorim of
Brazil said council members "deplored" Belgrade's decision to expel Walker and
confirmed their full support for him and the 800 peace monitors working under the auspices
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Amorim called on
Belgrade to rescind that decision immediately.
Belgrade-based diplomats said Milosevic was once again trying to
play on divisions among Western governments, possibly with the intention of getting Walker
replaced by his French deputy, Gabriel Keller, who is widely regarded as being more
critical of the ethnic Albanian separatist movement in Kosovo.
But Rubin said the Serbs' recent actions are "only digging a
deeper and deeper hole for them internationally." Noting that NATO's so-called
activation order authorizing military action remains in effect, Rubin refused to speculate
whether airstrikes would be ordered but said "Milosevic is playing with fire
here."
Clark, while refusing to speculate on whether NATO would launch
airstrikes, warned that Milosevic should not gamble on splitting the Western alliance.
"I would say that the Serbian leadership should be under no
illusion, under no hope of disunity. The alliance is fully united in condemning the Racak
massacre. The activation order is in effect, planning is continuing and the alliance is
prepared to take further measures if deemed necessary," Clark said in a telephone
interview.
"This massacre is the result of Serb handiwork. We are trapped
in a spiral of violence driven by Serb repression and intimidation. Until it is broken, we
are going to have an escalating conflict," he said.
Belgrade insists the victims in Racak, who included three women, a
12-year-old boy and several elderly men, were killed in clashes provoked by the separatist
Kosovo Liberation Army. State media have alleged that the rebels later took uniforms off
the corpses and replaced them with civilian clothing.
Diplomats did not rule out the possibility that the OSCE would close
down its verification mission should negotiations fail to reverse the decision.
"This act is totally unacceptable. It may put the whole OSCE
mission in jeopardy," Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek, who is chairman of
the OSCE, told the Reuters news agency.
Walker declined to comment on his expulsion, saying he had not been
officially informed of the decision by the Yugoslav government. "Maybe we went beyond
the limits [of the mission's mandate], and that's why the government is mad at us,"
he said.
Walker insisted that "remnants" of the October cease-fire
plan remained in place and that ethnic Albanian guerrillas had shown restraint so far by
not retaliating for the slaughter in Racak.
News services reported today, however, that ethnic Albanian rebels
attacked a Serbian vehicle, wounding five policemen in an ambush 25 miles northwest of the
provincial capital, Pristina.
