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January 31
- Iraq and Yugoslavia have agreed
to strengthen their trade and economic relations to counteract what is
termed the United States aggressive policy. This came in a statement following
their meeting in Baghdad on Sunday by the Iraqi Vice-President Takha Yasin
and Yugoslav Trade Minister Borislav Vukovic. According to the officials,
a stronger economic union of Iraq and Yugoslavia will help the two countries
to ease the effect of the consequences of the economic sanctions that have
caused suffering to the people of both Iraq and Yugoslavia. Belgrade is
basically interested in Iraqi oil deliveries, while Baghdad wants to buy
prime necessity goods from Yugoslavia.
January 30
- UN secretary general Kofi Annan
has said that after his visit to Moscow he learned more about Russia's
approach to the Chechen problem and better understood its scope. Kofi Annan
met with Russia's acting president Vladimir Putin and other leaders of
the country. At the Foreign ministry, the sides discussed also how the
UN operation is going on in Georgia and Tajikistan the peace talks on Nagorni
Karabah and the situation in Kosovo. The Russian side expressed serious
concern over the political settlement in Kosovo where big NATO forces are
stationed and where Alabanian terrorism continues to rein.
January 29
- Yugoslavia has demanded a removal
of the international anti-Yugoslav sanctions that have been in effect since
May last year. The high-ranking spokesman for the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry
Neboisa Vujovic has said the illegal oil and air communication embargo,
as well the other forms of pressure the West was bringing to bear on Belgrade,
ran counter to the interests of peace and stability in the region. The
sanctions were imposed at the height of the NATO aggressive war against
the Union Republic of Yugoslavia.
January 28
- UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
has admitted that violence on ethnic grounds continues in the Kosovo province,
despite international presence. In his report to the UN Security Council
on the activity of the international forces in Kosovo, he said that acts
of pressure and intimidation of the non-Albanian population in the province
show a high degree of professionalism and training. As an example he recalled
the mortar attack on Serbian villages in the Gnilan region conducted by
the Albanian property extremists in November of last year. The property
of the national minorities, vainly the Serbs continue to be plundered or
set on fire.
January 27
- The Prosecutor-General of the international
war crimes tribunal for Yugoslavia Carla del Ponte wants to go to Belgrade
for the purpose of gathering information on acts of violence committed
by Kosovo Liberation Army fighters against ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. She
hopes to meet with Serb refugees in Belgrade and is analyzing data on the
NATO bombings of Yugoslavia. She told the Belgrade-based independent news
agency BETA Wednesday that she would go public with her view of the matter
as soon as she finished studying all the materials at her disposal.
- United States Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright feels Kosovo is facing a serious crisis. Secretary Albright
holds the international community responsible for what is happening in
that province because the international community has, in her view, failed
to meet its pledge to finance the Kosovo reconstruction effort. Secretary
Albright said in Washington Wednesday that promises would not suffice in
an effort to rebuild the local power production system, restore public
order, hold elections and rebuild the destroyed economy. The North Atlantic
Alliance found money for the large-scale bombing of Yugoslavia.
January 25
- The European Union has not supported
a request of the Serbian opposition to partly lift the economic sanctions
against Yugoslavia. The head of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the
EU, Jaime Gama of Portugal, has said the ministers failed to reach a consensus
on the matter at the meeting in Brussels yesterday. Germany and France
supported the easing of sanctions imposed on Belgrade last year for counteracting
the military operation of NATO in Kosovo, Britain and the Netherlands were
against.
January 24
- The international force, formed
basically of NATO contingents, didn't stop Albanians' terror against Serbs.
According to the information published by the Yugoslav embassy in Moscow,
648 Serbs and Montenegrins were killed in Kosovo since June 12, when KFOR
entered Kosovo. 50,000 of Serbian houses were burn, about 80 churches and
monasteries set on fire, exploded or otherwise damaged, some of them being
built in 14th-16th centuries.
- Yugoslavia has accused NATO of
providing direct support for Albanian separatists and terrorists in the
Serbian province Kosovo. The support that manifests itself in the formation
of the so-called "Kosovo Protection Corps". The "Corps"
has been almost fully staffed with the ex-fighters of the Albanian "Kosovo
Liberation Army". An official ceremony to inaugurate the "Corps"
took place in Pristina on Friday and was attended by NATO officials. Belgrade
made a statement, circulated by the TANJUG news agency, to describe the
move as legalizing the "Liberation Army", which is guilty of
numerous massacres of Kosovo Serbs and which should be disbanded under
the relevant United Nations decisions.
January 23
- The proposal by the Prime Minister
of Bulgaria, Ivan Kostov, to ease the sanctions against Belgrade has not
been supported by his counterparts from other countries sharing the border
with Yugoslavia. An informal meeting of the heads of government of Albania,
Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, and Crotia has
ended in the Bulgarian resort of Hisar on Saturday. The European Union
foreign policy and security head Javier Solana and the deputy secretary-general
of NAT0 Sergjio Balanzino attended the meeting.
January 22
- The chairman of the Yugoslav-United
Nations Cooperation Committee Stanimir Vukichievich has accused the head
of the United Nations mission to Kosovo Bernard Couchner of pursuing a
policy of separating the province from Yugoslavia. The interview with Mr.Vukichievich
was carried by yesterday's edition of the Montenegrin newspaper "DAN".
According to the Yugoslav official, Mr.Couchner's policy runs counter to
the UN resolution on Kosovo and has fomented the separatist ambitions of
Albanian extremists and growth of violence in the province. According to
Vukichievich, Kosovo has been fled by some 250,000 Serbs and Montenegrins,
of whom 1,400 have been killed or kidnapped.
January 21
- The Yugoslav government demands
that the United Nations Security Council meet to stop the genocide of the
non-Albanian population of Kosovo. A spokesman for the Yugoslav foreign
ministry, Miroslav Miloshevic, has revealed in Belgrade that 350,000 people,
largely ethnic Serbs and Montenegrins, have, in the past 6 and a half months,
been forced to leave their home province of Kosovo. Ethnic Albanians have,
over the same period, committed 3686 terrorist acts, as a result of which
739 persons lost their lives and 611 people were wounded.
- The government of Yugoslavia has
demanded that the UN Security Council meet to take urgent measures to end
genocide towards the non-Albanian population in Kosovo. An official representative
of Yugoslavia's Foreign Minister Miroslav Milosevic said in Belgrade that
350.000 persons, mainly Serbs and Montenegro's were driven out of the province
since June of last year. In this period the Albanian extremists carried
out 3688 terrorists acts in which 739 persons were killed and 611 injured.
Besides 688 residents of Kosovo have been kidnapped or are reported missing.
The Foreign Minister representative accused KFOR and the UN mission in
the province of failing to carry out the Security Council resolution on
Kosovo and placed special responsibility for chaos and crime in the province
on UN administrator Bernard Coushner who has assumed all legislative, executive
and judicial power.
January 20
- Russia insists that the West should
put an end to political and economic isolation of Yugoslavia at an early
date. This has come in an interview with the ITAR-TASS News agency by the
Foreign Ministry official spokesman Alexander Yakovlev. He said the West's
sanctions failed to affect the Yugoslav leadership's policy, and the only
thing the sanctions did succeed in was inflicting suffering on the people.
- The Russian-NATO council has met
in Brussels to discuss the situation in Kosovo. The Russian and NATO representatives
exchanged views of joint moves in the context of the peacekeeping effort,
in Kosovo. They underlined their willingness for close cooperation in the
effort to protect the ethnic minorities of Kosovo. No sessions of the Russian-NATO
council took place while the North Atlantic Alliance was bombing Yugoslavia.
Their agenda is now limited, on request from Russia, to joint efforts in
the context of the Balkan peacekeeping operations.
January 19
- A group of armed terrorists that
crossed from Kosovo into the Buyanovaz region, in the south of Serbia,
attacked a police patrol on Tuesday. Fire was opened from assault rifles,
and grenade launchers. Several hand grenades were also thrown. This was
the 8th attack of the militants hiding in the Albanian villages on the
territory of the region in the past two month.
- Russia's deputy foreign minister
Alexander Avdeev has expressed support for Yugoslavia in its struggle for
independence and territorial integrity. In an interview on Tuesday for
Serbia's state-owned Tv and radio company -RTS- the diplomat described
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia last year as a challenge to the entire
world public order. He spoke categorically against the West imposing a
time-table for democratization in Yugoslavia, and also in Russia and countries
of Eastern Europe.
January 18
- US army sergeant 35-year-old Frank
Rony of the international contingent in Kosovo who raped and killed an
11-year-old Albanian girl has been transferred to an American military
jail in Germany. The report comes from the NBC television company with
reference to sources in the US command in Kosovo. The company says American
military fear that the crime may complicate the position of American peace-keepers
in Kosovo and worsen their relations with the local population.
January 14
- Elections to self-government bodies
in Kosovo can take place at best in September or October of this year,
provided the situation develops favorable and there is the consent of all
member-countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Such a statement was made in Vienna on Thursday by the chairmen of the
OSCE, Austria's Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schussel. He described the holding
of free and fair elections in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina alone priority
task of the OSCE this year.
January 13
- General Vladimir Lazarevic said
in the Serbian city of Leskovac Wednesday that as many as 2000 people,
half of them children, fell victim to the NATO bombing raids on Yugoslavia.
Lazarevic commanded a sizable unit of the Yugoslav army, in the course
of the 78-day standoff with the North Atlanlic Alliance. Official reports
put the army losses of that period at 500.
January 12
- A high-ranking official of the
United Nations who asked not to be named has admitted that belonging to
national minorities in Kosovo continues to be very dangerous. Speaking
to newsmen at the UN headquaters in New York he said the UN mission in
Kosovo is unable to ensure the safety of the non-Albanian population in
the province. One reason for that is the small number of international
policemen. According to Belgrade, tens of thousands people , mainly Serbs,
fled from violence of the Albanian extremists after the UN mission and
international forces arrived in Kosovo last June.
January 11
- Leaders of the Serbian opposition
parties meeting in Belgrade on Monday adopted a resolution calling on the
European Union, the United States, Russia and China to take immediate action
to implement the UN Security Council resolutions on Kosovo and take drastic
measures against terrorists and looters. The opposition demands a return
to Kosovo of all Serbs and other non-Albanians who left the province after
the arrival of the international peace-keepers and a self-rule government
for representatives of the non-Albanian communities. Opposition leaders
demand an immediate lifting of sanctions imposed against Yugoslavia.
January 10
- The Serbian National Vece, of Government,
of Kosovo came out with a strong condemnation of Albanian extremists following
the murder of a local Serb in the city Gnilane. Radoliub Gasic, 47, was
killed by pistol shots in the backyard of his home yesterday. The statement
also condemns the recent murder of two elderly Serbian women in Prisren
and other anti-Serbian attacks by Albanian extremists. All this proves
the Serbian National Vece points out in its statement, that Albanian extremists
continue their organized ethnic cleanings of Kosovo Serbs.
January 8
- The Austrian Foreign Minister Volfgang
Schussel has called for an early resumption of Yugoslavia's membership
in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. However, Mr.
Schussel, now holding the OSCE chairmanship, said in an interview with
a Belgrade daily that this cannot take place without what he called profound
democratization that would include free elections in Yugoslavia. Among
the OSCE's priorities in Kosovo Mr. Schussel mentioned local elections
and protection of human rights. About a final solution to the crisis he
said the process would be a lengthy one and would require tremendous caution
on the part of all responsible.
- One Serb is reported to have been
killed and four wounded in Kosovo in the past few days as a result of attacks
from Albanian extremists. The information comes from a UN spokeswoman in
Pristina. In her words, the 39-year old Serb was shot dead in Prizren on
Wednesday. Another one received a bullet wound when his car came under
fire in the city of Kosovo Pole. Three more were brutally beaten by Albanians
in Liplyan. 5 Albanians have been arrested. According to the TANUG news
agency, two Serb women were killed in the centre of Prizren on Friday as
they were hurrying to the church to attend a liturgy on the occasion of
Orthodox Christmas.
- The Chairman of the Executive Committee
of the Serbian National Vece, or Assembly, in the city Kosovska Mitrovica
Oliver Ivanovic has warned that Serbs will never accept an independent
Kosovo. He was speaking in a televised dispute with the leader of the Albanian
population of the city Bairam Rajipi on Friday. According to Ivanovic,
the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia would result in a war with grave
consequences for the entire Balkan region. The leader of the Kosovvska
Mitrovica Serbs accused the international community saying that their aid
in Kosovo was meant for Albanians only.
January 5
- Yugoslavia has presented to the
International Court in the Hague charges against 12 NATO countries that
took part in the aggression against it. In addition to charges of barbaric
bombing of the cities and villages resulting in casualties and huge destruction
- the document holds NATO responsible for genocide against the Serbian
and other non-Albanian population in Kosovo.
January 3
- French defense minister Allain
Richard has said that KFOR in Kosovo should be given police duties in order
to prevent interethnic violence and runaway lawlessness in that Serbian
province. He was speaking to journalists on Sunday during a visit to the
French contigent in Kosovo . Meantime, the Yugoslav TANyug news agency
says that Kosovo Albanians have again committed serious crimes by blowing
up 2 Serbian houses in Vitina, Southern Kosovo, as well as looting several
Serbian houses in the town of Gnilan.
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