-Caveat Lector-
>From Int'l Herald Tribune
"" Despite the European Union ban on fuel exports and NATO
emphasis on stopping the supply of fuel to the military, as of
Monday ''large quantities'' of fuel were flowing into the
country via the Danube River, and along highways from
Montenegro, Croatia and Romania, intelligence reports showed.""
<<War makes for good business. A<>E<>R >>
Paris, Wednesday, May 12, 1999
Serbs Met Their Goals in Kosovo, Experts Say
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By R. Jeffrey Smith and Dana Priest Washington Post Service
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WASHINGTON - Military forces of Yugoslavia, rather than
retreating to escape punishment from NATO air attacks, can
afford a limited withdrawal from Kosovo now because they have
accomplished most of their aims and can trim operations without
jeopardizing control of the province, according to intelligence
and defense officials.
During the last seven weeks, 40,000 security troops have nearly
completed a yearlong project, reducing a separatist rebel army
to scattered enclaves and forcing all but 10 percent of the
province's 1997 population of 1.7 million ethnic Albanians from
their homes, and more than 700,000 of them into exile.
As a result, Yugoslav troops are devoting much of their effort
to digging in for a long stay in Kosovo, often using forced
ethnic Albanian labor to build bunkers, trenches and other
defensive earthworks to prepare for a ground invasion, according
to intelligence officials.
''There's no one left, it's time for peace,'' a high U.S.
military officer said Monday with sarcasm.
New, unreleased information obtained by Western sources has
convinced NATO officials that President Slobodan Milosevic
ordered a military offensive in Kosovo with the explicit goal of
slashing the province's majority population of ethnic Albanians
and thereby reinforcing Serbian control.
The Yugoslav offensive operations still under way in Kosovo are
aimed both at completing this assignment and at rousting the
remaining units of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Security forces
have launched attacks on enclaves of civilians under the
separatist rebels' protection. The largest of these, holding
about 130,000 people, was isolated east of Pec.
Roughly 16,000 civilians from this area fled over the weekend
into Albania and also into Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner
in the Yugoslav federation.
The pace of the expulsion has recently averaged more than 10,000
ethnic Albanians a day, meaning it may be only a few weeks
before most of the remaining residents are out or on their way
out.
Ivo Daalder, a former Clinton aide and a National Security
Council specialist on the Balkans, said Yugoslav forces ''are
basically done'' in Kosovo. In the contest with the world's most
powerful military alliance, Yugoslavia's low-tech security
forces have so far achieved far more of their goals than NATO,
an alliance official said.
After numerous setbacks, said a senior diplomat, NATO's aim is
now the ''rollback, not the prevention'' of Yugoslavia's war
aims.
Although NATO has boasted officially of pinning down Serbian
forces, officials say privately that Yugoslav forces have shown
renewed energy in Kosovo. A NATO spokesman said Yugoslav forces
had taken advantage of cloudy weather to step up their campaign
of removing ethnic Albanians and to maneuver their tanks and
other armored vehicles into new positions.
Yugoslav gunships last weekend conducted their first attack
since early April on the village of Kosari, a main supply route
for the KLA. The 72d Special Operations unit was conducting
operations in the Rogova Mountains, acting as forward spotters
for artillery battery units seeking to wipe out remaining
pockets of rebel activity.
On Saturday, Serbian forces in central Kosovo repositioned their
forces to fight rebels in the Drenica region of central Kosovo.
Both the Yugoslav Army and the special police forces moved
ground forces and armored vehicles of the 252d Armored Brigade
to the routes between Klina-Malisevo and Srbica.
Despite the announced withdrawal, Yugoslav forces also have been
fortifying their positions. General Nebojsa Pavkovic, commander
of the Yugoslav 3d Army based in Pristina, the Kosovo capital,
is now engaged full time at the army headquarters in Nis in
planning a defense against any NATO invasion, Western
intelligence officials say.
An intelligence official predicted that in the next month,
''both sides will be making gains.'' As NATO attacks from the
air, government forces will expel more civilians on the ground.
Several officials envisioned an eventual stalemate, with
Yugoslav troops largely dispersed, inactive, and focused on
strategic defense. ''Without an assembly point these guys will
fly and fly and fly,'' a military official said. ''We can't bomb
the woods.''
After seven weeks of bombing, Serbian forces are largely intact
and able to move around in Kosovo.
NATO has destroyed only 20 percent of all armored vehicles
deployed in the province, according to NATO estimates. Even
heavily attacked air defenses remain a sufficient threat to
prevent NATO aircraft from flying routinely below 4,600 meters
(15,000 feet) and never within range of shoulder-fired
antiaircraft weapons.
Serbian forces have been aggressively trying to shoot down
attacking planes, firing 62 ''barrages'' of optically guided
surface-to-air missiles last week.
Despite the European Union ban on fuel exports and NATO emphasis
on stopping the supply of fuel to the military, as of Monday
''large quantities'' of fuel were flowing into the country via
the Danube River, and along highways from Montenegro, Croatia
and Romania, intelligence reports showed.
Two Western diplomats at NATO headquarters said they did not
expect President Slobodan Milosevic to give in soon to the
alliance's demand for a pullout of his forces, despite a recent
flurry of diplomatic maneuvers.
One went so far as to describe the air strikes to date as a
''failure'' that left the alliance with no option but
escalation.
>From Irish Times
Wednesday, May 12, 1999
Camp life leaves refugees
open to corruption
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>From Kathy Sheridan, in Skopje
In a crowd of 30,000 desperate human beings, every rumour,
however unlikely, must be taken seriously. Signs of rising
tension have to be monitored and speedily sorted.
One of yesterday's rumours at Stenkovic 1 camp was that refugees
who refused to be bussed to Albania would be banished to
Australia. It was never a real runner.
Other rumours, however - repeated in recent days by many
refugees - are being taken more seriously. The UNHCR has
announced that it is conducting its own investigation into
alleged corruption within the camps, in particular the
suggestion that officials have been seeking bribes for access to
the third-country evacuation programme.
The sense of increasing desperation and frustration was palpable
yesterday as an angry crowd gathered outside the Irish
delegation's tent demanding to know why their names had been
taken by community leaders for possible Irish evacuation, when
no one in the tent seemed to have heard of them.
The situation was further exacerbated by a security guard who in
good faith had tried to calm all new comers the previous day by
putting their names on yet another list.
It was left to Ms Martina Glennon of the Refugee Agency to
explain in a calm, firm voice that there had been a
misunderstanding. The anger dissipated but the despairing state
to which they returned was almost as unnerving.
Mr Ismet Goveri stood out in the crowd in his expensive canvas
khakis and French polo shirt. An English-speaking chemistry
graduate who has worked in Africa and with the OSCE's
verification programme within Kosovo, he is now just another
imprisoned refugee, intelligent enough to know that, with his
doctor wife and two children, he will appear on no one's
"vulnerable" list and that this terrible place may be his home
for a long time to come.
His real home is only 20 km away in Kosovo but it may as well be
on Mars. His is just another wretched story of a whole community
being given 10 minutes to "get lost", while their homes were
burnt before their eyes.
Under the hot afternoon sun, he longed for nothing more
luxurious than a shower.
Meanwhile, the border crossings remained closed to refugees for
the sixth day, despite the government's insistence to the
contrary.
Blace, the main crossing, plays host to a few donkeys and a
trickle of passport-holders.
Rumours persist of collusion between the Macedonian and Serb
governments to somehow redirect refugee traffic to Albania.
On the Macedonian side, however, the UNHCR's greatest challenge
is to make Albania seem attractive to refugees seeking
evacuation. The fact that it is much farther from their
homeland, has a wrecked economy and a culture alien to many of
them are not the only disincentives. The other problem is that
once in Albania any hope of evacuation to a third country
disappears. So far only a few hundred have volunteered to go.
The Macedonian government nonetheless pressed on with its
demands for an evacuation of 66,000 refugees to what it calls
"their mother country" but refused to confirm that this figure
was its tacit trade-off for reopening the borders.
Some observers reluctantly support this action, noting that for
the first time the "arithmetic" is going the right way. Daily
airlifts of about 2,000 people are easing crowding in the camps
without the pressure of a further influx.
The UNHCR, however, has other problems. It's broke. With upwards
of 750,000 refugees in the region, the body had appealed for
$143 million in funds but received only half that.
"This is a European situation. We expect Europe to take the lead
in this", said a spokesman, before reading out the list of
leading government donors in order of generosity: Japan, $23
million; US, $8.5 million; Denmark and the Netherlands, $3.4
million each; Canada and Switzerland, $3.3 million each. The
three major European powers, Germany, France and the UK, have
given $1.5 million, $817,000 and $800,000 respectively. Italy,
he said, had yielded $8.8 million in private contributions.
There is no evidence of any donation from the Irish Government.
>From TheGuardian
www.newsunlimited.co.uk
Balkans 'face collapse'
Warning: Secret Nato memo says refugee influx will be disastrous
for border states
By Chris Bird in Brazde and Helena Smith in Athens
Wednesday May 12, 1999
More about Kosovo: latest news, links, background and recent
reports
Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia are in imminent danger of
economic and political collapse as a result of the Kosovo
crisis, according to a leaked Nato document published in a Greek
newspaper yesterday.
'The merciless displacement of nearly 600,000 Kosovans who have
escaped to neighbouring countries threatens to destabilise the
entire region politically and economically,' it said, according
to the leading Greek daily Ta Nea.
The 'restricted' memo, dated April 29, is believed to have been
sent by the Nato secretary general, Javier Solana, to the
alliance's 19 member states last week.
It examined the economic impact of the conflict, warning of the
dangerous demographic changes and political turmoil Macedonia
and Montenegro face as a result of the influx.
Macedonia, the memo noted, has already begun to 'exhibit
negative repercussions' economically, as its crucial trade
routes with Yugoslavia have been severed.
It predicted that Albania, Europe's poorest country, will
probably fare even worse as the crisis sabotages its recent
efforts to attain political stability. It is likely to be rocked
by unrest even when the conflict is over.
Aid agencies are struggling to cope with more than 800,000
ethnic Albanians who have been expelled from Kosovo.
They are under pressure to move refugees out of Macedonia, whose
authorities fear that their long-term presence will upset the
already delicate ethnic balance in the 2m-strong population.
As of yesterday, Macedonia had taken in 238,900 refugees from
Kosovo, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).
But despite overcrowded conditions and the brutality of the
Macedonian police - refugees at one camp made a noisy protest
demanding Nato protection at one Macedonian holding centre this
week - few are volunteering to leave the holding camps for more
tents in lawless and poor Albanian next door.
Many hope to find sanctuary in the richer countries of the west
instead.
The problem is compounded by a growing sense among the refugees
that their return to Kosovo will be later rather than sooner as
Nato's appetite for a ground war steadily diminishes.
The aid agencies are now preparing to cope with the refugees
through the winter, abandoning the plans made to help them to
return to the province in the autumn.
'Our bosses recently passed through a huge new budget to buy
vehicles and the like in anticipation that the refugees would go
home soon,' said one Macedonia-based aid worker who asked not to
be named.
'Now we've been told to prepare to winterise the camps instead.'
One indication of fears for the future is the value refugees put
on being given the tents put up by German forces in Macedonia -
these come with a warm stove.
On Monday, in a trial run, UNHCR sent about 150 refugees in
three buses to Albania, where Nato troops are preparing extra
camps for up to 60,000 of those now sheltering in Macedonia, but
there are few signs that this route will prove popular.
While they share a language and many traditions with their
Albanian neighbours, for decades the Kosovo refugees have had
more contact with the outside world than the people of Albania,
who were isolated under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha.
'There are incentives for the refugees to stay on in Macedonia -
they want to hang on for a chance to get to the US and Europe,'
said the commission spokesman, Ron Redmond.
This view was echoed by an official with Macedonia's ministry of
labour working at the Brazde refugee camp - based in a small
aerodrome a few miles north of the capital, Skopje. 'There are
some who want to go to Albania but most want to go to the west.
Everyone knows Albania is not a wealthy state,' he said.
A large diaspora of Kosovo Albanians already exists and the
Austrian government is screening applicants for its 5,000 asylum
places on that basis.
In a small, airless tent next to a battered transport aircraft
at Brazde, Johannes Steiner, an Austrian interior ministry
employee, was interviewing potential immigrants.
'Austria takes only those who already have family members in our
country,' he said. 'We have five planeloads a week and 5,000 is
the current limit but I think Austria will have to accept more
as all the other EU countries are taking more.'
Near his tent were similar operations run by Denmark, Portugal,
Britain and others. Large numbers pack the tents of the richer
countries though Iceland has apparently had little joy in
enticing refugees north.
Italian soldiers and Macedonian police milled around the camp
entrance as buses prepared to take people to an airport for
flights to Denmark and Portugal. Refugees lined up to fill
plastic containers with water from a slowly trickling standpipe
as Nato helicopters droned overhead.
Mirjeta Zeqa, a 21-year-old student, was standing outside the
Austrian tent awaiting her interview. Her family fled the town
of Urosevac after Serbian security forces started burning ethnic
Albanian shops and houses. They were also forced out of a nearby
village when Serb forces appeared there.
She knows no one in Albania but has a sister in Austria. 'I want
to go back to Kosovo as soon as I can but I want to be with my
family,' she said.
Mr. Milosevic ''has pretty much ruined Kosovo,'' said a NATO
military officer. ''There's hardly been a village that's not
trashed,'' he said, noting that more than 300 were damaged in
the past month and 200 last year.
A<>E<>R
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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