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SERBIAN MASSACRES

• Kosovo Concentration Camps Reported
• Serbs Pack Kosovans Onto Exile Trains
• Humanitarian Condition in Istog Catastrophic
• NATO's Fatal Delay in Kosova
• Newsday: Milosevic Losing Claim to Kosovo
• YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT FORCES SYSTEMATICALLY EXPEL ETHNIC ALBANIANS FROM KOSOVO
• A Canadian Journalist Received Death Threats from Serbs

Serbs Pack Kosovans Onto Exile Trains

By Sean Maguire

BLACE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Hundreds of Kosovo Albanian refugees arrived at the Macedonian border by train Wednesday, accusing Serb forces of rounding them up at gunpoint and locking them on board without food or water.

Weeping men, women and children from Kosovo's capital, Pristina, were pushed off a first train into a field just inside Macedonia before dawn, and spent hours shivering in drizzle while local police registered them.

They spoke of being rounded up from several districts early Tuesday, marched to the main station and forced to board the passenger train at gunpoint.

The doors were locked by Serb police, and passengers spent hours without food or water.

``The police came yesterday morning and told us 'Go, just go.' They shot in the air, so we left,'' said Berishe, 38. He and his family were given three hours notice to pack and leave.

A second train arrived at the Serbian side of the border late in the morning, and around 1,000 people were forced to marched down the railway tracks into Macedonia. Most said they came from Urosevac, some 25 miles from the border.

``They (the Serb police) said: 'Go from your house. This is not a place for you, this is the heart of Serbia,''' said Nazmi, a man of about 60.

``They took our ID cards and said don't come back. They said if you do come back we'll take your head off,'' said Gafur, a 32-year-old man.

The arrival of the trains took the Macedonian authorities by surprise and provided further evidence of the systematic expulsion of Kosovo Albanians.

``My Serb neighbors came to us and told us we had to leave,'' said Victor, a passenger on the first train. ``They gave us five minutes and then we joined a line of people that went down to the station where the train was waiting.''

Passengers feared they were going to be used by the Serbs as human shields against NATO air attacks.

``We thought we would be used as prisoners of war or in case of NATO attacks,'' Victor said.

The Pristina headquarters of Yugoslav army and Serb police units have been hit hard by NATO warplanes in recent nights.

But Victor doubted Serb forces were substantially weakened, with most police units moving into homes vacated by ethnic Albanians. ``They think they are safe there from NATO,'' he said.

Passengers said friends who remained in Pristina had told them by mobile phone that men in the city had been rounded up and put in a football stadium. The report was unconfirmed.

Other refugees trembled with fear as they described how they were terrorized into leaving. Baci, 25, a student, said masked men came to his district, parked a tank on a corner and went on a rampage of looting and burning.

``They burned everything. They took everything from us,'' he said. He added that he saw Serbian police kill three people when the train stopped at Kosovo Polje, a suburb of Pristina.

The trainloads of refugees added to a wave of human misery piling up at the Blace border point, 20 miles west of the Macedonian capital Skopje.

Macedonian authorities, who had slowed refugee arrivals to a trickle Tuesday, effectively threw the border open and shepherded waiting crowds onto buses.

Those arriving said hundreds of cars were backed up some 6 miles into Yugoslavia.

Kefser, a middle-aged woman, rubbed her aching legs as she described a two-day wait crammed into a small car along with six other people. ``Many people have started to abandon their cars and just walk to the frontier,'' she said.

Humanitarian Condition in Istog Catastrophic

The humanitarian condition in the villages of Istog commune and its environs is catastrophicei, over 50 thousand inhabitans are displaced and they are concentrated in free zone. Up to now villages of Kërnina, Cërca, and Muzhevina are being displaced. From Serbia in to Kosova, across Podjeva, yesterday a convey with 70 military vehicles , and with rocket systems has enter in Kosova. Serbian forces are placed in Bradash and Katunishtë. Other serbian positions are in Lupç and Llapashticë.The city of Podujeva is already empty.Many citizens of this village have been executed.

NATO's Fatal Delay in Kosova

By Nexhmedin Spahiu*

-The Serbian offensive for the ethnic cleansing of Kosova started before the NATO attacks. The NATO attacks did not either instigate nor accelerate the Serbian genocide against the Albanians of Kosova, but these attacks have not been serious enough to prevent it. Recognizing the independence of Kosova would make it easier to overcome the present crisis.

It seems incredible, but it is true that after five days of air attacks NATO has been unable to bring to heel Milosevic's Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, the Serbian forces have undertaken a broad offensive of ethnic cleansing against the Kosovars. If this situation continues for a few more days, Kosova will be left without Kosovars, and NATO's operations will lose all meaning. Setting aside these grim predictions of a peace of the graveyard in Kosova, it must be admitted that even if Serbia is brought to its knees tomorrow, NATO's performance so far has put in doubt its ability to defend the universal moral values of our planet. We may conclude from this fact that either NATO is militarily or politically unable to crush a terrorist and genocidal regime like that of Milosevic, or that NATO does not want to bring Milosevic to his knees, but wants to allow him to carry out ethnic cleansing in Kosova, and its operations are a mere farce. Whatever the truth is, it poses a serious danger to global peace and security. On our planet, we have at the moment 185 states and more than 800 ethnic groups.

The Serbian example would encourage other totalitarian and non-totalitarian states to solve their interethnic problems according to the Serbian model. This would mean wiping from the face of the earth three-quarters if the total number of peoples in the world, and perhaps indeed the entire planet, because the states with the most ethnic problems, such as China, India, Pakistan, etc., also possess nuclear weapons. The most recent Serbian offensive began a few days before the NATO air attacks. Indeed, were it not for NATO's attacks, the ethnic cleansing of Kosova would perhaps now be completed. What is at the moment restraining Milosevic's Serbs is not any moral scruple, but the resistance of the KLA and the repeated attacks of NATO aircraft. If we were to call the fact that NATO has still not brought Milosevic to his knees a failure, then the reasons for this failure are as follows: First: NATO has not properly studied the psychological factor and the Serbian national ideology. The Serbs are the only nation in the former Yugoslavia that possesses a core in the regional sense. This core is Belgrade and its surroundings, where the modern Serbian state was born.

Nations with a core and a periphery normally share out their resources in a way that gives the fruits to the core, and the myths to the periphery. In the Serbian case, there are myths about today's Macedonia, which the Serbs call "Old Serbia," and about Kosova as "the cradle of Serbianism," and so forth. The military successes of the Serbs have come about because the Serbs of the core have always been ready to sacrifice the Serbs of the periphery. This was the case in the Balkan wars, in the two world wars, and most recently in the war with Croatia. Belgrade manipulated the Serbs of Croatia and, on the pretext that their rights were in danger, egged them on the commit rapes, arson, and massacres against the Croats at a time when the Croats were powerless. There was no lack of help from Belgrade for this purpose. When the Croats became strong and attacked the Serbs of Croatia, putting the latter in serious danger, Belgrade made no move to protect them, because it did not wish to risk anything in the face of a Croatia that was now militarily and politically powerful. The NATO onslaught against Serbia has not crushed Serbia, at least in the least five days, because it is Serbia's periphery rather than its core that is under attack. NATO is striking at empty warehouses, which is of course a source of humor. The facilities that constitute the backbone of the Milosevic regime have still not been threatened. Belgrade Radio-Television, Milosevic's main weapon, has not been attacked, the weapons production factory at Kragujevac likewise, and the defense and interior ministries have still not been the targets of NATO bombs. In the first U.S. attack on Libya, the daughter of Libyan leader Muammar al-Ghaddafi was killed, but Slobodan Milosevic's daughter can appear at a rock concert in a Belgrade square with the slogan "NATO -- sorry we are singing." In fact, Milosevic was emboldened following the first night of NATO air attacks, when he saw that the purpose of the attack was not to crush but to chastise him. He saw that there was time before the final reproach to continue the ethnic cleansing of Kosova.

On the first night, he was indeed sufficiently taken aback and scared to let fall a statement on Radio Belgrade, "It is not only Kosovo that is in question, but Serbia too. Let us set aside Kosovo -- this is also an question of Serbia." In his initial confusion and fear, Milosevic forget that Kosova is the "cradle" of Serbia. But he remembered this on the following night, when he saw that the NATO attacks were not so serious. If NATO is not to fail in its contest with Milosevic, the first thing it must do is to disable Belgrade Radio-Television, which is the lair of the leading criminals not only of the war in Kosova, but of the wars in Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia. This will oblige the Serbian public to follow foreign television channels, to which Milosevic would have limited access, and which would promote Serbian politicians that would offer decent alternatives to genocide and ethnic cleansing. The Serbs must learn how to protest against their compatriots who are killing women, children, and the elderly. Second, Montenegro must be induced to declare independence, and its independence must be recognized immediately. The third and most important element would be to recognize the independence of Kosova. If Kosova's independence were recognized, there would no longer be any point in the Serbs' campaign of ethnic cleansing. In the end, this is the only logical solution. How can the Kosovars now be told to live under Serbia, when the idea is engraved on the Serbs' minds that they were bombarded because of the Kosovars?

This would no longer have any meaning. Such a step should be part of the punishment of Serbia for its act of genocide. In any event, it will be easier for the international community to defend the small Serbian minority in Kosova than to protect the large Albanian minority in Serbia. Finally, any mention of the independence of Kosova is usually ruled out on the grounds of geopolitical security in the region. In fact, it is precisely the independence of Kosova that would secure regional geopolitical equilibrium. All the ethnic groups in the eastern Balkans have two states: The Romanians have Romania and Moldova, the Greeks have Greece and Cyprus, the Turks have Turkey and Northern Cyprus; the Bulgars have Bulgaria and Macedonia, and the Serbs have Serbia and Montenegro. The Albanians are alone in having Albania, but not being allowed Kosova. Why not?

*Author is prominent Albanian political analyst

Newsday: Milosevic Losing Claim to Kosovo

By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton administration, seeking to raise the cost to Yugoslavia for its scorched-earth torching of Kosovo, says President Slobodan Milosevic risks losing international support for his claim to the Serb province. U.S. officials brushed off Milosevic's call for an end to NATO bombing.

``We need to grind away at this,'' Vice Adm. Scott A. Fry, chief of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday as he and other U.S. officials claimed slow but steady progress on Day 7 of a NATO air campaign against the Yugoslav army and special police forces that are routing Kosovar Albanians.

President Clinton, who has said from the start of the NATO campaign March 24 that it would impose a heavy toll on Milosevic's means to wage war, went further Tuesday in remarks at the State Department.

``Today he faces the mounting cost of his continued aggression,'' Clinton said. ``For a sustained period, we will see that his military will be seriously diminished, key military infrastructure destroyed, the prospect for international support for Serbia's claim to Kosovo increasingly jeopardized.''

NATO's military commander, U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, said today he has been authorized to expand the range of targets of the bombing campaign. He refused to discuss specific targets but acknowledged that increased civilian casualties could result.

``We have been extremely careful so far and quite effective in preventing collateral damage and civilian casualties,'' Clark said on ABC's ``Good Morning America.'' ``There are no guarantees in an operation like this.''

He said any discussion of civilian casualties should consider the atrocities already being inflicted on Kosovars.

``We are going to take every action that is available within our means and capabilities to bring home the tragedy of his policy -- President Milosevic -- and his leadership and we are going at the same time continue to attack, degrade and disrupt actions of his police forces on the ground,'' Clark said.

The Clinton administration has opposed independence for Kosovo, which is a province of Serbia, while pressing for the kind of autonomy the province enjoyed until Milosevic forcibly abolished it in the late 1980s. About 90 percent of Kosovo's 1.9 million people are ethnic Albanians. Most of the rest are Serbs. Serbia is one of two republics in what remains of Yugoslavia.

Administration officials said Clinton's remarks did not reflect a change in U.S. policy on Kosovar independence. Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the president's National Security Council, said Clinton was making the point that if Milosevic does not back down he may find the international community no longer willing to accept a Serbia that includes Kosovo -- even Kosovo with autonomy.

YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT FORCES SYSTEMATICALLY EXPEL ETHNIC ALBANIANS FROM KOSOVO

Refugees reported to Human Rights Watch researchers today that Serbian special police and Yugoslav military units are systematically expelling ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, including the cities of Pec and Prizren, in a well-orchestrated and centrally organized campaign to rid the region of the majority of its population. The stories of refugees interviewed by Human Rights Watch staff in Albania and Macedonia revealed a consistent pattern in the conduct of the expulsions and their timing, underscoring the fact that the Yugoslav government evidently made a decision over the weekend to "cleanse" the region of ethnic Albanians.

Scores of refugees interviewed today described their expulsion from their homes by Serbian forces. Refugees from the major Kosovo cities of Pec (population approximately 100,000) and Prizren (population approximately 80,000) reported that there was widespread shooting in and around the cities from Thursday, March 25 to Saturday, March 27, during which time many shops were burned or bombed. Starting either on Saturday or Sunday, refugees reported that their homes were raided by Serbian special police and/or Yugoslav Army units who moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, ordering people to leave their homes and forcing them into columns that were then accompanied to the border. Refugees repeatedly told how soldiers and police threatened that anyone who did not leave within four hours would be killed.

Those who carried out the raids were either Serbian special police dressed in blue camouflage uniforms with either black ski masks or black grease paint on their faces or Yugoslav Army units dressed in green uniforms with either red or white bandanas. One person interviewed by Human Rights Watch also described Serbs in civilian clothes and another spoke of Serbs in all-black who participated in the raids.

All ethnic Albanian residents of Pec, a city in western Kosovo, reported that they were forced to gather in the central square where local trucks and private buses had been commandeered by the police to transport them out of the city. None of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch were allowed to take their own vehicles. It appears that a large convoy departed Pec at approximately 11 a.m. accompanied by Yugoslav forces who then stopped them about one hour from the border with Albania and forced them to walk the rest of the way.

Several of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that individuals had been pulled out of the convoy and killed, and one person interviewed reported that soldiers stopped the bus he was on and took between 10 and 15 men off the bus. He reported having subsequently heard shooting, but had not actually seen anyone shot. He added, "As we drove past, I saw blood on the road." Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm these reports or find individuals who had been eyewitnesses to the reported killings.

Similarly, refugees who were forced to flee the town of Prizren, in southwestern Kosovo, reported that they were rounded up on Sunday morning and forced to leave their homes. In contrast to the expulsion in Pec, no vehicles were provided to transport the residents from the town. Instead, they departed in their own cars, tractors, or on foot to the Albanian border.

Those interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that both cities were almost completely emptied during the raids, although some handicapped and elderly Albanians were reportedly left behind in Pec. Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned about their safety.

For the past year, the Yugoslav authorities have often targetted ethnic Albanian villages which they claimed were harboring the Kosovo Liberation Army. However, the expulsions reported in Pec and Prizren mark the first time that major cities in Kosovo have been targeted with what appears to be the sole motive of "ethnically cleansing" the region.

*** This human rights flash is an occasional information bulletin from Human Rights Watch. It will include human rights updates on the situation in Yugoslavia generally and in Kosovo specifically. For further information contact Fred Abrahams at (212) 216-1270 or Abrahaf@hrw.org.

This and other information is also available on our website: <http://www.hrw.org/>

A Canadian Journalist Received Death Threats from Serbs

Online tensions are rising as military activity develops in the Balkans. Late last night, Pierre Bourque, operator of BOURQUE NEWSWATCH, was threatened by a reader who proffered the following cryptic message: "Come on man.....report more about the nato losses there, report about america's evil role there....come on man...be brave be good.....you are only seconds away from death."

When asked "How So ?" by this reporter, the man replied "I offer My apologies to you if you were offended by my remarks. In no way were they meant to be threatening or offensive, just politically rhetorical. Please do not take my message personally it was not directed towards you. By "death" I meant death to the negative one sided reporting stance the media seems to have taken in this conflict.. I respect the service you provide the public but feel it must be fair and professional in nature. The downing of the canadian plane has been news for some time now and your service is reluctant to post the story. "

In fact BOURQUE did post a bulletin on its website about a possible downed Canadian fighter aircraft at 7:02 pm last evening, roughly 5 minutes after it was reported by ABC-News TV. That story was later changed on ABC's own website to reflect the now-verified downing of a US Stealth warplane. BOURQUE effected appropriate changes to reflect the new information but later added a second report from Dutch news services whic also claimed the downing of a Canadian warbird. No such downing has been confirmed by official Canadian sources as of this writing.

While it may be of dubious merit and questionable taste for an emotional reader to flaunt death threats later retracted, as a second BOURQUE reader admonished, "Do not take any threats lightly. Turn them over to the proper law authorities. May be a crank, or may be a fanatic."

For now, this person's email address has been saved and may be turned over to the proper authorities for investigation.

For More Information, Contact:

Pierre Bourque

-- BOURQUE NEWSWATCH
Canada's Online News Authority
http://www.bourque.org