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April 30
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY one
of the bombs destroyed a TV tower on Mount Avala depriving the official
Serbian television of the opportunity to continue broadcasting.
- A committee has been set up in
Kosovo on the return of Serbs who have left the region because of persecution
by ethnic Albanians. The Russian news agency Novosty reports that the committee
is led by the spiritual leader of Serbs in Kosovo, Father Artemy, the head
of the UN civilian administration, Bernard Coushner, the commander of the
international security force, KFOR, the Spanish General, Juan Ortunie,
and the representative of the UN High Commissioner for refugees, Denis
Macnamara. The committee will co-ordinate its actions with the European
Security organization the OSCE, the European Union, and other international
organizations. Nearly 250 thousand Serbs have left Kosovo since last summer
when KFOR was deployed in the region.
April 29
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY NATO
continued to deliver airstrikes on Yugoslavia, with one missile flying
to the fringes of the Bulgarian capital Sofia and destroying a block of
flats.
- A delegation of the United Nations
Security Council to Kosovo has voiced concern about the degree of security
in the province. On Friday the delegation visited the town of Kosovska-Mitrovica.
One of the mission leaders - Russia's ambassador to the United Nations
Sergey Lavrov pointed out that the U. N. resolution on Kosovo was not being
carried out in full. He stressed, in particular, that the ethnic minorities
in Kosovo were persecuted by the Albanian majority.
- On April 29th, 1999 NATO aircraft
destroyed a bridge across the Sava River in Belgrade. A woman died in a
bombing raid in Podgorica. Also on that day a NATO missile hit and destroyed
a home in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, but fortunately no one was injured.
The NATO command said that was a technical error and gave the same reason
for what happened in the Serbian town Surdulica, where 20 people died,
including 12 children, in an air raid on April 27th. Hundreds of homes
as well as hospitals and school buildings were wiped out or damaged in
Surdulica.
April 28
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY a NATO
missile hitting a residential area the southern Serbian town of Surdulica
destroyed 50 houses and damaged around 600, killing at least two dozen
people.
- Russia is ready to resume cooperation
with NATO suspended last year over its aggression against Yugoslavia, on
conditions of equality. This was reported by ITAR-TASS quoting a high-ranking
Defense Ministry official, General Leonid Ivashov. He said prospects for
resuming relations would be discussed by chiefs of staff at a meeting of
the Russia-NATO Standing Committee in Brussels on May 10. The problem of
Kosovo is expected to dominate the agenda. The sides will exchange opinions
about NATO's and Russia's new military doctrines and will issues concerning
European security.
- The Yugoslav news agency TANJUG
reports that international terrorist Osama bin Laden has moved from Afghanistan
to Kosovo. Earlier he formed a group of 500 Albanians for terrorist acts
in Kosovo and southern Serbia. According to the agency, Kosovo is turning
into a seat-bed of terrorism in Europe. Other reports claim that bin Laden
threatens to stage subversive acts during the Summer Olympics in Sidney.
Local intelligence sources say some of his accomplices are already in Australia
preparing the forthcoming attacks.
- A delegation of the UN Security
Council has arrived in Kosovo. It intends to study how the UN resolution
for Kosovo is carried out. The delegation is headed by the ambassadors
of Russia and China to the United Nations. The two countries express concern
over acts of violence by Albanians regarding the Serbs and other national
minorities. Most of the Serbian community has left Kosovo as well as the
entire Croatian community and almost all of the gypsies. Violence goes
on while NATO forces doing nothing to prevent it, and that applies first
of all to the American peacekeepers.
- On the night of April 27th 1999,
12 children were killed in an air raid on a small town of Surdulica in
the south of Serbia, which had no military facilities. Bombs were dropped
and missiles fired at residential quarters. About 50 houses were raised
to the ground and 600 damaged. An air alarm was sounded in Belgrade that
night. As a result of the raid, windows were shattered in hundreds of houses
in the outskirts of the capital. However, nothing was reported about casualties.
Since the sir strikes on Kosovo began on March 24th some five thousand
civilians were killed. Yugoslavia's air defenses downed about 50 NATO planes,
and a hundred cruise missiles.
April 27
- The world's most-wanted international
terrorist, Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden has moved from Afghanistan
to Kosovo accompanied by his close aide Abu Hasan. Yugoslavia's news agency
Tanjug reported on Thursday that before arriving in Kosovo, bin Laden formed
a 500-strong gang of Islamic fighter he is apparently going to use to trigger
a war against the Kosovo Serbs and stage cross-border attacks on Serbia.
- Exactly a year ago, NATO warplanes
struck radio and television aerials on the roof of the Belgrade offices
of Yugoslavia's ruling Socialist Party. The attack was all the more cynical
because it came shortly after the burial of 16 staffers of the city's TV
center all killed during a similar bombing raid on April 23. On April 27
US and British war jets also rained bombs and rockets on peaceful installations
just outside Kosovo's administrative capital, Pristina.
- The dead body has been found of
a Russian member of the Kosovo peacekeeping contingent. A KFOR spokesman
says an investigation has opened into the circumstances of his death. A
man of Albanian descent shot and wounded another Russian peacekeeper in
the city of Srbitsa, in Kosovo, on the 1st of last month. The wounded peacekeeper
died at hospital. The Albanian was arrested, but fled, some time later.
Moscow has more than once requested the United Nations Security Council
to move to make sure its resolutions on law and order in Kosovo are obeyed
in that province.
- Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
has thanked Russia for its support of the Yugoslav reconstruction effort
and its efforts to insure the implementation of the Security Council resolution
on Kosovo. President Milosevic and Russian Ambassador to the United Nations
Sergey Lavrov met in Belgrade Wednesday to discuss the latest developments
and the UN plans to call elections in Kosovo. In Lavrov's view, elections
will contribute to the efforts for a Kosovo accommodation if the UN mission
insures the safety of the non-Albanian residents of that province.
April 26
- On April 26th, one year ago, NATO
planes bombed the suburbs of Pristina in Kosovo. A fuel dump was destroyed
in Valevo, in Central Serbia. NATO planes also hit at an airport in Sambor
on the Yugoslav-Hungarian border. And in Belgrade, the same day, the funeral
took place of the staff workers of Belgrade's TV center which came under
a missile attack of NATO planes on April 23rd. Tht Human rights organization
" International Amnesty" qualified the raid as an encroachment
on the freedom of speech.
April 25
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY NATO
forces again launched massive attacks on the second largest city of Yugoslavia,
Novi-Sad. On the same day the human rights organization, Amnesty International,
demanded that NATO should explain why its planes attacked the state television
center in Belgrade. It described the attack as an infringement on the freedom
of speech.
- Several Serb-owned houses were
damaged when a powerful bomb planted by Albanian separatists went off at
the eastern Kosovo town of Vitina earlier in the day. No one was injured
in the blast. The local Albanians seem all set to force out all the Serbs
still living in the town. More than 250,000 Serbs have fled Albanian reprisals
since the NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers entered the region last summer.
- Thirty Serbs who continue their
hunger strike in a prison in the city of Kosovska-Mitrovica have demanded
that they should be tried by an unbiased court without delay. The doctors
who examined them on Monday said that their condition was serious. The
Serbs protesting against their detention without trial on suspicion of
breaking a law, started the hunger strike two weeks ago when some Albanians
arrested together with them were released.
April 24
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY the
rockets struck the Interior Ministry office in Belgrade.
- And now here is our daily chronicle
of last year's NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. On the night of April,
the 24th, NATO subjected to rocket attacks the second and the third largest
cities of Yugoslavia - Novi Sad in the north and Nis in the south. The
Yugoslav authorities reported that within a month of air strikes the total
power of bombs and missiles dropped on the country exceeded by 6 times
the power of atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
- The second part of a "White
Paper", - a collection of documentary evidence of NATO's crimes against
Yugoslavia,- is discussed in the state Duma - the lower house of the Russian
Parliament, -today. Comments on the evidence will be offered by the deputy
Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Avdeyev, Russian Defence Ministry officials
and Yugoslavia's ambassador to Russia Borislav Milosevic. Thousands of
civilians died in the NATO air attacks on Yugoslavia. According to Belgrade's
estimates, the damage done to the national economy has exceeded 100 billion
dollars.
- On April 24th, one year ago, NATO
aircraft fired missiles at targets in Yugoslavia's second- and third-largest
cities, - Novi-Sad is the North of the country, and Nish - in the South
of Yugoslavia. Later in the day missiles were fired at the Belgrade Department
of Internal Affairs. According to the Yugoslav authorities, the overall
power of bombs and missiles, dropped on and fired at targets in Yugoslavia
over the month of the air war, was six times as great as that of the A-bomb
dropped on Hiroshima.
April 23
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY American
and British warplanes hit at the state-owned TV center situated in the
heart of Belgrade. There were also missile attacks on re-transmission stations
in many other cities. Attacks on the news media facilities are a crude
violation of the international convention on the rules of warfare. Russia's
Journalists Union described the NATO raids as an act of vandalism aimed
at concealing the truth about what was going on in Yugoslavia. Russia's
television and radio helped materially in restoring what was destroyed
in Yugoslavia.
April 22
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY airstrikes
hit a military airport and the near-by town Batajnica, some 20 kilometers
from the capital.
- The use of depleted uranium bombs
against Yugoslavia last year resulted in a hazardous contamination of the
Environment. A Yugoslav Defence Ministry report, made public in Belgrade,
lists 8 areas with high levels of radiation. In Serbia these are the towns
Presevo, Bujanovic and Vranje, while in Kosovo a contaminated strip is
stretching from the city Pec to Prizren, in the South-West of the province.
Nadja Sljapic as the Yugoslav Minister for Science and the Environment
commented on the report. She said that the NATO aggression would go down
in history as an example of unheard-of cruelty in dealing with people.
- On April 22nd, one year ago, US
aircraft heavily bombed Belgrade and the city suburbs. In all some 20 missiles
were fired at targets in the city. Several buildings were destroyed in
the small tows of Batajnica, near Belgrade, a town with no military facilities.
Earlier a three-year girl was killed in an air attack on Batajnica. By
April 22nd last year NATO planes had flown 6,000 sorties, dropped 5,000
bombs on and fired 1,500 cruise missiles at Yugoslav towns and villages.
Yugoslav antiaircraft defences had shot down 2 NATO planes near the city
Kragujevac, South of Belgrade. In all by April 22nd 1999 NATO had lost
some 50 planes.
April 21
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY NATO
representatives have confirmed that the alliance's forces had been using
bombs and rockets with cores of depleted uranium to strike targets in Yugoslavia.
- A special UN representative for
Human Rights in former Yugoslavia Jiri Dinstbir has accused the NATO countries
of violating the resolutions of the UN Security Council. According to them,
Kosovo is to have a broad autonomy within Yugoslavia. Irji Dinstbir said
in Prague on Thursday that the NATO contingent in the province is unable
to put an end to the persecution of the Serbs by the Albanians. And he
added that responsibility for ethnic cleansing in Kosovo lies first of
all with NATO.
- On April 21st, one year ago, NATO
warplanes destroyed in Novi-Sad the last bridge across the Danube, linking
the capital of Vojvodina with other parts of the country. In Belgrade a
strike was hit at the headquarters of the ruling socialist party. The editorial
offices of the TV and radio companies and the offices of different firms
were also housed there. That day representatives of NATO confirmed that
in bombing raids they use shells with a low-graded uranium filling which
causes radiation pollution of the environment.
April 20
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY In
Nish one person was killed and 10 others wounded when missiles hit a residential
quarter.
- The OSCE mission in Kosovo is taking
a census of the people living in the east of this Yugoslav province and,
beginning next week, special registration bureaus will be working throughout
the region. The census will take until July 15 and the Kosovans will all
be issued personal IDs. The Yugoslav authorities oppose the OSCE decision
to issue ID cards before the refugee problem has been solved. Meanwhile,
not a single Serb living in Kosovo has so far been willing to take part
in the census.
- The chairman of the United Nations
Security Council has announced at the UN headquarters in New-York that
Security Council emissaries will visit the Serbian province of Kosovo on
the 28th and 29th of this month. Russian Ambassador to the United Nations
Sergey Lavrov has, in an interview with the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS,
explained the need for a visit to Kosovo by the deterioration of the situation
on that province and southern Serbia proper. Lavrov blames the mounting
tension on moves by separatist-oriented elements of Albanian background.
The international community ought, in Lavrov's view, show serious concern
about these moves.
- Belgrade, Nish in southern Serbia
and the administrative capital Pristina of Kosovo came under the fiercest
NATO attacks a year ago today. NATO missiles hit a residential area of
Nish leaving one man dead and about a dozen wounded. A tobacco factory
was destroyed. A civilian communications center suffered damages 130 kilometers
south of Belgrade. Yuigoslav experts accused the North Atlantic Alliance
of charging its missiles with depleted uranium which has killing potential
and is to blame for radioactive contamination of the environment.
April 19
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY NATO
hardest hit were the administrative center of Kosovo - Pristina and Yugoslavia's
second largest city of Novi Sad on the Danube. One missile hit the building
of a local government which is known to be a historical monument.
- 30 Serbs continue a weeklong hunger
strike against their illegal arrest and detention in prison in the city
of Kosovska-Mitrovica. The TANJUG news agency says the Serbs were placed
behind bars ten months ago without any charges being made against them.
The detainees demand that they should either be tried or set free. They
expressed indignation over the fact that the Albanians who were taken into
custody simultaneously with them had left the prison on ruling by an Albanian
judge appointed by the U. N. mission.
- Russia's foreign minister Igor
lvanov today receive a delegation of the Kosovo Serbs headed by the Bishop
of the Serbian Orthodox Church Artemi and leader of the Serbian resistance
movement Momohilo Traykovic. They will discuss the difficult situation
in Kosovo, including the problem of the return of 250.000 Serbian refugees.
Bishop Artemi and Momohilo Traykovio are the leaders of the Serbian National
Assembly of Kosovo the aim of which is to protect the interests of 100.00
Serbs remaining in the province.
April 18
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY the
British Prime-Minister Tony Blaire has said again that NATO had no intention
launch a ground operation in Kosovo.
- The UN mission in Kosovo has asked
NATO to come up with details about the use of ammunition with elements
of depleted uranium during last year's raids on Yugoslav targets in that
southern Serbian province. Structural components of depleted uranium increase
the piercing capability of rocket and bombs. According to NATO sources,
over 30 thousand of such bombs and rockets were used. They contained at
least 10 tonnes of depleted uranium. The material is highly toxic and weakly
radioactive. Environmental experts say they have already detected pockets
of higher than normal radioactivity in Kosovo.
- On Monday one of the former leaders
of the Kosovo Liberation Army Besin Mala was shot dead and another person
was seriously injured in the center of Pristina. Lately, Mala commanded
a rapid reaction battalion on the Kosovo protection corps, which was established
transforming the KLA violating the United Nations resolution.
- On the 18th of April 1999 American
and British planes continued their attacks on economic installations in
Yugoslavia rather than military facilities as affirmed. Among the destroyed
installations were an oil refinery and the chemical factories in Belgrade
and Novy-sad. Toxic fumes spread over many houses in the capital. In the
city of Novy-sad on the river Danube poisonous chemicals leaked into the
river. Even the western news media admitted that there were casualties
among civilians. On the day the Spanish Counter-Admiral, Ankhel Teleo Valero
said that the war against Yugoslavia had failed to meet its objectives
and only the unfortunate civil population had suffered. He was the first
senior officer from a NATO country to sharply criticize air raids.
April 17
- The leaders of the Kosovo and Metohiya
Serb organisations under the top hierarch of the Orthodox Church in Kosovo
Artemiy are due to arrive in Moscow later today. During their meetings
in Moscow the Kosovo Serb representatives plan to brief the Russian public
on the situation in the Serbian province. Due to terrorist action by Albanian
extremists with the connivance of the NATO peacekeepers 250,000 Serbs have
been expelled from Kosovo and about a thousand Serbs have been killed or
taken hostage by Albanian terrorists.
- On April 17th 1999 NATO cruise
missiles wiped out an industrial production facility in the city Valevo,
80 kilometers South West of Belgrade. 7,000 people were left jobless as
a result. A 3-year old girl died in an air attack in the city Batajnica.
Massive strikes were delivered at the town Uzice, in Southern Serbia, and
at the Kosovo administrative c enter Pristina, which was hit by 25 NATO
missiles.
April 16
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY three
NATO rockets exploded in the camp of refugees who fled from Croatia and
Bosnia during the previous armed conflict in former Yugoslavia.
- One year ago, on the 16th of April
1999 NATO forces bombed oil refineries and fuel depots in the cities of
Novi Sad, Poduyevo and Subotica. In spite of air-raid warning thousands
of people in Belgrade remained on the bridges acres the Denube and the
Sava trying to defend the bridges. A cruise missile fell and exploded near
the village of Ribnica in South Serbia seriously wounding a man and a woman
working in a field. One year ago NATO commanders asked the United States
to send 300 more aircraft to intensify the air strikes on Yugoslavia.
April 15
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY NATO
has actually accepted responsibility for the death of 75 Albanians killed
is an air attack against two columns of refugees in South of Kosovo on
April 14.
- President Boris Traikovsky of Macedonia
has approached the American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright with
a request to strengthen control of the KFOR peacekeeping force on Macedonia's
border with Kosovo. According to the presidential press service, Mr. Traikovksy
also asked for help in fighting terrorist gangs without specifying which.
Albanian extremists have intensified their campaign of violence in the
area.
April 14
- ONE YEAR AGO ON THIS DAY a rocket
severely damaged a hydroelectric power plant in Novy-Varos 200 kilometers
southwest of Belgrade effectively cutting off electricity supplies to local
hospitals, schools and nursery homes.
- Russia has again confirmed its
sharp condemnation of NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia last year. It
spoke out for solving the Kosovo problem on the basis of the UN resolution
which provides for keeping the territorial integrity of the country. This
stand was outlined by Russia's ambassador in Belgrade when presenting his
credentials to Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday. Slobodan
Milosevic, on his part, said Yugoslavia attributes great importance to
cooperation with Russia and to the joint struggle for peace and stability
in the world, for the freedom and independence of all countries and people.
- And now, a recollection of some
of the events of NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia. On April 14th of
last year NATO warplanes hit several strikes at a group of Kosovo Albanians
fleeing from bombing raids. That was near the city of Prizren, 64 persons
were killed and 20 wounded. And as always in such cases, NATO propaganda
men presented a false picture of that had happened. They said that strikes
were hit at military vehicles moving at the head and tail of the group.
As for the Albanians they were shot dead allegedly by Serbian policemen.
The same day NATO planes carried out an intensive bombing of an electric
station on the Bistrica river and the railway bridge on the way to Belgrade
in the city of Bar. Strikes were hit likewise at the city of Novi-Sad and
the administrative center of the Kosovo province of Serbia - Pristina.
Cruise missiles were fired at the Krushik factory in Valevo.
April 13
- One year ago on this day, on
April 16, 1999 three NATO rockets exploded in the camp of refugees who
fled from Croatia and Bosnia during the previous armed conflict in former
Yugoslavia.
- The Russian-NATO Council met at
the ambassadors level Wednesday in Brussels to discuss concerted moves
at the Balkans, and moves to meet the United Nations Security Council resolution
on Kosovo. It stressed the need for concerted moves in an effort to protect
the interests of the ethnic minorities of Kosovo. And, it confirmed the
tendency for the normalization of relations between the North Atlantic
Alliance and Russia. Relations were all but broken off in the course of
the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia.
- And now, a backward glance at the
NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. An oil refinery in the city of Pancevo
again came under bombing a year ago today. As many as 500 NATO planes were
making daily raids on Yugoslavia, with half of their bombs falling on Kosovo.
As many as 39 planes and more than a hundred missiles had, by that time,
been downed in Yugoslavia. A growing number of provocational moves had
been reported on the Albania-Yugoslavia border, and a paratroopers team
of British armymen had started directing the bombers to targets in Kosovo.
April 12
- One year ago, on April 12, 1999
at least two people were killed and dozens received serious wounds after
the NATO missile had hit the passenger train that was on its way from Belgrade
to Ristovats in Serbia's south.
- The damage inflicted by NATO's
aggression against Yugoslavia totals tens of billions of dollars. According
to the Yugoslav department of statistics, most damage was sustained by
the steel, petrochemical, energy and transport industries and electronic
media. 2 thousand civilians were killed and 5 thousand wounded.
- The total damage done by NATO aggression
against Yugoslavia amounts to tens of billions of dollars. This is said
in official reports of Yugoslavia's department of statistics published
in Belgrade on Tuesday. In the course of the war the biggest damage was
done to the metallurgical industry, petro-chemistry energy, transport and
electronic mass media means. Two thousand civilians were killed and five
thousand wounded.
- On April 12, 1999, American planes
bombed a passenger train running on the Belgrade-Saloniki line. That was
near the town of Leskovac in the south of Serbia. 10 passengers were killed
and 16 injured. The NATO command tried once again to explain the bombing
by a technical error. And in Panjevo and Novi-Sad the NATO planes bombed
oil refineries.
April 11
- A representative from the Kosovo
Serbs has turned up at a session of the interim regional assembly for the
first time in six months. He was present as an observer. The Serbs walked
out of the Assembly last September in protest against a violent campaign
of anti-Serb cleansing unleashed by ethnic Albanian gangs. Their leader
Momcilo Traikovic is now quoted as saying that any prolonged absence from
the Assembly is likely to damage the interests of the Serb community in
Kosovo.
- Exactly a year ago, in the early
hours of April 11th, NATO planes rained several dozen missiles and cluster
bombs on the village of Merdar near the city of Kurshumlia in Yugoslavia.
5 civilians were killed in the attack. A school was destroyed in the village
of Samaila near the city of Kralevo. Yugoslav television reported a NATO
plane shot down near the city of Sambor. NATO denied any losses.
April 10
- On April 10th, 1999, NATO aircraft-in
the framework of the alliance`s aggressive war against the Balkan country
- bombed and fired missiles at targets in more than 50 Yugoslav cities.
35 industrial production facilities, 4 civil airports and 10 bridges were
destroyed in the course of the attacks. To toughen the military operation
the United States decided to send another 82 aircraft to the theatre of
operations to bring their total number to 680. Half of the NATO air strikes
were delivered at targets in Kosovo. The terrorist "Kosovo Liberation
Army" stepped up its armed provocations on the Kosovo-Albanian border.
April 8
- Yugoslavia has filed protest with
the NATO peacekeeping command over the brutal treatment of ethnic Serbs
in Kosovo. A corresponding letter to KFOR Commander General Reinhardt says
that atrocities against Serbs have intensified and look like deliberate
provocations. On Thursday one Serb was wounded near the province's capital
Pristina when a KFOR serviceman opened fire on a crowd of Serbs rallying
against the creation of local power bodies consisting entirely of Albanians.
On Friday doctors said that the man is in critical condition and that his
leg may be amputated.
- Last year, on April 8th 1999, the
NATO war machine for the first time used the sea-based "TOMAHAWK"
missiles in the course of its aggressive war against Yugoslavia. The missile
attack brought down an administrative building in central Belgrade. On
April 7th last year NATO aircraft fired missiles at a chemical factory
in the town Lucani, south of the Yugoslav capital, and continued its raids
on the cities Nis and Bor. Also on April 7th Yugoslav antiaircraft defenses
shot down an American reconnaissance plane. By that time NATO had bombed
and fired missiles at targets in 52 Yugoslav cities and destroyed 35 industrial
production facilities, 10 bridges and 4 airports. The number of American
bombers involved in the operation had reached 700, and 500 sorties were
flown every day.
April 7
- In Kosovo a Swedish serviceman
of KFOR has wounded a local serb Momchilo Sekulic in the village of Gracanica.
The incident took place during a manifestation held by the Serbs on Thursday
evening. They were protesting against the decision of the Serbian National
assembly to send Serb observers to temporary governing bodies in Kosovo
formed by the UN administrator Bernard Coushner. Other Serbian organizations
in the province have also come out against cooperating with " international
occupation forces" and the " Albanian terrorists" as they
called them.
April 6
- A leading member of the Yugoslav
opposition wants the Yugoslav army back in Kosovo again. Speaking at a
news conference in Moscow on Thursday, Vuk Draskovic described as a "crying
shame" for the international peacekeepers what has been happening
in the province since KFOR moved in ten months ago. Albanian extremists,
he said, keep persecuting the ethnic minorities in a region which is now
ruled supreme by illegal KLA structures and fending Albanian Mafia clans.
- Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
came out with far-reaching plans for the reconstruction of housing destroyed
by the NATO bombs. He said 10,000 housing units would be built within a
few years in Serbia. This, Milosevic said in Belgrade, would be Yugoslavia's
best answer to the aggressors.
April 5
- The residents of the Serbian community
in the south of Kosovo took up sticks when American servicemen from KFOR
with the support of tanks and armored vehicles broke into two villages
near the town of Shtopze, under the pretext of searching for weapons. NATO
peace-keepers fired rubber bullets into the crowd of farmers and tried
to set dogs against them. Having arrested one Serb, the American left.
A representative of the American contingent of KFOR said the solders were
bruised. She knows nothing about how many Serbian formers were injured
the clash.
- Non-enriched uranium used by the
United States in its ammunition during the Gulf war and the aggression
against Yugoslavia can be regarded as "a weapon of genocide".
Such is the option of representatives of some of the non-governmental organizations
that took part in a "round table" discussion at the Palace of
Nations in Geneva. The discussion has been timed with the session of the
UN Human Rights commission now going on in Geneva.
April 4
- Formally disbanded Albanian-dominated
the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army has managed to retain its strength.
Convincing evidence is the report of the International Group on Crises,
that was published in Vienna recently. It notes that some units of the
outlawed army with the former commanders at the head were included in the
newly established Kosovo Protection Corps. One of the KLA commanders, Hashim
Thaqi, has declared himself to be the Kosovo Premier, ignoring the fact
that Kosovo is home to Serbs and people of other nationalities as well.
- The West has launched a propaganda
campaign about the alleged plight of the Albanian nationals in the three
districts in southern Serbia. On Monday the western news media informed
that so called Political Council of Preshnevo-Buyanovats Community demanded
that the Serbian security forces were removed from the three districts.
This underground council was founded last month in the city of Gnilan,
participating military leader of the Kosovo Albanians Hashim Thaqi and
chief American representative in Kosovo Christopher Dell. Some time ago
the terrorists attacks carried out by the Kosovo Liberation Army led by
Hashim Tachi started the crisis that served a cause for NATO's intervention
in the province.
April 3
- The Commander of the International
Force in Kosovo German General Klaus Reinhardt has spoken highly of the
Russian peacekeepers' contribution to maintaining stability in the Serbian
province. He said that to journalists after visiting the area of the ongoing
KFOR military exercise in Northern Kosovo together with the Commander of
the Russian military contingent in the framework of KFOR Valery Yevtukhovich
on Sunday. The Russian military contingent is not part of the exercise
"Dynamic Breakthrough - 2000", so Yevtukhovich attended it as
an observer.
- A member of the Kosovo Provisional
Administrative Council Bairam Khaliti has said that the situation does
act allow for conducting a census and holding subsequent elections, because
of continuous acts of terror and ethnic cleanings against Serbs and other
non-Albanians in Kosovo. According to Mr.Khaliti, the plans to hold elections
amid terror and violence and with non-observance of conditions for 350,000
non-Albanian refugees to return to their home places are an attempt by
the United Nations mission to provide support for Albanian extremists'
separatist objectives.
April 2
- The Serbian newspaper Politika
has predicted the resignation of the head of the United Nations mission
in Kosovo - Bernard Koushner, in the next future. 0n Saturday the paper
indicated that for nine months he had failed to resolve any problem in
Kosovo. The paper quotes UN sources as saying there is discontent with
Mr Koushner's work in the UN mission. Politika says Mr Koushner hates Serbs.
Earlier French newspapers wrote the command of the KFOR international security
force in Kosovo was also dissatisfied with Mr Kousner's work. The KFOR
command rebukes him for supporting the ethnic Albanians contrary to the
interests of the Serbian population of Kosovo.
April 1
- The Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe has confirmed its intention to hold municipal elections
in Kosovo in October. A joint communique adopted in Vienna on Friday by
the foreign ministers of Austria, Norway and Rumania that form the leading
"troika" of the OSCE expresses hope that the registration of
voters would begin on April 17 and end before the end of July. There is
no question so far of the return of Serb refugees to Kosovo but the OSCE
is ready to pay special attention to their registration. Austria, Norway
and Rumania have called on Belgrade to cooperate in preparing and holding
the elections.
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