-Caveat Lector-

>From Independent (UK)

War in the Balkans - Kosovars suffer new ethnic hatred

By Phil Davison in Blace



Azemi Elias thought the insults of Serb border police were the last
he would have to endure. A 32-year-old Kosovar Albanian car mechanic,
he had crossed into Macedonia with his wife and children, was
nibbling on some cheese in the border refugee camp in Blace and was
glad to be alive.

He had reckoned without the Macedonian police.

"Your papers!" shouted a police colonel who later refused to give me
his name but is known as Miki. Azemi's two sons, Buyar, five, and
Behan, three, cowered on the blanket where they were eating their
first decent food in days. They had heard that demand so many times
on their long trek to the border from their home in the Kosovo
village of Laskovari. They had also cowered in beneath the
floorboards of their house when Serbian paramilitary troops shot out
their windows and robbed their parents of everything they had.

"But I just gave them to you coming in, officer," said Azemi. "Show them again!" 
insisted the colonel. Azemi did. "And watch what you're saying to that reporter!" 
barked the colonel, fingering the Serb-made CZ-99 pistol i
n his holster.

Azemi had just told me that Serb police and paramilitary troops were forcing Kosovar 
Albanian men to live on sites - including schoolyards and hospital grounds - where 
they were hiding tanks, field guns and ammunition. A
short while later "Miki" and another officer hauled me off to the camp gates to check 
my identity.

Kosovar Albanians find no welcome in Blace. Their Macedonian neighbours, except for 
the ethnic Albanian minority, leave them in no doubt that they are unwanted. Historic 
tension between the majority Slavs and the ethnic A
lbanian Macedonians and the Kosovar Albanians is running higher than ever.

There is talk of yet another civil war in the former Yugoslavia, regardless of what 
happens in Kosovo. Slav Macedonians say their country's ethnic Albanians are 
well-armed. That did not worry them when they knew they coul
d rely on the federal Yugoslav army. Now, with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's 
men at least pinned down and, according to Nato, badly "degraded", Macedonia's Slavs 
are worried that the ethnic Albanians would have
the upper hand in a civil conflict.

The only thing the Macedonian government and police, supported by the
Slav majority, don't like about the Serb's "ethnic cleansing" of
Kosovar Albanians is the fact that many of the Serbs' victims have
ended up here. Macedonia wants them to move on as fast as
international humanitarian flights can pack them in.

"They stink. They don't wash. They don't abide by our laws," said my
Macedonian taxi driver, a Slav. "And they breed like rabbits. They're
all after a Greater Albania, including western Macedonia, even the
west bank of the Vardar river [through the capital, Skopje]." He was
not a Serb but, like the majority in Macedonia, left no doubt he
supported Mr Milosevic and opposed the Nato bombing. His keyring bore
the double eagle symbol of Serbia's hardline Chetnik nationalists and
their motto: "Only unity saves the Serbs."

He was proud that he and his fellow Skopje taxi drivers were going to
drive to Serbia tomorrow to donate their blood to victims of the
bombing. This, after all, is the city where the locals attacked the
US embassy after the Nato operation began.

On Saturday night, I had witnessed a street brawl in Skopje. It
started as a drunken fight between an ethnic Albanian and a Slav but
soon a dozen men were involved. Between kicks and blows, ethnic slurs
were exchanged. Locals said such scenes were happening nightly since
the refugee crisis began almost two months ago.



>From Irish Times
----------------------------------------------------------------------
UN humanitarian mission arrives in Belgrade
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kosovan refugees resume flight to Macedonia
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster bombs 'not serving human rights'
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Opinion: Alliance with big powers flies in the face of our anti-
colonial past
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, May 17, 1999

Politicians team up with
clubs to achieve goals
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Government's decision to boycott the June 5th match in Dublin
between Ireland and Yugoslavia is only the latest example of how,
when it comes to the Balkans, football and politics are hopelessly
intertwined.

Using the sport as your political football has brought dividends for
a whole generation of politicians across the post-communist Balkans.
Yugoslavia has escaped the ban from world football arising from the
war in Bosnia, but with visiting teams unhappy about dodging cruise
missiles, it will see its home matches for the 2000 European
championships played on neutral territory.

NATO's present bombing campaign came days before Yugoslavia was set
to redefine the term "crunch game" with an international fixture
against Croatia, less than five years after Croat and Yugoslav forces
fought each other on the battlefield.

Football has been in the vanguard of the Yugoslav wars, beginning
with vicious clashes between Croatian fans of Dynamo Zagreb and
Belgrade teams just prior to the Croat war of independence in 1991.

The Serb master of ethnic cleansing, Arkan, now an indicted war
criminal, cut his teeth as chairman of the fan club of Yugoslavia's
premier team, Red Star Belgrade. From the club he recruited his
private army, The Tigers, which "ethnically cleansed" their way
through Bosnia and are now working their same dark magic in Kosovo.

Arkan has meanwhile taken over a second club, Obilic, reinforcing the
link between politics and sport - Obilic was a Serb hero who in 1389
killed a Turkish sultan after a battle in - where else? - Kosovo.

The break-up of Yugoslavia has left many football commentators
wondering what might have been achieved had the country remained
united. Both Croatia and Yugoslavia did well in the last World Cup.
Together, they might have stood a chance of winning it.

Elsewhere in the Balkans, Albania earlier this month saw a local
derby with a difference when the main government team, Tirana FC,
beat the country's second club, Skodra Vllazni, whose chairman, Azem
Hajgari - also head of the opposition Democratic Party and a gun-
runner - was shot dead last autumn.

The last time many of Vllazi's supporters were in the capital, they
were with two tanks as the Democrats, belying their name, tried to
mount a coup d'etat. At the May 9th clash, Tirana won 1-0 and three
fans were hurt in more traditional (unarmed) hooliganism.

Another derby has meanwhile rocked Hungary, when Budapest rivals
Ferencvaros and MTK met last March. The Sports Minister, an MTK
supporter, Tamas Deutsch, has ordered Ferencvaros to hand over its
stadium to his ministry from the agriculture ministry, whose
minister, Jozsef Torgyan, just happens to be the Ferencvaros
president.

Not to be outdone, Torgyan strode at half time across the pitch into
the home side's stands, where a banner, obviously large, was unfurled
which read: "Deutsch stay with your little team - Ferencvaros will
never belong to the Ministry of Youth and Sports!"

But Deutsh has now crossed swords with FIFA, after sacking the head
of Hungary's Football Association, accused of corruption, and
replacing him with a Sports Ministry official.

FIFA says that breaks the rules which say all FAs must be
independent, but for now Hungary is hanging on - like many post-
communist countries, the government controls the levers of soccer.

Perhaps, as Bill Shankley, the late Liverpool manager, once observed,
football really is more important - at least to some - than life and
death.

A<>E<>R
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