[ALBSA-Info] Milosevic sees threat from Albanian separatism

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Milosevic sees threat from Albanian separatism

  
JERUSALEM, March 21 (Reuters) - Ousted Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic 
said in an interview printed in an Israeli newspaper on Wednesday ethnic 
Albanian guerrilla violence could be the prelude to similar separatism 
elsewhere in the Balkans. 

Milosevic said Yugoslavia's territorial unity was in danger from ethnic 
Albanian rebels, who have been fighting in southern Serbia and nearby 
Macedonia, the former Yugoslav republic. 

"I fear other separatists will also present their true terrorist face and 
demand autonomy in the multinational areas of Serbia, or even to separate 
from Serbia," Milosevic told the Ha'aretz newspaper in a rare interview. 

"The goals of the terrorist Albanian separatists are spreading from the 
Kosovo region and covering other areas in southern Serbia," Milosevic said. 

Milosevic, who has been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal, was ousted 
as Yugoslav president in a mass uprising last October. 

He remains leader of his Socialist party, despite Western calls for him to be 
removed from public life and transferred to the tribunal in The Hague for 
trial. He has given only two other interviews since his ouster. 

Milosevic slammed the tribunal, which has indicted him for crimes against 
humanity for atrocities committed against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999. 
He denied the charges. 

The Hague is also probing Milosevic's legal responsibility in the 1991-92 
Croatia war and the 1992-95 Bosnia war. 

"The Hague's charges are lies. Everyone knows this," Milosevic said. "Before 
they published the indictment they told the public there were satellite 
pictures in which mass graves were seen in Kosovo. But no one asks where the 
pictures are." 

The tribunal's investigators have spent much of the past two years examining 
scores of mass grave sites across Kosovo, often observed by journalists and 
other witnesses. 

The Israeli newspaper printed excerpts of its interview, which it said would 
be published in full on Thursday. 

Milosevic said he was disappointed Israel had not supported the Serbian 
people in their struggle, saying newly elected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon 
was one of the few Israelis to speak out against the Albanian separatists.