Kosovo's Latest Bloody Sunday Leaves Two Dead, Three Injured

   PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, June 24 (AFP) - Some 50 Serbs have been
killed and about 140 kidnapped by ethnic Albanians since the start
of the Kosovo peace force deployment on June 12, a Serbian Orthodox
priest said Thursday.
   The bodies of 10 Serbs were found in the western town of Pec on
Wednesday, said Father Sava, head of the Decani monastery near the
town.
   The monastery has been under the protection of Italian soldiers
from KFOR.
   The toll was based on information gathered by the church, the
priest said.
   The Albanians have been breaking in and looting flats belonging
to Serbs, while numerous rapes have been reported, he told reporters
in Pristina.
   "The Serbs are going through a real Golghota in Kosovo," Father
Sava said.
   He accused the Belgrade regime of being responsible for the
situation and criticised Serbian authorities for pressing Serb
refugees to return to Kosovo.
   Around 100 Serbs have found shelter in the patriarchate in Pec,
the seat of the Serbian Orthodox church, he said, adding that 400
others were still "awaiting evacuation" from the nearby village of
Vitomirica.
   Before the start of the withdrawal of Belgrade troops, there
were an estimated 10,000 Serbs living in the province.
   "Nowadays, the Serb villages are looted and burnt to the
ground," Sava said, adding that he had seen the village of
Gorazdevac "in flames" when coming to Pristina escorted by KFOR.
   He estimated that up to 100,000 Serbs have left the province in
the recent days, describing as "propaganda" Belgrade official media
reports of a return of Serb refugees to the region of Pec.
   "I believe they are sending them directly to death," he said.
   He indicated that only 21 Serbs, mostly elderly, were still
living in the small town of Decani, while only 20 remained in the
southwestern town of Djakovica, where they have found shelter in a
church while awaiting evacuation to safer areas.
   Pristina is nowadays "in anarchy, chaos and crime," he said,
adding that between 16 and 20 Serbs have been killed in recent days,
while 20,000 Serbs have left the town.
   In other parts of Kosovo, the priest said that all Serbs had
been expelled from the northern towns of Vucitrn and Podujevo.
   "Eighty percent of Serbs, some 4,000 people, have left" the
village of Obilic, near Pristina.
   In the southern town of Prizren, between 200 and 300 Serbs have
been hiding in the local Orthodox church, he said.
   "It is important that the Serb population remain and live in
Kosovo. Without its presence, it will become irrelevant whether
Kosovo is independent and how it will be called," Sava said.
   Father Sava and other church representatives will meet NATO
Secretary-General Javier Solana later Thursday and the Alliance
Supreme Commander, General Wesley Clark, who will be making their
first visit to Pristina.
   On Wednesday, the church officials met with British Foreign
Secretary Robin Cook and his European counterparts Hubert Vedrine
from France, Joschka Fischer from Germany and Lamberto Dini from
Italy.

KOSOVO, June 24 - The KLA rampage against Yugoslavian
civilians is continuing with the NATO KFOR troops basically
looking on and doing little else, the TiM sources within the Serb
Orthodox Christian church report from Kosovo.

Albanian terrorists have abducted at gun point at least 140
Yugoslavians in Kosovo during last 12 days, our sources say.
Most of the kidnapped Yugoslavians are men (36 to 40 in age) from
the territory of the Glogovac municipality.

All the citizens of the village of Slivovo escaped to the Gracanica
monastery on June 22 after the Kosovo Albanians attacked them.
In addition, about 300 Yugoslavian refugees "ethnically cleansed"
from Bosnia in 1995, who had been put up in the Velika Reka
camp near Pristina, fled after a large group of the KLA terrorists
broke into the settlement.

Bodies of six massacred Yugoslavians were found also on June 22
in the village Mazgit. These Yugoslavians were kidnapped June 16
in front of their houses in Obilic. Also the ANSA reported Albanian
retaliations in Kosovo continue. Four Yugoslavian shepherds were
killed yesterday in Novo Brdo and bodies of six Albanians killed by
KLA have been found.

At same time The Independent daily reported that, the "British and
French troops stood and watched as looters pillaged and burned a
Yugoslavian village yesterday, making a mockery of NATO's claim
that is proving security for both Serbs and Albanians".

A group of the armed Albanians killed three Yugoslavian civilians in
the village of Belo Polje near Pec on Sunday evening (June 20), the
Tanjug news agency reported. The killed were Stevan (60), Radomir
(51) and Filip (46) of the family Stosic, while Mirko Stosic was
badly injured.

The Yugoslavians in the village of Grece, 10 miles north of the
Kosovo capital Pristina, had apparently been warned on Saturday
night (June 19) by returning Albanians that they should leave
immediately. Early yesterday morning dozens of tractors and
trailers arrived in the tiny village, as the Albanians set about taking
anything they could find", The Independent's correspondent Andrew
Buncombe reported.

So far, at least 69,000 Yugoslavians have been cleansed from
Kosovo, according to the western relief agencies.
---
But who's counting, right?  After all, just as in Croatia and
Bosnia in 1995, when over 300,000 Yugoslavians were "ethnically
cleansed,"

Pristina, June 25, 1999 (www.inet.co.yu, Media centar) -
Since the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and police forces
from Kosovo and Metohia, about 350 Serbs have been killed, 180
abducted and disappeared and more than 80 000 fled in Pristina,
Lipljane, Kosovo Polje and surroundings, some 1500
apartments owned by the Serbs have been robbed and 300 taken
over in Pristina when the owners were thrown away to street,
beaten, injured and possibly killed, Serbs from Pristina and the
surroundings claim.

Some twenty Serbs left in Pristina were beaten and thrown away
from their apartments on Thursday night.

Between 500 and 600 Serbs form Pec who have been living mostly in
shelters during the last few days, suffering all kinds of threats and
humiliation, were evacuated and transferred to Montenegro across
Rozaje on Thursday.

KFOR is failing to accomplish its main task, the protection of the
citizens and the property in Kosovo and Metohia, calmly watching the
crimes of terrorists and, according to the testimonies of the fled Serbs,
often helping them. According to Radovan Urosevic, Pristina Media
Center director, Serbs are killed in the streets of the cities in Kosovo
and Metohja in broad daylight while KFOR watches and doesn't intervene.

Albanians, as Urosevic says, occupy whatever they can, the anarchy,
which seems to fit the KFOR troops as well, rules so the companies,
apartments and cars are been robbed.

Pristina Media Center will not work any more since it was taken over
by the KFOR troops due to the intention of the Albanian terrorists to
break into it.

   BELGRADE, June 28 (AFP) - The situation in Kosovo is
catastrophic, Serb opposition leader Vuk Draskovic said Tuesday, and
blamed the leading world powers for the problems.
   "It is false to say that KFOR does not have the strength to
prevent the expulsion of Serbs. If that were the case, it would be
its duty to call on our security forces to help it stop these
expulsions," the head of the Serb Renewal Movement (SPO) said,
according to the Beta agency.
   Draskovic said that "the situation in Kosovo is catastrophic and
could serve as the basis of charges brought against the most
powerful countries of the world."
   "We have had occasion to see KFOR soldiers calmly observe the
looting and murder of Serbs in Kosovo," he said, referring to
television news footage.
   "Thousands of bandits entered Kosovo after the withdrawal of the
Yugoslav army and are burning and looting Serb houses," he
fulminated.

KFOR representatives have announced that unknown persons in uniforms of the
separatist Kosovo Liberation Army killed a 65 year old Gypsy woman in Suva
Reka on Sept. 9.

KFOR has announced that one Serb woman died from injuries, after being
beaten up by KLA members in Prizren the night before. The KFOR spokesman
said that two Serb houses were burnt in Prizren the same night, but gave no
further details.

The Church and Peoples' Committee in Gnjilane announced on Sept. 9, that
threats against the Serbs, plundering and moving into their houses and apartments
by force, have continued in Gnjilane during the last 24 hours. The houses and
handicraft shops of five Serbs were looted and two flats were taken over by
force in Gnjilane on Sept. 8, BETA has learned through radio amateurs.

The Church and Peoples' Committee stressed that the Serbs in Gnjilane "are
irritated over the fact that KFOR has reduced the curfew by 80 minutes, thus
extending the time for looting and crimes by the Albanians."

The Committee also accused unnamed local officials who "have fled from
Kosovo," and who, by sending false information to the Serbian government, have

On March 27th President Clinton explained why we were
bombing Yugoslavia in the following words: "The time to
put out a fire is before it spreads and burns down the
neighborhood. By acting now, we're taking a strong step
toward a goal that has always been in our national interest
-- a peaceful, united, democratic Europe. For America
there is no greater calling than being a peacemaker. But
sometimes you have to fight in order to end the fighting."

So, now NATO is in control in Kosovo, and has been since
the Yugoslav army withdrew in mid-June. How are we
doing in creating a "peaceful, united, democratic" state
in Kosovo?

In three months over 90% of the Serbs, most of the Gypsies,
Jews, Turk, Egyptians and even about 100,000 ethnic
Albanians who lived in Kosovo are now refugees having fled
to the "undemocratic" Serbia because they feared they
would be killed in KFOR controlled Kosovo.

The world was told, many times, that President Clinton's
concern in Kosovo were humanitarian in nature. On May
6th, speaking to a group of refugees from Kosovo at a
Refugee Reception Center in Ingelheim, Germany, Clinton
said: "Let me begin by thanking Chancellor Schroeder, the
representatives of his government who are here and all the
people of Germany for their strong, strong leadership in
NATO, in defense of the people of Kosovo and for making
this place of refuge and shelter for people in need. "

Hmm-m. How many Serb, Montenegrin, Jewish, Goran,
Gypsy, Turk and Egyptian refugees from Kosovo,
something like 90% of the Kosovo minorities, are being
cared for in German camps today? I haven't found any signs
that ANY of the fleeing minoritiy Kosovars are fleeing
to Germany - or other nations. They all seem to be
fleeing to Slobadon Milosevic's un-democratic Serbis.

"It is very important that every freedom-loving person in
the entire world know the story of Kosovo." Clinton told the
refugees. "It is important that people not forget that what
is called ethnic cleansing is not some abstract idea; it is real
people with real families and real dreams being uprooted
from their homes, their schools, their work, their children,
their parents, their husbands and wives. NATO has acted in
Kosovo because we believe ethnic cleansing must be
opposed, resisted, reversed. We are doing all we can to
bring aid to the victims of the violence."

Freedom loving persons? How about the freedom of all of
Kosovo's minority groups? It's just amazing to me how
selective Clinton and his ilk are about the rights of
minorities. His concern for them seems to depend entirely
on the color of their skin. If they are black, we hear a whole
lot about minority rights. If they are Serbs, Jews, Gypsies,
Gorans, or Montenegrin in Kosovo - it's like neither the
minorities nor the rights even exist.

The Raska-Prizren Diocese of Serbian Orthodox Church has
documented the murder of 350 Serbs, by name, since
NATO and the KLA took control of Kosovo, between June and
August 1999. That would represent something like
.15% of the approximately 200,000 Serbs in Kosovo when
the bombing began. This figure does not include the
hundreds who have been kidnapped by the KLA and who have
never been heard from again. This only includes
those the Church has buried. About 90% of the Serbs
have fled the province, compared with about 30% of the
ethnic Albanians who were refugees between March 24th
and June 11th.

An equivalent figure, .15% of the 1,800,000 ethnic
Albanians were in Kosovo when the bombing began would be
2700. And, although we have been told that many thousands
were killed by the Serbs - up to 100,000 during the
bombing, nothing like that many bodies have been discovered.
The actual figures mentioned by forensic experts who
were rushed to Kosovo the document the "Serb killings" are
only a few hundred. So far proof that thousands of
ethnic Albanians were killed by Serbs simply has not
materialized. Since NATO occupation, not only have most of
the minorities fled the KLA-NATO occupation, but KLA
opposition among ethnic Albanians claim up to 150,000
ethnic Albanians who oppose the KLA also have fled
because their lives are in danger from the KLA terrorists.

According to Fred Abrahams of the Human Rights Watch,
in 1998 1200 people died in Kosovo. Of that number
140 were Serbs. That would indicate, if only 10% of
the population was Serb, and 90% were Albanian, which were
the figures given consistently by the United Nations,
that a higher percentage of Serbs were killed in 1998 than
Albanians. Others put the number of Serbs killed at 300 -
most of them police and other government officials. The
1200 people killed in Kosovo in 1998, which supposedly was
so horrendous that America bombed Yugoslavia for
79 days to solve the problem, compares as follows with the
numbers of people killed in other ethnic conflicts around
the world: Sudan - 2 million, Tibet - 1 million in the last
7 years, Rwanda - 500,000, Chechnya - 80,000, Turkey -
31,000, Ethiopia - 15,000, KOSOVO - 2,000 (source NBC News)
 The Human Rights Watch claims the dead in
Kosovo was only 1200. NBC used a nice round figure of 2,000.
We do not yet have the number of people killed in
East Timor in the last couple of weeks while the United
Nations sat on its hands waiting for permission from the
invaders, Clinton's friends in Indonesia, to "intervene."

Increasingly around the world this situation is being
discussed. ` Ghana's Foreign Minister, James VictorGbeho said
yesterday at the United Nations: `We have seen in the past
few months the kind of resources that the world has been
willing and able to mobilize in the Balkans at short notice,''
Ghana's foreign minister, James Victor Gbeho, said
Tuesday. ``We do not see the same response to the tragedies
of Africa,'' he said.

Clinton responded to that rising concern of US hypocrisy
in "humanitarian" matters saying, ""I know that some are
troubled that the United States and others cannot respond
to every humanitarian catastrophe in the world," Clinton
said. "We cannot do everything everywhere. But simply
because we have different interests in different parts of the
world does not mean we can be indifferent to the destruction
of innocents in any part of the world." Clinton defended
NATO's decision to begin an air war against Serbia, saying
that it followed a consensus in the Security Council that
Serbian atrocities against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians were
unacceptable, the New York Times observes in today's
paper.

What is troubling is the willingness to literally make up
"atrocities" supposedly committed by Serbs in Kosovo, which
have since been proven false, to justify spending billions
of dollars to bomb Yugoslavia for 79 days, , while the
Clinton administration simply ignored really the death of
literally millions of non-whites around the world.

Why? Has the situation in Europe now been stabilized with
the withdrawal of an intact Yugoslav army from Kosovo
and the occupation by KFOR and its obvious ally, the KLA?
Don't count on it. Sources inside Yugoslavia are
predicting the KLA will now turn its weapons against KFOR
forces since all minorities have been effectively
cleansed..

What seems to be occurring is an increasingly jaundiced
look at the so-called "Western Democracy" which NATO
intends to force on the Balkans. It is becoming increasingly
clear that the so-called "democratic forces" in Serbia are
losing, not gaining ground against Milosevic. Efforts to bomb
out, freeze out and destroy civilian electrical and
industrial plants have not driven the Serbs into the arms of
NATO. Anti-Milosevic forces which were able to bring 2
million Serbs into the streets of Belgrade two years ago
are able to muster only a few thousand protesters today. The
protesters are not blocked by Serb police. The public is
simply not supporting the confused and splintered parties
who are promised money from America for their opposition
to Milosevic. Their anti-Milosevic campaigns are
increasingly viewed in Serbia as part of NATO's aggression.

All of this could very well herald the start of a much wider
war than we've seen so far. If the KLA turns its weapons
on KFOR forces, it is not clear what the NATO response would
be. At least one Yugoslav source tells me that it
would only take a "few days" for the KLA to totally dismantle
the KFOR forces based on the weapons it has kept.
Then what would happen? Would Clinton send in more troops?
Would they ask for the Yugoslav troops to come
back in? Would Milosevic just stand back and wait until
the KLA and KFOR killed each other off? From what I'm
hearing, this could begin as early as this fall. Stay
tuned. Contrary to a lot of Western wishful thinking, the Yugoslav
army is still intact, and still well-trained and knowledgeable.
It wouldn't be the first time in history that the Serbs
waited until their enemies weakened each other, and then
moved in to regain their land.

To comment:   [email protected]

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

Dear Sirs,

I am taking this opportunity to express the protest in the name of the
Serbian community in Kosovo because of the photo which has been put on
your main Web Page.
http://www.usip.org/

The photo shows one US military doctor who delivers a little plastic bag
with medicines to a Serb doctor in Strpce donated by the by the
University Clinical Center in Pristina, Kosovo,
as a gesture of goodwill from ethnic Albanians to ethnic Serbs.

In our opinion this photo creates entirely wrong impression of the
situation in Kosovo now, especially in Pristina Hospital. The same photo
can be seen on the official USIA Web Site.

http://www.usia.gov/regional/eur/balkans/kosovo/homepage.htm

In Pristina hospital there are no more Serb doctors and patients because
all doctors and medical personnel were driven away by the armed KLA
gunmen in June, in the very presence of KFOR soldiers. Proffesor Andrija
Tomanovic, a respected Serb surgeon who operated hundreds of Albanians
in the hospital, was brutally beaten and was abducted by armed
Albanians. Some inofficial sources say that he was killed in one of
Albanian illegal detention centers run by KLA. Since the arrival of KFOR
more than 400 Serbs have been abducted, 300 killed by the Albanian
extremists. More than 70 Orthodox Christian churches were destroyed or
seriously damaged by the Albanians.

Kosovo Serbs now cannot have any medical assistence in Pristina hospital
as well as in majority of other Albanian dominated hospitals in the
province. Serb students and proffessors are barred from entering the
University hospital, as well as all other University facilities in
Pristina. The public use of Serb leanguage is not allowed as well as
nowhere else in Pristina. All Serb inscriptions which stood together
with inscriptions in Albanian were torn down as almost everywhere in
Kosovo.

Two English millitary priests, Fr. Kingsley Joyce and Fr. Brian Walton,
testified themselves that a Serb patient who was wounded by Albanians
and trasferred by KFOR to Pristina Hospital was refused water and food
by Albanian medical personnel. At the end he had to be evacuated from
the Hospital and soon died because of the lack of proper medical
treatment in the first days. This incident  was reported to Dr Kouchner
and he ordered investigation. So far we have not heard that anyone lost
his job because of this serious human right abuse.

Unfortunately any evenhanded visitor to Kosovo can learn that Pristina
Hospital is a classical example of ethnic discrimination and human
rights abuse, completely opposite to all moral rules of medical
profession. In the worst days of Mr. Milosevic repression and terror
Pristina hospital was never without Albanian doctors and patients. Now
in the time of peace and 50.000 KFOR troops it is reserved for one
ethnic group only.

Serbs in Kosovo who need medical treatment are forced to travel out of
Kosovo. The only exception still is the hospital in Mitrovica. In all
other areas only local clinics operate but cannot offer anythinig but
basic first aid.

A plastic bag of medicines allegedly donated by Albanian doctors from
Pristina to a Serb clinic in Strpce can only be understood as a cynical
attempt to cover up serious human right abuses performed by those same
Albanian doctors who work in Pristina hospital.

I sincerely try to believe that the USIP does not intentionally support
creating of false picture on what is going on in Kosovo where the
repression of one criminal regime was replaced by another. This tome the
human rights abuses happen in the very presence of KFOR troops and
UNMIK.

Sincerely
Fr. Sava

--
Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren
Gracanica Monastery, Pristina,
Kosovo and Metohija

M. Laketic, Politika

Pristina, September 21 - Albanians committed unheard crime
two days ago in Kosovska Kamenica. They slaughtered an
old woman Stanica Arsic (69) who lay immobile in her bed at
home. After that they set up fire in the house. Tomislav Arsic,
the son of the old woman, found her headless body totally
carbonated.

Houses of her sons, Obrad, Predrag and Tomislav, situated in
northern part of Kamenica are surrounded by Albanian homes.
Obrad and Predrag left with their families into central part of Serbia
after the Albanians expelled them from their houses, while
Tomislav found a place to hide in the center of the town, close to
the KFOR. He didn't want to leave his ill mother who refused to
leave the house. Tomislav used to be with his mother every day,
but two days ago he had to go to the center of the town where he
temporarily settled because of threats of the Albanians. When he
saw the site of fire, he couldn't believe that the neighbors could go
against immobile woman with knives in their hands. KFOR soldiers
and UN Civil Mission are investigating the case. The old woman
was buried yesterday on local cemetery, said local priest.

The persecution of Serbs in Pristina is continued. Yesterday the flat
of Dragica Jorgic in Pristina was robbed. One Albanian family
moved in shortly after that. Jovan Mitric from Pristina was
threatened by the Albanians to leave his house, but he reported it
to the KFOR. Yesterday, the Albanians stoned the house of Nikola
Plecas in Pristina. They broke all windows and cut off electricity and
telephone cables.

Yesterday at around 2.00 p.m. a group of 200 Gypsies and
Egyptians left towards Skoplje. They were escorted by KFOR and
humanitarian organizations. People are walking or travelling by

Gnjilane, Oct 23 (Tanjug) - Albanian terrorists have burnt and
robbed 400 Roma houses in Gnjilane in the last four months,
Roma activist Tefik Agusi said to the KFor representatives at
the yesterday's meeting, announcement of the Church and national
council of Gnjilane said on Sunday.

Agusi said that a genocide over Gnjilane Roma was committed
stressing that he possesses data on numerous atrocities and
crimes of Albanian terrorists.

Before the KFor's arrival, 6000 Roma lived in Gnjilane and now
there are some 200 of them left, Agusi said.

Church and national council of Gnjilane has also announced that an
Albanian family moved yesterday to a broken and robbed
apartment of Milorad Cvetanovic, same as in the apartment of
Dragojlub Mitanovic where a family from the Gnjilane village of
Capar moved in.

A bomb was dropped on a house in Vojvode Stepe St. on Thursday
night while the owner Dobrivoje Metodiejvic was in. His son Miroslav
was kidnapped back in June and the latest assault is only one of
many committed against the family.

High school principles, teachers and 90 parents signed an petition
for the KFor's chief administrator of the area Richard Hislip
demanding transportation and full protection for the students and
employees in Gornji Kusac to be provided on the way from school
to their homes.

Church and national council of Gnjilane said that 70 years-old
pensioner Jovan Stosic has left his house in Gnjilane since Albanian
terrorists burnt a house of his ant, separated from his with a single
wall. Gordana Djodjevic, of same age as Stosic, was molested for
the fifth time by Albanians who were forcing her to leave her flat in
Kneza Lazara St.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia, Mar 2, 2000 -- (Reuters) A Russian
soldier serving with the KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo died of his
wounds after being shot in an ethnic Albanian town, the French army said
on Thursday.
"The Russian soldier died of internal bleeding overnight," said Major
Philippe Maurin, a spokesman for the French KFOR forces stationed in the
north of the turbulent province.
The Russian soldier, whose name was withheld pending notification of his
family, was shot on Tuesday in the overwhelmingly Albanian town of
Srbica.
The town is about 20 km (12 miles) south of Kosovska Mitrovica, the
mining city which has become the frontline of continuing ethnic tension
between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and the dwindling Serb minority.
French officials said the incident was under investigation and have
declined to comment on a motive for the shooting.
The soldier, a driver, was hit once in the chest in broad daylight in
the center of Srbica, where he had taken his commanding officer for a
meeting with local officials.
Srbica is just north of the area of Kosovo usually patrolled by Russian
KFOR troops, who are distrusted and feared by ethnic Albanians who see
the Russians as natural allies of their fellow Orthodox co-religionists,
the Serbs.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia,
Mar 6, 2000 -- (Reuters) A suspect in the killing of a Russian
peacekeeping soldier in Kosovo escaped from prison just two days after
he was arrested, a spokesman for the KFOR peacekeeping force said on
Sunday.
"The 15-year-old who was arrested for the killing of the Russian soldier
escaped," said Major Kristian Kahrs, a spokesman for the peacekeeping
force. He said he had no further details, including the suspect's name
or from which prison he escaped and how he got out. Private Igor
Korshunov, 31, was shot once in the chest in broad daylight by a gunman
in the overwhelmingly Albanian town of Srbica, 40 km (25 miles)
northwest of Pristina, on Tuesday.
French gendarmes in the French-controlled northern zone of Kosovo have
been investigating the incident but have not so far revealed the reason
for the shooting.
Korshunov is the third Russian soldier shot on peacekeeping duties in
Kosovo but the first to die. Russians have not been welcome in ethnic
Albanian areas of the predominantly Albanian province because of their
perceived sympathies for Orthodox co-religionist Serbs.

                       Vitina, January 10th 2000. (Beta) - About 800 Serbs remain
                       in Vitina, one of the four towns in Kosovo pomoravlje region,
                        since the last year's withdrawal of the Yugoslav army units
                        and police, stated Mitar Stanojevic, one of the remaining
                                        Serbs in that town.

                         About 3.000 Serbs lived in that Kosovo town before the
                        arrival of the International military forces, and those who
                          remain in the town today "are living in a ghetto", said
                        Stanojevic, the principal of the elementary school in Vitina.

                       "The Serbs in Vitina live under constant strain", Stanojevic
                       stresses, adding that they are not able to leave their houses,
                             and when they try to, they are often harassed.

                      Stanojevic reminds that "the Serbs suffered a lot" in Vitina and
                       the surroundings. Since the arrival of multinational forces in
                      Kosovo "more than 20 Serbs were killed and kidnapped" in the
                         town and in the whole district. In November 10th, while
                        working in my field with a friend, I avoided execution when
                          we were attacked by the Albanians", Stanojevic said.

                        He added that none of the Serbs, having learned from his
                       experience, have gone to fields in the surroundings of Vitina
                      since November. The fields are untilled and unsowed. Now, in
                       wintertime, people are without firewood, because they could
                       not go to the woods, and there is no place where they can buy
                        them. The Albanians do not want or are not allowed to sell
                                        them to the Serbs.

Moscow, February 16th (Tanjug) - Russia's First Deputy Foreign
Minister Alexander Avdeyev said Wednesday that the latest
developments in Kosovska Mitrovica showed that the world
community was incapable of dealing with ethnic Albanian bandits
in Kosovo and Metohija.

Avdeyev told Russia's Itar-Tass news agency that the ethnic
Albanian terrorist organization calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) had not been disarmed nor had criminal structures been
dealt with. Moreover, ethnic Albanian separatists have been given a
free hand in carrying out their plans of detaching Kosovo-Metohija
from Yugoslavia, he said.

He said that ethnic Albanian bandits, separatists and criminals still
controlled the province. He said that they were so impudent that
they did not hesitate to open fire on the UN peacekeeping force
KFOR, saying that the only thing that could be done at this point
was to offer sympathies to France's KFOR troops that had been
the target of ethnic Albanian terrorist attacks.

Avdeyev also said that the KFOR command must draw certain
conclusions from the developments and decisively deal with all
attempts to destabilize the situation in Kosovo-Metohija through

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Feb 28 (AFP) -
Rising tension on Kosovo's eastern boundary with Serbia, blamed by
Belgrade on ethnic Albanian "terrorists," is raising fears among KFOR
peacekeepers of a new conflict which they could be dragged into.
Violence flared again Saturday when a Serbian police officer was killed
and three injured near the town of Bujanovac in an area of southeast
Serbia populated by around 75,000 ethnic Albanians.
One ethnic Albanian also died in the attack, according to the official
Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, which identified the man as a member of the
Kosovo Protection Corps, the KFOR-sponsored civilian successor of the
rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
The killing was the latest in a spate of incidents in the last four
months in the area known to Kosovo Albanians as 'East Kosovo.' Fears are
mounting of an open conflict.
KFOR officials admit that tension has increased with the build-up of
Serbian police in the area and an increase in the flow of local
Albanians into Kosovo in recent weeks.
The NATO-led peacekeepers offically deny any knowlegde of organised
ethnic Albanian fighters crossing the border and attacking Serb security
forces around the Presevo valley, the heartland of 'East Kosovo.'
But a KFOR intelligence officer, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP
of the appearance of a new "East Kosovo Liberation Army."
He said US troops had met members of the organisation "in uniforms
bearing insignia resembling those of the KLA but with the letters PMB
added -- for the towns of Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac."
Fighters of the organisation "want to create a sort of Greater Kosovo
encompassing this zone of southern Serbia," the officer said.
The group's tactics would include cross-border "harassment operations"
launched from the Yugoslav province's eastern sector, which is under the
control of US forces.
The group is a source of "great concern" to the US command, he added.
"This could become a more troubled area in the spring," KFOR's
commander, General Klaus Reinhardt of Germany, told reporters last week.
Under the UN resolution which ended NATO's 78-day air war against
Yugoslavia last year, KFOR's mandate concerns security issues only in
the province, wrested from Belgrade following widespread oppression of
ethnic Albanians.
However, a US army spokesman said KFOR troops would consider intervening
if an "atrocity" were committed across the five-kilometre (three-mile)
demilitarised zone on the Serb side.
"The only thing which would bring KFOR into Serbia proper would be
atrocities" said Lieutenant Scott Olsen at the US base of Camp Montieth
in the southeast.
Following the recent rise in tension, US forces asked KFOR command
Saturday for a specific description of what constituted an atrocity and
was still awaiting an answer, he said.
He said US troops had moved their checkpoints right up to the border
following the murder of three Serb men on the road to the border last
month.
Until then they had kept a kilometre (0.6 mile) from the frontier to
avoid US troops straying into Serb territory and provoking incidents, he
said.
However, "certain extremists took advantage of the border zone," and the
triple slaying near the village of Pasjane, just southeast of Gjnilane,
"brought the situation to a head," Olson said.
"Things are starting to warm up," he said.
The ethnic Albanian mayor of Presevo, Riza Halimi, recently told AFP
that Kosovo Albanians were making "incursions" into the region.
Last month, witnesses said 10 men in KLA uniforms were present at the
funeral on the Serbian side of two Albanian brothers killed in an attack
which relatives blamed on Serbian police.
Since last June, some 25,000 Albanians have fled the region to avoid
Serb reprisals, the Belgrade branch of Helsinki Human Rights Committee
said in its 1999 report.
To the south, Macedonia is also gearing up for a refugee influx, the
daily Dnevnik quoted Social Security Minister Bedredin Ibrahimi as
saying Friday.
French ambassador to Skopje Jean-Francois Terral told AFP western states
were observing developments with concern following reports that
unidentified extremists were tring to spark clashes to force KFOR
intervention.

A year ago the Clinton administration was beating the
war drums in the Balkans. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright seemed more interested in bombing Serbia than
encouraging a peaceful settlement.

And bomb the United States did, for 78 days. The
result, evidenced by the call for more U.S. troops for
Kosovo, is a policy failure veering toward disaster.

NATO's attack was supposed to bring peace to this
territory of Yugoslavia. But immediately after
Washington's "triumph" came the mass flight of ethnic
Serbs.

Those who did not run, including Croats, Gypsies, Jews
and even non-Albanian Muslims, have been bombed, shot,
kidnapped, beaten and robbed. Scores of orthodox
churches, monasteries and other religious sites have
been despoiled.

Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, head of the NATO "peacekeeping"
force (KFOR), admits that Kosovo remains too dangerous
for the 150,000 to 250,000 refugees to return. Reports
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe: "House burnings, blockades restricting freedom
of movement, discriminatory treatment in schools,
hospitals, humanitarian aid distribution and other
public services based on ethnic background, and forced
evictions from housing recall some of the worst
practices of Kosovo's recent past."

The situation deteriorates daily, especially in the
mixed city of Kosovska Mitrovica. Although leading
Albanians formally disavow the violence, most do
nothing to stop it. Those who speak out on behalf of
tolerance are themselves threatened; local officials
allied with moderate Ibrahim Rugova have been
murdered.

The Kosovo Liberation Army has disarmed in name only,
formally transmuting into the Kosovo Protection Corps.
Armed thugs rule the night and organized crime is
spreading.

The police and courts don't function and no one is
safe. Reports Steven Erlanger of the New York Times:
"robberies, apartment thefts, extortion and even
murders take place with near impunity."

Human rights abuses by the Serbs were bad enough. Now
the same practices are being carried out under the
West's authority. NSC adviser Sandy Berger's response:
to threaten ethnic Albanians with the loss of the
"support of the international community."

But more than a few Kosovars don't care what the
"international community" thinks. A United Nations bus
was hit by an anti-tank rocket. Albanian snipers in
Mitrovica have injured French peacekeepers. Halit
Barani, head of the Human Rights Council, says the
French are "the same as the Serb soldiers."

American and German troops have also been deployed to
Mitrovica. When U.S. forces searched apartments for
weapons, breaking down doors along the way, they were
met with a hail of stones, bottles and ice by Serbian
crowds. German soldiers were also attacked.

Thus, the Kosovo civil war rages on, with only a
temporary lull in the worst violence. The United
States must decide whether it is prepared to maintain
its occupation for years, if not forever, or to do
what it should have done last year leave the Balkans
to the Europeans.

NATO's decision to intervene looks ever worse as
hindsight lengthens. Kosovo never represented a
special humanitarian crisis: More people had died in a
score of conflicts around the world. The only
difference was that none of the other victims were
white Europeans.

Nevertheless, NATO launched what by any criteria was a
war of aggression. Instead of saving lives, Washington
sacrificed them.

As many Serb civilians died under NATO bombs as ethnic
Albanians had died during the preceding year. And it
was allied bombing the sparked the mass expulsions
from Kosovo.

Washington did eliminate Serb authority in the
province. But having allied itself with the KLA in
war, the West now upholds formal Serbian rule,
refusing to allow either independence or union with
Albania. Only the Clinton administration could concoct
such an incoherent policy.

As a result, NATO faces a choice between policy
failure and policy disaster, as my Cato Institute
colleague Gary Dempsey puts it.

If the alliance acknowledges reality and gives up on
its objective of preserving a multi-ethnic Kosovo
under Serb suzerainty, it will have failed. If NATO
attempts to achieve its objectives and stave off
failure, the consequences will be far worse.

In the latter case, the ethnic Albanian majority is
likely to turn on allied forces. The possibilities
range from overt hostility and sporadic sniping to a
serious guerrilla campaign against the NATO occupiers.
Imagine explaining to American audiences that their
sons and husbands are dying to defend Serb sovereignty
over Kosovo.

Allied policy has failed. Washington's objective today
should be to forestall disaster. The United States
should get out. Now.

The Balkans is in Europe, not North America. The
Europeans are about to take over command of KFOR and
claim to be serious about creating an independent
military capability. Leave them responsibility for
Kosovo.

A year ago the administration was set on making war.
Now it should make peace. Instead of augmenting U.S.
forces in Kosovo, Washington should tell the Europeans
that U.S. forces are coming home. Then it should bring
them home.

   MOSCOW, March 17 (AFP) - The failure of the NATO-led peace force
to protect non-Albanians in Kosovo has led to genocide and ethnic
cleansing of catastrophic proportions, Russia said Friday.
   Russia's defence and foreign ministers lambasted KFOR for the
situation in the region, warning that the West would have to
shoulder the blame if Kosovo split from Yugoslavia.
   "The task of the peacekeeping force, that is to say ensuring
security in the region and the return of refugees, is not being
met," Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev told a session of the State
Duma lower house of parliament.
   "Instead, we have a genocide and ethnic cleansing of the
non-Albanian population which have reached the level of a
humanitarian catastrophe," he said.
   The Russian minister accused KFOR, commanded by German General
Klaus Reinhardt, of 20 separate breaches of a UN Security Council
resolution on the province.
   The peacekeepers had effectively armed Muslim Kosovars by
incorporating them into a defence force for the province, he
charged.
   "The Russian military command has contingency plans should the
situation deteriorate," said Sergeyev without elaborating.
   Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov meanwhile told deputies that Moscow
had no intention yet of pulling its 3,600 soldiers out of the
37,200-strong force, which comprises troops from 36 nations.
   "If the situation deteriorates, if the separatists succeed in
splitting Kosovo from Yugoslavia, then Russia will not share the
blame with the West," Ivanov said.
   Moscow has repeatedly threatened to review its participation in
the peacekeeping operation if Yugoslavia's territorial integrity is
not respected.
   Lawmakers approved a fresh motion heavily criticising the NATO
air campaign against Yugoslavia a year ago which preceded the
deployment of KFOR troops.
   Moscow broke off relations with the Atlantic alliance over the
attacks, only moving to slowly restore relations on Wednesday.

Gnjilane, March 18th - Normal life and movement of Serbs
from the multi-ethnic village of Cernica is constantly being
threatened by the terrorists from the Albanian part of this
village, who are systematically stoning Serb automobiles on
every going to and out of this village, reported today the
radio-amateurs from Kosovo-Metohija.

This is why there are only a few properly functioning vehicles
left in the Serbian part of the village, with which the Serbs
are bringing food and other supplies, and thus, Serbs are
now forced to seek KFOR escort which, according to the
statement, does not wish to intervene against the Albanians
who are attacking the Serbs.

Cernica has before also been the most frequent target of Albanian extremists who wish
to expel the remaining Serbs from the village, it was said in the statement, and added
that regardless of their torment, the majority of Cernica Serbs decided not to leave their
homes.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/382058.asp

ANALYSIS By David Binder MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR

WASHINGTON, March 19 - At the beginning of this new century we may ask what
problems we inherited, unresolved, from the last century. One of those
problems is the Balkans. No other region caused such grief to so many
foreign empires in the 20th century.

THE BALKANS have long tempted foreign interventions and the result is
generally the same: grinding destruction, bloodshed and little long-term
effects on the region's tangled ethnic, religious and territorial disputes.
It's early days yet in Kosovo - just one year ago, NATO began bombing
Yugoslavia with the goal of forcing the Serbs to their knees. Yet it would
be difficult to argue that the unprecedented use of NATO power against
Belgrade altered things for long. At best, the war halted one side's abuses
and opened the door to the other's transgressions.

This is nothing new in the Balkans. Interventions past - whether by Ottoman
Turks, Germans, Russians, Italians or others - have had the opposite effect
 - retarding development of normal relations between
the indigenous peoples of the Balkan peninsula and discouraged their own
political evolution beyond the stage of satrapies or petty despotism.
In 1991, Yugoslavia had only been free of German and Italian domination for
scarcely 40 years. When the communist state of Josip Broz Tito plunged into
dissolution and fierce ethnic fighting, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger said: "I am personally of the view that the only thing
that may bring it to an end is when all of the participants are exhausted."
This view was derided as cold-blooded, and the Croatian, Bosnian and Kosovo
wars were horribly savage. But the way things turned out, Eagleburger's
prescription might well have saved lives, property and untold future years
of instability in the region.

'THE EVIL SERB'
The error of the approach taken by the United States and its European allies
to the problem of Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s lies in their belief that
they could succeed where others failed. Then they chose sides narrowly in
what inevitably became a series of civil wars: Here uniformly innocent
victims; there uniformly genocidal aggressors. Here ethnic cleansers, there
the ethnically cleansed. At the root lies a simplistic dogma that blames one
nation, the Serbs, as the origin of evil in the Balkans.

Portraying the Serbs as such is an unwritten doctrine adopted by the State
Department at the beginning of the Yugoslav conflicts and continued today, a
doctrine endorsed and spread by the mainstream media, human rights groups
and even some religious communities. It is a doctrine also embraced by Dr.
Bernard Kouchner, the head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo. Kouchner declared
unabashedly before Albanians in Gnjilane last December that "Kosovo does not
belong to anyone except the Kosovars," (meaning ethnic Albanians. "I feel
very close to the Albanian people," he said, adding later, "I love all
peoples but some more than others and that is the case with you."

NO ONE IS BLAMELESS
Yet the indisputable reality of the Balkans is that none of its peoples has
been an innocent victim of vicious neighbors. Except possibly the Roma. All
were complicit at one time or another in killing, rape, plunder and burning.
That was true in the first and second Balkan war, true in both World Wars
and true in all of the Yugoslav civil wars of the 1990s.

Yes, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo in the spring of
1999. Yet, there is a curiosity documented by the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from the 78-day bombing campaign in terms
of "cleansing" - the OSCE found that 863,000 Albanians left Kosovo, or 46
percent of the total. But it also reported that 100,000 Serbs and
Montenegrins fled Kosovo in the same period, or about 60 percent of the
total. That is, to repeat, proportionately more Serbs were displaced during
the bombing, and they did not return to Kosovo.

IMPERIAL OVERREACH
A year ago after a difficult start, the American-inspired Kosovo Diplomatic
Observer Mission of more than 1,000 was beginning to get traction,
separating the Serbian military and police forces from the Kosovo Liberation
Army and enabling thousands of displaced Albanians to return to their homes.
The final report to OSCE by a German general who was part of KDOM confirms
this.

But in its hubris, the Clinton Administration sought more dramatic results -
amounting to abject submission of the Serbs to NATO rule. This was the
message of the failed "peace conference" in the French town of Rambouillet,
the collapse of which led directly to war. Had the observer mission been
allowed to continue, Kosovo would have been a much gentler, happier place
today. Possibly even the seemingly endless cycle of ethnic revenge could
have been halted.

There are few easy explanations in the Balkans. Even so, the State
Department is hard pressed to describe how it could list the Kosovo
Liberation Army among the world's terrorist organizations in 1997, denounce
it as a "terrorist group" in February 1998, then turn around 180 degrees
overnight and embrace it as a formation of freedom fighters who would
ultimately be installed by NATO as a legitimate political force in the
summer of 1999.

Through the war, some correspondents and policymakers continued to ask these
questions. They also pointed to disclosures of links between the KLA and
Albanian heroin trafficking rings in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and other
European countries, and the connection of the KLA leader Hashim Thaci to
assassinations of Albanian rivals.

Even without light being shed on those behind-the-scene developments, a
strong case can be made that $11 billion military campaign against the Serbs
and for the Albanians was largely a failure.

1. We know it greatly accelerated the flight of Albanians from
Kosovo.
2. It did not substantially hurt the Serb military.
3. It did billions in pointless damage to civilian infrastructure
throughout Serbia and Kosovo province (for which NATO countries will end up
paying some of the repairs).
4. It left Slobodan Milosevic, the named and targeted enemy, firmly in
power.
5. It sucked the United States and NATO into an open-ended commitment with
no exit strategy.

Military and political planners themselves acknowledged that the strategy
was deeply flawed, that they were shocked when the Serbs did not capitulate
after three days of bombs.

In the wake of the Cold War, some view the United States as the last great
imperial power. The Balkan adventure of the United States in the last decade
shows that if it is imperialism then it is essentially haphazard and
makeshift in execution.

From the start, Kosovo was not so much a military problem as a policing
problem - as it was under the Serbs. Kosovo has been an indigestible stone
in the stomach of the Balkans for at least the last hundred years. It
promises to be just as indigestible for the international community for
decades longer. Thanks in considerable part to feckless interventions by a
succession of imperial powers, its previous multiethnic character has been
all but eradicated. But that does not make Kosovo any more compatible to its
surroundings. On the contrary, an ethnically cleansed Albanian Kosovo
threatens to destabilize southeastern Serbia, where there is an ethnic
Albanian minority of 70,000, and destabilize Albania itself and Macedonia by
way of its ambition to serve as the motor of a Greater Albania. In short,
Kosovo remains a time bomb. And like it or not the Clinton administration is
now presiding over the evolution of yet another mono-ethnic state - an
Albanian Kosovo. Put it another way, the U.S. and NATO, though it was the
opposite of their declared intentions, have succeeded in cleansing Kosovo of
one ethnic group in favor of the other.

David Binder has covered the Balkans for The New York Times since 1964.

By Amra Kevic

  BELGRADE, March 20 (Reuters) - The U.N. special human rights investigator for
former Yugoslavia said on Monday a lack of organised civilian power
structures in Kosovo had turned it into ``a paradise for different mafias.''

``There is chaos in Kosovo,'' Jiri Dienstbier said at the end of a 10-day
tour of Yugoslavia in which he focused on problems in and near the province,
a de facto international protectorate since NATO-led peacekeepers (KFOR)
deployed there last June.

``There are very different private structures of power...It is a paradise for
different mafias which not only control certain regions and villages, they
even fight each other.''

Tensions have been rising in Kosovo ahead of the first anniversary of NATO
air strikes against Yugoslavia undertaken to halt its repression of the
province's majority ethnic Albanians.

KFOR took military control and the United Nations began setting up a civilian
administration in the bitterly polarised province last June after a 78-day
NATO bombing campaign forced Serbian security forces to withdraw.

But Dienstbier, who criticised the bombing from the start, said the
international community had been slow to take control.

``I see that what is happening in Kosovo now is the result of a mistake of
policy of the international community... bombing Yugoslavia without knowing
what will be next,'' the former Czech foreign minister said.

``Meanwhile, Kosovo Liberation Army weapons came and they took over control
and are now cleansing non-Albanians.''

KLA CONTROL HARD TO BREAK, DIENSTBIER SAYS

The KLA has since been officially disbanded, but according to Dienstbier its
power structures retain a firm grip on the province which would now be hard
to break.

Dienstbier quoted a New York-based international anti-narcotics organisation
as saying in a report that 40 percent of Europe's heroin trade was now going
via Kosovo.

He also appealed for the release of Kosovo Albanian humanitarian worker and
activist Flora Brovina, jailed for 12 years for ``anti-state'' activities,
saying it was a clear case of misjustice and that her release would help
Serbs held in Kosovo.

``Mrs Brovina belongs to those ethnic Albanians who refused ethnic cleansing
and who support cooperation and a multi-ethnic society in Kosovo,'' he said.

The U.N. Human Rights investigator also visited the volatile Presevo valley
in southeastern Serbia, where tensions have risen following armed incidents
between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.

He said the Albanian majority there did not want guerrillas from Kosovo to
destabilise the region and that Belgrade should allow it to have its own
media and re-admit Albanians to police ranks.

Dienstbier also criticised a trade blockade by Serbia against Montenegro, its
tiny partner in the Yugoslav federation, which has been edging away from
Belgrade since it elected pro-Western Milo Djukanovic as its president in
1997.

And he called for freedom of media and speech in Serbia, saying a recent
campaign to close non-government radio stations was a sign of government
weakness.

``I think we all have to fight for freedom of media,'' he said. ``Without
this society can only stagnate further.''
====================================
On the same issue:

PRISTINA, Mar 20, 2000 -- (Reuters) The UN human rights special envoy for the
former Yugoslavia said Sunday that the failure of the international community
to decide on a clear future for Kosovo meant the mission to the province was
thus far a "total failure."

"The present situation in Kosovo just confirms the total failure to achieve
the goals of the operation," Jiri Dienstbier told AFP in Belgrade during a
tour of Yugoslavia in which he has held many meetings on the Kosovo problem.

He said that the main problem for the UN administration to the disputed
province and the NATO-led KFOR peace keeping force was that their mission had
no clearly defined aims, adding that no-one on the international scene seemed
ready to provide one.

"We have UN resolution 1244 saying that Kosovo is a part of Yugoslavia, but
nobody wants to confirm it and say that it is a solution and that nobody will
dispute it and that Kosovo remains a part of Yugoslavia," he said.

"On the other hand, nobody wants to say that Kosovo will be independent," he
added.

The goal of NATO and the United Nations to ensure a multi-ethnic, democratic
Kosovo had been destroyed by the violent confrontations between Serbs and the
ethnic Albanian population which forced KFOR troops to divide the town of
Kosovska Mitrovica in two, Dienstbier said.

The envoy also lamented the continuing influence of the supposedly defunct
ethnic Albanian guerilla group the Kosovo Liberation Army, the presence of
Albanian mafia gangs in the province, the lack of sufficient international
police to control the situation, the absence of a legal system and the UN
mission's lack of money.

The UN mission and KFOR were working in "impossible conditions" he said.

"It is very important for the people that they have a perspective. If they
dont know the perspective, anything may happen," he added

(C)2000 Copyright Reuters Limited.

http://www.consider.net/forum_new.php3?newTemplate=OpenObject&newTop=200003270025&newDisplayURN=200003270025

New Stateman (UK)
Helena Smith Monday 27th March 2000

Kosovo is host, not just to the UN forces, but to
Bible-bashers and adventure junkies. Helena Smith
reports

Imagine Wales. Imagine Wales, after a terrible war,
dotted with the debris of death; its fine hills
brimming with roofless red-brick villas, its roads
heaving with all manner of military hardware, trailers
and trucks.

Now imagine this devastated slither of land as a tower
of Babel, with thousands of foreigners, speaking
dozens of different tongues, flooding in, all bent on
rebuilding and protecting it.

Imagine the people of Wales - a little unsure of their
own national identity - watching these foreign imports
as if they had been flown in from another planet.
Imagine them looking on with relief and resentment as
they hurtle past in their mammoth four-wheel drives.
Imagine this wretched place flying the United Nations
flag.

You have just imagined Kosovo, the colony that belongs
to the world: 4,250 square miles of brewing anarchy
and anger that is now awash with visionless
well-intent.

One year after Nato liberated it, Kosovo, they say, is
on the mend. A spot of ethnic trouble here and there,
now that spring is in the air (always the Balkans'
favourite killing time), but as near to paradise as
the Albanians have ever got, now that their Serb
tormentors have gone.

Children may play marbles in the mud. Their parents
may pick their way through their collapsed homes,
fallen factories, burnt animal sheds and other symbols
of savagery that will probably surround them for years
to come. Both may shiver in the frost and have dark,
expressionless hollows for eyes (such is the horror
one knows they have seen). And both may live in a
climate of spiralling confusion and crime. But for
those who have arrived to protect and reform them, the
Kosovars have never had it better. "You will see how
much they love us," says the Danish corporal, waxing
lyrical as he issues the international peacekeeping
force Kfor's must-have entry pass into the straggly
province. "Every day in Kosovo is Wednesday. There is
never a day off," he chatters, reciting a line I will
hear more than once. "They just love us for it. Do
anything to say 'thank you', shake your hand, come up
to you in the street, you'll see."

Gratitude, you quickly discover, is a constant theme
in Kosovo - along with pot, sex, love among the
internationals, the dangerous driving habits of the
locals and the innate hatred that continues to pit the
Albanians against the Serbs.

In the nine months since Nato triumphantly marched
into the benighted territory, every do-gooder,
Bible-basher, adventure-junkie and wide-eyed idealist
has pitched up. Forget Mozambique or Chechnya. Kosovo
has become the place if you want to seek penance,
divest yourself of creature comforts, assuage
middle-class guilt or simply put "expert" theories
into practice. The freaks and the faithful have come
a-flocking, just as they did in the colonies of yore.

On the last count, there were some 370
non-governmental organisations which had set up shop,
alongside some some 30,000 Nato forces. Among them are
the Vietnam Veterans' Association, Lay Volunteers
International, Japanese Need Foundation, the
American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and
Glasgow City Council Social Group. They work alongside
the likes of the UN and OSCE, whose desire to leave
their mark on the land has surprised even the most
cynical.

On my first night installed in Pristina's determinedly
ungrand Grand Hotel, I bumped into a bespectacled Finn
who inquired whether I might be the new recruit who
had come to teach handicapped women how to sew. No, I
said, but did she like Kosovo? "Aw, ya," she burbled.
"We internationals are like one big happy family. It
is hard, ya, but when it gets too hard you can find
help with marijuana. You go to any bar and there it
is, our little friend that makes the place seem much,
much better."

How, I wondered, had people endured a winter of power
cuts that was also the coldest on record? "Easy,"
replied a Russian bureaucrat. "Sex, sex, sex under at
least five blankets with another international . . . "

Never mind that few of the foreign missions have
problem-solving skills in this field. Bernard
Kouchner, the UN's special representative, tells
anyone who will listen that international parsimony
has forced him to become a professional panhandler -
the good doctor's entire annual budget amounts to less
than a day's worth of the Nato bombing campaign.

But the internationals, one soon discovers, are on
fat-cat salaries. Throw in hardship-post allowances,
supplemented wages and days off and you are looking at
a nice little earner - money, many now think, that
would be much better spent training the Kosovars to
take over the place themselves.

It is an open secret, among foreigners in Pristina,
that Kosovo is run as if it were a classic colony -
and a badly run one at that. "It didn't work in the
19th century and it's clearly not going to work in the
21st," says Joly Dixon, the interim administration's
amiable and honest British finance minister. "It's
totally wrong."

You see them, the "white men" in their shiny brogues,
striding purposefully along Pristina's litter-strewn
streets. Entrusted with the task of rejuvenating a
civil administration that is currently neither civil
nor administrative, most work nine-to-five days in
bureaux that could be in Brussels, were it not for the
wretched views beyond their windows.

And then there are the "natives": unsure of the rule
of law, after ten years of marginalisation under
Milosevic's rotten regime, a little reticent, a little
slow, but good people. Just too "hot-headed" to be
handed the trappings of power (even if the colonisers
are ambivalent about having too much of it themselves)
and far too different, culturally, ever to socialise
with.

The creation, this month, of a joint interim
administration, one that has seen Kosovo's two main
political parties collaborate with Dr Kouchner, has
quickly been rubbished as a cosmetic move by Albanians
furious at their lack of access to decision-making.
The Serbs may have boycotted their seat in protest,
but among Kosovars, at least, there is a growing sense
that their destiny has been taken out of their hands.

"They listen to us, they'll hear our views, but
there's no way that we can actually participate in
formulating policy," says one Albanian official who
understandably preferred not to be named. "This
colonial approach is not what we expected."

Locals are the first to say that it is the
internationals who have made life tolerable, providing
employment for innumerable interpreters and
bodyguards, who now earn more than their parents could
ever have dreamed. "We have this really ridiculous
situation, where a child who is a translator for the
OSCE will take home 2,000 Deutschmarks a month while
his father, who for 25 years has worked as a doctor,
gets DM200 a month," says Dreni Hoxha, an interpreter
himself.

Rarely has the gap between those who govern and those
who are ruled been as pronounced, say UN officials who
have worked on similar missions around the world.
"It's us and them. We live in very different worlds,"
said another UN official. "I realised the other day
that, after eight months being here, I've never
actually had dinner with an Albanian."

It is a gap that speaks volumes about the
international community's clumsiness in getting Kosovo
back on its feet. At no level - as an institution, in
terms of security, on an economic level - is the
province really working. Left to their own devices,
the Albanians have set up a parallel system of drug-,
gun- and women-trafficking that many fear has sown the
seeds of instability under the very noses of the
western officials deployed to stop the rot.

Kosovo, it is clear, is now an incubator of organised
crime, one that has flourished in the total absence of
an effective criminal justice system, police system,
banking system and local civil service.

With the mafia running the show - in cahoots with the
clans that control the local economy - crime has come
to grease the wheels of the political system.
Pristina, a forebodingly surreal place where shops do
a brisk business selling anything from bridal gowns to
smuggled cigarettes, has rapidly become a giant
protection racket. In recent months, economic crime,
especially shoot-outs and murders, has sky-rocketed
among Albanians.

"The problem is that we don't have anywhere to put
criminals," says John Blaherty, a Toronto officer with
the 2,000-strong UN police force, which gave up
arresting gun-smugglers long ago. "You know ma'am," he
says, angrily throwing my driver's keys into what he
hopes will be a minefield, "I hate these people. After
seven months here, I realised they don't want to be
sorted out . . . all these dead dogs and smashed cars
that you see along this road are proof that we're
wasting our time. They just don't care."

Kosovo's unclear international status does not help.
Armed with a murky mandate that speaks only of
providing the territory with "substantial autonomy",
UN officials are still hazy about their ultimate
objective. What is Kosovo? And where is it headed? How
can it best be decolonised when no one is sure what
it's real identity is? For the first time in their
joint histories, both Nato and the UN are being forced
to feel their way in the dark.

"Every time you make the simplest change, in whatever
area, you run up against this problem," sighs Annie
Bouvin, a visiting profession of law from Paris. "The
Albanians may not like it, but this place is still a
sovereign part of Yugoslavia . . . we can't give them
citizenship, but the hope is that they will be
registered in voting-lists before soon."

The hope is that the Kosovars will be able to assume
their own administration, at least on a municipal
level, after local elections this autumn. That, say
the mandarins, will be a significant first step
towards self- government. There are real - and growing
- concerns, though, that the anarchy of Kosovo may
have derailed that strategy by feeding the dreams of
extremists.

The west has watched with horror recently, as Albanian
irredentists advocating a Greater Albania have sought
to stir up trouble across the Kosovo border in the
southernmost reaches of Serbia. Already there are
fears of Kosovo Part 2. Wisely, the west has decided
to play down this year's landmark anniversary. There
may be many more to come.
 

© New Statesman Ltd. 1999 All rights reserved.
The New Statesman is registered as a newspaper in the
UK and the USA

     Member of Interim Administrative Council of Kosovo and Metohija
and Preisdent of the democratic Reform Party of Albanians, Sokolj
Cuse, said that Kosovo is now being handled by "terrorist gangs and
groups of extremists, led by so-called protection corps".

On Monday, as on every other day, Metodije Halauska showed up in the
morning
at the Center for Peace and Tolerance in Pristina. Mr. Halauska is 86 years
old, but still very strong and mobile for his age.  He came to pick up
newspapers and fresh food as humanitarian assistance from the CPT.  He
chatted with his friends and left the Center's office a bit after 10am. The
very same day, in the
afternoon, his corpse was found in Grmija, a park and excursion site near
Pristina. He was shot in the back of the head. Previously, he had been
beaten and had internal bleeding. He was dragged out of an apartment in the
center of Pristina, barefoot and probably wrapped in two blankets,
unconscious, by 5-6 persons who carried him to Grmija where he was
murdered.
His body was identified earlier today, Wednesday.

Metodije Halauska is of  Czech nationality. He is not a Serb, to be killed,
nor an Albanian to be spared. Yes, he spoke Serbian and above all felt like
a Yugoslav. Whom did grandpa Metodije harm?  Did he kill or attack someone?
Perhaps, he was a war criminal???

But grandpa Metodije owned a large apartment. He refused to move out the
apartment even after numerous threats, attacks, break-ins and robberies. No
one has moved into his apartment so far. They did not steal his dinars,
because they are worthless in Pristina. But they did kill him because they
did not like the language he used.

The killing of innocent and really innocent people goes on. Can anyone hear
how people in Pristina, Kosovo, live? Especially Serbs who celebrate every
new day. Does anyone want to hear and see the suffering of a people which
has been assisted by the whole world?

We were bombed because we violated human rights, they say. Those who bombed
apparently did that out of their respect for human rights.  Where are they
now? Please, send us at least one of those human rights activists, so that
we can treat him with the murder of our grandpa Metodije!

I am a Serb and they want to disconnect my e-mail account because I write
in Serbian in Kosovo! We are forced to use all sorts of languages, apart form
Serbian. We do not dare leave our apartments and houses without escort,
while KFOR and the Police check on us periodically. No one can go to a
store, restaurant, caf?, let alone to a church or cemetery. We are not
allowed to pray for the living, nor to mourn our dead.

If someone gets this message, the remaining Serbs in Kosovo beg you to
forward it.  Let the world know that out of 20,972 Serbs in Pristina before
the war, about 300 remain, and that grandpa Metodije is gone.

-------------------------------
The author of the letter is one of the staffers at the CPT office in
Pristina. His or her name is withheld for obvious reasons.

Kosovska Mitrovica, April 11th 2000, (Glas Javnosti) - Since there
is less and less Serbs for shooting, and those from the north part of
the
region are inaccessible, ethnic Albanians have resorted to a new method.

In the southern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, a list of Serbs suspected
for war crimes was hung out and it was expanded from recent 50 to
300 names.

That list contains the names of respectable citizens who live in the
northern
part of Kosmet and who are members of the Serbian National Council,
school principals, professors, doctors, intellectuals and agricultural
producers. In order to be more convincing, the list was "enriched" with
names of the Serbs who are imprisoned in Mitrovica, and with names of
Serbian politicians as well.

In Kosovska Mitrovica prison, 50 Serbs have been waiting for their
trials for
months. Most of them are suspected of war crimes only according to the
anonymous reports from ethnic Albanians and completely without evidence.

"All that is part of a well-planned tactic for Serb frightening. If only

10% of
people from that list leave Mitrovica, Leposavic, Zvecani or Zubin Potok

and exit from Kosmet, this cheap propaganda trick will attain its goal",

says
member of the Serbian National Council for Kosovska Mitrovica, Dr Marko
Jaksic, whose name is on the list as well.

Members of KFOR and UNMIK are not taking any measures for removing
these lists and APBs from the streets in the southern part of the town.
If
they continue with such behavior, Serbs will practice similar methods.

"We will create our own lists with names of ethnic Albanians who
participated in murdering and kidnapping of Serbs during the previous
year.
I remind you that more than 70 Serbs were murdered in that region last
year, and number of the kidnapped persons, who have never been heard of
ever since, is well over 50. KFOR and UNMIK have not suspected a single
ethnic Albanian, let alone arrested one of them, which gives us the
moral
right to create real lists of criminals", Jaksic stressed out in his
report to
"Glas".

Scores of Kosovo Serb civilians abducted by local Albanians are being
held
in a number of small prisons across the province,  a local  branch of
the
international human rights organization, the Helsinki Committee has
revealed.

The prisons, the exact number of which is unknown, are run by the Kosovo

Protection Force, according to Committee officials. Captives, they say,
have
been badly treated - some are known to have died after being tortured.

Members of a branch of the Helsinki Committee in the predominantly
Muslim
Sandzak region, straddling the border between Montenegro and Serbia,
recently visited five such prisons - in  Dobra Voda, Peja, Djackovica,
Studenica and Drenovac - where around 142 Serbs were being held.

"At the beginning the treatment of the prisoners was terrible - now
conditions are much better because captives are being prepared for
exchanges
with the Albanians in Serbian prison, " said the president of the
Sandzak
Helsinki Committee President, Sefko Alomerovic.

There are also reports of Serbs and Albanians being held in prisons in
northern Albania. "There were two camps. One in Kukes and the other in
Tropoja. While I was there I saw many people who were not Albanians. We
weren't allowed to make contact with them, but they could only be
Serbs,"
one former Albanian detainee told Amnesty International.

The Helsinki Committee has passed on its research to KFOR, but its
apparent
failure to launch a full investigation into the findings has prompted
Alomerovic to accuse the alliance of being a silent accomplice to Serb
imprisonment.  He claims that immediately after KFOR  was notified of
the
camp locations, the prisoners were moved to other sites.

The Helsinki Committee's discovery follows growing concern over the
whereabouts of hundreds of  local Serbs who have been kidnapped by
Kosovo
Liberation Army, UCK, fighters.

In January, a Belgrade-based association representing the families of
abducted Serbs gave  Alomerovic a file containing a list of nearly 500
kidnapped Serbs with comprehensive  details of their abductions. The
association says it is also looking into the disappearance of a further
700
Serbs.

The kidnapping of Kosovo Serbs began almost two years ago, coinciding
with
the increase in UCK guerrillas activity in the province.

According to the independent Belgrade-based human rights group, the
Humanitarian Law Centre, UCK fighters set up checkpoints in areas they
controlled, stopping buses in search of Serb security officials - around
100
people were seized. Most of them, however, were civilians.

The  Albanian militants also employed kidnapping as an instrument of
terror,
abducting Serb villagers and threatening their neighbours with a similar

fate unless they abandoned their homes.

The Humanitarian Law Centre says many of the kidnap victims were held in
UCK
run prisons, and interviews with former detainees revealed that inmates
were
regularly beaten.

Following the arrival of NATO, kidnapping continued to be used to
terrorise
Serbs into leaving their homes but increasingly abductions have been
carried
out with a view to exchanging capitives for Albanians held in Serbia
proper.
 

Estimates of the number of Kosovo Albanians imprisoned by the Serbs
range
from 2,000 to  3,000. They include combatants and many civilians,
including
some reportedly snatched as Serb forces left the province a year ago.

Many of the inmates are maltreated, have no idea what charges they face
and
are denied access to lawyers.

Under the terms of the Geneva Convention, all prisoners of war should
have
been released once the Kosovo war came to an end. The Yugoslav
authorities
argue that the treaty does not apply because the conflict was internal
rather than international.

The West challenges this, yet when the NATO signed the Kumanovo
agreement
with the Yugoslav Army prior to its departure from Kosovo, they left the

issue of prisoner releases off the document.

As a result, international agencies find themselves operating in a grey
area.  The ICRC, for example, argues that even though it visits
Albanians
detained in Serb jails, it cannot advocate their release because Kosovo
is
still technically part of Yugoslavia, not a foreign state.

There have been some prisoner exchanges since the end of the conflict,
but
the vast majority of detainees appear to have little hope of early
release.

As a result, some families of detained Serbs and Albanians have tried to

arrange exchanges privately through well-connected friends or by bribing

officials. Some have even employed  a Serbian detective agency. (See BCR
No.
118 - Detective Offers Kosovo PoW Hope)

More disturbingly, there are cases of Serbian lawyers ransoming their
clients to their families back in Kosovo. And in Podujevo, close to the
provincial border with Serbia, and unofficial "prisoner market" is said
to
operate.

Miroslav Filipovic is a regular IWPR contributor based in Kraljevo.

 Belgrade, April 15th -
 Albanian terrorists burnt
 down and with bulldozers
leveled to the ground 250
 houses in Serbian village
 Bijelo Polje near Pec
 today, radio amateurs
 reported from Kosovo.

 Albanian extremists
 performed this act in order to prevent Serbs from
returning to their homes, whence they had evaded in
 June last year in fear from Albanian terror, which
  became harder since KFOR`s arrival in Kosovo.

Before burning and destroying Serbian houses, Albanian
 terrorists had robbed them, taking away furniture and
 other things by 14-15 trucks.

 In Talinovac near Urosevac, the last two Serbian  houses
 were burnt down, reported radio amateurs today. The
 owners of those houses, Dragan and Vitko Tomic
  received that information on the phone from their
 ex-neighbors, Albanians. They were told that there
 was  no reason for them to return to Kosovo, since their
 houses had been burnt down.

 Albanian extremists and thieves robbed five Serbian
 houses in Jasenicane district in the village of Gornja
 Brnjica in Obilic. The owners of the houses, Radomir,
Trajko and Koviljka Djordjevic, and Branko and
Vlastimir Stolic found their homes in mess. They  spent
 the night at their friends in the village, where the
security was better. Albanian thieves took away big
pieces of furniture and house gadgets. Boilers were torn
out in the bathrooms, double beds taken away from the
 bedrooms, and on some houses even the front doors
were missing.

All this is happening after a recent meeting of Serbs
 with KFOR, who promised greater care and control,
especially during the night.

GNJILANE, Apr 30, 2000 -- (Reuters) Kosovo minority Serbs described
lives under virtual siege from hostile ethnic Albanians to senior UN
envoys on Saturday, a day after a small town church was blown up.
A UN Security Council delegation has been getting a first-hand look at
the mixed record of post-war international rule in Kosovo. Normal life
has been broadly restored for majority Albanians but most Serbs fear
leaving their homes.
Ethnic Albanians, grateful for NATO air strikes in 1999 that halted a
brutal anti-separatist campaign by Serbian security forces, have
welcomed the UN envoys with open arms.
Serbs still in the Yugoslav province - most have fled ethnic Albanian
reprisals - have received the delegation with courtesy at best and
hostility at worst.
The delegation, including Russian and Chinese envoys who have been most
critical of the NATO-backed UN authority's performance in Kosovo,
visited the town of Gnjilane on Saturday to check on its vanishing Serb
minority.
Gnjilane had 12,000 Serbs before the NATO-led KFOR peace force entered
Kosovo last June. Now it has 800, most of them clustered around the 17th
century Orthodox St Nikola Church whose compound is under 24-hour KFOR
guard.

The envoys' visit coincided with several anti-Serb incidents.
On Orthodox Good Friday, the Serb church in the small town of Vitina,
some 20 km (12 miles) from Gnjilane, was dynamited by suspected ethnic
Albanian extremists. No one was in the church at the time and there were
no injuries.
In the flashpoint city of Mitrovica, Kosovo Albanians stoned a UN bus
escorting Serbs to an Orthodox Easter service. The UN Security Council
delegation was visiting the divided city at the time.
On Thursday, a 70-year-old Serb woman was shot dead in her home in
Gnjilane.
Ljubisa Simic, local Serb representative of the International Rescue
Committee relief group, told the UN delegation about his people's plight
in a briefing inside the St Nikola compound, a leafy, tidy oasis of calm
in this teeming market town.
"If Serbs here had security and freedom of movement, there would be no
need for humanitarian aid," said Simic.
"Now, farmers can't go into their fields to work because they're just
afraid to go out. So the crops are not sown. In towns like Gnjilane,
they can't leave their homes without KFOR or U.N. police escorts.
"The destruction of the Vitina church contributes to the general feeling
of insecurity - can we stay or must we go?"
Peter Deck, a UN relief official, said local Serb fears were aggravated
by an new influx of ethnic Albanians from nearby southern Serbia. "This
just adds pressure on the Serbs, everyone of whom we know has their
house up for sale."
UN officials have erected two tents inside the church compound where
kindergarten and primary school classes are held for Serb children.
"They have to walk here with a parent and a UN police escort," Simic
said.
Bangladeshi Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, heading the Security
Council group, said violence would never bring peace and progress
Kosovo.
"Everyone has to make their own effort. We appeal for peaceful
co-existence here. We are giving the same message wherever we go," he
said.
The delegation returns to New York on Sunday to report on ways of
improving the Kosovo mission. Kosovo's UN administration chief Bernard
Kouchner has complained of underfunding as it seeks to curb ethnic crime
and rebuild a war-shattered infrastructure.

                          Updated 12:00 PM ET May 4, 2000

  By Ronald Kim
  Daily Pennsylvanian
  U. Pennsylvania

  (U-WIRE) PHILADELPHIA -- Where in Europe, in the year
  2000, have the policies of the Western powers directly resulted
  in the vicious persecution and expulsion of an ancient Jewish
  community?

  If you guessed Kosovo, you're right. One year after the aerial
  bombardment of Yugoslavia, the aims of NATO's military
  campaign are close to being realized. According to countless
  human rights observers and reports of European journalists,
  virtually all of Kosovo's non-Albanian population has been
  driven from the province by armed gangs of the Kosovo
  Liberation Army.

  Before the war, the Kosovar capital of Pristina was home to 40
  Sephardic Jews. All have been forced to leave, their homes
  looted or burned.

  Cedomir Prlincevic, former director of archives in Kosovo and
  leader of the community, had to be rescued by taxi via
  Macedonia. He made it out alive with his elderly mother to the
  Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, bringing only his Talmud.

  Immediately following the end of the war, over 90 percent of
  Kosovo's already dwindling Serbian Orthodox minority fled
  attacks from the victorious KLA. In the U.S. press, this
  catastrophe was legitimized as the revenge of Kosovar
  Albanians, whose oppression under Yugoslav President
  Slobodan Milosevic's army and paramilitary forces "justified"
  the expulsion of all Serbs.

  But this mass exodus is hardly limited to the Serbs. Last June
  and July, 300,000 Kosovars of all backgrounds, including
  Roma (Gypsy), Turkish and Gorani (Slavic-speaking Muslims),
  left their homes, mostly for Belgrade or neighboring
  Montenegro. As the persecution of the latter two groups
  indicates, religious affiliation is no protection against the wrath of
  Muslim Albanian extremists.

  Today, Serbs and Gorani are confined to six tiny enclaves in
  Kosovo. Ironically, their safety -- and that of hundreds of
  beautiful medieval Serbian Orthodox monasteries and
  cathedrals -- hinges on the dubious protection of NATO
  soldiers from the very powers that launched last year's war.

  In this new KLA-controlled Kosovo, created by NATO
  aggression and cosmetically patrolled by "peacekeepers," no
  minority is safe.

  The village of Lecnice had been home to a small group of
  Roman Catholic Croats since medieval times. Last October,
  only months before its 700th anniversary, the whole community
  of 300 fled to Croatia. An 86-year-old Czech man was found
  with a bullet in the back of his head in a park near Pristina.

  One should not conclude, however, that the elimination of ethnic
  minorities is the only difference between the old and new
  Kosovo. Albanian "moderates" -- not to speak of intellectuals
  and those who felt no sympathy for the KLA -- have fled to
  Belgrade, joining earlier waves of ethnic Croatians and Bosnian
  Muslims who escaped war and fascism in their own republics.

  Since the departure of Milosevic's army, the KLA -- long
  reputed to be major drug traffickers into Western Europe -- has
  swiftly imported all the worst evils of the outside world to its
  new domain. Stolen cars are now everywhere, just as in
  Albania. Trafficking in prostitutes from the rest of the Balkans
  and the former Soviet Union has become a serious problem,
  one which peacekeepers' limited resources simply cannot
  address. Vigilante justice, looting and smuggling bespeak a level
  of lawlessness that makes the rest of Yugoslavia look tame by
  comparison.

  Surprised? In February 1999, just before the war, Robert
  Manning of the Council on Foreign Relations described U.S.
  objectives in the Balkans: "turning the former Yugoslavia into
  series of protectorates one province at a time." In other words,
  integrating them into the global economy as fodder for
  free-market racketeering and U.S. economic colonization.

  Citizens of the U.S. cannot be blamed for their ignorance of
  these tragic developments, which have gone virtually unreported
  in the media. But ignorance does not forswear responsibility.

  For three months last spring, hundreds of millions of Americans
  (and Canadians and Europeans) were once again whipped up
  into a frenzy of militaristic, patriotic rage. Believing every rumor,
  every tabloid headline of "mass graves" and "genocide," these
  professional patriots -- including supposedly liberal intellectuals
  -- saluted a policy of "bombing for peace." Drunk on hatred of
  the primitive, tribal, anti-Western and incorrigibly bad Serbs,
  their insatiable blood-lust applauded the murder of ordinary
  Yugoslavs, even on Orthodox Easter.

  Once Milosevic capitulated and agreed to withdraw his troops,
  the media conveniently terminated their coverage. Those few
  reporters who dare to risk their lives in Kosovo have had a hard
  time being heard by a bored public in Western Europe, let alone
  the U.S.

  After all, we won, didn't we?

  Now, faced with the horrors of the New Kosovo, we excuse
  ourselves from the consequences of our actions, pleading that
  "we didn't know."

  And where have we heard that before?

  (C) 2000 Daily Pennsylvanian via U-WIRE

   PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, May 10 (AFP) - The United Nations is
alarmed by a flourishing industry of "tax collectors" extracting
money, often by force, from restaurants and hotels throughout
Kosovo, a UN official said Wednesday.
   "We have reports that there is still a parallel tax collection
system," said Allen Gilmore Woodhouse, who works for the taxation
department at the UN mission administering the province.
   "There is pressure and coercion," he added.
   The official said he did not know who was behind the
"collectors." "We don't know under what organisation or umbrella,"
he admitted.
   He said he could not even be sure that the former Kosovo
provisional government, which was supposed to have ceased activity
in January under a UN accord, was not behind the shady operation.
   "They're not supposed to be collecting taxes today," Woodhouse
explained.
   "In December, an agreement was signed by the main political
parties, indicating that this tax collection should stop by the end
of January. Any tax collection after that time should be done by the
(UN) tax administration."
   Woodhouse recounted that people were appearing in restaurants
and hotels saying they were collecting taxes "for the widows, for
building schools, and structures for the Kosovo Protection Corps
(KPC)" -- and that the sums collected were much higher than those
taken by the UN.
   The KPC is a civilian force made out of members of the now
disbanded ethnic Albanian guerrilla force, the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA.)
   Packets of cigarettes currently on sale in the province thicken
the plot by carrying a label in Albanian with the words: "Kosovo
Finance Ministry." The precise origin of the label has not yet
transpired.
   Woodhouse said the unofficial tax-collection system was already
in existence when Kosovo was under Serbian administration, and had
helped fund parallel Kosovar institutions set up after the
province's autonomous status was abolished by Belgrade in 1989.
   Unofficial taxation had survived down to the present because
"they're aware of the confusion here, we're in a transition period,"
the UN officer explained.
   UN authorities are collecting customs duties and imposing
certain taxes on about 100 restaurants and hotels with turnover of
more than 15,000 deutschmarks (7,000 US dollars/7,700 euros) a
month.
   The international administration hopes to stem the tax racket by
setting up a specialist team to fight the collectors. "For the
moment, we want to educate the tax payers and show patience,"
Woodhouse said.
   But if the taxes continue, "it'll have to be enforced at the
highest levels, and (UN administrator) Bernard Kouchner will have to
address the violation of the December agreement," he added.

Kosovska Vitina, May 10th (Tanjug) - After
the day before raging of 2,000 Albanian
extremists on the streets of Kosovska Vitina,
when they attacked, torn down and destroyed
everything belonging to Serbs in that place, few
remained Serbs in Vitina are afraid of new
mass assaults on their lives and property, the
Committee for Protection and Human Rights
from Kosovska Vitina reported.

The health condition of Serbian girls wounded
in the attack of Albanian terrorists, who are in the American military
hospital in Bondsteel near Urosevac, is still critical. They underwent
numerous operations. Ivana Dajic`s both arms and a leg were amputated.
Her sister Bojana Dajic had two operations and doctors are fighting for
her life, it is said in the announcement.

Gnjilane, May 9th - Tonight, around 8 p.m. in the middle of the Serbian
part of multiethnic village Cernice, near Gnjilane, an unidentified
Albanian terrorist threw a hand grenade into a Serb shop crowded
with people and then opened fire with an automatic weapon on them,
local radio enthusiasts said.

In that terrorist attack, Srecko Savic sustained serious injuries and Miomir
Savic, Trajan Savic, Mladen Menkovic and Zvonimir Stanojevic were
wounded.

The attacker escaped from the scene to the Albanian part of the village,
entering the yard of an Albanian house belonging to Cemal Muslia.

KFOR troops were still trying to gain entrance to the yard where the
attacker barricaded himself, the radio amateurs said.

The wounded Serbs, who had received first-aid, were afterwards
escorted by a KFOR patrol to Partes whence they would be escorted to
the nearest outpatient clinic.

Serbs from the village say that the Albanian terrorists were encouraged by
UNMIK police actions and by judiciary in Kosmet, when a terrorist from
Cernica who fired three projectiles on Serbs from a hand grenade
launcher, was recently released from prison. The terrorist said that he was
only joking; it is stated in the radio amateurs` report.

The chief of parliamentary deputy group, the strongest opposition party in
Italy, Forca Italia, Dario Rivolta said today that the so-called KLA is
becoming more and more like a mafia organization.

According to Ricotta's opinion, this is confirmed by continuous killings of
non-Albanian citizens in Kosmet, by ethnic cleansing of Serbs, but also by
mutual bloody clashes inside of the so-called KLA.

That is why it would be better if the International Community would
engage in real demilitarization of the region, instead of organizing various
gatherings on peace and stability in the Balkans, Rivolta said to Italian
agency ADNCRONOS.

KFOR troops should really disarm members of the so-called KLA and
not just represent witnesses of the aggressive assaults like the recent
wounding of the two Serbian girls in Kosovska Vitina, Italian deputy
specified.

Belgrade, May 10th (Tanjug) - Justice minister in the
government of the Republic of Serbia, Dragoljub Jankovic,
said that UNMIK had been totally passive and had taken no steps to
trace missing and abducted Serbs On top of that, dozens of Serbs had
been held for a very long time now in a prison illegally set up by UNMIK
and its chief Bernard Kouchner in Kosovska Mitrovica, and no steps
were being taken to investigate charges against them or bring them to trial.

"In some cases, this kind of thing has been going on for months, so the
Serbs have decided to go on hunger strike, with potentially fatal
consequences, to draw attention to their position, demanding that their
legal status be brought in line with international and Yugoslav regulations
on prisoners" Jankovic said.

Contrary to this the justice minister pointed out, there is a constant
tendency to demand "urgent" release of all detained Albanian persons who
are in Serbian prisons, although legal criminal procedures are conducted
against them in front of the authority state courts due to the claims or
suspicions that they committed heavy criminal offences.

"The whereabouts of the detained Albanians are known to their families
and lawyers, Red Cross International Committee. The families regularly
visit the prisoners, bring them packages and mail letters, or are present at
their trials. The conditions of these persons in Serbian prisons is according
to all standards and International and Yugoslav rules" Jankovic
emphasized.

  PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, May 11 (AFP) - International peacekeepers
found a major arms stash, including two anti-tank missiles, in the
British-led central sector of Kosovo, a KFOR spokesman said
Thursday.
   KFOR troops cordoned off an area eight kilometres (five miles)
west of the central town of Glogovac on Wednesday and found 20
rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and seven RPG launchers, Lieutenant
Commander Philip Anido said.
   They also found a machine gun and more than 60,000 bullets in
the sweep, he said.
   No arrests were made, Anido said, adding that the local KFOR
commander offered an amnesty, giving weapons owners the chance to
give in their arms before a house search was started.
   If the owners fail to surrender their arms they are arrested, he
said.
   Attacks with shoulder-held RPGs are common in the war-torn
province, where ethnic violence has forced almost a quarter of a
million of non-ethnic Albanians to flee since KFOR moved in last
June.
   One RPG attack in February killed two Serbs on a UN bus near the
northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica, sparking weeks of ethnic
rioting that left some 10 people dead and dozens injured, including
KFOR troops.

by Miroslav Filipovic

Danas [independent daily], Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia,
May 10, 2000

Kraljevo - The village of Berkovo with 70 Serb houses,
is located on the very border between the
Municipalities Klina and Istok. Before the withdrawal
of the Yugoslav security forces [from Kosovo], the
village also had five households of ethnic Albanian
Catholics and one Roma household. Although the
village was full of Army and Police, none of the
Albanians were hurt and their houses were not
damaged.

Today, Berkovo is a deserted village. Albanian houses
still stand untouched and they are the only
remaining objects in the village. Golub Jevtic and his
son Radovan have recently visited Berkovo in a
visit organized by KFOR. They encountered a horrific
scene.

"We had been told that the village had been burnt
down, but that is not true. It was methodically
destroyed. All Serb houses have been looted and
demolished. Everything that could be taken away,
has been taken apart and taken away by the Albanians.
When I say everything, I mean literally
everything. Furniture, household objects, doors,
windows, roof tiles, roof beams, floors, even
outhouses. Wells were mined and destroyed, all the
trees were cut down. We had a wonderful orchard.
In the whole village of Berkovo, today there is only
one inhabitant: my friend Bozo's dog," says Golub.

In mid June of last year all Serbs from Berkovo
escaped to Serbia. Only the two most courageous
locals stayed behind and they were murdered. During
the presence of Serbian authorities no Albanians
were killed or hurt in the village.

"We had no problems with our Albanian neighbors," says
Radovan, "we even protected them from our
policemen and soldiers. They kept asking whether we
had problems with Albanians. They said that if we
had any we should let them know and they would take
care of that. There was no need to report
anything. When the bombardment started, the Albanians
packed up and left for Albania. A neighbor, an
Albanian, took on departure a pendant with the picture
of mother Theresa and gave it to me. He said:
'Thank you, you could have killed us hundred times
over'

"We are angry with our Albanian neighbors, although we
know that they did not demolish our houses.
They could have protected our houses the way we
protected theirs. They could have used their
influence with their Catholic brothers, Italians from
KFOR. They could have done a lot and they did not
try anything. Some witnesses even claim that our
Albanian neighbors killed the last two locals who
stayed in the village".

Father and son Jevtic's visit to their village was
approved by KFOR. They took a bus from Kraljevo to
the village of Gorazdevac. There they were taken over
by KFOR and escorted to the Pec Patriarchy.
>From there, in a convoy of Italian armored troop
carriers they traveled to their villages.

"We paid 340 dinars for a ticket to Gorazdevac,"
continues Radovan. "In Gorazdevac we were searched.
They were looking for weapons. Then they escorted us
to the Patriarchy, put us in troop carriers and
took us to our villages. They allowed us only five
minutes next to the remains of our houses.
Nevertheless, even that was too much. There was
nothing to see. Devastation and only devastation. As
if someone systematically tried to destroy any
possibility of our return."

However, the Jevtics believe that there is a winning
combination for their return. Golub's second son
Radosav attended in mid April a meeting with Oliver
Ivanovic, the president of the Executive Council of
the Serb National Council of Kosovska Mitrovica, in
Kraljevo.

"There is no reason not to trust Oliver Ivanovic, but
also there is no reason to unnecessarily risk the
only thing we have left: our lives. We are dreaming
about the return to our village, but he and all others
who are trying to convince us to return will have to
offer very serious guarantees for our security. That
is the only condition for our return. Everything else
will be easy. We shall build new houses, dig new
wells, if KFOR provides security for us. KFOR can do
it. They only need to show the will to do it."

Kosovska Vitina, May 12th (Tanjug) - In the village Grncar,
near Kosovska Vitina, tonight around 10.30p.m. Albanian
terrorists blew up a Serbian cafe, part of the house owned by Trajko
Maksimovic, radio amateurs reported citing Serbian sources
there.

The café, known as "Mineralac",
was located at one of the exits from the village to Vitina. The owner of the
cafe, like other Serbs in that part of the village, was spending the night
elsewhere, due to the deterioration of the security situation. The strong
explosion razed to the ground the café, thus great material damage was
made.

Kosovska Vitina, May 11th (Politika) - In the village Grncar, near Vitina
last evening around 10 p.m. after the three story house owned by Zarko
Dejanovic had been blown up, the villagers of that place gathered to
protest against KFOR behaviour and against the inefficient protection of
Serbian lives and property, radio amateurs from Kosovo-Metohija
reported today.

KFOR patrol first withdrew from the village in order to come back with
the reinforcement. With the use of force and shooting in the air it later
broke up gathered people. Also with the support of helicopters and gas
bombs it managed to disperse Serbian demonstrations.

Instead of monitoring the escape and the capture of Albanian terrorists,
who had escaped towards the neighboring village Djerekare, with their
helicopters, American KFOR members found that dispersing of justifiable
demonstrations of Grncar villagers was more important.

KFOR spokesman in Pristina, mayor Philip Anido, said today in Pristina
that "an incident" happened last night between the Serbs and the American
KFOR members, in which an American soldier was "slightly wounded".

After they had blown up two Serbian houses in village Klokot, Albanians
from the neighboring village Zitinje, bragged that so-called "Leopard", an
Albanian terrorist who is a mine and explosive expert, lived in their village.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- A Kosovo Albanian loyal to Serbia was killed today in
his home in the Kosovo town of Djakovica, Yugoslavia's state-run Tanjug news
agency reported.

Adnan Zerka, a member of the Democratic Reform Party of Albanians, died en route
to the hospital after unknown attackers opened fire on his house and injured
him,
Tanjug said.

NATO or the United Nations had no comment on the attack, which occurred about
45 miles southwest of the province's capital of Pristina.

The Democratic Reform Party has represented a minority of ethnic Albanians in
Kosovo who do not support secession from Serbia. Its members have come under
increasing threats and attacks since Serbian authorities were forced to hand
over
the province to NATO-led peacekeepers and the United Nations after the 78-day
NATO bombing campaign last year.

The party's president, Sokol Cusa, condemned the killing, saying Zerka
"advocated
a multiethnic Kosovo and equality for everybody."

Tanjug also said that hours before the killing, more than 100 "raging ethnic
Albanians" stoned an apartment building in the town of Obilic, just outside of
Pristina which is home to a number of Kosovo Serb families.

Nobody was injured in the attack, which was stopped by members of the NATO-led
Kosovo Force, according to Tanjug.

               © Copyright 2000 The Associated Press

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Two Russian peacekeepers were wounded on
Wednesday in what NATO officials said were retaliatory attacks for
roughing up a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
One soldier was wounded near Klina and another near Kijevo, both in
southwestern Kosovo, after attackers fired anti-tank missiles. There
were no injuries in the three other attacks.
Lt. Commander Philip Anido, a spokesman for the peacekeepers, said that
the attacks were apparent retaliation for a scuffle Tuesday between
Ramush Haradinaj, a former regional commander with the Kosovo Liberation
Army, and peacekeepers at a checkpoint in central Kosovo.
Anido did not say how badly the two soldiers were wounded, and offered
no other details.
NATO-led peacekeepers defended the behavior of the Russians and German
military police who stopped Haradinaj in the town of Lozica, 30 miles
from Pristina while he was on his way to a rally.
Haradinaj, now a politician, was briefly detained because the two guns
in his car did not have the proper paperwork, the peacekeepers said in a
statement. Haradinaj tried to escape and take the weapon of one of the
soldiers, the statement said.
NATO said the peacekeepers and military police ``subdued him.´´
Haradinaj said he resisted efforts to be taken to the Russian base
because of their close ties to the Serbs. He accused peacekeepers of
beating one of his associates and said that started the scuffle.
``They´re behaving like Rambo,´´ Haradinaj said of the
peacekeepers during an interview with The Associated Press at his party
offices in the capital, Pristina.
Haradinaj received first aid at the Russian facility in the town of
Malisevo before being flown by helicopter to the main NATO headquarters
in Pristina.
The incident is likely to strike a nerve among Kosovo's ethnic
Albanians, who have long distrusted the Russian peacekeepers because of
their perceived ties to the Serbs, founded on shared religious and
ethnic origins. Stories circulated throughout the Kosovo war that
Russian mercenaries fought alongside Serb forces during Yugoslavia's
18-month crackdown on ethnic Albanian militants.
The commander of the peacekeepers in Kosovo pleaded for restraint.
``We must all cool down and work to prevent similar incidents from
occurring in the future,´´ said Spanish Lt. Gen. Juan Ortuno.

PRISHTINA - The NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force took
10 months to give detailed information on the location
of cluster bombs dropped by NATO last year on southern
Kosovo to those responsible for demining the area, a
UN official said Wednesday.

“We have been asking for the information since July. I
can’t explain why (such a long time). I can only
provide conjectures. There’s always a degree of
secrecy,” said John Flanagan, who is in charge of
United Nations demining operations.

He said information was received two weeks ago from
the United States military, stationed in the east of
Kosovo.

“Now we’ve got increased information such as the
different types of bombs, the direction of the travel
of the aircraft, the target they were trying to hit,”
he said.

However he added it was “disappointing they (KFOR)
don’t do more, initially they did a lot of clearance”.

“We’ve done a lot, but clearing mines is not our job,”
said NATO spokesperson Lieutenant Commander Philip
Anido.

More than 100 people have been killed in explosions
from mines or the remains of fragmentation bombs since
the NATO bombings ended in June 1999.

“Recently, a lot of incidents involved cluster bombs,
and the problem with them is that they almost always
involve multiple casualties, and it’s common for these
casualties to be children or teenagers,” said
Flanagan. Over the weekend, a seven-year-old child was
killed and two others seriously wounded in southern
Kosovo, when part of a cluster bomb dropped by NATO
last year blew up.

Flanagan said he was hopeful his team could “get the
cluster bombs cleared, at least those that are setting
on the surface, by the end of this year”.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, May 25 (AFP) -
On Thursday, Marija Ognjanocic drew a line under her
existence in the Kosovo capital of Pristina and left
for a new life in Belgrade. In less than a year, the
Serb population has rapidly shrunk, amid a mix of fear
and resignation.

They numbered about 30,000 last June, before Yugoslav
troops were forced out by the NATO bombing campaign,
but now there are only only a few hundred of them,
holed up in concrete bunkers, hotels or high-rise
flats in a few of the city's neighbourhoods, guarded
by NATO troops of KFOR.

"There is no future for the Serbs in this city, and if
one day the situation changed, it would be too late
for me," said 24-year-old Marija, just before she
left.

Her life was confined to the ninth floor of the "UN
hotel", which also houses most of her Serb colleagues
working as interpreters for the United Nations mission
here.

She said her life had become "a hell" punctuated by
trips in a UN car to her workplace, even though it was
just next door, a monthly trip to Macedonia to shop
for groceries. "The idea of crossing the road was out
of the question", she said.

The murder last week of her childhood friend Petar
Topoljski, accused by an Albanian newspaper of having
been a paramilitary, was the last straw for her.

"Why did we stay on there? The money," the young woman
said. She earned 1,400 marks (about 716 euros) while
her mother's pension is 100 marks after she fled to
Serbia.

But the Pristina-born woman said she had made "enough
international connections" to provide her with a job
in Belgrade.

For his part, Aleksander Milosavljevic, 27, is still
stuck for the next few months in his KFOR-controlled
dormitory. He is staying on because of his
interpreter's salary, which he pays to his parents,
and also because he never received a copy of a law
degree he was awarded just before the NATO air strikes
began last year. The university has since been taken
over by the Albanians.

"So I live from day to day," he said. He does
weight-training and sometimes looks through the window
at his old apartment, across the road. But he is
confident of one day being able to emigrate to the
west.

However, inhabitants of the "Yu Program" here have no
idea what the future might hold. About 150 Serbs have
found refuge in this former residence for civil
servants of the Yugoslav regime, a long building that
was once surrounded by shops and restaurants.

Among them are old people who do not know where to go,
but also families with children who go to school in
the Gracanica enclave, 12 kilometres away.

"I hope things are changing," said Snezana Kovacevic,
a 37-year-old mother. She and her husband are jobless,
receive food handouts from a non-governmental
organisation and are living off their savings.

"If nothing changes, I don't think we shall stay," she
said. "We are just surviving here."

At KFOR headquarters, officials are apprehensive of
the approach of summer. "We fear there will be more
departures with the end of the school year and the
KFOR mandate - even if it is renewed - runs out, said
Major Kent Haworth, a doctor with the British
battalion.

The soldiers are trying to set up a clinic and to put
on a summer programme of activities. That is Haworth's
main concern. "We have security. People are surviving.
But how to secure a return to normal life?" he said.

PRISTINA, May 26, 2000 -- (Reuters) Aggressors fired
shots into a Russian military base in Kosovo for a
second straight night, NATO-led peacekeepers said on
Thursday.

Officers in the KFOR peacekeeping force believe the
attacks are in revenge for a fight involving Russian
soldiers earlier this week in which a former Kosovo
guerrilla commander was injured.

"KFOR in conjunction with UNMIK (United Nations
Mission in Kosovo) police will respond with reasonable
and appropriate reaction to stop such extremist
action," KFOR spokesman Lieutenant Commander Philip
Anido said in a statement.

Several shots were fired into the base in the town of
Kijevo, southwest of the provincial capital Pristina,
on Wednesday evening, KFOR said. There were no
injuries or damage.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, attackers
shot at the base and fired in two anti-tank rockets,
slightly wounding two soldiers. Russian soldiers also
came under fire on several other occasions overnight
from Tuesday into Wednesday, KFOR said.

The attacks followed an incident on Tuesday afternoon
in which Russian soldiers fought with Ramush
Haradinaj, a local politician who was formerly a
commander of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation
Army. Haradinaj sustained cuts and bruises in the
incident.

According to KFOR, the Russians stopped Haradinaj's
car at a checkpoint near the town of Malisevo, found
his weapons permit had expired and confiscated two
weapons. Haradinaj tried to flee, attacked a soldier
and was "subdued" by KFOR personnel.

MOSCOW, May 27, 2000 -- (Reuters) Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
said on Friday attacks on Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo illustrated
that UN resolutions on bringing peace to the province were not being
fulfilled.
Two Russian peacekeeper were wounded on Wednesday after attackers fired
anti-tank rockets and shot at their base in the town of Kijevo,
southwest of the provincial capital Pristina. Further shots were fired
into the base on Wednesday evening.
Ivanov told a news conference that the attacks underlined Russia's
oft-repeated concerns that members of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo
Liberation Army were able to act freely.
"We again see that unfortunately the situation in the region remains
very worrying," he said. The attacks followed a dispute between the
peacekeepers and a former KLA commander.
Ivanov said he had voiced his concerns at meetings with NATO foreign
ministers in Florence this week.
He said Russia continued to work for a peaceful settlement in Kosovo, to
give the province autonomy within Yugoslavia and to allow the return of
all refugees, whether ethnic Serb or Albanian.
Russia strongly opposed NATO's air raids on Yugoslavia during the 1999
Kosovo crisis but its troops are part of the KFOR peacekeeping force in
the province.

http://www.canoe.ca/WorldTicker/CANOE-wire.Kosovo-Serbs.html
 

  Friday, Jun. 02, 2000

June 1, 2000

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Ethnic Albanians opened
fire Thursday on a group of Serbs walking home from a
cemetery in the American sector of Kosovo, killing one
woman and wounding three men, U.S. authorities said.
 The attack, near the village of Klokot, occurred a
day after gunmen killed a Serb man in northern Kosovo
as he stood outside his home beside his father,
touching off a riot that injured two NATO
peacekeepers.

 U.S. officials said Thursday's attack occurred along
the main road between Urosevac and Gnjilane, about 40
kilometres south of Pristina. The Yugoslav news agency
Beta identified the dead woman as Lepterka Marinkovic,
67, and the wounded men as Petar Tomic, 33, Dobrivoje
Radic, 50, and Mladen Mirkovic, 68.
 The wounded were taken to the U.S. Army's Camp
Bondsteel for treatment.
 Beta said nine Serbs have been killed in Klokot in
the year since NATO-led peacekeepers arrived after the
78-day NATO bombing campaign. More than 20 Serbs have
been wounded in attacks by ethnic Albanians, it said.
 On Wednesday, the drive-by shooting in the northern
Kosovo village of Babin Most killed 33-year-old Serb
Milutin Trajkovic.
 After the shooting, NATO-led troops manning
checkpoints throughout the region were put on alert,
according to Flight Lieut. Rob Hannam, a spokesman for
British forces.
 He said Trajkovic's father sought help at a NATO
checkpoint, where peacekeepers administered first aid
and then evacuated the wounded man to a French
military hospital, but he died en route.
 Suspects are still being sought.
 After the shooting, about 40 to 50 Serbs gathered on
the road outside Babin Most to protest the attack. The
crowd blocked the road and later grew violent,
overturning a Norwegian tactical vehicle and setting
it on fire.
 One soldier was treated for smoke inhalation and
another soldier was treated for an arm injury, NATO
said in a statement. Both were treated and released.
 

PRISTINA, Jun 1, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) A 33-year-old Serbian
man was shot dead in a drive-by shooting in a town in northern Kosovo, a
spokesman for the multinational KFOR peacekeeping force confirmed
Thursday.
Angry Serbs had assembled in the town of Babin Most, where the attack
took place on Wednesday, and torched a vehicle belonging to Norwegian
KFOR troops deployed there and overturned another, said spokesman Rob
Hannam.
Earlier, Serb source in Kosovska Mitrovica, in the north of the
breakaway province, said that a Serb had been fatally wounded by
automatic arms fire at around 7:00 p.m. (1700 GMT) Wednesday in the
village of Novo Selo, six kilometres (four miles) north of Babin Most.
Milutin Trajkovic was shot at by a speeding car as he stood in front of
a shop in Novo Selo with his father, witnesses told AFP.
He died of his wounds soon after being taken to hospital by United Arab
Emirates peacekeepers, they said, adding that they had been informed of
the death by the KFOR peacekeeping mission in the province.
Hannam said they appeared to be referring to the same attack, but was
unable to confirm the details.
Around 100 Serbs gathered in the center of Novo Selo to protest the
killing, blaming ethnic Albanians.
Local villagers did not rule out that this could be an attack by
Albanians. On Wednesday villagers had been celebrating the return of one
of their own who had been freed from a Serb prison.
Hannam said that the Norwegian troops had been sent to Babin Most after
a crowd had gathered.
KFOR stressed that there had been no gunfire against its troops.
According to Hannam calm was restored in the village at around 11:30
p.m. (2130 GMT).
On Sunday, three Serbs, including a four-year-old boy, were killed in
Cernica, in southeastern Kosovo. ((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)

The United Nations mission in Kosovo was plunged into new difficulties
yesterday as Serb leaders withdrew from the province's interim
administrative body and demanded effective self-rule in their own
strongholds, in protest at killings of Serb civilians by Kosovan
Albanian extremists.
As the security council prepares to meet next week to review the first
12 months of the mission in Kosovo, Serb leaders announced that they
would be sending a delegation to New York to demand amendments to
resolution 1244 - the mandate for the UN effort - to protect Serb rights
in Kosovo and allow the establishment "of functional self-rule" in areas
occupied by Serbs.
In addition, moderate Serb leaders say that they have already asked
European officials in the region to send anti-terrorism experts to back
up the Kosovo protection force and the UN's international police force.
The statement by the Serb national council, meeting at the ancient
monastery of Gracanica, comes amid disillusionment among many officials
serving with the UN mission over the resurgence of ethnic violence and
organised crime in Kosovo, and the apparent unwillingness of senior
officials to take on the ethnic Albanian leaders suspected of
involvement in both.
The Serbs' decision is doubly embarrassing for the UN mission, which is
preparing to mark the first anniversary of its mandate this weekend and
has been making strenuous efforts to persuade Serbs to share its vision
of a multi-ethnic democratic society.
But the Serb community is angry about an eruption of violence in the
last week that has left eight of their members dead in four incidents.
The most recent took place early last Friday, when a car hit an
anti-tank mine which had been planted overnight on a British-controlled
road a few miles from Pristina. Two men died, and a woman and two
children were injured.
The decision to withdraw from the Albanian dominated administrative
council is also a blow for Bernard Kouchner, the head of the UN mission,
who had recently managed to persuade moderate Serbs, backed by the
Serbian Orthodox church, to attend the council as observers prior to
full involvement.
It comes amid a campaign for voter registration for the region's first
local elections, scheduled for the autumn. While more than 250,000
ethnic Albanians have been persuaded to register, only a few thousand of
the province's remaining 95,000 Serbs - from a community originally
numbering 250,000 - have registered to vote.
Following the meeting yesterday, Father Sava, a moderate Serb leader who
has backed Serb involvement in Kosovo's nascent democratic process,
indicated that many Serb leaders wanted to end cooperation with the UN,
rather than suspending their involvement until the security council
meets.
"The international community has got to decide whether Kosovo is going
to be a lawless place or move towards being a democratic society," he
said. "At the moment, the international community is not really prepared
to take the lead against Albanian terrorism or confront the problem of
organised crime."
He added: "We are aware of the efforts that are being made to protect
Serb people, particularly in the British sector which seems determined
to work in an even-handed way. But in the last two months of our
cooperation with the UN administration we have seen a resurgence of
organised crime all over Kosovo."
The rise in the violence and intimidation against the remaining Serb
community comes despite intense efforts to make Serbs feel secure. Many
Serbian villages south of Pristina have been turned into virtual
fortresses, protected by checkpoints, watch towers and constant
helicopter and ground patrols.
However, despite a ratio of one peacekeeping soldier for every three
Serbs in Kosovo, the Nato-led troops have been powerless to prevent the
latest outbreak of violence.

                             PRISTINA - Three Serbs, including a four-year-old
     boy, were killed
                             Sunday evening in an attack of Albanian terrorists on
     a group of
                             villagers of Cernica in Gnjilane municipality [NOTE:
     Gnjilane is under the occupation of Amerikan troops!!!  This region had good
     ethnic relations and NO KLA presence untill the arrival of KFOR!!!!  THIS IS
     A FACT CONFIRMED BY THE OSCE].
                                Tihomir Trifunovic (43), Vojin Vasic (57) and
     Milos Petrovic (4)
                             were killed Sunday evening aorund 20.00 hours, when
     Albanian  terrorist Afrim Zechiri opened automatic weapon fire
     on a group of  Serbs, villagers of Cernica, radio-amateurs reported
     from Kosovo-Metohija.
  In the attack were seriously wounded Petko
     Jankovic (35), who was  shot four times, and less seriously Zoran Stolic.
   The wounded were immediately transferred to the
     U.S. military  base Bondsteel near the village of Sojevo and their
     wounds are not life-threatening.
   KFOR U.S. forces spokesman Russel Berg has
     confirmed that a KFOR patrol did not react, or did not return fire. Thanks to
     that, Zechiri managed to get away after the attack
[NOTE: If KFOR can't
     protect the Serbs let the Yugoslav security aparatus return to the province
     as stipulated by UNSCR 1244].