[NYC-L] "Albanian extremists"

[Besnik Pula]

Some people were saying that why should we bother protesting against Vlade
Divac's three-finger salute when we have more important things to do. Well,
my friends, if we had a way of protesting against Divac, we would have also
had a way of protesting against things like this. Read the news below. We
are now seen as culprits and troublemakers, while the new "democrats" in
Belgrade, who give promotions to war criminals, are now seen as NATO's
friends against "Albanian extremists".

The game has changed my friends, and we are losing.

-Besnik

 
NATO acts on Albanian extremists

French peacekeepers in action in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica
February 1, 2001
Web posted at: 1453 GMT


BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) -- NATO has announced it is to take action to
prevent any attempted link-up of extremist groups seeking a Greater Albania.

It said it plans to decrease the size of the buffer zone on the border
between Kosovo and Serbia that is being used as a safe haven by ethnic
Albanian paramilitaries.

The move is an effort to curb renewed violence in Kosovo, Serbia and
Macedonia, a NATO official said.

NATO commanders are negotiating with Yugoslavia on possible changes to the
buffer zone, he added.


ANALYSIS
Mitrovica: 'Kosovo in microcosm'


The Yugoslav government, on good terms with NATO allies after the fall of
Slobodan Milosevic, says security in Serbia's Presevo Valley is hampered by
the five-kilometre (three-mile) strip along the border of Kosovo where its
forces may not go.

The NATO announcement came as French peacekeepers clashed with
stone-throwing Kosovo-Albanian protesters in a fresh bout of violence in the
flashpoint town of Mitrovica.

It was the fourth day of violence in the ethnically divided town in which at
least 20 soldiers have been wounded -- one critically -- and dozens of
civilians have been hurt.

The French troops fired percussion grenades to try to disperse the crowd of
about 300 mainly young protesters in Mitrovica where trouble has flared
repeatedly since Kosovo came under international control in June 1999.

The protesters had gathered at the southern end of the main bridge over the
Ibar River, which divides Mitrovica into Albanian and Serb-dominated
sections. They were told to leave by Italian peacekeepers.

They then marched to another bridge and threw some rocks at a checkpoint of
French soldiers from the NATO-led KFOR multi-national peacekeeping force.

The soldiers responded by firing percussion grenades, also known as stun
grenades, which make a booming sound intended to scatter crowds in panic.

There is also the self-proclaimed but unconfirmed emergence of a "Liberation
Army of the Albanians" in Macedonia.

Police in ethnically-mixed Macedonia this week arrested four Albanians for a
January 22 grenade attack in which a Macedonian policeman was killed.

A Macedonian spokesman said these "extreme radical individuals are not part
of an organised terrorist group, but we have unconfirmed information that
they are former KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) fighters."

The past week has also seen a sharp flare-up of violence in the Presevo
Valley buffer zone.

The buffer zone was imposed on Belgrade in an agreement at the end of NATO's
78-day bombing campaign in 1999, both to separate Serb troops from incoming
NATO peacekeepers and to reassure Kosovo Albanians returning to their
villages.


Ethnic Albanian protestors clash with KFOR troops
Reformist Serbian leaders want NATO to agree to eradicate or radically
narrow the strip to one or two km (a mile or less), to permit Serbian
security forces to deal with the paramilitary threat, since "we are no
longer enemies."

"They are making proposals, and they do want changes, and we'll talk about
it," the NATO official said.

Many of the communities in the Presevo Valley have overwhelmingly ethnic
Albanian populations whose numbers, NATO says, ought to be better reflected
in local administration, police and key institutions.

The paramilitaries of the Presevo "liberation army," also thought to be
mainly former KLA fighters numbering up to 700, say the 70,000 Albanians
need their armed protection.

The NATO official said intensification of KFOR's border security in the past
two months had made it "much harder for the extremists to operate with
impunity."

Last Friday, about 300 of the Presevo fighters paraded before around 1,000
spectators on the outskirts of Dobrosin, a village they control which is
practically within hailing distance of a major U.S. Army checkpoint.

Serbian authorities this week reported that the paramilitaries were
fortifying their positions, particularly in the village of Veliki Trnovac,
which they also control.