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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nuke44 who wrote (2342)	4/7/1999 12:12:00 AM
From: George Papadopoulos	Respond to of 17770

I think the game is tomorrow at 2.30 espn or espn2 NATO "communication" takes some damage in Yugoslavia campaign PARIS, April 5 (AFP) - Since the start of the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia nearly two weeks ago, communication from and between the allies has been less than perfect -- the 'death' of a top Kosovo political figure later seen alive being just one example. The biggest mistakes have come from the military side of the organisation, say observers. NATO's press service said all the information they put out is in good faith but admitted that "there will always be errors in situations like this," and that it corrects them as soon as possible. Trying to provide a unified face for 19 countries was a difficult task, press officials said, adding they were completely dependent on what risk-adverse military officers told them. To exacerbate the problems, one of them said, "there is no coordination between the separate briefings given by the United States, Britain and NATO." On Monday of last week, British Air Commodore David Wilby, NATO's military spokesman, announced the death of Fehmi Agani, one of the principal negotiators in talks drawing up the failed Rambouillet peace deal and top advisor to moderate Kosovo Albanian political leader Ibrahim Rugova. After doubts expressed by several NATO countries -- and headlines announcing Agani's death -- European and US diplomats in Brussels eventually said two days later that Agani was, in fact, alive. Other apparent errors from NATO or its member countries followed, including: - Justifying the NATO strikes as a way of avoiding a looming humanitarian catastrophe -- a catastrophe that arrived days later. - Describing the Serb operation as a "genocide." While reports have emerged of mass executions of young men, Kosovo refugees say they were herded to the border by the Serb forces. - Declaring that NATO would not send combat troops into Kosovo. This defined the limits of the conflict for Belgrade and implicitly gave the Serb forces greater freedom to forcibly evacuate the province. - The announcement that several NATO countries will take in temporarily 100,000 of the refugees, which could carry the risk of encouraging the alleged 'ethnic cleansing' of Kosovo. One of the clearest signs of internal communication problems emerged last Saturday when Solana issued a statement which almost led to the collapse of the Italian government, according to diplomats. Several of NATO's 19 ambassadors wanted the campaign's political aims to be restated, but others voiced opposition. In a bid to satisfy both camps, Solana recycled an old news release. But the journalists at NATO headquarters saw the vaguely worded announcement as a veiled indication NATO troops would be sent into Kosovo to protect refugees without a signed agreement from Belgrade -- signifying a major shift in allied policy. Solana's spokesman, Jamie Shea, quickly rectified that, but not before several media had excitedly run the "new" development. In one last stumble, NATO said Sunday that humanitarian aircraft had started ferrying some of the refugees from Macedonia to allied countries. By Monday morning, no refugee had been airlifted out. -------- End Forwarded Message --------