[ALBSA-Info] Serbs say NATO rules make buffer zone entry risky

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Serbs say NATO rules make buffer zone entry risky

By Douglas Hamilton

  
BRUSSELS, March 12 (Reuters) - NATO has agreed to let Yugoslav forces take 
control of a Presevo valley area where ethnic Albanian guerrillas operate, 
but without using armoured personnel carriers, its Kosovo mission commander 
said on Monday. 

Yugoslavia said this made it risky to deploy its army and police, who have 
lost 17 men killed in ethnic Albanian guerrilla attacks in the past year. 

It noted that the troops of NATO's Kosovo peacekeeping mission KFOR regularly 
travel in bullet-and-grenade proof APCs, although there has been no fighting 
in Kosovo since they arrived in summer 1999. 

The Presevo Valley guerrillas, numbering several hundreds, are armed with 
automatic weapons, heavy machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. 

In the first stage of a "phased and conditioned" return to a no-go border 
zone imposed by NATO in 1999, a number of Yugoslav Army frontier guards and 
Serbian Interior Ministry police will enter a square of Serbian land five km 
(three miles) long by five km wide where the valley meets the Macedonian 
border. 

The immediate aim is to close an unprotected border gateway exploited by the 
guerrillas, who can move around in the "Ground Safety Zone" with impunity. 
NATO has said a ceasefire would be an important but not imperative condition 
for the operation. 

General Carlo Cabigiosu, commander of NATO's KFOR peacekeeping force in 
Kosovo, announced an accord with Yugoslav officials in the border village of 
Merdare on Monday to let Serb forces back into the 25 square km area "in the 
next few days." 

NATO SETS CONDITIONS FOR DEPLOYMENT 

Cabigiosu, who has authority to set, and change, conditions under which the 
Yugoslav forces operate in the zone, described to Monday's Corriere della 
Sera newspaper the initial conditions for their deployment. 

"There are both military and ethical limits," he said. Local ethnic Albanians 
would obviously be apprehensive because of the past record of Serb forces in 
Kosovo. 

"However, we have demanded that they do not occupy houses, do not enter vil
lages, do not receive backing from armoured cars or use rocket launchers and 
antitank weapons," Cabigiosu said. 

"On the other hand, we have allowed them to use mortars and they will also be 
allowed to intervene, in coordination with our command, with artillery from 
behind their lines. Finally, there will be no helicopters and above all no 
mines," he added. 

Cabigiosu said exchanges of fire could be foreseen but he hoped the Serb 
response would be proportionate, such as if Italy's Carabinieri police were 
rounding up Calabrian bandits. 

TWO HOSTILE FLANKS 

NATO diplomats said Belgrade was anxious to prove to the West that it could 
carry out the operation without igniting serious conflict, but senior figures 
in Serbia were uneasy. 

"The Yugoslav Army will be in great danger since it is not allowed to enter 
the area with heavy arms and armoured cars," said former Yugoslav Army 
commander Momcilo Perisic. 

"I do not understand why the international community has not allowed this 
since its own troops in Kosovo are all in armoured cars," said Perisic, now 
deputy premier in Serbia's reformist government, in an interview with the 
daily Blic. 

Serbian Prime Minister Zorna Djindjic also criticised the geographical limits 
of the return permitted by NATO, which will put Serb troops and police 
between two hostile forces. 

"On one side there will be Albanians from Kosovo, on the other Albanians from 
Macedonia," he was quoted as saying. 

NATO military sources said the conditions for the Yugoslav operation would be 
flexible and would not necessarily be made public. It was not clear if there 
were any guerrilla strong points in the zone, or if it was merely used as a 
corridor. 

Perisic told Blic he was concerned that the guerrillas could deliberately 
attack Yugoslav forces simply to provoke conflict. 

"I want to believe that the international comunity will prevent them from it, 
as it has the necessary mechanisms... If the international community bombed 
Serbs, it could bomb ethnic Albanians as well," he said.