Do you believe General Clark that we are winning?
Kosovo Talks To Open,
But War Intensifying
07:06 p.m May 05, 1999 Eastern
BONN, Germany (Reuters) -
High-level talks set for Thursday
will aim to narrow the rift between
the West and Russia over Kosovo,
but the bombing of Yugoslavia is
set to intensify.
As traumatized ethnic Albanians
told of horrifying new atrocities
inside Kosovo, relief officials
warned that half a million more
people could soon flee the
shattered southern Serbian
province. Macedonia slammed its
door shut to new refugees, accusing
the world of leaving it to struggle
alone with the surge of people.
NATO bombed an industrial site
and fuel tanks in the southern
Serbian city of Nis late
Wednesday, the 43rd night of air
raids, Serbian media said. Air raid
sirens sounded in Belgrade.
Diplomats dampened hopes there
would be any breakthrough that
might bring a swift end to the
conflict when seven Western
foreign ministers and their Russian
counterpart meet near Bonn
Thursday.
Ringing in their ears will be a
warning by President Clinton that,
far from a diplomatic solution being
imminent, the bombing is about to
be stepped up.
''We will continue to pursue this
campaign in which we are now
engaged. We will intensify it in an
unrelenting way until these
objectives are met,'' Clinton said
Wednesday.
Clinton, standing in Germany
Wednesday with three American
soldiers freed by Belgrade, said he
was considering ordering the
release of two Yugoslav soldiers
being held by U.S. forces.
Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright and Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov of Russia, which has bitterly
condemned the bombing of
Yugoslavia, were set to meet
Thursday in Bonn ahead of the
meeting of the Group of Eight (G8)
foreign ministers.
''Russia has finally got into the
boat,'' Germany's Deputy Foreign
Minister Wolfgang Ischinger said of
the G8 meeting.
But he added: ''I must warn against
the idea that we could have a
fundamental breakthrough in a
matter of hours or days. There is
still a lot of work to do.''
Western diplomats said the G8
would back a statement calling for
an international security force to
protect the return of all refugees to
Kosovo, a withdrawal of Serbian
forces and an international interim
administration.
It is likely to skate over remaining
disagreements between the West
and Russia, but could be a prelude
to a mandatory U.N. resolution on
the terms for a peace settlement.
British Foreign Secretary Robin
Cook cautioned: ''Our aim
tomorrow will be to get common
ground on the principles of a
settlement. ... We do not want
peace at any price.''
An Apache helicopter crashed in
Albania on a training mission
Wednesday, killing two pilots, the
first U.S. servicemen to die in the
six-week-old campaign. The
aircraft was believed to have hit an
overhead cable.
But the Pentagon said that six of its
B-2 stealth bombers -- which cost
$2 billion each -- had performed
even better than expected,
dropping a total of more than a
million pounds of bombs on targets
in Yugoslavia with unprecedented
accuracy.
The U.S. House of Representatives
is to vote Thursday on funding for
the air war, forcing Republicans to
choose between supporting the
military or taking a political swipe at
Clinton.
Macedonia Wednesday closed its
door to as many as 1,500 Kosovo
Albanians at the Blace border
crossing.
''We think many people were
either not allowed in or pushed
back into no-man's land,'' a
UNHCR spokeswoman said.
Macedonia, struggling to cope with
200,000 Kosovo refugees, was
promised $252 million in foreign aid
from the West Wednesday but also
wants them to take more of the
refugees themselves.
Refugees arriving in Albania gave
Reuters detailed accounts of what
they said were new massacres by
Serbs.
Hatixhe Gerxhaliu held up two small
pebbles in front of her eyes and
described how she found her
murdered son.
''When I found him by the stream
they had gouged out his eyes. They
had cut off his nose. I placed the
eyeballs back inside his head,'' she
said. ''Like this.''
Refugees from the village of
Studime near Vucitrn in central
Kosovo, arriving in a group of
about 7,500 people who crossed
the border into Albania late
Tuesday, said Serb forces had
separated men of military age from
the women, children and old and
murdered them, often in front of
their families.
Refugees from other villages who
passed through the area confirmed
their descriptions of perhaps as
many as several hundred bodies
strewn on a road from Studime to
Vucitrn.
A relief official said in Washington
many more people could be driven
out.
''It could be another half-million or
more,'' Karen Abuzayd of the
UNHCR said in Washington.
In the 24 hours up to Wednesday
evening, more than 15,000 refugees
fled Kosovo and at last count there
were 695,000 refugees from the
Serbian province in the Balkan
region, the UNHCR said --
404,200 in Albania, 211,340 in
Macedonia, 62,000 in Montenegro
and almost 17,600 in Bosnia.
The foreign minister of the
pro-Western Yugoslav republic of
Montenegro, Branko Perovic, told
Reuters in an interview the war
meant either the end of Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic or
the end of Yugoslavia.
''With Milosevic, there is no hope
for this country,'' he said, adding his
government was trying to stop the
federal army, loyal to Belgrade,
from slowly usurping power in
Montenegro.
A French newsletter specializing in
defense issues said a soldier from
Britain's Special Air Service (SAS)
Regiment was lost behind Yugoslav
lines in Kosovo about 10 days ago.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. |
