[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH «ALBEUROPA»} NEWS: KosovaLive, 30 January 2001

[Wolfgang Plarre]

KosovaLive, 30 January 2001
http://www.kosovalive.com/english/30_01_2001_1-am.htm 

News Edition - January 30 

THIRTEEN ALBANIANS INJURED IN CLASHES WITH KFOR

Mitrovica, Jan. 30 (KosovaLive)
Thirteen Albanians were injured in clashes with French KFOR forces in
Mitrovica Tuesday afternoon, according to Albanian sources at the
hospital in Mitrovica that accepts Albanian patients. Meanwhile, the
situation remains tense in the aftermath to the Serb grenade attack and
the Albanian reprisal against Serb rail passengers earlier on Monday.
    Dr. Shaban Mecini and Sergeant Isak Berisha, who were questioned at
the hospital, stated that 13 individuals required medical assistance.
Two of the injured were reported to be seriously wounded.
    KosovaLive journalists witnessed three vehicles and a KFOR truck
ablaze in front of the Maison De France, the French KFOR headquarters.
    Meanwhile, UNMIK's spokesman in Mitrovica, Michael Keats, was
notified that two KFOR armored vehicles had been set on fire.
    About 1,000 Albanians had gathered at the central bridge of the Iber
river to protest against Monday's incidents in Mitrovica, KFOR sources
reported. At the same time, about 500 Serbs gathered on the other side
of the bridge. KFOR troops then used tear gas to disperse the
protesters. According to Keats, KFOR used shock-bombs in addition to
tear gas.
    KosovaLive journalists reported that during clashes with KFOR and
UNMIK police, protesters set fire to a total of five UNMIK vehicles.
"The situation is very tense," Captain Vervecken of the Belgian KFOR
stated. (hm/lb)

REXHEPI: "FEBRUARY 13 IS REPEATING"

Mitrovica, Jan. 30 (KosovaLive)
Mitrovica's former Albanian leader, Bajram Rexhepi, told KosovaLive
Tuesday that after Monday's incidents within the divided city, last
years day of February 13 is repeating when 13 Albanian were killed in
Northern Mitrovica. Rexhepi blames the indolence of the French KFOR and
the international community for the matter.
    "I would say that the scenario of last year's crimes committed in
February are repeating. The situation in Mitrovica is quite tense. All
this happened in the presence of KFOR, who did not react in an adequate
way," Rexhepi, also president of Mtrovica's Democratic Party said.
    Rexhepi who was also the leader of Albanians in Mitrovica, added
that the international community did not react on the warnings of the
Albanian concerning the serious situation. " It is about time that the
international community finish their obligations referring to the 1244
U.N. resolution," he stated. (hm)

SERB ENFORCEMENTS INCREASE IN PRESHEVA VALLEY

Prishtina, Jan. 30 (KosovaLive)
Serb police and military presence has increased in the Presheva Valley,
whereas freedom of movement for inhabitants of the area has been
curtailed, Albanian sources in the region stated Tuesday.
    "Even though there is no shooting from either side, Serb forces
continue to install reinforcements in close range of the Ground Safety
Zone, near the positions of the Liberation Army of Presheva, Medvedja
and Bujanoc (UCPMB)," Jonuz Musliu, president of the Political Council
of PMB, told KosovaLive.
    According to Musliu, the movement of the Albanian residents in the
villages of Presheva has been greatly restricted, following the
positioning of Serb checkpoints along the roads in the villages of
Corotic, Rainc and Rahovic.
    The president of the Bujanoc branch of the Party for Democratic
Action, Ismet Sadiku, told KosovaLive Tuesday that additional Serb
forces are now in place throughout the whole region of the PBM.
"However, the movement of the residents of Bujanoc, according to Sadiku,
is symbolic especially in the villages of Ternoc and Lucan," he added.
(m.shefkiu)

SERB PRISONER ESCAPES FROM MITROVICA HOSPITAL

Mitrovica, Jan. 30 (KosovaLive)
A Serb prisoner escaped from Mitrovica hospital Monday evening, UNMIK
police spokesman in Mitrovica, Bikal Raj Bahak, informed Tuesday.
    The fugitive, according to the spokesman, was arrested on Jan. 25
for throwing a grenade on a café. Mr.Bikal said that UNMIK police
searched the hospital and neighborhood. Investigations concerning the
case are ongoing. (hm)

PROTESTS IN RAHOVEC DUE TO "RIDICULOUS" CONVICTION OF MATIC; DISTRUST
TOWARD INTERNATIONAL JUDGES

Rahovec, Jan. 30 (KosovaLive)
One day after the announcement that Prizren's District Court had
sentenced Sava Matic to two years imprisonment, hundreds of secondary
school students of Xhelal Hajda-Toni marched in the streets of the town
to express their discontent over the "ridiculous" conviction, as some of
the protesters declared.
    The students were later joined by residents of Rahovec and other
nearby villages. Some of marchers declared that Sava Matic and his
brother Nenad Matic, who was imprisoned last year and later escaped from
the Mitrovica prison, used to be seen along the streets of Rahovec,
armed and behaving brutally toward other citizens.
    The protesters expressed their anger and their distrust of the
international judges, alleging that Matic was a criminal under suspicion
of participating in a number of massacres, such as Bellacerka where 64
people were killed; the massacre of 90 people in Celina; and, the
massacre of Krusha e Madhe, where more than 200 people were killed or
are missing.
    The sub council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in
Rahovec alleged that the two-year prison sentence was fixed and planned
by the international judges. (xhk)

ONLY SEVEN PEOPLE IN FERIZAJ HAVE THE RIGHT OF COMPENSATION OF LOSSES
FROM WORLD WAR II

Ferizaj, Jan. 30 (KosovaLive)
The number of Ferizaj people that have requested compensation for losses
during the Nazism period of the Second World War, from the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) has reached 35. However, only seven of
them fulfill the conditions for receiving the compensation, the IOM
office notified Tuesday.
    "Those who have served as objects for medical experiments will
receive a compensation of 15,000 DM. Others who were in the
concentration camps or had carried out enforceable physical work will
receive 2,000 DM of compensation," Gazmend Rexhepi, IOM project
assistant said Tuesday.
    The German Government compiled a program last year, which was
approved by Bundestag, in order to help "persons from the other part of
the world" who are not Jewish, but were victims of Nazism. The program
includes persons violently deported to concentration camps in Germany,
and specifically those who served as objects for medical experimenting.
The German Government has chosen IOM as an implementing partner.
However, the program of loss compensation includes only living persons
or inheritors of the ones that have died after Feb. 16, 1999.
    Sources at the IOM suggest the criteria had evidently reduced the
number of people who suffered losses during the Nazism period of World
War II. (mb) 


Tuesday's Press Review

Bota Sot writes about the comparative analysis of the dispositions of
the general resolutions of the United Nations assembly.
>From the dispositions mentioned in the 1244/1999 Resolution and its
other dispositions, we learn that a jumble of a contradictive nature was
formed - a unique institutional hybrid, a UN "protectorate" with a force
of an unlimited action, in order to prepare Kosova for "an autonomy and
self-government in Yugoslav frameworks" which is incompatible with the
willpower of the population of Kosova emphasized in the Referendum
executed in 1991.
Fatmir Fehmiu writes a proposal on the political aspect: a) The
political factor of Kosova should join and urgently draft a pro-memoria
joined with a declaration, through which it would argue and demand from
the UN the inexistence of the Serb sovereignty over Kosova, since it was
done with an illegitimate and illegal act;
b) Alongside with drafting the pro-memoria, an international conference
should be held on Kosova, since it is an obligation that derives from
the Rambuillet Agreement.
In the constitutional aspect, the first alternative that Fehmiu writes
about, is the one for the unification of political factors of Kosova,
and that urgently be defined that the final status of Kosova should be
sought in the withdrawal of the suspension of the constitution of the
Republic of Kosova by the Assembly, since it hasn't lost the power, and
from this ground, announce the general elections for the Assembly of
Kosova.
After the establishment of the Assembly of Kosova, it should be decided
immediately, based on the Constitution of Kosova, on changes of the
Constitution or on drafting a new constitution, which would be based on
the framework of the expressed willpower of the people, materialized
through the constitution, while respecting the static and the nature of
the constitution of the Republic of Kosova. In this way the state
tradition of Kosova would be preserved, dispositions considered to be
outdated would be eliminated and new norms would be incorporated in
agreement with the UN and EU acts, brought out recently. More clearly,
the element-conditions of the Independent International Commission for
an independent Kosova would be included here, first guaranteeing of the
protection of human rights and ethnic groups as a collectivity, and the
requests of the international community about "forceful inviolability of
the borders", even the facts that UNMIK has brought out. The second
alternative is if the UN representatives in Kosova (UNMIK) do not accept
the first alternative, then these acts are to be undertaken: a) The
political factor of Kosova is to form a group of experts who would draft
a provisional Constitution of Kosova which would have the static and the
nature of the existing Constitution of Kosova, since it is a product and
part of the judicial-constitutional consciousness of the population of
Kosova, and to offer for adoption to the Special Representative of the
UN Secretary (UNMIK), or  b) That the political factor of Kosova forms a
group of experts in order to draft special acts of a constitutional
character for each institution separately, just like UNMIK has acted
with the judicial, fiscal and administrative institutions. In fact acts
for the Assembly of Kosova, President of Kosova and the Government of
Kosova and other eventual institutions of Kosova, will be drafted.

Skelzen Maliqi publisher and chief of correspondence of radio "Free
Europe" in Prishtina, in his column in Koha Ditore writes that he is
surprised that some Serb intellectuals and politicians, that pretend to
be liberals and democrats, while they see things from the blind side of
the eye, and fail to see things in front of them, but they think that
they can see far.
Rada Trajkovic said that Serbs and Albanian in any way couldn't live
together anymore. The message is: we must separate by all means.
When Rada Trajkovic and some Serb extreme leaders say this, this does
not surprise me at all, says Maliqi. The way they deal with their
policies, they did not leave space for reconciliation with Albanians.
Have we heard from their side a phrase of regret for what Serbs did in
the past in Kosova while they were all in power?
Did they regret the apartheid, crimes and atrocities committed? Weren't
Kosovar Serbs the ones that even in the collapse of the Yugoslav
elections, and also in Serbia's elections when Milosevic was not in
power anymore, the only elected body that massively voted for their
Nazi, publicly declared war criminal? A few days ago we read that Aleksa
Djilas, son of the famous dissident, Ph.D. from the Harvard University,
was complaining about the injustice of the internationals chasing only
Serbs and seeking only Milosevic's and not Tudjman's, Izetbegovic's and
Hashim Thaci's head, because according to him they committed similar
crimes as Milosevic toward the Serb population. Maybe it is better that
the so praised "Democratic Serbia" is loosing credibility these days,
while refusing to hand out Milosevic to the Hague Tribunal. In fact, he
is not the only one to be blamed. There are a lot of guilty people and
there is space for as we argued before, for denouncing collective guilt.
This does not mean that every Serb took part in crimes and that there
are no innocent people that confronted the crimes. But, it is the fact
that the de-nazification of Serbia hasn't started yet.

Blerim Shala, publisher editor-in-chief and of Zeri, writes in today's
newspaper that ceasefires in the Balkans, during the last ten years of
successive wars and conflicts, of which practically only Slovenian and
Croatian wars gained a long-term political epilogue, have managed to
maintain only thanks to the winter.
Presheva Valley is not an exception, too, although circumstances in
Serbia and in the region have changed comparing to spring of 1991, when
the first war, the one in Croatia, started.
Thus, despite the considerable presence of NATO troops in the region,
starting from Bosnia, through Kosova, Albania, Macedonia and all the way
to Greece, it is notable that the risk of the renewal of the conflicts
has not yet been averted. The reasons can be found in the further
existence of consequences of the war in the region.
It is obvious that dilemmas in Western countries about redesigning of
Balkans in order to clear up and stabilize this part of Europe are still
present. The repetition of the stance of the sovereignty of the state
(FRY), that in fact does not exist, it is not political matter. On the
contrary, this resembles with the logic of an ostrich poking his head in
the sand, in order to avoid the real problems. It has been stated
earlier that now is the chance for the Western world to have creative
and active politics and Serbia cannot pretend any longer to "solve"
problems in the region thanks to the military advantage. Time is running
out, spring is coming, and people are loosing their nerves in the
Presheva Valley.


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