[ALBSA-Info] NATO Soldiers Fire on Kosovo Albanians

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

NATO Soldiers Fire on Kosovo Albanians

By CARLOTTA GALL

BELGRADE, Serbia, March 7 (Reuters) — NATO soldiers in Kosovo opened fire and 
wounded two Albanian gunmen today, raising the prospect that the peacekeeping 
force could become tangled in a violent Albanian insurgency that has suddenly 
flared in neighboring Macedonia.

American peacekeepers were in command of the 250-member multinational force 
that moved into the Kosovo village of Mijak at dawn in a operation to stem 
the flow of arms and men to Albanian guerrillas in Macedonia, the former 
Yugoslav republic to the south. 

The clash that followed was one of the strongest indications yet of the 
growing complications of the peacekeeping mission. The NATO-led peacekeepers 
already have their hands full trying to seal off Kosovo's eastern border with 
the rest of Serbia, where Albanian rebels have used a three-mile wide buffer 
zone to attack Yugoslav forces. Three Yugoslav soldiers were killed and 
another wounded in that area today when their vehicle ran over a mine.

In Mijak, the peacekeeping unit, which included soldiers from Poland, Ukraine 
and Lithuania, came across a group of five armed Albanians who turned their 
guns toward the peacekeepers and advanced, American military officials said. 
Seeing a provocation, the troops opened fire. 

The peacekeepers wounded two of the gunmen, one of whom was evacuated to the 
American military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel. 

The rest of the gunmen retreated with the other wounded man to a nearby 
house, where peacekeepers were negotiating with them to surrender, Col. 
Thomas M. Gross, commander of the unit, told a news conference, Reuters 
reported. 

In the last week, hundreds of peacekeeping troops in the American sector of 
southeastern Kosovo have moved toward the border to step up their patrols 
after the Macedonian government complained that the peacekeeping force was 
not preventing men and weapons from moving across the border and had allowed 
Albanian militants to begin an insurgency in Macedonia. 

Over the last two weeks, clashes have erupted in Macedonia around the village 
of Tanusevci between ethnic Albanians and Macedonian military forces. Three 
Macedonian soldiers have been killed and at least two Albanians in firefights 
and a mine blast. 

Today's peacekeeping operation in Mijak was an effort to demonstrate to armed 
Albanian groups in the area that they would not be tolerated, said a 
peacekeeping spokesman in Pristina, the Kosovo capital. 

In southern Serbia, hoping to persuade armed Albanians to lay down their 
arms, Yugoslav and Serbian officials are working on a peace package with 
Albanians living in the Presevo valley, near where the mine exploded today. 
The blast occurred near the village of Oraovica, and was the second such 
attack in two weeks, said Biserka Matic, a Serbian government official.

The Yugoslav peace package would offer democratic reforms and greater 
Albanian participation in local government, while allowing Yugoslav Army and 
police special forces to move back into the buffer zone. Under the military 
agreement signed at the end of NATO's war with Yugoslavia, only lightly armed 
police have been allowed within three miles of the border with Kosovo. 

Nebojsa Covic, the Serbian deputy prime minister negotiating the plan, said 
he hoped to reach a cease-fire with Albanian leaders by the end of the week, 
yet the violence has shown no sign of abating. He has also said that Yugoslav 
troops could return to the buffer zone soon after, but Western diplomats say 
it will only be possible for them to return to areas that are not occupied by 
rebels.

As negotiations with NATO officials stand, a stretch of 58 miles now under 
control of Albanian rebels will remain so, at least for now. If there is an 
agreement with the Albanians, then Yugoslav forces could move into areas 
north of that stretch that are not in dispute.

NATO is considering a plan to allow Yugoslav Army forces into the 
southernmost tip of the buffer zone, where it borders Macedonia, the NATO 
secretary general, George Robertson, said on Tuesday. The area, where the 
Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbian borders meet, is strategically important and 
could enable the rebel groups both in Serbia and in Macedonia to join forces. 

There are Albanian villages in the area and a significant number of armed 
Albanians, and the Yugoslav Army would have to use force to secure control of 
the area, Western observers here say.