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

To: Yaacov who wrote (9592)	5/23/1999 9:52:00 AM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

n Madrid, the West's top envoy in Bosnia, Carl Westendorp, said ground troops would be needed to get the refugees back home. ''I think that if we don't send ground troops this conflict will never be resolved,'' the former Spanish foreign minister, said in an interview with Diario 16 newspaper. >>> infoseek.go.com

To: Yaacov who wrote (9592)	5/23/1999 9:56:00 AM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

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.

To: Yaacov who wrote (9592)	5/23/1999 2:47:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

Bolshaya Igra and Malaya Igra For the first time in my career as a journalist, I felt that I was a pawn in a much bigger and more sinister game. Nato was passing the buck to us. We had failed to impose our will on our Serb hosts. But what of the Serbs themselves? Had they really pulled the wool over our eyes? The fact of the matter is that Kosovo is a complicated place. Things are not as black and white as the horror stories from the refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia would suggest. Yes, there has been ethnic cleansing. The hundreds of burnt out houses across the rolling Kosovo countryside are ample proof of that. But other refugees have been able to stay and are even receiving new identity documents from the Serb authorities. Some say they feel safe here, at least for the time being. Ironically, Nato and its seemingly arbitrary attacks could now present the bigger danger to the Kosovo Albanians. news.bbc.co.uk

To: Yaacov who wrote (9592)	5/24/1999 2:04:00 AM
From: Douglas V. Fant	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Yaacov, Greetings on Sunday evening! Agreed- Germans targeting on behalf of US/UK does not work- especially after Germany started the whole disintegration process nine years ago in Slovakia and Croatia. Agreed on the Don- I've been to Dagestan- flying around in helicopters with no radar in the fog- kind of crazy! I never fully understood Chechnya- did Russia really get fought to a draw and give up, or did Russia not take the issue sufficiently seriously and just get beat in that fashion?