-Caveat Lector-
Kosovo rebels denounce peace bid
By Liz Sly
Tribune Foreign Correspondent
May 7, 1999
CONTINUING COVERAGE
Keep up with updated coverage on the bombings in Yugoslavia.
TIRANA, Albania -- The Kosovo Liberation Army Thursday said it would not
agree to lay down its arms under terms of the accord reached in Bonn for
ending the Kosovo conflict, offering a hint of just one of the difficulties
any peace settlement may encounter.
"After all that has happened in Kosovo in the past months, we cannot discuss
the disarming of the KLA," said Jakup Krasniqi, a senior KLA spokesman, in
response to the accord reached between NATO and Russia on the shape of
future security arrangements for Kosovo.
The accord includes a provision for the disarmament of the guerrilla army,
which is fighting Serb forces inside Kosovo and along its border with
Albania. The KLA seeks full Kosovo independence, not the "autonomy" sought
by NATO.
"The conditions under which the KLA will agree to disarm do not exist and I
do not think they will ever exist in the Balkans," Krasniqi said. "Such a
demand is very unjust."
Until now, the KLA has largely been discounted in efforts to reach a
solution to the Kosovo crisis. It is lightly armed and inexperienced, and
its leaders readily acknowledge that it is no match for the professionally
trained, well-armed Yugoslav army.
But it does have guns, and its ranks have been swelled by thousands, perhaps
tens of thousands, of new recruits from among the refugees forced from their
homes by the Serbs. KLA claims that it has 60,000 adherents both inside
Kosovo and along Albania's borders cannot be substantiated.
The KLA is adamantly opposed to any kind of deal that would uphold Serb
sovereignty over Kosovo, something President Clinton has insisted must be
maintained to protect the integrity of disputed borders throughout the
Balkans.
"This war makes no sense unless it results in the independence of Kosovo.
There is no other solution," Krasniqi said.
Political divisions among the fractious Kosovars are also deepening as the
conflict progresses. The shared horror of the brutality they have suffered
at Serb hands in recent weeks has temporarily masked those differences, but
they threaten to erupt into squabbles over who will control Kosovo's future
if a peace settlement is reached.
On the eve of the NATO bombing campaign, the KLA commanded the support of a
relatively small minority of Kosovars, most of whom had shunned the
guerrillas' embrace of violence in favor of the pacifist approach of the
interim Kosovo government of President Ibrahim Rugova.
But when the mass expulsions of Kosovars began, support for the KLA soared.
Rugova's appearance alongside Milosevic on television appealing for an end
to the bombing campaign caused many of his supporters to doubt his
leadership.
The KLA has now set up its own "government" of Kosovo and denounces the one
established under Rugova's presidency as a "traitor" and ally of Belgrade.
But Rugova's government continues to assert its existence as the true
representative of the Kosovo people because it was elected by an
overwhelming majority in clandestine elections held in 1997. It vilifies the
KLA as undemocratic and accuses it of Marxist-Leninist tendencies.
Rugova was allowed to leave Kosovo on Wednesday and at a press conference in
Rome Thursday he threw his support behind NATO participation in a
peacekeeping force.
There is also a small KLA faction loyal to Rugova's government, though the
bulk of the guerrilla army answers to the KLA-backed government. Although
their political leaders cannot agree, on the front lines the two KLA
factions are fighting as one army, according to KLA fighters on both sides
and independent observers.
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