[kcc-news] KCC Headlines, January 4, 1999

[Mentor Cana]

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KCC Headlines, January 4, 1999 

    * "Kosova Press News Agency" and "Free Kosova" radio to start to 
	operate in Kosova today, KLA sources claim 
    * Yugoslav minister announces return media offensive (Reuters) 
    * Rugova requests NATO peacekeepers in Kosova (AP) 
    * Shattered Cease-Fire Signals New Year of Conflict for Ethnic
	Albanians and Serbs (Washington Post) 
    * KLA releases three detainees in Kosova: OSCE (AFP) 


"Kosova Press News Agency" and "Free Kosova" radio to start to operate in 
Kosova today, KLA sources claim

January 4, 1999 - KLA communique number 68.

Prishtinë, January 3, 1999 - Due to the lack of first hand information, and 
for the sake of objective information of the Kosova and World community, on 
January 4, 1999, the KLA will start to operate the "Kosova Press News 
Agency" and the test of the "Free Kosova Radio" will begin. More information 
about this will be available later in the day.



Yugoslav minister announces return media offensive (Reuters)

January 1, 1999

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (Reuters) -- Yugoslav Information Minister Goran Matic 
accused foreign media on Friday of waging war against Yugoslavia, and 
announced a return offensive for 1999.

"We've learned our lessons from previous mistakes in the media war," Matic 
was quoted as saying by Beta news agency.

"We are ready to respond to all manipulation in the appropriate way. And 
we've been more ready by the day because we are constantly perfecting our 
instruments."

Matic, in an interview for Duga magazine carried by Beta, indicated that a 
new federal information law was likely to be tough.

"Given the current political circumstances, the entire media war hullabaloo 
and the mercenaries working for foreign paymasters, we must have a 
restrictive variant," Matic said.

Matic said the way in which foreign media reported on events in Yugoslavia-- 
a reference to Serbia's conflict with ethnic Albanian separatists in the 
province of Kosova-- was "the best proof that an unscrupulous war has been 
waged against us."

He criticised Western government aid to independent media, singling out 
B-92, a prominent Belgrade radio station, and Koha Ditore, an ethnic 
Albanian daily in Kosova.

"Add to this the money for the media from the BBC, the British Embassy, 
Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe, and others. It looks as if our media are 
getting more funds (from abroad) than our state directs towards the media," 
he said.

He said the funds were intended to promote foreign interests. "Up to $100 
million are being sent to our media through various channels-- where is that 
money?" he said.

Several newspapers and a radio station have been closed since a clampdown 
conducted as Serbia faced the threat of NATO air strikes over its offensive 
against ethnic Albanians in Kosova.

"Nobody has asked the media to support any political option or political 
party, only to have a minimum of national responsibility at the moment when 
the country is objectively threatened," Matic said.

Matic said a new information law in Serbia, one of the two republics which 
make up Yugoslavia, had only prevented "unscrupulous lies" being presented 
as full truth.

Government sources have said the new federal law is likely to cover the work 
of foreign media, but have not given details.

It also looks set to cover the work of domestic media which have migrated to 
Montenegro, the smaller of the two republics.

Two of the three dailies closed by Belgrade have continued to be published 
in Montenegro, whose leadership is at odds with Yugoslav President Slobodan 
Milosevic and is seeking closer ties with the West.

Rugova requests NATO peacekeepers in Kosova (AP)

PRISHTINA, YUGOSLAVIA -- An ethnic Albanian leader called on NATO Friday to 
defy the Serbs and deploy peacekeeping troops in Kosova, saying it is the 
only way to stop the fighting in the province.

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has agreed to allow unarmed verifiers 
into Serbia's southern province to observe an October truce, but he has 
vehemently opposed any NATO ground troops in Kosova.


In a New Year's message, ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova insisted that 
"only the deployment of NATO troops in Kosova can bring about greater 
security for all the people, a precondition for a political settlement of 
the Kosova problem."

Rugova added, "We are convinced that the [international] verification 
mission and permanent NATO attention can calm down tensions."

Kosova was quiet Friday after a raucous night in which residents of Pristina 
ushered in the New Year by firing rifles, pistols and shotguns in the air.

Some of the city's Serbs gathered at hotels to welcome the New Year. Most 
cafes, restaurants and nightspots were closed, however, because owners 
feared incidents between Serbs and ethnic Albanians.

Four days of fighting that ended Dec. 24 after killing at least 15 people 
shook the fragile truce and brought rumblings from NATO leaders.

Under the threat of NATO airstrikes, Milosevic agreed in October to halt the 
seven-month crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosova, an 
operation that had killed more than 1,000 people dead and left 300,000 
homeless.

Ethnic Albanians make up the vast majority of Kosova's 2 million people.

In his message, Rugova urged ethnic Albanians to "join forces and accomplish 
freedom and Kosova's independence" in 1999. Western diplomats cite divisions 
within the ethnic Albanian community as a major obstacle to peace talks with 
the government.


Rugova, who heads the biggest ethnic Albanian party, was elected "president" 
of the self-styled Republic of Kosova in 1992 and again in March. But 
Serbian authorities outlawed the new state, and he never served.

He advocates pacifism in pursuit of independence for Kosova, at times 
causing tensions with the Kosova Liberation Army, which has led guerrilla 
fighting against Serb-led Yugoslav troops.

War Clouds Kosova

Adversaries' View of Future: Shattered Cease-Fire Signals New Year of 
Conflict for Ethnic Albanians and Serbs   (Washington Post)

(Washington Post) By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, 
January 1, 1999;

LLAPASHTICA, Yugoslavia, Dec. 31—Sitting behind a black desk at the Kosova 
Liberation Army headquarters here, a 27-year-old rebel commander known as 
Remi lit his Dunhill cigarettes with a camouflage lighter and issued his 
grim prediction for 1999.

"In the next year I expect to win and lose a lot of battles," said Remi, who 
buried two of his fellow ethnic Albanian soldiers today. "But in the end, we 
will win the war."

A couple of miles away in the town of Podjeva, Milovan Tomcic, the Serbian 
mayor, sounded just as bleak.

"I am convinced 1999 will be as hard as '98," Tomcic said after leaving a 
meeting in the town hall with local men who have sent their wives and 
children to other parts of Serbia because of the recent clashes here in the 
north of this Serbian province.

The guns that over Christmas shattered a two-month truce between Kosova's 
separatist ethnic Albanian rebels and Serbian government forces have fallen 
silent. But as celebratory New Year's Eve gunfire rang out across Kosova 
tonight, there was little optimism on either side that renewed warfare can 
be avoided.

"I think there has been enough blood spilled and killing," Tomcic said. "But 
the situation is very tense, very difficult."

Serbian civilians have fled villages around Podjeva in recent days and local 
officials have called on the government in Belgrade, capital of both 
Yugoslavia and its dominant republic of Serbia, to guarantee their security. 
"We have asked our country to intervene," Tomcic said.

The ethnic Albanian Kosova Liberation Army (KLA), which began as a ragtag, 
peasant resistance movement, has after eight months of fighting become a 
high-tech, mobile guerrilla force and, come spring, it expects renewed heavy 
conflict.

"The Serbian regime will attack us again," said Adem Demaci, the group's 
general political representative. "But the KLA has become a sophisticated 
force. They are working very energetically to prepare themselves."


Near here, on roads bathed in dense fog, the general sense of foreboding 
found apt expression.

A column of Serbian tanks and trucks carrying troops moved along the main 
roads between Pristina, the Kosova capital, and Podjeva, 15 miles to the 
north. Serbian police, accompanied by armored vehicles, manned roadblocks at 
the entrances to Podjeva, which teemed with people moving about the streets 
before nightfall.

Down a small side road, about 200 yards from where the Serbian column 
passed, ethnic Albanian rebels wearing black uniforms and carrying automatic 
weapons and sniper rifles stood guard warily.

And in a stark vista in Pristina, heavily armed Serbian police moved along 
the main thoroughfare past children lined up to sit on the lap of a Santa 
Claus perched under a "Happy New Year" sign.

"I would assess the situation as still tense, but at the moment the 
agreement is holding," said Sandy Blyth, a spokesman for the Organization 
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which negotiated an end to 
fighting between the warring parties on Sunday after four days of clashes.

About 700 unarmed OSCE personnel have arrived in Kosova to monitor an 
October cease-fire agreed to by U.S. special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke and 
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. By early in the new year, a full 
force of 2,000 OSCE monitors is expected.

Today, the OSCE's orange jeeps were visible in this area, sometimes parked 
down the street from Serbian police checkpoints.

But in the rebel stronghold here, the war that ripped Kosova apart this 
summer, leaving more than 1,000 dead and tens of thousands of people 
homeless, seems only in temporary abeyance. Most victims of the fighting 
were ethnic Albanians, who outnumber Serbs in the province 9 to 1.

For two miles along a barely passable dirt road, knots of guerrillas, some 
wearing wool hats with the letters FBI emblazoned across the front, stood on 
ridges and emerged from abandoned farmhouses toting their weapons.

Further along what at times becomes a track across fields, stood a 
two-story, cream-colored house, the regional Kosova Liberation Army 
headquarters. It was this dwelling that government forces, with tanks and 
armored vehicles, attempted to take in a two-pronged attack on Christmas Eve 
that was repulsed by the rebels.

For days after, the guerrillas and Serbian forces exchanged fire, leaving at 
least 14 people dead, including Serbian and Albanian civilians.

Each side blamed the other for starting the clashes, but William Walker, the 
U.S. ambassador heading the OSCE verification mission, said both were 
spoiling for a fight.

In his second-floor office, Remi, the guerrilla commander, held forth today 
on the rebels' growing military strength.

"We have everything," said Remi when asked if the rebels had used 120mm 
mortar in the recent clashes with Serbs. "And we are getting weapons from 
everywhere."

He stood up and walked over to the corner of the room pulling out a 
hand-held 44mm mortar from under some fatigues. "This is from Ireland, 
Northern Ireland," he said, but he couldn't say from exactly whom it had 
been procured.

Beside him, as he spoke, sat a satellite phone on which he occasionally took 
calls. Downstairs, the headquarters held computers, fax machines and its own 
electric generating system. Outside, off-terrain vehicles had Kosova 
Liberation Army license plates.

Demaci, the rebels' political representative, said that in recent months the 
guerrilla group has recruited ethnic Albanians who fought in the Bosnian war 
and now 70 percent of its volunteers have military experience -- up from 30 
percent in the summer. Remi said he fought with the Yugoslav army in 
Croatia, smiling wryly at the irony of being trained by his enemy.

He said the Kosova Liberation Army, which once took all comers, has become 
selective in creating its force.

"Three months ago I got a list of 370 students from Pristina who wanted to 
fight," said Remi, who sits behind pictures of four rebels who have been 
killed in action. "We only took 60."

The atmosphere around headquarters is tense and, fearing renewed fighting, 
Remi said there would be no celebrations at midnight. "We have forgotten 
about New Year's Eve," he said.


Among the Serbs of Podjeva, the air is just as poisoned.

"Half the Serb population of this area has fled," Tomcic, the mayor, said. 
"Seven villages have been ethnically cleansed of Serbs. People are afraid 
for their lives.

"Nobody is celebrating New Year's Eve," he continued. "We have nothing to 
look forward to."

KLA releases three detainees in Kosova: OSCE (AFP)

PRISHTINA, Yugoslavia, Jan 1 (AFP) - The separatist Kosova Liberation Army 
(KLA) has released three Albanians it had been holding, the OSCE 
verification mission reported Friday. "We have been informed that three 
Albanians in the hands of the KLA have been released following a KLA 
decision," said Sandy Blyth, spokesman of the Organisation for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE.)

The KLA is fighting for the independence of Kosova from rule by the Yugoslav 
government in Belgrade. The population of the Serbian province is 
nine-tenths ethnic Albanian.

The OSCE spokesman was unable to say why or where the three Albanians had 
been held. The KLA is frequently hostile to those among its own ethnic 
Albanian people whom it suspects of subservience to the Yugoslav regime.

A Serb briefly held by a KLA unit last week at its stronghold at Lapastica 
reported having seen 11 Albanians in KLA captivity. Lapastica was the target 
of major operations by Yugoslav government security forces just before 
Christmas.

The OSCE also spokesman reported that Kosova had remained calm overnight 
after last week's upsurge of violence in the northern part of the province. 
"New Year's night was calm, the ceasefire was respected," Blyth said.

There had been "an easing of tensions" in the Podjeva region, where security 
forces attacked the KLA last week.

The KLA fought an eight-month war with Serbian security forces last year 
before Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, threatened with NATO air 
strikes, agreed to a ceasefire in October.

While the rebels continue to hold large parts of the countryside, the United 
States is trying to mediate a political settlement that would give a high 
degree of autonomy, but not full independence, to Kosova's ethnic Albanian 
majority.

In his New Year address, Milosevic said he hoped for a political settlement 
to the Kosova crisis during 1999, but ruled out independence for the province.


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