[Via... http://www.egroups.com/group/Communist-Internet ] . . ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2001 3:40 PM Subject: NATO Stabilizes The Balkans: Southern Serbia [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Get greater financial power with NextCard(r)Visa(r) Transfer balances to an APR as low as 2.99% Intro or 9.99% Ongoing. 24-hour online account management and Rewards Points for every dollar you spend. APPLY NOW! http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/NextCard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- May 15, 2001 Serbian Troops Clash With Rebels by ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC Associated Press Writer ORAOVICA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Backed by tanks, Yugoslav army and Serbian police units clashed Tuesday with ethnic Albanian rebels in house-to-house fighting as they pressed their bid to retake a southern village seized by the insurgents. A rebel spokesman who goes by the name of Commander Profi put the guerrilla death toll at five in Oraovica, which lies just outside a volatile buffer zone that separates Kosovo from the rest of southern Serbia. He claimed that rebel positions had not changed since Monday, but reporters at the scene saw several destroyed rebel bunkers containing abandoned assault rifles, ammunition and bloodied uniforms. Machine-gun fire echoed through the village Tuesday as the government troops slowly advanced toward a section of the town still in rebel hands. A Serbian tank fired at a bunker, sending sand bags flying into the air. At least one Serbian policeman was injured. Several houses were destroyed, and thousands of civilians -- most of Oraovica's population -- fled to neighboring Presevo. The shooting subsided shortly before noon, and government forces offered to hold their fire until 3 p.m. to give the rebels a chance to leave. Gen. Ninoslav Krstic, commander of the Serb-led troops, offered rebels amnesty from prosecution for those who surrendered, but warned that if they don't, ''We'll have to continue with our action.'' Shortly after the deadline expired, heavy machine-gun exchanges resumed, indicating that the rebels ignored his offer. The leader of Oraovica's ethnic Albanian community, Raif Mustafa, said there were no signs the rebels would surrender. Already, more than a thousand ethnic Albanians have fled to Kosovo since Monday, the U.N. refugee agency said in Geneva. But ''some civilians had no time to leave the village as everything happened so suddenly,'' Mustafa said. ''The situation is tense -- people are in cellars, including women and children.'' The clashes, which began Saturday and intensified Sunday, were the most violent in southern Serbia in weeks. There are fears of further violence now that NATO is allowing the Yugoslav army to move into the final fifth of the 3-mile-wide buffer zone starting May 24. The Yugoslav army has already entered 80 percent of the zone, but the remaining portion along Kosovo's eastern boundary is by far the most sensitive. The buffer zone was established after NATO's 1999 bombing campaign to separate Yugoslav troops forced out of Kosovo and international peacekeepers who took control of the province. Serb and Yugoslav security units were originally barred from the zone, allowing ethnic Albanian militants to start using it as a safe haven. NATO began allowing government troops back in earlier this year. The rebels seized Oraovica, while lies just outside the buffer zone, over the weekend in an operation Serb officials called an attempt to prevent Yugoslav forces from moving into the final part of the buffer zone. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
