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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: timers who wrote (24753)	3/28/1999 10:29:00 AM
From: Anthony@Pacific	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 122087

A Human Disaster!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! March 27, 1999 ABROAD AT HOME / By ANTHONY LEWIS Mr. Milosevic's Campaign of Terror -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Articles Previous Columns Forum Join a Discussion on Anthony Lewis -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- or three days now, on Slobodan Milosevic's orders, Serbian policemen, soldiers and paramilitary thugs have been spreading terror across Kosovo. They have burned and shelled villages, driven thousands of ethnic Albanians from their homes and carried out dozens of assassinations. The scale of the terror campaign has not fully registered in the outside world because Mr. Milosevic has expelled Western journalists and cut off television links. But enough details have got through to make clear that a human disaster is taking place. One example: On Thursday a respected source saw many thousands of civilians making a forced march from the town of Qirez. Serbian tanks were behind a column, a mile or more long, of men, women and children. What happened to them is not known. A second example: At 1:10 A.M. on Thursday armed men in black uniforms with Serbian police insignia broke into the Pristina home of a leading Kosovo Albanian human rights lawyer, Bajram Kelmendi. His wife said they shouted, "You have five seconds to come out of your rooms." The policemen ransacked the house, beat Mr. Kelmendi and took him and his two sons away. At daybreak Mrs. Kelmendi went to police headquarters, where she was told to take her troubles to NATO and the Kosovo Liberation Army. Yesterday Mr. Kelmendi and his sons were found shot dead a few miles from Pristina. A third: Serbian police shot the elderly doorman at the last Albanian-language newspaper in Kosovo, Koha Ditore, as they shut the paper down. The publisher, Veton Surroi, went into hiding. Mr. Milosevic has targeted for kidnapping and assassination the top Albanian editors, lawyers, doctors and educators. The idea is to decapitate the leadership -- exactly what his killers set out to do in Bosnia seven years ago. The Milosevic terror campaign mocks one of the main purposes given by President Clinton and others for the NATO operation. In the President's words, that is "to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo." If we and our allies did not act, Mr. Clinton said, "President Milosevic would read our hesitation as a license to kill. There would be many more massacres -- tens of thousands more refugees, more victims crying out for revenge." Mr. Milosevic has, rather, made the NATO operation a license to kill. The massacres are occurring, and there are tens of thousands of new refugees. That puts a heavy responsibility on President Clinton. He faces a humanitarian debacle. What should he do? First, he should support the NATO Supreme Commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, in his desire to intensify the air attacks. The scale of the operation so far has been nowhere near large enough to make Mr. Milosevic believe we mean business -- much less to destroy his military power. Second, NATO must begin using in Kosovo the aircraft that operate against tanks and artillery: attack helicopters and A-10 Warthogs. They have been held back because they fly lower and slower, and hence are more vulnerable to anti-aircraft weapons. But not using them means giving a free hand to Mr. Milosevic in his Kosovo terror campaign. Third, the United States has compelling evidence of what Mr. Milosevic is doing in Kosovo: high-resolution photographs from satellites that show burning villages and shattered houses. We should publish those pictures to counter Mr. Milosevic's tactic of shutting out the world. Finally, NATO has to face the fact that more than air power may be needed to save the people of Kosovo. Mr. Clinton and the Europeans have said that no ground forces would go in unless Mr. Milosevic agreed. But we are beyond that now. We have to think about a protection force on the ground. It is not easy, and it never was going to be. But caving in to Slobodan Milosevic would be inestimably worse. He is using the tactics of the Gestapo. His regime increasingly has the smell of the first fascist state in post-cold-war Europe. What will NATO celebrate at its 50th anniversary party next month if it has allowed Kosovo to become a graveyard? What will become of the humanitarian ideal, of what President Clinton called "a moral imperative"? One former diplomat said: "If they don't get serious, Kosovo will be the humanitarian Bay of Pigs." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Home \| Site Index \| Site Search \| Forums \| Archives \| Marketplace Quick News \| Page One Plus \| International \| National/N.Y. \| Business \| Technology \| Science \| Sports \| Weather \| Editorial \| Op-Ed \| Arts \| Automobiles \| Books \| Diversions \| Job Market \| Real Estate \| Travel Help/Feedback \| Classifieds \| Services \| New York Today