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

To: Machaon who wrote (4544)	4/19/1999 8:53:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

NATO was surprised that Slob Milosevic would insanely carry through on his racist plans of ethnic cleansing, in the face of NATO threats. That is just absolutely not true...Clinton was warned repeatedly about this eventuality...He refused to consider ground troops in order to get Europeans to go along with this mad bombing plan.... He send mere 300 planes (less than 1/4 of Desert Storm) and he presented Milosevic with unacceptable ultimatum instead of disarming KLA and station UN sanctioned troops...

To: Machaon who wrote (4544)	4/19/1999 9:43:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17770

You seem to imply that this awful problem was easy to solve. Actually, it was. The Rambouillet accords with neutral peacekeepers instead of NATO-US forces. Milosovic had accepted the accord, but not the NATO-US troops. If Albright had been willing to discuss a neutral force, there would have been peace. She wanted not only to win but to rub Milosovic's nose in it. So thousands die and hundreds of thousands are homeless because of her ego.

To: Machaon who wrote (4544)	4/19/1999 10:28:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

Now this can be clearly seen even by Clinton.. West Says 850,000 Trapped In Kosovo 09:57 p.m Apr 19, 1999 Eastern BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO pursued its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia overnight but has found no way to help masses of ethnic Albanians it says are being herded through Kosovo or hiding in its hills and forests. Yugoslav media said that at least one person had been killed in NATO attacks which hit industries and warehouses, including a cigarette factory, around the southern city of Nis. Within Kosovo itself, NATO spokesmen say something like 850,000 people are still on the move -- a huge upheaval that has already sent 600,000 more fleeing from the south Serbian province. United Nations officials believe that by the end of April more than 800,000 additional refugees may pour into Albania, Macedonia and the smaller Yugoslav state of Montenegro. And the United States adds that anything from 100,000 to 500,000 Kosovo Albanian men are not accounted for in refugee figures, voicing fears many may have been killed. These Western estimates would mean that of the entire 1.8 million ethnic Albanians who lived in Kosovo at the start of 1998 there may be hardly any who have not been driven from home by Serb troops, police and paramilitary gangs. Most of the exodus has taken place in the 27 days since NATO began air strikes to protect the ethnic Albanians, insisting that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic put his troops in Kosovo under control of a NATO-led military force. The refugee exodus in Albania slowed to a trickle Monday. Aid workers said that Yugoslav forces, who have alternately speeded and checked the flow, had apparently stopped it again. A border monitor for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the latest refugees reported empty roads and deserted towns in southwest Kosovo. ''We are extremely concerned,'' said Kris Janowski of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. ''We are absolutely sure that it's not that the people turned around themselves. They are being forcibly prevented from leaving Kosovo.'' France said Monday that it was preparing equipment that would be needed for an airdrop of supplies to desperate refugees trapped inside Kosovo. Defense Minister Alain Richard told reporters that NATO partners were worried but ''We must not let slip any way of helping these displaced people. We are aware of the risks... but the choice of France is: 'Let's do it'.'' Alliance spokesmen say that big, slow cargo planes flying low to drop supplies would be sitting ducks for anti-aircraft fire, even though Yugoslav air defenses were NATO's first targets and have been reduced to uncoordinated makeshift. The plight of the uprooted has also sharpened debate in NATO over links with the Kosovo Liberation Army -- the ethnic Albanian guerrillas whose separatist struggle precipitated last year's harsh Serbian army and police crackdown. A Western diplomat in Macedonia said Monday that Yugoslav military targets pinpointed for NATO by the KLA have been mostly ignored by alliance air controllers. One reason, he said, was that NATO wanted to keep its distance from the KLA, which a year ago was rated by Washington as a terrorist group. KLA officer Sokol Bashota called Western diplomats by satellite telephone Monday, appealing for air strikes to save tens of thousands of civilians he said were trapped under Serbian shelling in the Berisha mountains of central Kosovo. NATO in Brussels said it had not received the plea. ''There is no escape for anyone from this area,'' Bashota said in a call to Reuters. ''They are coming at us from three directions. We are trapped here and we need NATO's help.'' Alliance spokesmen Monday gave their clearest account so far of what went wrong last Wednesday, when air strikes ripped into refugee convoys on roads in southwest Kosovo and, according to Yugoslav accounts, killed 64 ethnic Albanians. Brigadier General Dan Leaf, who commands U.S. planes at Aviano, Italy, said NATO pilots dropped nine 500-pound (225-kg) laser guided bombs in two areas and ''it is possible there were civilian casualties at both locations.'' Southeast of Djakovica the target was a 100-vehicle convoy. Pilots and controllers debated whether it was military or civilian or both, but attacked before being told that Serb forces rarely travel in such large groups. In the propaganda war over the convoy strikes, Yugoslav media have broadcast a tape which they say shows controllers ordering reluctant pilots to attack civilians. General Leaf said it was a fake, pieced together from various recordings. President Clinton -- preparing to play host at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 50th birthday party Friday -- expects the war to cost Washington $6 billion. Experts in London say Britain's bill is $3 million a day and rising. Yugoslavia says it has suffered more than $100 billion in damage and is in danger of an ecological disaster from bombed chemical plants and oil refineries. NATO says the bombing has left Yugoslavia unable to refine petrol -- a key stage in the slow crippling of its armed forces. Hoping to prevent fuel imports from reaching the country, the alliance is also appealing to suppliers to cut off shipments but is still undecided whether to impose a blockade. Clinton spoke with Russian President Boris Yeltsin by telephone for 50 minutes Monday, getting a fresh assurance that the Kremlin did not plan to be drawn into the Kosovo war. But in remarks to his own security officials reported by Tass news agency, Yeltsin also said that he would not allow NATO to establish control over Yugoslavia. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited