Great news though! The Serb forces in Kosovo have been beaten back and
significantly destroyed by the bombing! >>>>
EU's Bonino fears for fate
of Albanians in Kosovo
10:29 a.m. May 09, 1999 Eastern
By Anatoly Verbin
SKOPJE, May 9 (Reuters) -
Europe's top aid official said on
Sunday she was hugely worried
about nearly 700,000 ethnic
Albanians believed to have been
purged from their homes and
trapped inside Kosovo.
European Union humanitarian aid
commissioner Emma Bonino
described the displaced people as a
''human bomb'' which Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic
could use at any time.
''Our major concern remains what
is happening inside Kosovo where
we have no information or
presence,'' Bonino told reporters in
the Macedonian capital Skopje
after a trip through the region that
also took her to Montenegro,
Bosnia and Albania.
While the state of the refugees in
those four countries was fragile, it
was under control for now, she said
-- but this could change fast
because of the numbers still in
Kosovo.
''In Kosovo we estimate that there
are at least 690,000 displaced
which means that the human bomb
is fully loaded and can be used at
any moment,'' she said.
More than 600,000 ethnic
Albanians have spilled over
Kosovo's borders since the crisis in
the southern Serbian province
began in March, most of them
staying with families or in refugee
camps in the Balkan region.
Bonino said that the fact virtually no
refugees had crossed into
Macedonia in the last four days
could mean Milosevic was
considering whether to let them go
en masse to destabilise
neighbouring countries.
''It could also be that Milosevic is
in a wait-and-see situation and it is
quite clear that we are at a turning
moment, after the G8 activity,'' she
said in a reference to a search for a
political solution which intensified
when seven leading Western
countries and Russia met last week.
''One possible interpretation is that
they (the Kosovans) are plugged
from inside.''
So far, she said, despite what she
described as some glitches, the
neighbouring countries with the help
of the outside world had coped well
with the exodus of Kosovo
Albanians.
''If the strategy of Milosevic was to
destabilise the region, I would say
that for the moment this strategy has
failed,'' she said. ''I think that the
international community must praise
the people and the governments of
Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and
Macedonia.''
Macedonian Prime Minister Ljupce
Georgievski had promised her that
the overcrowded refugee camps
would be expanded and a new one
would be built to accommodate
20,000 more people.
The Skopje government, which
says it cannot sustain 240,000
Kosovo Albanians politically or
economically, has been strongly
criticised for its treatment of the
refugees and for sending them to
third countries against their will in
some cases.
Bonino said some critics of the
Macedonian government were
''ungenerous.''
Family members of leading Kosovo
Albanian intellectual Fehmi Agani
said was killed after being taken off
a train turned back at the border
when Macedonian authorities
closed it on Wednesday.
The government later said the
border was open, but ''controlled.''
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. |
