>BELGRADE, 14 August 2000 SERBIAN PROVINCE OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA KFOR'S TREPCA >SEIZURE VIOLATES U.N. RESOLUTION - YUGOSLAV MINISTER KFOR TROOPS SEIZE >KOSOVO-METOHIJA'S ZVECAN LEAD SMELTER KFOR TROOPS STORM KOSOVO-METOHIJA'S >ZVECAN, BEAT SERBS KFOR STORMS KOSOVO-METOHIJA ZVECAN TOWN, SMASHES UP SERB >RADIO OSCE DENIES KOSOVO-METOHIJA SERBS RIGHT TO INFORMATION - OFFICIAL > >KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - TERRORISM TWO SERB YOUTHS ABDUCTED IN EAST >KOSOVO-METOHIJA SERB CEMETERY IN KOSOVSKA MITROVICA VANDALISED > >* * * SERBIAN PROVINCE OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA KFOR'S TREPCA SEIZURE VIOLATES >U.N. RESOLUTION - YUGOSLAV MINISTER BELGRADE, Aug 14 (Tanjug) - Monday's >storming of the Trepca lead smelting plant in Zvecan, Kosovo-Metohija, by the >international force KFor was in flagrant violation of U.N. Resolution 1244, >according to Yugoslavia's information minister on Monday. "The resolution does >not authorise KFor or UNMIK (U.N. civilian mission) to carry out acts of >occupation," Information Minister Goran Matic told TANJUG. Kfor's attack, >carried out on UNMIK's orders, "was the same kind of act of occupation as that >carried out by German Nazis during the Second World War, when they wrested >Trepca away from the French", Matic added. This was further evidence of >non-implementation of U.N. Resolution 1244 or any other standards or norms of >international law, and of the flouting of the country's economic system, he >stressed. The operation, involving some 3,000 armed KFor troops with >helicopter support and launched against 250 Trepca employees has no precedent >in history and hardly does credit to the troops, for the most part from Great >Britain, France, Italy and Pakistan, he said. "This is another proof of the >system of occupation emplaced by KFor in (the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's >U.N.-administered province of) Kosovo-Metohija", he added. He went on to >refute as groundless the allegation circulated by some media that the reason >for the seizure was environmental protection, because the Trepca lead smelting >plant in Zvecan was polluting the environment. He said the operation was >nothing short of text-book plunder and highway robbery. "Tens of thousands of >kilos of depleted uranium dropped on Kosovo-Metohija by NATO in its aggression >last year do not seem to bother either KFor or UNMIK", he said. The armed >storming of Trepca must not be tolerated by the United Nations, which has the >duty to exercise its mechanisms to make KFor and UNMIK and their >administrators conform to their mandate and to the U.N. standards and respect >Resolution 1244, Matic said. He went on to comment on the storming, smashing >up and seizure of Serbian-language Radio S broadcasting out of Zvecan. The >Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), he said, which >"cares" so much about the freedom of the media and free speech in Yugoslavia, >has shut down the only radio station in Kosovo-Metohija broadcasting in >Serbian, alleging licence problems. "We shall return there and Trepca will >work and produce again, because it belongs to the people of this country and >to the workers who have helped build it and have worked in it", he vowed, >saying that factories cannot be taken at arms. He went on to say this was the >first time in history that anybody has stormed with helicopter support a >factory with unarmed workers in it, and used the operation to promote their >doctrine. He hoped that diplomats of Yugoslavia and other countries that have >had a principled approach to these matters would act in the United Nations to >find an answer to the question of KFor's storming of Trepca. > >KFOR TROOPS SEIZE KOSOVO-METOHIJA'S ZVECAN LEAD SMELTER Zvecan, Serbia, Aug 14 >(tanjug) - Around 3,000 international force kfor troops with helicopter >support at dawn on monday seized the lead smelter in zvecan near divided >Kosovska Mitrovica in the serbian U.N.-Run Kosovo-Metohija province. Some 250 >serb workers at the plant, which is part of the trepca industrial complex, >offered spunky though unsuccessful resistance to the storm-troops. The strong >Kfor detail, comprising french, italian, british and pakistani troops, used >force against the workers, some of whom they tied and took away. One of the >workers was seriously injured, according to tanjug's sources. Trepca general >manager Novak Bijelic, who was away from Kosovo-Metohija at the time of the >seizure of zvecan, was prevented by the international forces from re-entering >the province early monday. Also early on monday, at 6.30 A.M. Local time (0430 >gmt), pakistani kfor troops seized serbian-language radio s, broadcasting out >of zvecan, and took away some of the equipment. Kfor tanks and armoured >vehicles blocked the Zvecan-Kosovska Mitrovica arterial road. > >KFOR TROOPS STORM KOSOVO-METOHIJA'S ZVECAN, BEAT SERBS Zvecan, aug 14 (tanjug) >- International force Kfor troops' storming of the zvecan lead smelting plant >in kosovo- metohija early monday morning was followed by a violent clash >between local residents and british Kfor troops. The baton-wielding british >troops, who patrol this serb-populated town in serbian U.N.-Run >Kosovo-Metohija demonstrating brute force, injured several citizens of zvecan, >a small industrial town not far from the province's chief city of pristina. At >dawn on monday, the french kfor battalion, supported by british, belgian, >danish, pakistani and italian troops, stormed the Zvecan plant which works as >part of the Trepca mining, chemical and metallurgical complex, and where the >third shift was on duty. As part of the planned seizure operation, about 150 >british troops stormed trepca's hotel in zvecan, breaking down the main door, >tied up the employees they found on duty and placed the hotel under UNMIK >police guard. The Kosovska Mitrovca-Zvecan road is blocked to traffic. > >KFOR STORMS KOSOVO-METOHIJA ZVECAN TOWN, SMASHES UP SERB RADIO ZVECAN, Serbia, >Aug 14 (Tanjug) - Radio S, the only radio broadcasting in the Serbian language >out of Zvecan in U.N.-run Kosovo-Metohija province, has been practically >smashed up and put out of commission, according to its editor-in-chief on >Monday. Before dawn on Monday, the international force KFor stormed the town >of Zvecan, not far from the Serbian (Yugoslav) province's chief city of >Pristina, and seized the Trepca lead smelting plant, smashing up the radio >station in the process. "The way the operation was carried out was far worse >and arrogant than the behaviour of the Nazis when they seized Trepca in 1941," >Radio S Editor-in-Chief Radovan Gligovic told TANJUG. Gligovic said Radio S >was broken into by more than 50 Jordanian KFor special troops at 6:35 a.m. >(0435 GMT) local time. "In the face of their loaded and cocked rifles, we had >to evacuate the premises, because our lives were in dire jeopardy", he said. >According to him, the Jordanian troops thoroughly smashed the station, putting >both the high-voltage and the low-voltage equipment out of commission, and >taking away a vital part of the transmitter. He added that other >privately-owned radio stations in the Kosovska Mitrovica area, broadcasting >music for the most part, were spared. Most radio stations in Kosovo-Metohija >are controlled by the U.N. civilian mission (UNMIK) and solely re-broadcast >programmes that promote NATO, such as Deutsche Welle, the Voice of America and >Radio Free Europe. Radio S has been destroyed because it broadcast its own >news programmes and was the only media house in the area that carried news >from Yugoslavia and its republic of Serbia. > >OSCE DENIES KOSOVO-METOHIJA SERBS RIGHT TO INFORMATION - OFFICIAL KOSOVSKA >MITROVICA, Serbia, Aug 13 (Tanjug) - A Kosovo-Metohija Provisional Executive >Council official on Sunday expressed profound indignation at the Organisation >for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ordering a local >Serbian-language radio closed. OSCE transitional media commissioner Simon >Haffelack has issued a closure order to the Serbian-language Radio S, >broadcasting out of Zvecan, over a licence problem. "I express the most >profound indignation at the brutal and flagrant denial of the right to work to >Serbian-language media in Kosovo-Metohija", the Council's Secretary for >Information Milorad Vujovic told TANJUG. Before the closure of Radio S, the >Serbian-language Jedinstvo newspaper was expelled from the Press Hall in >Kosovo-Metohija's chief city of Pristina, and Pristina Radio and Television >was shut down, Vujovic said. This is another unacceptable move giving >ultimatums to electronic media to stop work, according to Vujovic, who is also >vice chairman of the information sub-committee of the Yugoslav committee >liaising with the U.N. Kosovo-Metohija mission (UNMIK). "This denies the right >to information to the Serb community, which is already daily exposed to brazen >pressure and persecution at the hands of ethnic Albanian terrorists", he said. >He went on to add that "Mr Haffelack alone knows by what criteria he was >motivated in taking this drastic measure". > >KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - TERRORISM TWO SERB YOUTHS ABDUCTED IN EAST >KOSOVO-METOHIJA KOSOVSKA KAMENICA, Serbia, Aug 13 (Tanjug) - Two Serb youths >were abducted in an ethnic Albanian village in the east of U.N.-ruled >Kosovo-Metohija on Saturday, the Kosovska Kamenica Protection and Human Rights >Committee and amateur radio operators said on Sunday. The two, Goran Stankovic >(aged 19) from the village of Domorovce near Kosovska Kamenica and his cousin >Zoran Tomic (26), disappeared from a petrol station in the ethnic Albanian >village of Odanovce, where they had tried to buy petrol for their tractor. On >receiving the report of their disappearance on Saturday, about 500 Serbs from >Domorovce and the neighbouring village of Korminjane blocked the local >Domorovce-Ogoste road in protest. The blockade is continuing, and the Serbian >National Assembly for Kosovska Kamenica held an emergency meeting on Sunday, >demanding that the international force KFor and the U.N. mission UNMIK take >firm action to trace the missing, amateur radio operators said. The U.S. and >Russian KFor battalions, deployed in the area, have been asked to trace and >effect the release of the abducted Serbs and to prosecute the kidnappers, the >reports said. Early on Sunday, Russian and U.S. KFor troops searching for the >missing Serbs blocked the Gnjilane-Bujanovac and Kosovska Kamenica- Bujanovac >roads at the locality of Bela Zemlja, where they have a checkpoint. Families >of the missing Serbs and KFor troops late on Saturday interviewed Avni Mornia >of Odanovce, the ethnic Albanian owner of the petrol station where the youths >and their tractor were last seen. However, the petrol station workers were not >willing to cooperate with KFor investigators, the Protection and Human Rights >Committee in Kosovska Kamenica said. > >SERB CEMETERY IN KOSOVSKA MITROVICA VANDALISED KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Serbia, Aug >13 (Tanjug) - Serbs from north Kosovska Mitrovica who, escorted by >international force KFor troops, visited the Serb cemetery in the south, >ethnic Albanian part of the divided city on Sunday, found more than 500 >headstones smashed. Indignant at the vandalism by ethnic Albanian extremists, >the Serbs strongly protested with KFor for not keeping its promise to protect >the cemetery in the south part of the U.N.-run city, where there have been no >Serbs since KFor's deployment last summer. Sunday's visit to the cemetery in >the south part of Kosovska Mitrovica by Serbs from the north part of the city >in the Serbian (Yugoslav) U.N.-administered Kosovo-Metohija province was the >first since June 17, when 200 headstones were found smashed. __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
