From kosova at jps.net Thu Jul 12 18:49:02 2001 From: kosova at jps.net (kosova at jps.net) Date: Thu Jul 12 18:49:02 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] Translator/Interpreters Needed Message-ID: TRANSLATORS/INTERPRETERS AND "ACTORS" WANTED TRW, a Washington-based corporation is looking for translators/interpreters and role-players ("actors") to support military mission rehearsal exercises which train U.S. soldiers prior to their deployment to the Balkans. The next exercise will be held at the Joint Readiness Training Facility at Ft. Polk, Louisiana from August 29 through September 20, 2001. WHAT WE REQUIRE: Men and women in good physical condition to work as role players ("actors") and interpreters (translators) a. Provide proof of legal status (social security card). Medical insurance desired. b. Must be proficient in Albanian language with good English skills. c. Must be able to assume and continuously exhibit attitudes, traits, and demeanor of assigned character roles while at work and respond to directions of TRW and/or U.S. Army managers. d. Must be able to pass a screening physical. e. Must be willing to work up to 12 hours per day. f. Must be willing to live 24 hours/day with U.S. Army soldiers in simulated base camp during the field exercise. WHAT WE OFFER: a. Fee $150 per day (each exercise last approx. 20 days). b. Free transportation to and from Ft. Polk, LA. c. Free housing and food while at Ft. Polk. HOW WILL IT WORK? If you are selected, you will sign a TRW linguist consultant agreement before deployment. TRW will transport you to Ft. Polk, LA, where you will in-process and then undergo a few days of training program prior to the exercise. During this training, you will learn to use your language skills to play various roles and act out various scenes which are designed to train U.S. soldiers who are preparing to deploy to the Balkans. You might play the part of a local police officer, or a village leader, or an Armed Forces Commander negotiating with the U.S. Army Commander. You will live in Army barracks or tents and have access to the dining facility where you will eat or pick up your meals. During the exercise, role players will work in the field for up to 12 hours a day with U.S. Army soldiers in training villages that have been specifically built for this kind of training. Interpreters will work and live in the field with U.S. Army soldiers. No weekends or time off. When the exercise is complete, TRW will transport you back to your original destination. HOW DO YOU APPLY? Interested candidates must send a resume or request an application and fax it back as soon as possible to: (703) 968-1276 or mail to: Isuf Hajrizi TRW, 12900 Federal Systems Park Drive FP1/1109-C Fairfax, VA 22033 The sooner you get the request to TRW, the better chance you will have of being selected. We will send you more information and an application and then contact the desired candidates for a phone interview. For further information, call: (703) 968-1211 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 3148 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/prishtina-e/attachments/20010712/710d7f40/attachment.bin From kosova at jps.net Thu Jul 12 23:43:02 2001 From: kosova at jps.net (kosova at jps.net) Date: Thu Jul 12 23:43:02 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] Interview: General Wesley Clark Message-ID: Interview: General Wesley Clark By Isuf Hajrizi (New York, July 2, 2001) Last week Albanian-Americans from the New York area came together at Royal Regency Hotel in Yonkers to honor General Wesley Clark on the occasion of the publication of his book Waging Modern War. "General Wesley Clark is a hero to Albanians throughout the world, because of the critical role he played as NATO's supreme commander in Europe in finally putting a stop to ten years of Slobodan Milosevic's genocidal march across Southeast Europe", said Shirley Cloyes-DioGuardi. Ms. Cloyes and her husband Joseph DioGuardi, who head the Albanian American Civic League, sponsored the event. General Clark just completed one year as a retired army officer. He said he has spent much of his time completing his book, which he said, was an effort to "Promote greater public understanding of the dangers, the importance, the significance of what NATO and the United States were attempting to achieve in the Balkans". After a brief press conference he signed hundreds of books before taking questions from the audience (some of the questions from the press conference were inaudible, and thus are paraphrased). Below is a transcript of General Clark's answers and remarks. <> Q: Slobodan Milosevic was arrested recently. Were you convinced that he would eventually end up in the Hague? Clark: I think it started with some ambivalence because he was a factor in helping us secure an end to the fighting in Bosnia. And so there were some people who believed that he could be dealt with and even relied upon . It was known that he was an unsavory character, that he may have been behind some of the Serb activity but on the other hand that he wanted peace and it seemed that that was the expeditious path to take at the time. I had reservations at the time even then in dealing with Milosevic as I explained to Ambassador (Richard) Holbrooke because it seemed to me that we were still dealing with a man who was essentially an evil force in the region. I went to the region in 1997 and discovered the status of implementation of the Dayton Accord and recognized again the aligned influence of Slobodan Milosevic. I've had many meetings with him, I would occasionally talk to him on the telephone and ultimately when I saw the design that he had in mind for Kosova I had to take measures to alert western leaders of the dangers and his own actions in the face of NATO warnings are what brought him down. Q: You've had several discussions with Milosevic -- what kind of a person is he? Clark: He's very bright, he speaks English. He considers himself a wise, worldly, crafty leader. He believes he is acting with the best interest of the Serb people. He doesn't consider himself personally prejudiced against other ethnic groups. As he told me on two occasions, many of his best friends were Moslems. On the other hand he is a man who would stop at nothing to achieve his aims and that included murder -- I believe the actions directed against whole groups of populations which the United Nations has branded "crimes against humanity." Q: Gen. Clark, in a recent Congressional hearing you said that Albanians in Kosova would not feel secure unless they are independent. Although this is more of a political question, what do you thing are the chances for Kosova to be recognized as an independent country? Clark: That's a slight misstatement of what I said. What I said is that they (Albanians) have feelings that they would need independence to be secured. I think it's up to the international community to undertake a process that let's the Albanian community in Kosova educate itself and make an informed decision as to the best course of events to follow - whether it's independence or some form of autonomy within a broader Yugoslavia. Those decisions remain to be made, but I acknowledge the strong preference of all Kosovar Albanians for independence right now, which I think it's a natural thing. Q: It was quite surprising to many people to find out from your book that the Pentagon had agreed to take the issue of the prisoners from the negotiating list. Was it necessary for the prisoners to be taken out of the agenda - was it possible to reach an agreement with the Serbs that included the release of all prisoners? Clark: I believe it was a mistake to take it out. I told them at the time it was a mistake, but I was overruled. The prisoner issue was a very important issue and remains an important issue. Whether they were prisoners or whether they were missing remains to be determined, but I think every one of these people should be accounted for - on all sides, not only Albanians but also all the Serbs. All the information about all these tragedies should be opened up in this region so the public understanding can be informed by the truth. Q: Can you elaborate on Gen. Mike Jackson's motives not to take action against the Russians who dashed to occupy the Prishtina Airport at the end of the war? Clark: It's very difficult for me to elaborate on Gen. Jackson's motives other than what I've said in the book. I know what he said, what was behind him and how he implemented that, I don't know. We probably have to wait for Gen. Jackson's book. I believe that it was necessary to take strong action so that NATO and NATO only would have the deciding voice in which forces went where. Ultimately, NATO did have a deciding voice in that. And we prevented the Russians from having their own independent sector and I think that was the right thing to do under the circumstances. As you know, for a long time a confrontation in the region southwest of Prishtina where the Russians wanted to occupy an area and never quite got into the area due to the strong objections of the local populous who felt that Russian mercenaries have been fighting with the Serbs and have been participating in ethnic cleansing in the area. I drove through that region many times as I looked at the UN investigators as they were finding mass grave sites. I understood the feelings of the local populous. So I think that ultimately NATO did the right thing at the operational level. There are some in Eastern Europe who suggest that Russia took the measure of NATO in this action and this is one of the considerations that later gave them the idea that they could later go into Chechnya and take action there with impunity. Q: What were some of your greatest difficulties during the air campaign? Clark: The greatest difficulties I had were with the Pentagon. The reason was that those in the Pentagon who didn't want to attack the Serb forces on the ground, the way I wanted to attack them. I believe that Milosevic's forces that were doing the ethnic cleansing in Kosova were actually a center of gravity, so to speak. We call it a center of gravity because it was so important to Milosevic, that I believe if you destroyed these forces, you would have ended his campaign. Even if you had seriously attacked these forces, but as it turned out, this was very difficult to do. The airmen weren't quite trained and ready to do it. The Pentagon did not want to approve the use of the Apaches to augment the jets and so I was never satisfied that we've done enough to strike and take out the Serb ground forces. That was really the greatest problem I had during the campaign. It was not the European nations. Q: There are those who are saying it will be difficult to convict Milosevic since he did not participate directly in the killings? Clark: Three points. I do believe that the precedence in war crimes trials is that the person who is in command and is presumed to be knowledgeable, even if it cannot be explicitly proven, and this was a standard that was used against the Japanese General who was found guilty after WW II, in a War Crimes Tribunal. He was found guilty for allowing his subordinates to take action, even though it was never proved that he had ordered such an action. So the only question here will be did Milosevic have any authority over the armed forces? I think there is adequate information available to indicate that he did. Milosevic was serving as a lieutenant in the Serb military, an artillery officer. Later he told me he reached the rank of major in the Serb military reserve. He [entered] a staff college, he knew how the military was organized and so he had specific military knowledge. He had commanders at his fingertips. I recall one point the Dayton negotiations and shuttle diplomacy when Ambassador Holbrooke asked for us to receive guaranteed safe passage into Sarajevo. Milosevic said get me Mladic on the phone and within two minutes he was talking to Mladic . So I think he was very much inside the chain of command and I think there is adequate information beyond what I've already discussed to show that. I think nations will have to cooperate in making such information available. Q: Do you think the National Liberation Army (NLA) of Macedonia should be included in the peace talks? Clark: I think the Albanian politicians, not the NLA, but the Albanian politicians well represent now the sentiments of the Albanian community. As I have read the figures over 100,000 Albanians, Macedonian Albanians now left Macedonia, and 70,000 apparently are now living in Kosova with family and friends. So it is a very difficult and dangerous situation. I think what we have to do is that we have to maintain territorial integrity of the government of the country of Macedonia. No divisions, no zones, no breakups, no ethnic separations in there and we have to establish a condition in which the rights of the Albanians as a minority are fully and totally accepted and supported within the framework; and that means Albanian participation in all the institutions of government-Albanians in the police force and the military and so forth. It probably can't be done overnight. It is a program which it has to achieve success. Macedonia was the model country of the Balkans. It's the only country of the five that came out of Yugoslavia this breakup thus far that has gotten its independence without a fight. It was a remarkable democracy. The U.S. had its troops there from 1993 on. We strongly supported the government as a multi-ethnic democracy and that's the way we would like to see it. We also don't believe the conditions there warranted the initiation of conflict. We believe the rights of the Albanians could have been achieved by other means, so we don't support fighting. Q: Gen. Clark can we go back to the NLA one more time. During the war in Kosova you either directly or through intermediaries talked to the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA). Do you think the international community is correct in refusing to the NLA? Clark: I believe that people have talked to the NLA. In fact, isn't that what Robert Frowick did? He did talk to the NLA. But I think as a matter of principal, just as during the war, we stayed away from the KLA. I had no direct contact with the KLA on a routine basis. I did meet Hashim Thaci one time and that was it and I also talked to him before the war. He asked me about three or four days before the bombing began, he says, "What do you expect from us?" And I said only one thing, "Just get out of the way and stay alive". Because I think in that case it wasn't appropriate to work with the KLA and we didn't. I think in this case what's important is that the fighting stop as rapidly as right now turn that fighting off, lets get NATO in there. NATO has agreed to go in on the ground and then I think the Albanian community can rightly insist on a full and effective program for implementation of broader rights for Albanian mass dominance. Q: So what was in fact your relationship with the KLA during the war? Clark: Well in fact, what I did was take advantage of the KLA efforts. We knew for example early on -- we heard that the KLA was going to be destroyed in the first few days. Milosevic believed that he was going to destroy the KLA in five to seven days. He said five days, but his military said, well seven days just to be sure. Of course they didn't. But then a week or two weeks into the campaign, we began to receive information that the KLA was about to be destroyed. Its large units were breaking up and was unable to offer effective resistance. But in fact, as is so often the case, when there are determined people fighting, it is very difficult to destroy a group like that. I noticed that the KLA held a corridor open towards northeast Albania, toward the town of Junik. We continued to watch that area because as the Serbs reacted against the corridor, we were able to bring in aircraft to attack the Serb positions. There is a small village called Koshare, where unfortunately we struck a number of the KLA people who were in there on the ground as we were trying to hit the Serbs. A terrible misfortune of fighting that those things happen. We did try to take advantage of the courage and determination the KLA showed. There was no direct coordination between the KLA, at least certainly not by my headquarters. I got reports of what they were intending to do and I worried about it everyday, because I knew that they were not trained and equipped to really stand up and fight head to head against Serb forces. Q: Did you always feel that your were handling things appropriately? Clark: I never had any second thoughts. I knew what we were doing was the right thing to do. Q: Gen. Clark, what brings you in the Westchester area? Clark: I was invited. It's a wonderful area. When people are interested in the book, I am happy to come and talk about it because I think what NATO did was historic and people need to recognize and appreciate it. In this case the NATO operation was a success. We achieved all of our conditions. There was a cease-fire. The Serb police, military and paramilitary forces were pulled back and NATO led forces entered and the largest spontaneous return of refugees and displaced people, as the Kosovar Albanians, almost 900,000 who were in Albania and Macedonia, returned home. Another 500,000 that had been living in the forest, came back to their homes and villages - all in a space of three to four weeks. It was a remarkable testimony to NATO success. We should have celebrated that success but because we couldn't call it a war - we could not call it a victory. There was no victory parade on 5th Avenue as in the case of Desert Storm. The pilots, those brave men and women who flew those aircrafts, weren't called in and publicly idolized. We went about the next task which was to put KFOR on the ground and try to establish order and build a foundation for democracy in Kosova. Q: Do you think the NLA will be included in the talks at the end since they are realistically the ones who can make or break an agreement? Clark: I don't think that's going to happen in this case. Although the government of Macedonia didn't go as far as we would have liked in assuring the rights of its Albanian minority. Nevertheless, they were a legally constituted, democratically elected government with an Albanian participation government. So, we can't justify the use of force which was initiated by the NLA. I don't think anything is going to change that. I think it's regrettable; we've done hundreds and thousands of millions of dollars worth of damage to homes and communities, mostly Albanians homes, and communities in Macedonia. I don't know who is going to repair that. I worry about the future. I wish it hadn't happened. I wish we could have gotten a sense of the issue that had more international recognition before the fighting began. So I think there will be a concerted effort on the part of most nations not to recognize the NLA. In the case of the KLA - we transformed it, not recognized it. Of course I met with Thaci and (Ramush) Haradinaj and many others. We basically said that it could not remain as that kind of organization that became the Kosova protective force. A demilitarized organization at that. Q: Were you surprised when you were asked to vacate your position as an Allied Commander three months early? Clark: Yes I was. I explained in my book. I can't go beyond that. I have no idea what people might have had in mind. I know there were frictions with the Pentagon. There are always frictions in warfare. The myth of a monolithic command structure. It's never like that. In any operation, when lives are at stake, the future of nations are at stake. Small issues become extraordinarily important and the issues are fought out in internal confrontations-always. But I was surprised that it became personal the way it did. General Clark's speech: Our nation is a nation that came from every where else. People came to America because they wanted to be here. They left behind their families, their friends. My grandfather came from a place in Belorus called Minsk over a hundred years ago. He came to Chicago with his brother. He brought his fiancee and her younger sister. And so today I have a hundred cousins. All of us came from abroad and I fell a special kinship with you all who have recently become Americans, a part of this country, and who are still reaching out your hands and support to people in your homeland. Thank you for being great Americans and great human beings. My first trip to Albania was the summer of 1998, but I had studied about Albania and I had learned about the problem of Kosova. We talked about it many times during the Dayton negotiations. In 1995, we knew that Milosevic had to release his iron grip on Kosova. But he wouldn't discuss it. The most we could get was an American Embassy Information Center in Prishtina. No more. In early March of 1998, I went down to Macedonia to visit the 350 American soldiers who were a part of the US Preventive Deployment Force. When I landed, the American ambassador said, "You have to go see President (Kiro) Gligorov right away." I went in to see the president, it was on a late Saturday afternoon and he was there with two of his ministers. The American ambassador and I joined the conversation. President Gligorov told me that he was worried about what was happening in Kosova. He said the Serb police just massacred the Jashari family -- 60 people. He said, "You can't treat people that way", he said, "especially Albanian people". He also said, "There will be war and Milosevic will pretend to negotiate. But really, he only understands the threat of military force." I carried that message back to Washington. But some people in Washington did not want to hear it. During the summer of 1998, I worked to try to create a NATO threat to restrain Milosevic. I remember calling him on the 25th of June. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was there. Holbrooke had met with Rugova. He was meeting with Milosevic. He was traveling to the village of Gllogjan, which at that time, was considered, as Holbrooke said, "the most dangerous place in Europe." He asked me to call Milosevic and make sure Milosevic knew he was in danger. So I called Milosevic who was very cordial on the phone. He invited me to come to Serbia: "Please come and ride horses at Karagjorgica. Please, I can play golf". "Oh yes, thank you Mr. President," I said, "but Mr. President, what we don't want you to do is to attack your own people." He said to me, "General Clark, they're my own people. They are all citizens of our country and I just want them to live together in peace, despite your threats." My NATO threats. Well, I had many hours of dealing with Milosevic and I knew what a liar he was and the next day after Holbrooke had left he attacked with his military, paramilitary.... And through the summer of 1998, he conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the villages in Drenica. NATO secretary General Solana called it "A village a day, keeps NATO away", because Milosevic knew that as long as he only attacked one or two villages a day, he could escape the wrath of NATO. But we called him on the carpet. We didn't let him escape NATO attention. After Ambassador Holbrooke did the negotiations in early October, that resulted in the creation of the Kosova Verification Mission, I realized that Milosevic had not committed himself to withdraw forces. So, with Secretary General Javier Solana and General Nauman, we took a trip to Belgrade. We talked to Milosevic and he got very angry. I went back alone so that I could talk to him, one man to another. I said, "Mr. President, if you don't pull those forces back out of the field, we're going to bomb you." And of course, there he was, the president of a country in his own palace - and here am I, just an American general, a man that he has known for five years - threatening him. So he shrugged his shoulders and said, "General Clark, NATO must do what it must do." I said, "Mr. President, get real. You don't want to be bombed by NATO". He said, "You're right". So we used the threat. We held off the conflict until the 15th of January when Ambassador Bill Walker called me and said, "Wes, I've seen massacres. I know what a massacre looks like. I am looking at a massacre. These people are not fighters, they're farmers. I recognize the boots that they are wearing, I'm looking at the calluses on their hands. These are people of every age. They've been shot at close range. The clothes they are wearing are the clothes they've been shot in, they haven't been rearranged. This is a terrible tragedy." Ambassador Bill Walker was in Prishtina as the head of the Kosova Verification Mission and was looking at the trench going up to Racak. And I knew at that moment that we were going to go to war to stop the Serbs in Kosova. It was only a question of what it took. Many people have asked me what the worst night of the war was? And they talk about the bombing of the Chinese embassy. But you know that wasn't the worst night of the war for me or for any of the men and women who flew. There were two really bad times in the war. The first had to do with Albanian civilians who were killed in the air attacks. All I want to tell you right now how terribly sorry all of us and NATO were for those casualties. It was a terrible thing, and that was the worst night of the war. There was a place called, I think Korishe. We had watched it and we knew this farmhouse was a Serb police station. We saw the Serb vehicles there and unfortunately that night, it was used to imprison Albanian civilians. The other bad time in the war was when the KLA was attacking over Mt. Pashtrik. Because I know there are some people here who have fought in that battle from the Atlantic Brigade, and I know that you guys are very proud of what you did there. But I also knew that the Serbs had waiting for you and I knew how little I could do to help. And I worried about that a lot. Thank God it worked out okay. You accomplished a mission and we accomplished our mission to help you. And Milosevic recognized that he was facing an inevitable defeat. So, he gave into all of NATO's conditions. He called a cease fire and pulled all of his forces and his thugs back out. NATO went in and we had the largest, spontaneous return of refugees in Europe since WWII. I knew this was going to happen because I had been in camp and talked to the Albanian refugees. U.N. officials said, "Oh no, you have to slow them down, there might be mines." I said you can't slow these people down. They're going to their homes. I went in early, I think the 17th, 18th of June was my first trip into Kosova. I went in with the Secretary of Defense. We went up the road and stopped in villages and cities and we were just surrounded by people. I think he had no idea what the incredibly powerful emotions were. You see for some of the people who were in the U.S., the NATO effort was -- I hate to say it -- but was more of a distraction. They didn't understand, but for me, it was a passion. We were dealing with a man whom I believe is a mass murderer; and that's Slobadon Milosevic. He told me in January of 1999, that Kosova was more important than his head. So I knew that when we went after him in Kosova, he would lose his head. We never could get the approval to make an official objective the ending of Milosevic. We knew that that was beyond what we could accomplish with air power alone, immediately. But we also knew that with the results that we achieved and with the tremendous courage and spirit of the people of Kosova, that Milosevic was finished. And he is in the Hague today. Six months ago, I was in Houston and I was speaking to a group. Afterwards two Albanian men came up to me and one of them stood very tall and straight and said, "I am Albanian, and we are 300 strong in this community today." He was very proud of himself. He put his arm around the man next to him and said, "and my friend is from Bujanovc and he is going home to fight for his homeland." I said, "Does he have to fight?" He said, "Yes, he must fight". And I said, "Why does he have to fight? "Because there are Serbs.", he answered. I asked, "Aren't you an American citizen?" He said, "Yes, for five years". I said, "So let me ask you a question. If a Serb moved next door to you, could you be kind to him, treat him as a neighbor and become friends with him even though he was a Serb?" He thought about this question and finally he gave me what he thought I wanted to hear. He said, "Of course not." I understood his passion and I understood his love for his country and I understood why he felt the way he did. But now I have to tell you how I feel about that. What I was fighting for was not to write the wrongs of the 19th century but try to set in place a framework for the 21st century. Somehow everyone in the region has to get along without changing borders, without changing boundaries, without forcing people to leave their homes or the graves of their ancestors, without requiring them to change the language they speak, but somehow all get along together, because I think the Euro-Atlantic community, where we live in this country, we're all Americans and we should all be in this together. Whether we live on this side of the Atlantic or on that side of the Atlantic. So I want to tell you that I am very, very proud to be with you tonight. I am very proud of the spirit, courage, the patriotism shown by the Albanian-American community. I feel very, very honored the way you welcomed me and taken me into your hearts. And I thank you for that. Q: Regarding Gen. Jackson, was he ordered to hit the Russians? Clark: Ok, I'm going to tell you the story of Prishtina airport. As the negotiations continued, the French came to me and said you need a plan to take the airfields and France volunteers to receive the glory of taking Prishtina airfield. I said, "Ok, I'll mention that to Gen. Jackson". Jackson didn't want to do this. He said the airfield was too dangerous to occupy. And that it wasn't important. And so he turned down the request of the French to lead an air assault. On Thursday afternoon, June 10th, as we concluded the air campaign, I had the expectation that Gen. Jackson's forces would be entering the next morning, but he called me and he requested a delay and said that the Serbs had come to him and asked a 24 hour delay so they could get their forces back and we wouldn't come in so soon. So since he was the field commander, I said, "I'll discuss this with the Secretary General, we'll get back to you". We supported the field commander. Well, that was the day that the Russians came. During the morning of the 11th of June, I ordered Jackson to prepare to launch an air, what we call an air assault to occupy the airfield. In accordance with the original French plan, which he had even though he didn't want to use it. But he developed many reasons why this was not a good idea. Ultimately, confusion on the ground plus assurances from the Russian Foreign Minister convinced Washington and London not to do anything. So I was ordered to do nothing. That night, just as I feared, the Russians got to the airfield. The next morning, I was ordered to move as rapidly as possible with Jackson's forces to get to the airfield before the Russians could do anything with it. But it took all day. That night, Washington called and asked me to block the runways on the airfield so that the Russians couldn't land reinforcements. I passed the order to Jackson, but there was a thunderstorm. We were going to fly the Apache helicopters in, set them down on the runways and block the runways. But Jackson did not want to do this, and there was a storm. I was already planning to go to Macedonia to meet with Jackson. So I just said we'll settle it face to face. I knew I had highest level support in the American channels for blocking the runways. So when I went to confront Jackson, he told me no, he wouldn't do it. I called the British government and said your commander doesn't want to take my order and they said we agree with the commander and so does Washington. So I called Washington and I woke up the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at three in the morning and said, "You told me that I had your support to do this, now the British are saying that you don't support it. What is your view?" He said, "There is some confusion, I knew the British didn't want to do this but I knew that you were being instructed to do it, I support you." I said, "Fine, you and the British have to get an agreement because you have a policy problem". That's where it really was. It was a disagreement between London and Washington. You see what decided the outcome was that it was the British that had the soldiers on the ground, not the Americans. Americans didn't want to lead on the mission. They wanted the British to lead. They didn't want to be in Prishtina, they wanted the British to be in Prishtina. The Americans didn't want the majority of the forces, they wanted the British to have the majority of the forces. The Americans didn't want to have the commander, they wanted the British to have the commander. So the Americans had to live with the British commander's judgment. It's a very important lesson in the use of military power. If you want to lead, you have to put your troops in the lead, and that means if Washington is going to have a voice in helping to solve the problems in Macedonia today, there have to be American soldiers in the lead in that mission. Q: What is the significance of the Battle of Pashtrik and the significance of the KLA soldiers in their operation? Clark: Early in the war, we heard that the KLA was about to be destroyed. I knew this was going to be a very bad thing for NATO, even though we were not allowed to cooperate with the KLA. I knew that the presence of KLA forces on the ground was a critical ingredient in bringing pressure there to cause the Serbs to call off their ethnic cleansing campaign. So I was very pleased to see the KLA passage, that I think went to Junik through Koshare. Then on about the 20th of May, I received the first indications of this operation "Arrow" that was going to take place over Mt. Pashtrik, to go as far as to seize both banks of the Beli Drin (Drini i Bardh). I was astonished when I saw the boldness of this plan because the Serbs had heavy forces there with artillery and armored vehicle and the KLA did not have these forces. The KLA men were armed with mortars, rifles and light machine guns to the best of my knowledge. (And American snipers, said someone from the crowd -- laughter)... I knew there were men from the Bronx serving in there because it was in the newspapers. When I looked upon it, I said you know this is going to do two things: 1. It's going to provide an opportunity for NATO to be able to draw the Serb forces out and then attack them, but if it fails, it is going to end not only with loss of this KLA force doing the attacking, it's going to bring the Serbs into Albania. That's going to be extremely dangerous for us because I had planned a ground operation to take place at the end of the summer. They would go over Mt. Pashtrik, and sweep the Serbs from the field. I planned to use many KLA troops along with this force although I didn't have permission yet. One thing was clear to me - we weren't going to commit NATO troops on the ground against the Serbs in Kosova and at the same time, preventing Kosovar Albanians who wanted to fight for there own land from doing so. So I knew we had, if we had 200,000 NATO troops, we would have probably had 50,000 Kosovar Albanians. I'll tell you who the Serbs would have been most afraid of. You know who they would have been afraid of. The Kosovar Albanians. So I didn't want that operation "Arrow" to fail. When I saw it being launched, I made it the priority of all of our air efforts. Behind it I had radars that could detect Serb artillery. I had apache helicopters flying at night but I never got permission to fire our American artillery. I never got permission to fire the radars. I had long range missiles, I never got permission to use them. So I don't know how many people from the Atlantic Battalion became casualties in that operation. Six wounded? Well you were lucky. I'm glad that that was all because I was quite concerned. I think it was highly significant, for me it was the most important operation of the war and we didn't lose it. Q: How much damage was done from the French spy at the NATO headquarters in the Kosova matter? Clark: The French General Kelsh called me when we discovered the French spy had given the Serbs the operations plan. We discussed how much damage was done. The Serbs had the operations plan, they knew we were going to first attack the air defense system. They knew we were going to attack air fields. They knew we were going to be attacking ammunition supply points. They did not know which air fields, or which ammunition supply points, or which air defense and communication sites. Some damage was done, but not enough to invalidate the overall thrust of the plan. Not enough to endanger the pilots. If we could have had stronger support for a stronger strike initially, we would have probably had, we might have had better results. But as it was, we did as much as we could. The first day of the war, before the first strike, I went to the North Atlantic Council where the ambassadors meet for NATO. One ambassador said, are you going to strike the barracks with the Serb soldiers? I knew what the answer had to be. The answer was no. The idea was to cause no Serb casualties, none. So that Milosevic could gracefully say, okay in that case, thank you for striking me, I'll stop everything I'm doing. That was the NATO logic. About two hours into the fight that night, the 24th of March, I received word that we had shot down the first three Migs. They had flown up to challenge us and our airmen took them down immediately. One was shot down by a Dutch F16. I called Secretary General Solana, I was happy; when you're a commander and the enemy comes up to challenge you, you strike and hit him hard. Solana was not happy. I said, "but Javier, we shot down three aircrafts". He said, "This is bad, this is bad", because he was hoping that Milosevic wouldn't resist and then would call off the campaign in Kosova. But it wasn't to be. And so from that time forward, will power became stronger. We basically through out the plan, we did as much as we could do. It's too bad about the French spy, I feel bad for France and I wish we hadn't had him. The lesson to that is, you can spy all you want, nothing stops an idea whose time has come. That idea of freedom and democracy in Eastern Europe. Q: What are your thoughts on Mitrovica and the French policy there? Clark: Mitrovica should be a multi-ethnic community and every institution should be multi-ethnic. There should not be a dividing line of the Iber River. It's wrong. I had trouble with one government in NATO that believed that the only way to prevent conflict in Mitrovica was to separate the groups. Now, you know who that government is, I don't have to name it, but you also have to understand that this is the challenge for the Kosovar community. You must create a multi-ethnic climate, a multi-ethnic acceptance, a multi-ethnic community in Kosova. You must do this for your own legitimacy and credibility. You can't have a single ethnic community anymore than the Serbs can. The way to claim Mitrovica is to demonstrate hospitality to the Serbs, and that's the hard truth. I know that's a hard truth. I know there are things that are wrong there but that's what has to be done. Q: Other U.S generals have become sort or celebrities after their wars. Do you feel that you've been short-changed? Clark: I am very grateful that I got to be the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in NATO and I was given the most wonderful gift that any person can be given. It's not the publicity, it's not becoming a celebrity, it's not becoming a hero. It's the chance to stand up and fight for what you believe in. If anybody ever gives you that gift, take it. It's the most precious gift in the whole world. Q: Would you consider to become a Kosovar citizen and would the U.S. allow you to have both US citizenship and Kosova citizenship? Would you be willing to do that? Clark: Well, it would really be an honor, thank you very much. You know I saw after the war the most wonderful spirit in the Kosovar Albanian community. We went to a school, George Robertson, became the NATO Secretary General and he and I went a school where several young people had been massacred by the Serbs. The school was rebuilt, the children were there, the parents were there and I saw real courage and I saw real determination. You know it's a pretty easy thing to drop bombs but it's a really hard to put your life back together and your families life back after a war is over. That's what takes real courage and I solute the people of Kosova for that courage. <> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 20380 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/prishtina-e/attachments/20010712/59daaf5c/attachment.bin From etrit at alb-net.com Mon Jul 16 13:20:01 2001 From: etrit at alb-net.com (Etrit Bardhi) Date: Mon Jul 16 13:20:01 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] UNMIK passport (fwd) Message-ID: Please reply directly. Etrit. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 17:50:05 +0200 From: Karin Helbling To: Staff at alb-net.com Subject: UNMIK passport Hello I'm trying to find out in which countries the UNMIK passport for Kosovo people is valid. As it almost impossible to get any informations about it, I'm asking you - maybe you know something about it: Do you have any experiences with this passport? Can it be used to get a transit visa through Italy or Austrich? Is it valid to get a permission to stay in Switzerland? I'm looking forward to your answering. Thank you very much! Yours sincerely Karin Helbling From mentor at alb-net.com Mon Jul 16 23:33:01 2001 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Mon Jul 16 23:33:01 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Shoqata_Farmaceutike_e_Kosov=EBs_=28fwd=29?= Message-ID: FYI... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 10:35:59 +0100 From: Adnan Mustafa To: webmaster at alb-net.com Subject: Shoqata Farmaceutike e Kosov?s http://communities.msn.com/shfarmk From jeton at hotmail.com Tue Jul 17 09:23:01 2001 From: jeton at hotmail.com (Jeton Ademaj) Date: Tue Jul 17 09:23:01 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] Re: Prishtina-E digest, Vol 1 #199 - 2 msgs Message-ID: hi everybody Etrit, I think the answer to Ms. Helbing's question is something many of us would want to know. Off hand, I believe that the passport should at minimum allow travel to the nations that she mentions. In fact it should be good for travel to any nation that is both A: a member of the UN General Assembly and B: is a country that has NOT raised objections to UNMIK's existence (like Belarus or India) In any case, I tried to find contact info on the UNMIK site and they seem to have removed the 'contact' link, but they do list the following: UNMIK Press and Information Office?mobile (99 41 79) 217 3094 Ultimately it might be best to call up the immigration/travel bureaus of the individual nations concerned. No one wants a nasty surprise at the last minute... jetoni _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com From kosova at jps.net Tue Jul 17 18:29:02 2001 From: kosova at jps.net (kosova at jps.net) Date: Tue Jul 17 18:29:02 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] Letter to Powell - Demand for American leadership to take lead role for return of Albanian Prisoners Message-ID: Alice Mead Albanian Prisoner Advocacy July 14, 2001 Dear Secretary Powell, Yet another outrage has occurred regarding the Kosovar Albanian prisoners. Only this time, the dead prisoners happened to be American citizens as well. Their bodies have been found in a mass grave in Serbia. For two years, no one knew the whereabouts of the three missing Bytiqi brothers. It was assumed by many Albanians that they were being detained in Serb prisons, along with the other Albanian prisoners. The reason for this was that people knew they had been arrested in late June, 1999, after the NATO war, and accused of illegally crossing the border into Serbia. Now their bodies have been found in a mass grave in Serbia, their hands bound with wire, their prison documents in their pockets. But if it weren't for the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade, we wouldn't know how they got there. American officials have made no attempts to find their own missing citizens. As prisoners began to be released from Serb prisons, none of them knew any details regarding the whereabouts of these American citizens. Inquiries from the Office of Political Prisoners in Prishtina produced no answers or even replies. But then, Serb Ministry of Justice officials never notify Albanian families when their imprisoned relatives are transferred, released, ill, or even dead. When Albanian prisoners are transferred inside Serbia, family members in Kosova scramble frantically, trying to get word of mouth information on where their relatives have gone. So people hoped the Bytiqi brothers were being held in some military prison someplace. And what is the American role in the whole Albanian prisoner debacle? Over two hundred Kosovar Albanians are still deprived of basic civil rights, remaining indefinitely in Serb prisons. Why? According to retired General Wesley Clark, because the U.S. Pentagon intentionally REMOVED the language of the Geneva Conventions from the Kumanovo Agreement on June 9, 1999. One day later, over 2,000 Kosovars effectively disappeared. We demand that American leadership take a lead role in pressing for the return of all Albanian prisoners to Kosova. Americans created this particular mess two years ago, it's high time they cleaned it up. Sincerely, Alice Mead, coordinator of A-PAL (Albanian Prisoner Advocacy) www.khao.org/appkosova.htm -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 2788 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.alb-net.com/pipermail/prishtina-e/attachments/20010717/a2d218a4/attachment.bin From dbein at osnabrueck.netsurf.de Wed Jul 18 18:41:01 2001 From: dbein at osnabrueck.netsurf.de (Divi Beineke) Date: Wed Jul 18 18:41:01 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] RELEASE THE PRISONERS NOW! Message-ID: <3B56104C.859F5C86@osnabrueck.netsurf.de> Dear friends, the email-action RELEASE THE PRISONERS NOW! is running since October 2000. There are 628 members taking part, sending emails every day to politicians, medias and organisations all over the world. Some of the members might not be as active as in the beginning, so we always need new members! YOUR HELP IS NEEDED!! If you want to join the action, please visit: http://www.kosova-info-line.de/APP/ Regards Divi Beineke -- EMAIL-ACTION: RELEASE THE PRISONERS NOW! T? LIROHEN MENJ?HER? T? BURGOSURIT! LASST JETZT DIE GEFANGENEN FREI! ODMAH OSLOBODITE ZATVORENIKE! http://www.kosova-info-line.de/APP/ From rlukaj at bear.com Wed Jul 25 12:29:23 2001 From: rlukaj at bear.com (Lukaj, Richard (Exchange)) Date: Wed Jul 25 12:29:23 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] Serbs swapped clothes of murdered Albanians to confuse investigat ors Message-ID: Serbs swapped clothes of murdered Albanians to confuse investigators By Robert Fisk 18 July 2001 Internal links Serb mass grave reveals secret of executed Americans When the Yugoslav army pulled out of Kosovo in June of 1999, they took their equipment with them, undamaged, unscratched by Nato's bombs. The convoys were, for the most part, a Boy's Own paper of Russian weaponry - BMP armoured vehicles, tracked radar-guided anti-aircraft guns and batteries of white-tipped Sam-6 missiles alongside Frog ground-to-ground rockets. Under Nato's agreement - designed, of course, to prevent a single Nato soldier being scratched in conflict - the Serb paramilitaries also left unmolested. So we saw the drunken and hooded gunmen leave with the army, the "White Eagles" swigging beer on the back of their trucks, "Frenkie's Boys" - the principal murderers, along with the "MUP" interior ministry police - and some truckloads of what looked suspiciously like loot. And there, among the columns - diligently watched over by Nato troops - were refrigerated trucks. I remember that a colleague asked me what they contained. I shrugged. All armies carry stores, frozen foods. We frowned at each other and watched several of the white refrigerated lorries passing up the main road east of Luzane in those hot, lazy June days after the war. It occurred to us that if the Yugoslav army had taken serious casualties - which they denied - then the bodies of soldiers might have been in those vehicles. So what was inside? The Independent's revelations of mass reburials and body-transports of Albanian victims of the Serb "ethnic cleansers" of Kosovo added a new dimension to the charges levelled against Slobodan Milosevic at The Hague last week. But our first suspicions - based on real evidence on the ground (or perhaps "under the ground" would be the correct expression) - came only a few months after the Serbian retreat. I had returned to the province of Kosovo to record the search for bodies; and even now, when I go back through my notes of October 1999, I shudder at their implications. It was cold, wet, and the war crimes investigators - Los Angeles police morticians, a Warwickshire policeman, a Dutch cop, a whole range of made-for-television law enforcement officers - were attacking the earth with shovels and picks. At issue then were the statistics. During the war, President Clinton talked of 100,000 "missing". The Foreign Office stuck to 10,000 "possible" dead. That there were thousands of Albanians murdered was not in doubt. When I asked a British investigator what he thought of a Spanish official's estimate of not more than 2,000 dead, he replied, "Bollocks". Then, beside the grave of an Albanian dug up near Mount Golesh, I found a Kosovo Albanian lawyer, Bajram Krasniqi, the graves investigator for the Kosovo Liberation Army leader, Hashem Thaci. He claimed that, in all, perhaps 8,000 Albanians had been murdered. Then he said something quite extraordinary. "At Izbica during the war, the KLA found 147 bodies of civilians killed by the Serbs and they buried them and videotaped the burials. Then the Serbs came back and dug them up, and we don't know where the bodies are." On some occasions, Mr Krasniqi said, Serb police buried the dead in old graveyards, hoping they would remain undiscovered. "They didn't believe the Yugoslav army would leave Kosovo so quickly," he said. "They originally planned to take the bodies with them." On 19 November 1999, I reported his words in The Independent, adding my own gloss. "Is this true?" I wrote. "Could this possibly be true? Were the Serb paramiliary and interior ministry cops really planning to haul thousands of dead Albanians out of Kosovo in trucks and lorries while Nato bombed them from the air?" And I reported how I literally shook my head in disbelief when a war crimes investigator - an inspector from a Midlands constabulary in Britain - motioned me towards his vehicle. "I want to show you something," he said. And we set off for Glogovac and a rain-soaked, muddy hill above a ferro-nickel mine. There were 50 people standing there, amid row after row of graves. Relatives, mothers and fathers, identifying trousers and shirts and belts. "There are 118 bodies here," the policeman said. "We've numbered them all and matched the clothes in the bags to the bodies. But, you know something very strange? Some of the clothes the bodies were dressed in didn't match the wounds. We found men with one bullet wound wearing a shirt with two bullet holes - and men with two bullet wounds in clothes with only one bullet hole." I asked the policeman why their killers would do such a thing. He shrugged. "To make it difficult for us?" he asked. All this I reported in The Independent back in November, 1999. But neither investigators nor journalists could yet grasp the extent of the cover-up, the deliberate, pre-planned attempt to confuse the war crimes men. The Warwickshire cop only suspected the truth. This was long before the corpse-stuffed refrigerated lorry was found in the Danube and the mass grave of Batajnica was opened. And I recall Mr Krasniqi, back in October of 1999, talking about 2,000 Albanian prisoners still "missing" in Serbia. Were they missing. Or were they secretly buried? Looking back on it, there was a logic to the incomprehension which both the first war crimes investigators and the journalists shared. The Serbs treated the Albanians like dogs. A murdered Albanian would be left at the side of the road, surely, or thrown into a mass grave. Refrigerated trucks were supposed to preserve bodies, to take them home to loved ones. A refrigerated truck is something you use to look after those you care for prior to burial, not for your enemies. That this logic was overturned by the Serb interior ministry police shows either the extent of our innocence or their criminality. Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient. CREDIT SUISSE GROUP and each of its subsidiaries each reserve the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the message states otherwise and the sender is authorised to state them to be the views of any such entity. Unless otherwise stated, any pricing information given in this message is indicative only, is subject to change and does not constitute an offer to deal at any price quoted. Any reference to the terms of executed transactions should be treated as preliminary only and subject to our formal written confirmation. From rlukaj at bear.com Wed Jul 25 12:33:07 2001 From: rlukaj at bear.com (Lukaj, Richard (Exchange)) Date: Wed Jul 25 12:33:07 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] Urgent - Poll on Kosova Message-ID: Please log into the www.cnn.com web site and vote on whether or not the US should maintain its involvement in Kosova. (Bottom of the first page) RSL Please pass this along to your friends. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From efoley at mathlab.sunysb.edu Wed Jul 25 17:13:01 2001 From: efoley at mathlab.sunysb.edu (Edmund Foley) Date: Wed Jul 25 17:13:01 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] Statement From Atlantic Association In-Reply-To: Message-ID: While I agree with the need of the American government to investigate the deaths of American citizens in Serbia I have reservations when such urgings come under the auspices of an organization like the Atlantic Association. The American public is more likely to be wary of involving itself if it thinks they were trouble-seeking young Americans. It is more likely to do damage to the chances of having the US government write these 3 brothers deaths off as liabilites, who brought their deaths upon themselves by leaving the US and involving themselves with another nation's internal poiltics. The Atlantic brigade would do better to cease claiming them as their own (however honorable their intentions) and yet seeking their to use their US nationals status to involve impartial US attention. In most cases, the voluntrary joining of a foreign army or government by a US citizen is automatic grounds for loss of citizenship, as might be the case for these brothers. Those against further Kosova involvement could use that to further limit US involement in the the area. Thus highlighting their involvement in the UCK lessens the chance of a serious US inquiry. It allow pro-Milovsevic elements to cloud the fact that they entered Serbia simply as civilians and were held only as such when they were executed. This should be the main point stressed to the world at this time. The goal of honoring these brothers is admirable but highlighting their freedom-fighting exploits might serve to detract from an opportunity to highlight Serbian abuses that their deaths provided. Edmund Foley On Sat, 14 Jul 2001, Atlantic Shoqata wrote: > --- Prishtina-E Discussion Forum --- Archives: > www.alb-net.com/pipermail/prishtina-e Atlantic Association Urges Quick > Resolution of Idenity of Bodies Found in Serb Mass Grave > > July 14, 2001:? The Atlantic Association issued the following statement > in > response to the discovery of three bodies believed to be Americans in a > Serbian > mass grave. > > The bodies of three men believed to be American citizens of Albanian > heritage were recently discovered in a mass grave in Petrovo Selo, > Serbia. > Although unconfirmed, documents on the bodies identify them as Agron, > Mehmet > and Ylli Bytyqi, three brothers from Chicago, IL. > ? > These three brothers were members of the "Atlantic Brigade".? They fought > side by side with > us in the American-led?war of Kosova?to secure the liberty of our people > in Kosova.? Their families deserve to know their fate and the three > brothers deserve to be buried like heroes. > > If these reports are confirmed, this deliberate killing of American > citizens > provides further evidence of Serbian war crimes.? The Atlantic > Association > urges the US government to take all action necessary to swiftly and > correctly > identify the bodies and to ensure that the individuals responsible are > held > accountable in the Hague.? Furthermore, the Atlantic Association calls on > the > US government to conduct a thorough investigation to determine the > circumstances surrounding the?execution of the Bytyqi brothers.? We also > urge the > United States to investigate why it took the new regime in Belgrade so > long > to expose these grave sites! , and ask that aid to Serbia be suspended > until > that investigation is concluded. > > We also offer a prayer first and foremost to the family?of Bytyqi > brothers and?to all those people who are still missing family members and > friends that one day soon their loved ones will be found as well. > ? > ? > Atlantic Association, Inc. is a not-for-profit organisation. The purposes > for which the corporation is formed are:(a) to foster and develop > cultural understanding between Americans? and Albanians in the Balkans; > (b) to support efforts in furthering the development and exchange of > education and cultural programs; (c) a charitable corporation to help > individuals and families in need of assistance after the devasting > effects of conflict and war; (d) provide assistance and information by > providing some non-legal counseling and referral services which are open > to people of all origins. > ? > ? > ? > The Atlantic Association, Inc. > ? > phone:? (718)- 863-4080 > fax:?????? (718)-863-3890 > > > > ________________________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com > > _______________________________________________________ Prishtina-E > discussion forum: Prishtina-E at alb-net.com > http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/prishtina-e > From mentor at alb-net.com Wed Jul 25 17:13:19 2001 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Wed Jul 25 17:13:19 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] CNN's Quick Vote: 53% Say US should stay in Kosova Until the Region is Stabilized Message-ID: Question: Do you think U.S. should remain in Kosovo until the region is stabilized? Yes: 53% 22774 votes No: 47% 20144 votes Total: 42918 votes Source: http://www.cnn.com/POLL/results/1607171.html From mentor at alb-net.com Mon Jul 30 16:32:02 2001 From: mentor at alb-net.com (Mentor Cana) Date: Mon Jul 30 16:32:02 2001 Subject: [Prishtina-E] [AMCC-News] (1) Macedonia peace talks continue amid fragile truce; (2) Macedonia seeks to arrest ethnic Albanian leaders; (3) Macedonian rebels say they want peace but are ready to fight Message-ID: >>>>>>>>>>>>> PLEASE READ & DISTRIBUTE FURTHER <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< --------------------------------------------------------------------- Human Rights Violations in Macedonia http://www.alb-net.com/amcc/humanrights.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Macedonia peace talks continue amid fragile truce 2. Macedonia seeks to arrest ethnic Albanian leaders 3. Macedonian rebels say they want peace but are ready to fight ### /// (1) \\\ http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/3/19up3.html Sunday July 29, 9:35 PM Macedonia peace talks continue amid fragile truce By Philippa Fletcher OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian and ethnic Albanian politicians held a second day of talks on Sunday to end an Albanian guerrilla revolt while diplomats and monitors worked to maintain a shaky truce. Two Western envoys are mediating in the closed-door talks, chaired by President Boris Trajkovski at the lake resort of Ohrid, on a draft plan to end five months of clashes between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and the security forces. A breakthrough in the negotiations, deadlocked over the use of the Albanian language in Macedonia, where one third of the two million population is ethnic Albanian, is seen as crucial if a ragged ceasefire is to hold. A source on the Albanian side said an agreement could be reached later on Sunday between the four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- that make up a fragile emergency government coalition. But another source, close to the Macedonian side, suggested it may take longer. U.S. envoy James Pardew and his European Union counterpart Francois Leotard have made clear the talks are difficult but have given no further comment. Around two thousand Albanians returned to the shattered village of Aracinovo near Skopje in the latest of a series of confidence-building measures diplomats hope will hold off a resumption of fighting that has so far killed dozens of people. The return of the Albanians, allowed by Macedonian police who took over the village last month after a rebel withdrawal, followed a visit on Saturday by displaced Macedonians to homes they had fled near Tetovo to the west. HOMES RUINED In each case some people found their homes destroyed. "Fifteen years of work gone in two minutes. It doesn't make a person feel nice inside," said a member of the Asani family returning to their home in Aracinovo badly damaged by fierce fighting between the rebels and the army. In a village near Tetovo from where Macedonians say they were driven out by the guerrillas, burned out houses greeted some of the Macedonians returning on Saturday. Few stayed, fearing attacks from rebels still in the area. A diplomatic source said that even if temporary and painful, the two returns were crucial to allow the talks to take place in a constructive atmosphere rather than one of mutual recrimination. So far dozens of people have been killed since the guerrillas first appeared in February, but much larger casualties are feared if the clashes spark a civil war. The basis of a peace deal is all but agreed, but the issue of language is a major sticking point. The Macedonian majority sees proposals to make Albanian an official language in some areas as the thin end of a wedge leading to the division of the country. "They have not made any progress yet," said a source from the second biggest ethnic Albanian party, the PDP. "They are still working on the latest version of the draft, but it is not clear whether it will be signed." The negotiations have frequently been interrupted by bouts of heavy fighting between government troops and fighters of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army who now hold large swathes of northern and western Macedonia along the border with ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo. Macedonian officials have accused the West of siding with the rebels and pressure for a military crackdown is growing. Thousands of angry Macedonians protested in the capital Skopje on Saturday, calling the peace plan a betrayal of national interests. A crowd of about 3,000 gathered in front of parliament carrying placards saying "NATO out!" and "NATO wants to completely Albanise the country!" and comparing the peace talks with the appeasement of Nazi Germany before World War Two. (Additional reporting by Leon Malherbe in Aracinovo and Shaban Buza in Kosovo) ### /// (2) \\\ http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010730/3/19we1.html Tuesday July 31, 12:02 AM Macedonia seeks to arrest ethnic Albanian leaders By Philippa Fletcher OHRID, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonian prosecutors asked local courts on Monday to issue arrest warrants for 11 ethnic Albanian guerrilla leaders, overshadowing last-ditch peace talks that Western envoys are trying to mediate. The guerrillas are not involved in the negotiations, which participants said had edged forward, but a draft peace plan under discussion is designed to persuade them to end their five-month-old rebellion and disarm. This would also require an amnesty. President Boris Trajkovski is chairing the closed-door talks, at a villa in the lake resort of Ohrid, between the leaders of four mainstream parties -- two Macedonian and two Albanian -- in a fragile emergency government coalition. The move against the guerrilla leaders was initiated last week by the Interior Ministry headed by hardline Macedonian nationalist Ljube Boskovski. Police said the minister and his convoy came under fire from the guerrilla National Liberation Army (NLA) on Sunday on a road outside Skopje, although no one was injured. "The aim of the so-called NLA is to unite all territories populated by Albanians by organising armed rebellion, committing acts of terrorism...forceful eviction of the population followed by military crimes against civilians," said a document from the prosecutors carried by state news agency MIA. The talks, begun in May, have frequently been interrupted by bouts of fighting between security troops and the rebels, who now hold swathes of northern and western Macedonia along the border with ethnic Albanian dominated Kosovo. There are widespread fears that if they fail, Macedonia -- the only republic to break away from the old Yugoslavia in 1991 without a shot fired -- will collapse into civil war. ALBANIAN OPTIMISM ON TALKS There was no immediate reaction from Albanian officials or the guerrillas to the call for arrest warrants. After two days of negotiations, which one source said had come close to breakdown, sources on the Albanian side expressed optimism that the main issue as they see it -- the use of the Albanian language -- was close to resolution. The use of Albanian and ethnic make-up of police are the main remaining sticking points in a draft peace plan prepared by European Union envoy Francois Leotard and his U.S. counterpart, James Pardew. A Western source said the Albanian side had made "significant concessions" on Sunday over their two objections to the draft -- which he did not specify. But the Macedonian majority has balked at endorsing reforms it fears could lead to the division of the country and the source said Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, in particular, was being "extremely inflexible". Georgievski's ally Boskovski called on Sunday for "determined action" to prevent the guerrillas seizing more territory, implying he felt force was a better tactic. A source close to the Macedonian negotiators said Pardew was pressuring them to accept the latest version by warning that Western financial support could be at stake. But the source expressed fear that if they did sign up, the agreement would not get the required parliamentary approval. "An agreement might be signed but that still leaves open the question of parliament," the source said. A source on the Albanian side said later that the Macedonians had come up with a counter-proposal that was "totally unacceptable." Leotard, speaking to France Inter radio, was cautious. "We're trying to push things forward but I acknowledge it is very difficult. I'm not certain of success and it has to be said frankly. But we do not have the right to abandon this and leave things in a logic of war," he said. Tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting, mostly ethnic Albanians but also some Macedonians. The European Commission said it would send emergency humanitarian aid to the more than 60,000 refugees who have fled from Macedonia to Kosovo and support for some 10,000 Kosovo families who are hosting them. A government spokesman said a government session scheduled for Tuesday had been postponed, indicating that the negotiations might go into a fourth day at least. (Additional reporting by Shaban Buza in Kosovo) ### /// (3) \\\ http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010729/1/19urf.html Sunday July 29, 11:30 PM Macedonian rebels say they want peace but are ready to fight. NIKUSTAK, Macedonia, July 29 (AFP) - Ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Macedonia say they want peace talks between the Skopje government and Albanian politicians to succeed so they can end their five-month insurgency which has brought the Balkan country to the brink of civil war. But they say they are ready to resume fighting if their demands are not met at the negotiating table. "I really hope that the political process will succeed and in this case we will be ready to lay down our arms immediately. But if they (the Macedonians) want war, they will have it," a rebel, Commander Hoxha, told AFP on Sunday. "Nobody wants war here," said another, Commander Sokoli, from the "113 Ismet Jashari-Kumanova" brigade's base in Lipkovo. "We have our political representatives and if there is a political solution, we will obey orders," said Sokoli, who has been involved in the insurgency since the first shots were fired in February. All six brigades the self-styled National Liberation Army (NLA) claims it has operating in Macedonia, say they want to leave space for the peace process to work. Internationally-brokered peace talks between Skopje and ethnic Albanian political leaders in the former Yugoslav republic resumed on Saturday, after the rebels withdrew from key positions in the northwest of the country under an accord with the NATO transatlantic military alliance on Thursday. The rebels say they are fighting for greater rights for Macedonia's Albanian minority. The talks, in the southern Macedonian town of Ohrid, far from the fighting, are focusing on demands that Albanian be made into an official language, alongside Macedonian, and also the establishment of an independent ethnic Albanian police force in certain areas. Sokoli said that rebels would be vigilant to ensure that any deal would be respected, saying a previous agreement, which had prompted rebels to pull out of Aracinovo near Skopje, had not been respected by the Macedonian side. On Friday another commander, Gjini, told AFP the ethnic Albanian rebels had so far used only 50 to 60 percent of their military potential. The ongoing peace talks had been postponed for a day to relocate them to the south of the country because of security fears and concerns that the rebel withdrawal from key positions had not been completed. However, the rebels also claim that they are ready to attack the capital Skopje and are present in the southwest towns of Ohrid, where the peace talks are being held, Bitola, Struga and Debar. ________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from this list visit: http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/amcc-news