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Thursday, March 4, 1999, 12:00 PM.
Gunfire, Shelling Reported near Llapushnik Today Morning
PRISHTINA, March 4 (KIC) - Gunfire and shelling was reported for three and a half hours,
from 6:00 through 9:30 CET, today in the village of Gjergjicė, near Llapushnik, west of
the capital Prishtina.
Serbian forces tried to advance into the village, but were prevented from doing so by the
UĒK (Kosova Liberation Army), sources told the Kosova Information Center (KIC).
Heavy Build-up of Serbian Troops and Armor in Podujeva Area
PRISHTINA, March 4 (KIC) - An explosive situation has been reported in the northern
Podujeva area today, with a heavy Serbian forces' presence in the administrative center
and around it, local LDK sources said.
Serbs have massed troops and combat armor along the Prishtina-Podujeva highway today.
Serb forces have been patrolling the streets of the town of Podujeva, while entrances to
and exists from the town are being held under a strict grip, with motorists and citizens
being routinely stopped, searched and harassed by police.
Automatic weapons fire was heard early evening yesterday, at 18:20 CET, at the crossroads
in Podujeva on the road leading to Kėrpimeh village. In the aftermath, a number of
detonations of shells fired from Serbian positions at Peran village, four km north, were
heard. Many Albanian citizens who happened to be on the streets of Podujeva were
ill-treated by Serb police, local LDK sources told the KIC.
Meanwhile, Serbian media reported a Serb police officer was killed in last evening's
incident in Podujeva.
Yugoslav army troops allowed to deploy three companies out of barracks in Kosova under a
cease-fire agreement now have about 20 companies out on the ground in Kosova, OSCE
monitors told Reuters on Wednesday. The Serb violation has reached the point where on the
army side alone more than six times as many people are in the field as is allowed under a
cease-fire supposedly backed by threat of NATO air strikes.
Meanwhile, Beatrice Lacoste, the OSCE spokeswoman was quoted by the Serbian Beta news
agency as saying "the overall number of soldiers, tanks and police forces in Kosova
is under the limit established by the agreement with NATO".
Asked by the Kosova Information Center (KIC), Ms Lacoste said today what she had said in
fact was that Serbs were "not in excess of the limit", acknowledging that 20
Serb military companies were indeed out on the ground in Kosova.
Belgrade has massed troops and armor in and around Kosova to the levels generally agreed
to be above the limit, some say in preparation for a huge Serbian offensive to destroy
what has been achieved in the Rambouillet conference on Kosova.
Column of Serbian Troops Heads towards Mihaliq Village of Vushtrri
PRISHTINA, March 4 (KIC) - Heavy Serbian troops arrived today morning in the town of
Vushtrri, from both Mitrovica and capital Prishtina, local LDK sources said. They stopped
for a while in front of the Serb military barracks in the town.
A convoy of Serbian military and police troops, backed up by 30 vehicles, headed towards
the village of Mihaliq today morning. Six Serbian combat vehicles left later, at 10:30
CET, also heading for this village.
Local sources said two members of the local Montenegrin community have been killed in yet
unsolved circumstances.
Early in the morning today, a large part of the Albanian population of half a dozen
Vushtrri villages (Mihaliq, Druar, Reznik, Shallc, Strofc, etc.) began fleeing their
homes, in fear of an imminent Serbian crackdown.
Tense situation in Skėnderaj and surroundings
Skėnderaj, February 3 (Kosovapress) OSCE’s Verifying Mission informed last night
that serbian forces are going to try to go along the Gllogoc- Skėnderaj road. This
information has alarmed the population of this region and especially those that live along
this road which have started to flee their homes for more secure places. UĒK Units are in
the state of high alert in order to prevent any provocation or eventual attack. Serbian
forces are trying hard to complicate the situation and are searching for an excuse for any
eventual offensive.
Shelling continues today also
Shalė, February 3 (Kosovapress) Serbian forces positioned in the villages Bukosh,
Frashėr and Dolak have today started ferocious shelling using heavy artillery. Similar
shelling continued all through the night, last night, and apart from material damages
there are no human loses. UĒK Formations from OZ of Shalė have increased their level of
alert and are ready for immediate intervention.
Burns asks UĒK not to be provoked
Malishevė, February 3 (Kosovapress) In Dragobil fo Malisheva, yesterday a meeting took
place between Sokol Bashota, member of GHQ and UĒK political representative, and Shawn
Burns, head of KDOM. In this meeting it was discussed about the difficult situation and
the Serb obstructions against OSCE verifiers in Kosova. Head of KDOM asked UĒK not to
fall in the, open, provocation made by Serbian forces. Mr Bashota has requested that NATO
forces should react in Kosovė even before the date set for continuation of talks on
Kosova, because of the latest Serbian threats and onslaughts.
One High Officer of Yugoslav Army was killed during the
yesterday's clashes in the vicinity of Hani i Elezit area
(Radio21)
Albanian sources from Hani i Elezit informed that a high officer of Yugoslav Army, Goran
Mirjanic was killed during the yesterday's clashes in the vicinity of this area. Whereas,
according to these sources it is said that many Albanian are killed. This wasn't still
confirmed by Albanian sources.
Gani Hajda was found killed in the suburb of Rahovec
(Radio21)
In the suburb of Rahovec was found the body of Gani Qerim Hajda, at age 49 yesterday
afternoon, Albanian sources in this town informed. This is the third person abducted on
February 23 by the Serb police in the entrance of Rahovec.
"Albanian delegation works with consensus" - The
meeting Rugova Hutzinger
(Radio21)
The French Ambassador in Macedonia Jasques Hutzinger, the Special Envoy of Foreign
Minister Yber Vedrine stayed today in Prishtina. Mr. Hutzinger met several members of
Albanian delegation which participated in the peaceful conference on Kosova at
Rambouillet. After the meeting with President Rugova, Ambassador Hutzinger declared:
"We keep in touch with them for seeing how the process for public discussions, about
Rambouillet documents is spreading in such a country, inside different parts of the
Kosovas leadership and we'll see how this process will find a finalisation in the next
period, because we must absolutely have a success at the next conference".
Ambassador Hutzinger could not be able to say whether Albanian side will sing or not the
document before March 15 because the discussions about this draft are continuing in
different circles. About Albanian delegation said that it is a delegation which is working
with consensus and that practically has no leader.
Dole Heads to Kosova Thursday
By GEORGE GEDDA Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Increasing diplomatic efforts for a Kosova peace deal, the
administration is sending former Sen. Bob Dole to the province Thursday and considering
dispatching veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke to Belgrade for talks with Serb leaders,
officials said Wednesday.
State Department spokesman James Foley pointed to recent encouraging signs that the
Kosovar Albanians have been moving toward acceptance of a peace plan proposed by six
mediating nations.
After the Albanians formally agree, Foley said, ``pressure on the Serbs to do so will
mount, '' Foley said.
``We believe that that message will become increasingly clear to President (Slobodan)
Milosevic in the days to come,'' he added.
On Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary William Cohen predicted that without a peace plan and
peacekeepers, there was a ``likelihood of bloodshed continuing to take place on a massive
scale, with migrations of tens of thousands of people out of the region spilling into the
other areas.''
That, Cohen said, could ``present us with a military mission in the future which would be
far more expensive'' than the 4,000-member U.S. contingent the administration envisions
for Kosova under a peace agreement.
Foley said Dole will go to Pristina, the provincial capital of Kosova, to meet with a
variety of Kosovar Albanian leaders. The hope is to win their endorsement of the decision
of the Kosovar Albanian delegation to sign the accords during talks at Rambouillet,
France, last month.
Dole's contacts will supplement those that chief U.S. mediator Christopher Hill has been
having with Serb leaders in Belgrade. Dole, who leaves for the region Thursday, is
traveling at President Clinton's request.
In a statement late Wednesday, Dole said the peace plan is not perfect but provides the
best chance to put the people of Kosova on a course of self-rule and liberty.
Of particular importance, Dole said, is the provision calling for implementation of the
agreement by NATO troops with U.S. participation.
``With NATO troops for protection,'' he said, ``the people of Kosova can determine their
own agenda and future.''
Dole's assignment pleased Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.
``Bob Dole brings credibility in the Balkans,'' Biden told a group of reporters. Biden
also suggested that Dole's role ``freezes some elements of the Republican party'' from
criticizing the administration's efforts.
U.S. officials said Holbrooke, the chief architect of the Kosova cease fire reached last
October, may make a return visit to Belgrade in the coming days.
Holbrooke, nominated for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has a long track record in
dealing with Milosevic, dating from the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia over three years ago.
He has been in frequent contact with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the Kosova
issue but has not visited the region in some time.
The administration is eager for a settlement to be reached by the time peace talks resume
in Paris on March 15.
Foley's remarks were devoid of military threats, suggesting that for now, the
administration is content to rely on diplomacy.
Nonetheless, officials expressed concern over military deployments by the Yugoslav Army
they said violate the October truce. They said the violations were not one-sided, pointing
to provocative actions taken by Kosovar Albanian rebels.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young, R-Fla., voiced widely held
congressional concerns that a deployment to Kosova could turn into another expensive
entanglement for the United States - one that would be taken ``out of the muscle of the
military.''
``It's a question of balance,'' Cohen said. ``Do we commit forces, a smaller number
certainly than the Europeans, to a peacekeeping mission if there is a peace agreement,
with the costs associated with that? Or say there is no peace and there is violence and it
spreads. What will be the role of the United States at that point, and at what cost?''
Refugees Hunt For Food, Shelter In Southern Kosova
By Deborah Charles
GENERAL JANKOVIC, Serbia (Reuters) - Kosova Albanians hunted for food and shelter
Wednesday after fleeing villages near the Macedonian border, where they reported fresh
clashes between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
Nearby, the Yugoslav army staged a huge exercise using heavy artillery and tanks.
Dozens of ethnic Albanians queued outside a tiny warehouse in the small town of General
Jankovic on the Serbian province's border with Macedonia for handouts of food, clothes and
basic supplies.
They said clashes between Serb security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas, reported in
nearby villages for the past few days, continued Wednesday morning. They said they could
hear sporadic mortar fire for about an hour.
``Yesterday was really bad, but it continued today,'' said Sutki Kalisi, taking a break
from distributing food to local residents who were housing refugees from neighboring
villages. ''We haven't heard shelling like this any other time.''
He and others in the warehouse said 13 to 15 villages in the hills around General Jankovic
were deserted after residents fled fighting. Aid workers said they had found about 200
ethnic Albanians who had been out in the open for five days.
The Serbian-run Pristina Media Center said several ethnic Albanians and one army officer
were killed in fighting near General Jankovic Tuesday.
The United Nations says fighting has driven 1,200 ethnic Albanian refugees into Macedonia
since Feb. 26. A further 4,000 ethnic Albanians have been displaced from their homes in
the area and most are sheltering with friends and family.
In Kacanik, a nearby village whose population has multiplied over the past few days due to
the influx of refugees, ethnic Albanians continued to arrive by the truckload.
The International Red Cross dropped off about 30 villagers, weak from hunger. One old
woman collapsed as she was unloaded from a minivan and had to be helped to a nearby house.
A few streets away, about 70 refugees evacuated to safety Tuesday after spending two
nights on a snowy hillside tried to get used to their new home -- an empty school. They
said they wanted to go back home but were too afraid.
As Yugoslav Information Secretary Milan Komnenic warned against ``over-dramatizing'' the
situation in Kosova, troops put on a display of force as they exercised in southern Kosova
with heavy artillery, tanks and more than 100 soldiers.
The exercise was in honor of army chief General Dragoljub Ojdanic, who took up the post
late last year. He stressed the need to be able to defend the country from foreign troops.
``We cannot allow foreign troops into our territory ... because their arrival would mean
occupation of this land,'' he said.
Western countries trying to mediate a peace settlement for Kosova insist that NATO
peacekeeping troops are a key element.
After failing to reach a deal last month in France, Serb and ethnic Albanian delegates are
to meet for a new round of talks on March 15. NATO has threatened air strikes if the Serbs
do not sign up to a settlement agreed to by the ethnic Albanians.
In the provincial capital Pristina, Yugoslav and ethnic Albanians were upbeat about a
possible political settlement.
Komnenic, part of the most pro-Western wing of the Yugoslav government, told Reuters: ``I
am very optimistic ... because I am a realistic person. There is no other resolution to
this problem but a political one.''
A straw poll of ethnic Albanians in Pristina showed a similar response.
``I think this agreement is a step forward,'' said 45-year-old Faik Krasniqi, adding that
NATO troops on the ground were very important to the process.
Ilir, a 33-year-old, was more cynical.
``In a situation like this when you have to decide between two bad things, you will pick
the better one, and that's what this agreement is,'' he said.
NATO, Serbs Came Close To Conflict Forces Placed on Alert Last
Week in Kosova
By R. Jeffrey Smith Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, March 4, 1999; Page A01
DJENERAL JANKOVIC, Yugoslavia, March 3—Some NATO forces and Serb-led Yugoslav army
units went on high alert during a confrontation between the Yugoslav border patrol and
international observers last Friday, further escalating tensions in Kosova and helping
accelerate a buildup of military forces on both sides, Western sources said today.
The incident, in which NATO and Belgrade government troops came closer to direct conflict
than either side has publicly acknowledged, was spurred by the detention of 21
international observers by Serbian officials near here as they tried to cross the border
from Macedonia.
At the height of the standoff, NATO field commanders ordered two armored companies of
British and Italian troops based in northern Macedonia -- a total of 600 men -- to put
live ammunition in their weapons and prepare to rescue the observers, the sources said. In
response, the Yugoslav army rushed tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers closer
to the remote border crossing in the Crnagora mountains.
Western officials cite the incident as one of many reasons to fear that continuing
hostilities between government forces and Kosova's ethnic Albanian separatists could wind
up drawing NATO into a confrontation with the Yugoslav military before a peace accord can
be signed.
Top Yugoslav officials and ethnic Albanian rebel leaders failed to reach agreement on a
Western-sponsored accord in 18 days of negotiations last month and are slated to renew
their talks in France on March 15. But since the talks broke off Feb. 23, government
security forces have been strengthened in and near Kosova and have skirmished nearly every
day with the rebels. All told, the year-long conflict has cost more than 1,500 lives, most
of them noncombatants among the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosova, a province of Serbia,
Yugoslavia's dominant republic.
In the past week, the British military has deployed 3,000 troops in northern Macedonia,
supplementing 2,300 French troops already in the country as part of an "extraction
force" that would withdraw the international observers if they are threatened.
Friday's incident began when Yugoslav officials at the border seized the observers' travel
documents and demanded that their vehicles be searched. The observers, who are part of an
international mission attempting to monitor a loosely observed cease-fire, were detained
when they refused to submit to the searches. They eventually relented and were released
after an ordeal that for some of them lasted 72 hours. The NATO troops that had been
placed on standby for "no-notice" military action -- the highest state of alert
-- were then able to revert to their normal routine, the Western sources said.
But the deployment of the Yugoslav forces within 10 miles of the NATO troops during the
incident fed into an action-reaction cycle of the type that Western officials say could
lead to misunderstandings and possibly provoke serious conflict during a tense period in
which the United States and its European allies are trying to broker a peace accord.
Thousands of ethnic Albanians living near the border fled after sighting the Yugoslav
troop movements. That, in turn, caused members of the Kosova Liberation Army, the armed
ethnic Albanian rebel group, to move forces into the area to protect the villages. Five
days of skirmishing between the rebels and government troops ensued, officials said,
although the conflict abated today after some of the army troops returned to their
garrison in the southern Kosova city of Urosevac.
Recent movements by Yugoslav forces have alarmed Western officials, who fear they could
spark additional fighting. Fifteen Yugoslav army companies, averaging about 100 soldiers
each, have deployed in more than a dozen Kosova towns in what Western officials say is a
violation of an agreement reached last October between Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic and U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander, to restrict army
deployments to six major cities.
The 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which manages
the monitoring effort, has charged that the army deployments are provocative to the
rebels. But the army, claiming that the OSCE has reneged on its obligation to prevent
attacks on its forces by the rebels, has refused to shift its forces to the approved
sites.
The Belgrade government has bolstered its special Interior Ministry police units in Kosova
with an undetermined number of additional men, according to Western officials. It also has
moved in additional armored personnel carriers and double-barreled Praga 30mm antiaircraft
guns, a weapon typically used here to fire at civilians' homes. At least seven more tanks
were observed being shipped into Kosova by rail today, although the model -- the M-36 --
is a U.S.-made weapon of World War II vintage and no longer considered highly reliable,
the Western officials said.
According to NATO sources, the government also has been building up its forces on Kosova's
periphery and on the border with Macedonia, not far from where thousands of NATO troops
are gathering to prepare either for a peacekeeping assignment in Kosova under terms of a
peace accord or for an emergency evacuation of the international observers.
An estimated 6,000 army troops assigned to Yugoslavia's 11th Armored Brigade in the
Serbian city of Nis have been moved southward and massed just north of the Kosova village
of Podujevo, according to NATO sources. Sixty tanks and 50 armored personnel carriers are
also deployed there, waiting either to conduct a new assault against the rebels or to
defend the area against any NATO assault, the sources said.
Ten days ago, Yugoslav army engineers also wired several bridges and tunnels with
explosives near the Macedonian border and stationed army units on both sides of the
bridges. Despite the negotiated restrictions on the movement of tanks and artillery in the
area, "they go everywhere they want to go," said Otto Bischof, head of the OSCE
office in the border village of Kacanik.
"We really don't know if they are positioning for an invasion [by NATO] or preparing
for an offensive" against the rebels, a senior Western official said. "I think
Milosevic does believe that NATO is poised to steal Kosova from him. But it could very
well be posturing" to affect the outcome of the next round of peace negotiations.
NATO has threatened to launch punitive airstrikes against Yugoslavia if its forces launch
a major offensive against the Kosova guerrillas or if the Belgrade government blocks a
peace agreement. The agreement calls for the deployment of a NATO-led peacekeeping force
-- which would total 28,000 troops, including 4,000 Americans -- to police the accord.
Several Western officials said they suspect the Yugoslav army is dispersing its troops in
preparation for possible NATO airstrikes. Local military commanders, however, have
described their activities as "winter training."
"Certainly our view of training is not the same as theirs," said an OSCE
official. "We would have it done in a recognized area using well-understood routines.
They view it as something that is done anywhere with live ammunition and have been known
to fire on villages as part of their training."
Correspondent William Drozdiak in Berlin contributed to this report.
Where the Yugoslav Forces Are
Yugoslav troops now massed near the provincial border of Kosova:
North of Pudjevo: the 11th armored brigade (about 6,000 troops), plus 60 tanks and 50
armored personnel carriers.
Inside Kosova
Under an accord last October, the Yugoslav army can have up to 10,000 troops inside Kosova
and 15,000 interior police forces. These forces were to be restricted to six towns --
Pristina, Pec, Prizren, Urosevac, Mitrovica and Gnjilane. Now, some units located outside
the six towns:
* Central region
Lapusnik: one tank company
Komarone: two tank companies
Volujak: one tank platoon (one-third of a company)
Dulje: one infantry company
* Northern region
Bajgora: one tank company
Vuciturn: two infantry comp.
Podujevo: two infantry comp.
* Southern region
Junik/Decane: one tank comp.
Djakovica: two infantry comp.
Zjum: two tank platoons
(equal to 2/3 of a company)
Djeneral Jankovic: one engineering/demolition platoon
Djeneral Somanja: one tank comp.
US 'Encouraged' On Deal With Kosova Albanians
By Laurence McQuillan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials said on Wednesday there has been ``good progress''
in efforts to win the approval of ethnic Albanians for a Kosova peace accord, increasing
pressure on the Serbs to accept the plan as well.
Peace talks between the Yugoslav government and representatives of Kosova's Albanians, who
are seeking independence from Belgrade, are due to resume in France on March 15.
``There's good progress with the Kosovars,'' said White House spokesman David Leavy.
``There's indications that they are going to officially embrace the political settlement
and we are encouraged by that and we're going to move forward to lock that in.''
``I'm told that there has been a very positive session,'' involving special U.S. Kosova
envoy Chris Hill and the ethnic Albanians, Leavy told reporters.
He said there have been preliminary discussions about inviting a delegation representing
Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas to Washington for talks.
During the initial round of negotiations last month, the Albanians gave tentative approval
to a deal that would give Kosova, which is 90 percent ethnic Albanian, substantial
autonomy but would fall short of the independence they seek.
The Serbian side agreed in principle to most of the political conditions in the plan, but
objects to a provision that would allow 30,000 NATO troops into Kosova to oversee the
agreement.
``We're making clear to both parties that it's in their interests to sign'' a peace
agreement, Leavy said, noting that NATO has authorized punishing air strikes against Serb
targets if Belgrade blocks a peace accord.
If the ethnic Albanians accept a peace plan, it would increase pressure on Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic to agree to the terms or face military action.
``The best way to come into compliance and end this crisis is for Milosevic to sign a new
peace agreement ... (and) allow a NATO military presence,'' Leavy said.
About 430 NATO strike and support planes, including 260 U.S. jets, are in position to
carry out orders for military action that would include the launching of Tomahawk cruise
missiles.
The so-called Contact Group, made up of the United States, Russia, France, Britain,
Germany and Italy, has been pressing to bring a permanent end to nearly one-year of
fighting between Serbs and the Kosova Albanians.
U.S. officials privately have expressed concern about Serb deployments both in Kosova and
along its borders, violating limits reached in a deal brokered by U.S. envoy Richard
Holbrooke in October.
Although NATO has authorized military strikes to force Belgrade to come into compliance
with the force limits, officials said such steps are unlikely to be ordered as long as
there is a chance for a political solution.
Peace pressure back on Belgrade
By GEOFF KITNEY in Berlin
The prospects for a showdown between the Western powers and Yugoslavia's President
Slobodan Milosevic have increased following the acceptance by ethnic Albanian leaders of a
political settlement for Kosova.
The ethnic Albanian separatist movement's backing for the peace deal, expected to be
formally given when peace talks resume in France on March 15, would clear the way for
Western powers to again threaten Mr Milosevic with NATO military force if he does not
accept the deal.
However, Mr Milosevic's defiant opposition to NATO involvement in Kosova has been
dramatised by a build-up of Yugoslav Army forces on the border with the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia, where NATO has been building a big force in readiness for possible
action in Kosova. This would be either part of an international peace-keeping force or a
force to get international monitors out if NATO decided to go ahead with air strikes
against Yugoslavia.
Western officials warned yesterday that a showdown with Mr Milosevic loomed when the
Kosova peace talks resumed.
The support of ethnic Albanian leaders has been critical to Western efforts to force Mr
Milosevic to accept a deal which grants Kosova autonomy within Serbia.
Peace talks in Rambouillet, France, ended last week after the ethnic Albanian leaders
rejected an autonomy plan, with hardliners demanding full independence for Kosova.
The talks' failure enabled Mr Milosevic to enhance his standing with his own supporters.
The hardline objections were led by the veteran Kosova separatist Mr Adem Demaci, who has
spent nearly 28 years in Serb jails for his separatist beliefs. He refused to attend the
talks and vetoed moves by the Kosova Liberation Army representatives at the talks to
accept the deal.
However, on Wednesday he announced he was standing down as the KLA's political leader
following what appears to have been a virtual coup within its ranks by moderates who
favour the peace plan.
This followed intense pressure from the international negotiators who have been continuing
talks with ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosova since the Rambouillet talks.
The negotiators are understood to have convinced the major ethnic Albanian factions that
if they continued to reject the peace plan offered by the six-nation Kosova Contact Group
the consequences for the Kosovars would be disastrous.
"Demaci's resignation is a major advance for us," one Western official said.
"He was the major problem on the ethnic Albanian side and his departure allows us to
get our strategy back on track. Now we can target the real villain in all of this [Mr
Milosevic]."
The chief international negotiators in Kosova, the United States envoy Mr Christopher Hill
and the European Union's Mr Wolfgang Petritsch, were due in Brussels yesterday to brief a
meeting of NATO ambassadors on the Kosova peace process.
Mr Knut Vollebaek, head of the Organisation of Security and Co-operation in Europe, which
has provided the peace monitoring force in Kosova, said he remained sceptical about the
ethnic Albanian leaders signing the peace deal.
He also warned that daily skirmishes between Serb security forces and KLA fighters could
erupt at any time into major conflict.
"A further escalation could put the whole peace process at new risk," he said.
NATO's military chief, General Wesley Clark, repeated a warning that the alliance was
ready to intervene before the next round of peace talks if Serb forces launched major
military operations.
NATO was continuing preparations for "all possible contingencies", he said.
Peace efforts in Kosova continue, so does violence
PRISHTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- Kosova Albanian rebels ambushed and killed a Serbian
policeman on a late evening patrol in northern Kosova, Serb sources said Thursday.
Meanwhile, evidence mounted that the ethnic Albanians may sign a peace deal, putting
pressure on the Serbs to do the same.
Some 32 kilometers (20 miles) north of the province's capital Pristina, a 26 year-old
policeman was shot in his car late Wednesday while on patrol in a heavily contested part
of the province. He died en route to a hospital, the Serb Media Center reported.
Scattered violence in this and other parts of the war-torn Serbian province has continued
while both sides in the conflict were deliberating on the standing peace offer, a
U.S.-backed plan that would give Kosova broad autonomy, formally within Serbia. Ethnic
Albanians form an overwelming majority of the province and demand independence.
Signs of progress
While Serbs defy the plan because of the envisaged NATO force to implement it, evidence
mounted Wednesday that the Kosova Albanian delegation is ready to sign.
In neighboring Albania, a delegate to February's peace talks in Rambouillet, France, said
the negotiators will keep their tentative pledge to sign the peace plan.
"I think the Albanian delegation will sign the Rambouillet agreement because it
represents the historical and actual interests of the Albanian people," Rexhep Qosja,
leader of the Democratic United League, said in Tirana.
U.S. envoy Christopher Hill, briefing NATO ambassadors in Brussels, Belgium, said he
believes a peace deal is near.
NATO has threatened airstrikes against Serb forces if the Yugoslav government does not
accept the peace plan at a meeting set for March 15. The talks follow two weeks of
inconclusive negotiations in France last month.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has barred the prosecutor, Canadian judge Louise
Arbour, from investigating alleged massacres in Kosova.
Dole to meet Kosova Albanians on Friday
In Washington, the United States prepared to step up diplomatic efforts with both Serbs
and ethnic Albanians.
The United States, too, has seen encouraging signs in recent days that the Kosova
Albanians would accept a proposed peace deal for Serbia's southernmost province.
"There's good progress with the Kosovars," said White House spokesman David
Leavy. "There's indications that they are going to officially embrace the political
settlement, and we are encouraged by that, and we're going to move forward to lock that
in."
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole will arrive in Kosova on Friday to meet with a range of ethnic
Albanian leaders, including representatives of the Kosova Liberation Army, the State
Department said Wednesday.
Dole's efforts will supplement meetings by Hill with Serb leaders in Belgrade.
Diplomats hope getting the ethnic Albanians to sign will increase pressure on the Serbs to
accept the plan or face possible NATO airstrikes.
"We believe that message will become increasingly clear to President Milosevic in the
days to come," said State Department spokesman James Foley.
Serb leaders have agreed in principle to most of the political conditions of the plan,
which would grant a degree of self-rule to Kosova Albanians for three years. But Serbs
object to allowing some 30,000 NATO peacekeepers into Kosova to police the peace
settlement.
U.S. officials said Richard Holbrooke, the architect of the October cease-fire in Kosova,
may make a return visit to Yugoslavia in the coming days. Holbrooke, slated to become the
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has a long track record in dealing with Milosevic,
dating from the Dayton peace talks on Bosnia in 1995.
As many as 400,000 people have been driven from their homes since fighting began in Kosova
more than a year ago, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday. Sixty thousand have fled in
the past 10 weeks alone.
"Particularly alarming for us is the fact that this is supposed to be a
cease-fire," said Paula Ghedini, spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees Belgrade Office.
"But the level of displacement we are seeing now as well as military activities are
the highest since last October," she said.
Ghedini said Serbs and KLA guerrillas were using similar tactics to spread fear in the
population, which is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian, in the run-up to a new international
peace deadline later this month. Serbs and Kosova Albanian negotiators are scheduled to
meet for new talks in France on March 15.
Aid pours into Kosova
Taking advantage of a lull in the tank and artillery fire that has pounded the hills of
southern Kosova in the past several days, humanitarian agencies sent food, blankets,
mattresses and medicine to help an estimated 4,000 people who have fled their homes.
U.N. refugee agency spokesman Fernando del Mundo said many refugees had crossed the border
into Macedonia or found shelter in Kosova, but several hundred remained stuck on cold
mountain slopes.
Yugoslav forces refrained from attacking rebels Wednesday but sent a convoy of armored
vehicles through the border area in a show of strength.
Infantry fighting vehicles and trucks loaded with troops and heavy weapons rumbled through
the border zone before returning to base at Urosevac, halfway between the provincial
capital of Pristina and the main Macedonia-Kosova border crossing.
International monitors said the Yugoslav army has deployed six times the number of troops
allowed under an October agreement with NATO, which has threatened airstrikes unless
Belgrade stops its crackdown against ethnic Albanians.
Belgrade says the deployment is a response to provocations by the Kosova Liberation Army,
which has not signed the October truce but has pledged restraint.
Yugoslavia's information minister accused Kosova Albanians of exaggerating the numbers of
refugees to "stage a humanitarian catastrophe."
"The (Yugoslav) army has no reason to fire on villages," said Milan Komnenic,
adding that government troops were fighting only KLA guerrillas. |
