Albanians wary of new border clash with
Serbs
By Ben Brown in Letaj, Albania
YUGOSLAV troops last week occupied strips of Albanian territory in a
dangerous escalation towards a wider Balkan war.
Since Nato's bombing campaign began, there have been sporadic border
skirmishes between the Serbs and Albanians involving small arms and mortar
fire. But Belgrade now appears to be carving out a buffer zone within Albania
designed to stop Kosovar rebels using Albanian soil to launch attacks across
the border.
Yugoslav soldiers have encroached across the border and forced Kosovar
hostages to lay landmines inside Albanian territory, according to locals. Last
week, as tensions mounted, the Albanian army sent tanks and troops to the
border north of the town of Krume.
Capt Adem Muselikaj, the commander of nine ageing Chinese tanks,
admitted that they had fired into Yugoslavia, a barrage apparently designed to
frighten away Serb troops. However, the Serbs retaliated by shelling the
captain's tank, the sort of exchange which raises the prospect of the Kosovo
crisis spilling over the border and igniting a new conflict.
Capt Muselikaj said: "Nato should be doing something about these attacks;
they are obliged to." Surveying the shell craters that were uncomfortably close
to his men, he said: "This is what peace looks like to the Serbs. It's terrible,
but we won't retreat. We will defend our country and our people with
dignity."
Slobodan Milosevic's forces are unlikely to be quaking in their boots.
Albania's army is the worst in Europe: its soldiers wear shabby uniforms, they
laugh and joke as they walk rather than march and they carry bizarre and
antiquated weaponry, including anti-tank guns that look more like drainpipes.
I met one unit close to the Morini crossing point, led by two officers who
appeared to have been drinking heavily and preferred to hold flowers than
guns.
So it is not surprising that in Letaj, one of the villages the Serbs have targeted,
local people are not waiting for the army to come to their rescue. The men
have sent away their families, picked up their guns - often ancient hunting rifles
- and taken to the network of bunkers that are the legacy of Albania's late
dictator, Enver Hoxha.
Suddenly, Albanians are finding a use for the ugly concrete pillboxes, created
by a despot who was obsessed with the notion that the world wanted to
invade his poverty-stricken country.
Albanians and aid workers alike warn one not to go to Letaj, and the village is
now virtually cut off from the outside world. I only managed to reach it by
foot after a long and exhausting trek. Trying to approach it by car, my guide
told me, would be suicide because the Serbs stop any vehicles moving on the
road.
The Yugoslav foray into Albania will allow Serbian troops to monitor, and
possibly attack, Kosovo Liberation Army bases and training camps in the
area and the tracks they use to ferry supplies to Kosovo.
This border conflict has created another wave of displaced people: woman,
children, and the elderly have fled from villages such as Letaj. They find
themselves queuing for food from the international aid agencies, along with the
refugees who have come here from Kosovo itself.
Among those who have been moved out is 71-year-old Imer Idrizrixha. He
said: "We don't fear the Serbs, but we don't have mortars and anti-tank
weapons to fight them with. We just have knives and axes. As a nation we're
just not prepared to face them."
Anti-government protests in Yugoslavia continue despite attempts by the
security forces to stamp out the unrest in southern Serbia with a campaign of
arrests and harassment of suspected activists, and military checkpoints, writes
Anton La Guardia in Podgorica.
At least 100 reservists demonstrated outside the town hall of Krucevac,
where the protests started a week earlier, demanding the withdrawal of
soldiers from Kosovo to "end the tragedy and the suffering".
In the city of Cacak on the same day, police repeatedly prevented a
self-styled "citizens' parliament" from gathering at a meeting hall, saying the
protest group did not have the proper permits.
Residents said the gathering of 200 people was finally held in a bomb shelter
after a Nato air raid.
Ben Brown is Special Correspondent for the BBC's Nine O'Clock News.
telegraph.co. |
