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Novemver 8

  • Russia`s ambassador to the United Nations Sergei Lavrov has advocated the observance of Yugoslavia`s territorial integrity, part of which is the Kosovo Province. Speaking in Pristina yesterday before leaving for Belgrade he said that Moscow was rather critical about the on-going developments in the implementation of the resolution of the UN Security Council on Kosovo. That is why in October Russia, that was holding the chairmanship of the UN Security Council at that time, asked the head of the UN civilian mission in Kosovo Bernard Couchner to give an account of the work done. According to Sergei Lavrov, the Russian side believes that all the decisions, taken by the international administration in Kosovo, are running counter to the resolution of the UN Security Council.

November 5

  • The government of Yugoslavia has accused the international peacekeeping forces and the UN civilian mission in Kosovo of failing to protect the interests of the Serbs and citizens of non-Albanian nationality in the province. A memorandum sent to the Chairman of the UN Security Council and the Secretary general of the organization Kofi Annan demands abolishing the treaty on transforming the Kosovo Liberation Army into a Kosovo protection corps and bringing to account the leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army responsible for mass crimes and ethnic cleaning.
     
  • The European Union has called on the leaders of the Albanian community in Kosovo to condemn and end all acts of violence and intimidation. The statement circulated on Thursday by Finland, the current president of the European Union, condemns numerous attacks on national minorities.

November 4

  • NATO's new Secretary General George Robertson regards as "difficult but progressing" the alliance's current relations with Russia. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde on Thursday, he said that after the end of the Kosovo crisis Russia had rejoined the permanent council with NATO but was still not ready to go further. Mr. Robertson held out hope for a full restoration of relations between NATO and this country. Russia broke off all its links with the North Atlantic Alliance after the start of the allied military operation against Yugoslavia which was conducted in circumvention of the United Nations Organization and took a heavy human and economic toll on the Balkan republic. Russia's cooperation with NATO has since been limited to participation in the joint peacekeeping operation in Kosovo.

  • The Kosovo emissary of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Dan Everts has, in fact, admitted that a policy of ethnic cleansing is being carried out in Kosovo. The OSCE mission in Pristina has come out with a statement that speaks of an atmosphere of violence and a discriminatory attitude towards the non-Albanian minorities in Kosovo. It points out that Serbs and Gypsies are denied freedom of travel and have no access to health care, education, trade and social services. She OSCE mission condemns the all too frequent attempts to drive Serbs out of Kosovo and the numerous acts of violence and revenge-taking committed by ethnic Albanians.

November 3

  • The German government representative in Bosnia Hans Koshnik has demanded an immediate lifting of all sanctions against Yugoslavia imposed by the West during NATO's military campaign. In an interview with the Hamburg-based "Vohe" newspaper Mr.Koshnik said tough measures make no sense at the current stage. The demand has won support from the Deputy Chairman of the parliamentary fraction of the Social Democrats Gernot Erler who said that the Serbs must see for themsevles that they continue to be part of the European family.

  • Russia intends to use all legal and political methods to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. This was stated in the Lower House of Russia's parliament by first deputy foreign minister Alexander Avdeev. He stressed that Moscow doesn't close its eyes to the danger of Kosovo being separated from Yugoslavia and will press for compliance with the rules of conduct provided by International Law, as regards Yugoslavia.
  • The president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic announced on Tuesday that the first stage of restoring facilities destroyed by NATO bombing raids - has been completed successfully. Among the sites restored are 38 bridges, 6 schools, four hospitals and four electric power stations. Altogether work went on 121 sites. Damage done by NATO bombing of Yugoslavia is assessed at a sum of 20 billion dollars.

November 2

  • The British government will have to give an account to the national Parliament, providing explanations for its deliberate exaggeration of the number of victims in the conflict in the Serb Kosovo Province. These figures were given in an attempt to justify NATO's military operation against Yugoslavia. According to the ITAR-TASS news agency, the British Parliament will shortly hold an emergency session on that score. At the height of the bombings the British Foreign Office said that up to 100.000 Albanians had suffered as a result of the so-called ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. However, international experts, who excavated the mass graves in Kosovo, have said that there were hundreds rather than thousands of victims and that many of them were killed either in action or as a result of the NATO bombings. They have also said that in those parts of the country, where genocide was committed, as the NATO servicemen claimed, there were no victims at all.

November 1

  • The leader of the Kosovo Serbs Momcilo Trajkovic has been wounded in an assassination attempt by Albanian militants in Pristina. Speaking over the telephone from a Russian hospital in Kosovo Pole, where he was taken last night, he said that two Albanians armed with pistols burst into his apartment and opened fire. Two days earlier his apartment had been robbed. Out of about 30 Serb families that had lived in that house before, there remained only 3. The KFOR peacekeepers and the international police did nothing to protect the Kosovo Serbs and their leader who a week ago was elected Chairman of the Kosovo Serbian National Assembly Executive Committee.

  • Russia's permanent representative at the United Nations Sergey Lavrov has expressed concern about the continued attacks against civilians in the Serbian province Kosovo by Albanian extremists. Lavrov offered the details of an incident in the city Pec, - where a column of 150 Serbian refugee cars came under attack by a crowd of brutalized Albanians, who burnt down more than 10 cars. The Albanians were beating up the refugees, mostly women and children. Some 15 Serbs are reported to have been injured. All this, the Russian representative at the UN stressed, was going on before the eyes of the NATO peacekeepers, escorting the column.

October 30

  • The Yugoslav Prime-Minister, who's also Montenegro's former President, Momir Bulatovic has said that the Yugoslav authorities are prepared to take all measures possible to prevent Montenegro from separating itself from the rest of the country. He spoke at a ceremony in Belgrade yesterday to commission a bridge across the Danube that was destroyed by NATO bombing. Momir Bulatovic pointed out that most Montenegrins wished to remain in the Union Republic of Yugoslavia and denounced the separatist policy of the current Montenegro leaders. The Yugoslav Prime-Minister accused the Montenegro separatists of exploding a railway bridge connecting Montenegro with Serbia.

October 29

  • Since the deployment of the international forces, KFOR, the backbone of which is NATO contingents, in Kosovo in the middle of last June, it ceased to be a multinational province. Speaking at a news conference in Pristina the chairman of the provisional government Kosovo Zoran Angelkovic made this statement. He said, that during this period 320 thousand non-Albanians - Serbs, Montenegrins and Gypsies, had fled from the province fearing reprisals by the Albanian extremists.

  • The organization for security and cooperation in Europe has described as barbarous the attack on Serbian refugees in Kosovo by Albanian militants on Wednesday. The president of the OSCE Knut Vollebaek warned Albanian extremists against committing similar actions and stressed that everything would be done to put an end to them. In an attack on a column of refugees no less than 18 Serbs were wounded. The refugees under the protection of German and Dutch peacekeepers were heading from Orahovac in the direction of Montenegro and were attacked near the city of Pec.
     
  • Arms dealers criminal network which supplies the militants of the Kosovo Liberation Army with weapons has been uncovered by the police the Italian city of Triest. The police said the criminals operated on the territory of Italy, Switzerland, Albanian and Kosovo.

October 28

  • An estimated 330,000 Sebs and other etnic minorities have streamed out of Kosovo since the start of the international peacekeeping operation in mid-June. Over the same period about 4,000 felonies have been commited against non-Albanian residents and nearly 50,000 Serb-owned houses destroyed. Yugoslavia's minister on refugee affairs Bratislava Morina unveiled these figures when meeting with a visiting parliamentary delegation from Russia in Belgrade on Thursday. She streesed that the Western sanctions and NATO bombings had taken a very heavy social and humanitarian toll throught the country.
     
  • Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Wednesday in Paris, that what is being done in Kosovo leads, by and large, to the consolidation of the separatist positions. In Ivanov's view, the transformation of the separatist-oriented Kosovo Liberation Army into what is to be know as the Kosovo Protection Corps has, in fact, given a legal right to existence to the Kosovo Liberation Army.
     
  • Peacekeeper escorts failed on Wednesday to defend a Serb convoy from ethnic Albanians, in Kosovo. Armed Albanians assaulted a Serb convoy in the city of Pec. Four people were taken hostage, 15 vehicles were set on fire and 35 Serbs found refuge at a KFOR compound in that city.

October 27

  • The Serb opposition leader Zoran Djindjic has called on the West to cancel economic and political sanctions against Yugoslavia it imposed in 1992. In an interview with the Reuters news agency Mr.Djindjic said the sanctions had brought no more but suffering to the people of Yugoslavia. The opposition leader dismissed again the attempts taken by the West to secure the lifting of sanctions in exchange for the removal of President Milosevic.

  • Yugoslavia has protested against the opening of the Tirana-Pristina air route by the Albanian Air Lines. In a letter circulated in the United Nations on Tuesday, the government of Yugoslavia says that such an unprecedented act has been taken in the absence of diplomatic relations between Yugoslavia and Albania. What is equally disgusting is the ceremony held in Pristina which was attended by representative of the self-styled, unlawful institutions of the non-exiting republic of Kosovo.

October 26

  • The Commander-in-Chief of the Kosovo peacekeeping troops German General Klaus Reinhardt has said that neither the KFOR command, nor the UN mission in the province will allow Serbs to form a self-protection force. On Monday the local Serb leadership spelled out corresponding request, arguing that the KFOR and the UN mission had proved unable to protect the safety of Serbs. Earlier the KFOR command allowed the formation of a similar protection force by the Albanian separatist grouping of the Kosovo Liberation Army that was to be disbanded under an agreement with the KLA.

  • One of opposition leaders in Serbia, Zoran Djindjic on Monday met with the American special envoy for the Balkans James Dobbins, in Hungary. No details of the meeting are reported. But as Mr Djindjic said his request of lifting or easing the economic sanctions against Yugoslavia had been turned down. The Americans, do not intend to lift the sanctions if President Slobodan Milosevic is in power. The opposition in Serbia believes that the lifting of sanctions would raise its popularity and increase its chances at possible early general elections.

October 25

  • Representatives of the Kosovo Serbs have elected a Supreme National Council with Bishop Artemi at the head. The election gathering in Gracanica said on Monday the new body would press for the return of Serb refugees and represent the Serb community in contacts with the UN administration in Kosovo and the Kosovo Force. In a parallel development, the Kosovo Serbs have again asked the Kosovo Force for a permission to organize self-defense. They say they need it for protection against attacks by ethnic Albanian extremists whose vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing has forced 80 per cent of the Kosovo Serbs to flee Kosovo in the 4 and a half months since NATO waded in.

  • Kosovo Serbs have again filed a request with the International peacekeeping force command in Kosovo for allowing them to form their own defence units. At a meeting in Gracanica the Serbian community representatives suggested that the units should be subordinate to the KFOR command. The request is due to the fact that the NATO-created so-called "Kosovo Protection Corps" is made up of Albanians and therefore serves as a tool to fully oust Serbs from their home places. Last week the NATO command in Kosovo rejected the idea of Serbian self-defence. The ruling Serbian Socialist Party has urged the United Nations Security Council to interfere in the situation to stop the ongoing campaign of terror against Kosovo Serbs. The number of Kosovo Serbs has been decreased by 80% since NATO troops were deployed in the Yugoslav province and NATO-encouraged Albanian fighters of the "Kosovo Liberation Army" began to operate in Kosovo.

October 24

  • Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says this country remains strongly opposed to designs by ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo to carve the province out of Federal Yugoslavia. He was speaking before a seminar of representatives from countries in the Mediterranean in Palma de Mallorca today. An independent Kosovo would explode the Balkans, Mr. Ivanov warned. He also accused NATO of pursuing a policy towards Kosovo that is likely to create destabilization throughout southeastern Europe.

October 22

  • The Yugoslav authorities have banned foreign airlines to make passenger flights to the capital of Kosovo, Pristina, permitted by the U. N. mission in the Serbian province. According to senior Yugoslav Foreign Ministry official, who wished to be anonymous, this permission was given by the leaders of the mission without agreeing with the Yugoslav bodies in violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. At the same time the diplomat said that this would not apply for the planes carrying humanitarian aid and cargo for the international contingent, KFOR. The International Civil Aviation Association has said that the Yugoslav air controllers have the authority to decide whether to allow a plane to land in the entire territory of the country.

  • The chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Knut Vollebaek has condemned acts of violence on the part of the Albanian extremists in Kosovo. He spoke at a news conference in Vienna, following a meeting of the organization's Council on preparing a two-day OSCE summit in Istanbul, opening on November 18th. Knut Vollebaek said that during his recent trip to Kosovo he became convinced that tension continues to run high in the province.

October 21

  • NATO expansion eastward, the military operation in Yugoslavia, NATO's worsening relations with Russia and India's and Pakistan's balancing on the brink of a nuclear confrontation have been singled out as the four main elements of ensuring global security. The information is given in the Military Balance in 1999 and 2000 annual report which came out in London on Thursday and analyzes the military and political situation in the world. The study was done by the London-based Institute for Strategic Studies. The report focuses the lessons learned from the Kosovo crisis and admits the fact that, overall, the allied military operation in Yugoslavia laid bare NATO's problems in ensuring strategic unity within the alliance.
     
  • Britain will scale down its military presence in Kosovo and Bosnia before Christmas. In a statement issued on Thursday, the Defense Ministry said that the concrete dates of the pullout will be determined after consultations with NATO. 5,000 British troops are currently enforcing peace in Kosovo and Bosina-Herzegovina.

  • Serbian opposition leader Vuk Draskovic has urged the West to lift the anti-Yugoslav sanctions and to render emergency humanitarian aid to Serbia. Draskovic was meeting Wednesday in Paris with French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrin. He voiced, after that meeting, a downright negative view of the European Union decision to render humanitarian aid exclusively to the opposition-controlled areas of Serbia.

October 20

  • The G-8 stress the need for security for all ethnic groups in Kosovo and call to create conditions for free and fair elections in the violence-ravaged province in southern Serbia. So says the closing paper of a meeting of the special G-8 working group on Kosovo in Bonn on Wednesday. The Russian Foreign Ministry describes the discussion there as frank, useful and businesslike.
      
  • Dutch gunners of the KFOR force deployed in the city of Orakhovats in Kosovo may find themselves in danger should the blockade of roads leading to the city is not lifted in the near future. A statement to this effect was made on the pages of the "Volkskrunt" newspaper by General Brurmain, the Chairman of the Netherlands Officers Association. The entry to the city was blocked more than one month ago by Kosovo Albanians to prevent the deployment of Russian peace-keepers there. The general fears that the Dutch division alone will be unable to keep the situation under control in case of any aggravation.

  • Russian gas has begun helping keep warm the residents of Yugoslavia blockaded by the NATO countries and the European Union. The ITAR-TASS news agency says that the temperature in some of the places in Yugoslavia, including the industrial center of Bor has dropped to zero and some of the schools have been closed. And since the power supply lines were overloaded - electricity in many cities used to be switched off. The situation began improving since Tuesday evening when houses and buildings began to be heated. Russian gas could have been supplied, earlier, if it wern't for the obstacles placed by the NATO countries which seek to attain their political objectives in Yugoslavia with the help of an energy blockade.
     
  • The command of NATO's peace-keepers in Kosovo is against Kosovo Serbs having their own security corps. Representatives of the Serbian community in Kosovo on Tuesday spoke out for forming such a corps since neither NATO peace-keepers, the more so the police forces consisting of Albanian militants - are able to ensure the safety of the Kosovo Serbs.

October 19

  • Serbs in Kosovo have decided to set up their own corps to protect the region. Such a corps will be a counterweight to a similar police force formed by NATO from the former ethnic Albanian separatists. The Yugoslav news agency Beta reports that the decision on setting up the Serb self-defence corps was made at a recent meeting of representatives of the Serb community of Kosovo in the town of Gracanica.
     
  • The Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reports that Russia has resumed gas supplies to Yugoslavia. Nearly seven million cubic meters of gas will be supplied to the country every day. Together with Yugoslavia's gas reserves this will be enough to ensure the work of industrial and energy facilities, and satisfy the needs of the population. Russian gas will be the only foreign supply from abroad as NATO countries are continuing their blockade of Yugoslavia. The resumption of Russian gas supplies is the result of difficult talks with Hungary. The Russian gas pipeline runs through the territory of that country. Meanwhile, Hungary itself as a number of NATO countries uses Russian gas.

October 18

  • President Boris Yeltsin has instructed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to step up cooperation with the European Union in the post-war economic reconstruction of Yugoslavia. This was announced on Monday by Mr Yeltsin's press-spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin. He said the President had studied the report about Russia's participation in a program for Yugoslavia's economic revival and stressed that Moscow should act ahead of schedule along this avenue.

  • The command of the international peacekeeping force in the Yugoslav province Kosovo (KFOR) has denounced the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) for the violation of the agreement on the KLA demilitarization. Under the agreement, signed by the KFOR and KLA last month, Albanian fighters are banned from carrying arms, wearing their uniform and insignia. But when a few days ago 15 KLA members took part in a rally at the Gorni-Obrinye village, 50 kilometres away from Pristina, they were armed and in KLA uniform.
     
  • An international conference of officials representing the Defence and Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, Russia and France, drew to a close in England on Sunday. The basic issues on the agenda of the two-day symposium were the lessons taught by the Balkan conflict and stability and security in Europe and the world at large. Following the meeting Russia's representative General Valery Manilov told journalists that there was a close proximity of views of the Russian delegation and their western counterparts on the positions of basic importance.

October 16

  • The UN High Commissioner's Office for Refugees has begun to deliver humanitarian aid to the victims of the recent Balkan wars, unleashed by those who sought to achieve a split of Yugoslavia. The High Commissioner's Office circulated a statement to this end on Friday. According to the statement, the first to be distributed among 50,000 refugees in Yugoslavia will be coal and oil products. The High Commissioner's Office also points out that besides 200,000 Kosovo Serbs, 500,000 refugees from Bosnia and Croatia have moved to Yugoslavia. NATO countries have begun using the issue of humanitarian aid to Yugoslavia for their selfish political purposes.

October 15

  • Two French servicemen of the Kosovo force (KFOR) have been injured during clashes with Albanians. According to Reuters, about three thousand Albanians tried to force into the Serbian part of the town of Kosovska-Mitrovica through the bridge over the river that divides the town. French and Italian servicemen stopped the crowd using tear gas and shooting at air. The Albanians have been long trying to enter into the Serbian part to expel Serbs from there.

  • UN secretary general Kofi Annan has come out against the independence of Kosovo. He ended his two day visit to that Serbian province yesterday. Kofi Annan called on the leaders of the Kosovo Albanians to take concrete steps to end violence against the non-Albanian population. Annan also stressed that one task of the UN civil mission in the province is the return of the Serbs and Gypsies driven away from Kosovo. According to the UN High commissioner for refugees their number exceeds 200.000.
     
  • An operational UN group for the Balkans has declared four cities in Yugoslavia as being in an exceedingly bad state, economically. The report of the group which has been circulated by the headquarters of the UN program, for the environment in Nairobi, Kenya, says that immediate cleaning should be done in the Serbian cities of Pancevo, Kraguevaz, Novi-Sad and Bore. Members of the group which studies the environmental aftermath of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia have found the Danube river greatly polluted.

October 14

  • There have been more than 350 murders, and well over 1100 cases of arson since June 12 when KFOR began its operation in Kosovo. Those figures were released by a spokesman of KFOR's press service Rolan Lavoa. Most of the victims are Serbs who have chosen to stay in that Serbian province. The latest Serb killed was a 68-year old woman from the town of Kosovska-Mitrovica who lived alone in a region with a predominantly Albanian population.

  • United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will, on the second day of his visit to Kosovo, drive out to where the United Nations Office for Refugees is doing charity work for the local Albanians, near the city of Pec. The Pec Serbs, in spite of the NATO presence, have been forced to flee that area for other parts of Serbia or Montenegro. A Bulgarian officer of the United Nations mission in Kosovo was killed in Pristina on Tuesday. The killers, most likely teenage Albanians, have yet to be apprehended.

October 13

  • The Yugoslav envoy to the United Nations Vladislav Jovanovic has accused the international force in the Province of Kosovo (KFOR) of tolerance to ethnic Albanians who would not let Russian peacekeepers get stationed in the town of Orakhovats. In a message to the Chairman of the UN Security Council Mr. Jovanovic stresses that the KFOR has done nothing for nearly two months to remove the barricades erected by ethnic Albanians near Orakhovats. The Yugoslav ambassador called the attention of the Security Council to the deplorable condition of several thousand Serbs and gypsies because of the blockade staying without food supplies, water and electricity.
     
  • UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on the international community to stop punishing the population in Serbia and help it overcome the aftermaths of NATO bombings. He recalled that 700000 refugees from Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo have found shelter in Serbia. That is the biggest number of refugees in Europe and they desperately need help, said the UN Secretary-General. He believes that the republic in the coming winter will be able to satisfy only about 60 or 70 percent of its requirements in electricity, since many of the power sites were destroyed by NATO bombing raids.

October 12

  • The responsibility for the failure of the United Nations Security Council's resolution on Kosovo lies entirely with the international peacekeeping force (KFOR), the UN civilian mission in the province and its leader Bernard Couchner. This is stated in a message sent by the Yugoslav government to the United Nations. The message stresses that KFOR, the UN civilian mission in Kosovo and Bernard Couchner have engaged in double standards. By way of example it mentions the blockade of the town of Orahovats by Albanian extremists, with Serbs being blocked in the town for more than six weeks. The extremists wouldn't allow Russian peacekeepers to enter the town and provide the Serbs with relief supplies. Particularly unacceptable, the message says, is that KFOR used force to remove the barricades erected on the roads by Serbs, though it has taken no steps to remove similar structures built around Orahovats by Kosovo Albanians.
     
  • The Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, has sharply criticized the United Nations for failure to abide by its commitments mainly on Kosovo. He was speaking in the city of Leskovac. Mr Milosevic pointed out that the people of Serbia had endured an aggression of 19 most developed countries. Peace was established on the condition that the UN would guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and the safety of the people of Kosovo. President Milosevic underscored that those commitments had not been fulfilled.
     
  • Sixty three Orthodox churches and monasteries which belong to the world culture have been destroyed in Kosovo after the end of NATO aggression. The Spanish newspaper Mundo writes that the unprecedented vandalism against unique historical monuments since the end of World War II is continuing and there's been no action from the international security force in Kosovo. The command of the force says it cannot take these monuments under protection.

October 11

  • The former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army which currently heads the Kosovo Protection Corps Agim Ceku is under a secret investigation by the international Tribunal on former Yugoslavia. He is suspected of ethnic purges in Croatia four years ago. This has been reported by British newspapers quoting sources in the Tribunal. As a Lieutenant-General of the Croatian Army Ceku was the commander of the Storm operation in August 1995. As the result of the operation actually all Serbs were evicted from the Croatian region of Kraina. As an ethnic Albanian, Ceku was later appointed the head of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
     
  • The leading opposition groups of Yugoslavia refused to take part in a foreign ministers' meeting of EU countries in Luxembourg. The EU Council is holding a session there today and is expected to concentrate on the situation on the Balkans. The European Union refused to promote the restoration of the Yugoslav economy as long as president Slobodan Milosevic is in power. Yet it has voiced its readiness to give humanitarian aid to the regions governed by the opposition.

October 10

  • The chairman of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Wolleback has called on the Kosovo Albanians to stop violence against other ethnic groups and take part in creating a safe multi-national society in Kosovo. In an interview published by the newspaper Kosova Sot he underlined that much still had to be done so that Serbs could feel secure, and participate in political life of Kosovo.

October 9

  • The Government of the Union Republic of Yugoslavia hag requested the United Nations Security Council to consider the possibility of returning Yugoslav Army and police units to Kosovo. The Yugoslav representative in the United Nations Vladislav Yovanovic circulated a letter in New York on Friday to stress that this would help prevent the exodus of the Non-Albanian population from the province. Since June this year more than 100,000 Serbs, Montenegrins and Gypsies have fled Kosovo to avoid persecution by Albanian extremists.

October 8

  • Speaking to the German DPA news agency, the new commander of the international forces in Kosovo, KFOR, German General Klaus Reinhardt, has said that the main task of the forces is to improve security in the Serbian province. On Friday, 10th, General Reinhardt replaced Michael Jackson. The day before Jackson admitted that the KFOR, the backbone of which is formed of the NATO units, had failed to guarantee security to the people in the province, notably, to the non-Albanians. After the deployment of KFOR in Kosovo last June, more than one hundred thousand Serbs and Gypsies have fled from the province fearing oppressions by Albanian extremists.

  • Yugoslavia's ruling Socialist Party has demanded that the authority of the United Nations not be used to cover up the actions of the Albanian separatists in the province of Kosovo. A representative of the party Ivica Dacic said in Belgrade that under cover of the United Nations the Serbian population in Kosovo is subjected to terror and violence.
  • The government of Yugoslavia estimates the damage done to the country by the recent NATO military operation at a sum of a hundred billion dollars. And it believes it has the right to demand a full compensation from the alliance. Newsmen were told that at the UN headquarters in New York by Yugoslavia's foreign minister Zivadin Jovanovic. He is attending the session of the UN General Assembly.

October 7

  • The Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebek, who is the current President of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, has urged residents of Kosovo to be tolerant. Addressing a news conference in the region's capital Pristina on Thursday, he called on the ethnic Albanian leadership to stop violence and terror against Serbs. Meanwhile, news agencies are reporting more violence. In the town of Vitina two Serbs were wounded when a grenade went off at a local shop. In Prizren a Gypsy received knife injuries.

  • A new terrorist act has been committed in Kosovo. A hand grenade that exploded in a shop in the city of Vitina left two ethnic Serbs wounded. Earlier this week, an angry mob of armed Albanians assaulted ethnic Serbs in the city of Kosovska Mitrovitsa, in northern Kosovo. One Serb was killed and several dozen received injuries. Russian and French peacekeepers who attempted to prevent the skirmish also suffered injuries.
     
  • An international expert team feels the shortage of liquid fuel and natural gas may bring about a humanitarian catastrophe in Yugoslavia. The power crisis was provoked by the destruction of many power plants and transmission lines in the NATO operation against Yugoslavia, and the West-imposed oil embargo. The West made an arbitrary move to introduce the oil embargo in the wake of the March-through-June war action and says it will lift it as soon as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic resigns and Yugoslavia comes to have a friendly government. Experts of various countries, including Russia, Austria, Switzerland and Greece, have gone to Yugoslavia to familiarize themselves with the local situation. They feel the Yugoslav schools, hospitals and other social establishments are facing the biggest threat.

October 6

  • According to the Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeev, the main condition for the resolution of the Kosovo problem is to fully implement the United Nations Security Council resolution number 1244. He believes that the resolution will be implemented, since its objectives have been clearly defined. Russia, he said, would do its best to implement the resolution without double standards.

  • One person was killed and over twenty wounded, including four Russian peace-keepers and 11 French policemen, when Albanians attacked a group of Serbs in the Yugoslav city of Kosovska-Mitrovica on Tuesday. This was announced by a representative of the UN Administration in the autonomous province of Kosovo. The incident took place when about five thousand Albanians were returning home from a cemetery. When they saw a group of Serbs escorted by Russian peace-keepers, the Albanians opened fire. Two cars and truck which carried Serbs were burnt down. The French policemen from the international contingent who were near-by tried to prevent the incident.

October 5

  • Yugoslavia continues to criticize the decision by the provisional UN administration In Kosovo to allow the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army to go on in the form of what came to be known as the Kosovo Protection Force. In a letter to the Security Council on Tuesday, Yugoslavia's UN Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic says the former KLA still wields a considerable arsenal including artillery, as can be judged by a recent mortar shelling near Kosovo Polje which killed 2 Serb villagers and injured 42. The Yugoslav Ambassador asks the Security Council to sanction the immediate disbandment of the Kosovo Protection Corps.

  • The Serbian authorities have set free 54 ethnic Albanians in a good will gesture. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kosovo have confirmed that all those freed have arrived in Pristina to meet their families. Speaking to reporters on Monday, the head of the Serbian Association of Lawyers, Milan Vuin, undercored that the good will gesture came at a time of growing tension in Kosovo. According to the Red Cross, nearly nineteen hundred people arrested in Kosovo on various charges are in Serbian jails.
     
  • About 65 thousand people in 20 Serbian cities took part in anti-government rallies on Monday night. An increase in opposition protests was caused by a car accident on Sunday in which four members of the opposition Renewal movement died, and the leader of the movement, Vuk Draskovic, was injured. Mr Draskovic says that was not an accident but an attempt on his life.

Octoder 4

  • The Kosovo Liberation Army, now refurbished into what is referred to as the Kosovo Protection Corps, says it is going to press ahead with its independence campaign. Appearing before a separatist rally in the Kosovo town of Gnilane today, the KLA political leader Hashim Thaqi said Yugoslavia could not hope to ever again establish control over Kosovo. The former KLA has not laid down arms despite the expiry of an international deadline for it to do so in the middle of last month. Soldiers of the NATO-led Kosovo Force have discovered three more separatist arms caches in the past few days.
     
  • Yugoslavia suspects cynical economic motives behind the NATO operation in Kosovo. The French, the agency TANYUG points out, control areas in northern Kosovo where French companies have stakes in non-ferrous metals concerns. The British patrol the central sector where British energy companies are eyeing big coal deposits and power plants. The Italians police Pec in the northwest, home to big plants of the company ZASTOVO-IVEKS, jointly run by interests in Yugoslavia and Italy. The Germans in the south are in effective control of the company BALKANDENT, which has run up massive debts to banks in Germany. The interests of the Yugoslav people come second to profit

  • Kosovo Albanian leaders plan to set up a Military academy to train officers for Kosovo's future army". This came in a statement at a meeting of Albanians in the city of Gnilane on Sunday by the leader of the formally disbanded "Kosovo Liberation Army". KLA, Hashim Thaqi. According to him, the future academy will be part of the "Kosovo Protection Corps" that's currently formed on the KLA basis. And Albanians have no deficit of arms for their future army. Three KLA arsenals have been discovered in various parts of Kosovo in the past few days alone, although it is long ago that KLA missed its demilitarisation deadline.
     
  • The United Nations special envoy to former Yugoslavia in charge of human rights Jiri Dinstbir has come out for a speedy lifting of economic sanctions from the Union Republic of Yugoslavia. Speaking in the Serbian city Nis on Sunday he stressed that whom the sanctions hit hardest were the country population. Jiri Dinstbir warned that it would be the countries that imposed the sanctions and bombed Yugoslavia that would be held responsible for the people dying of hunger and cold in the coming winter.

October 3

  • On Saturday evening the Serbian authorities prevented an opposition rally in Belgrade. Police blocked the march which had started from the city's central square and the march broke up. The authorities notified the opposition in advance that such marches as those which had resulted in rioting in the streets earlier would not be allowed.
     
  • The German General, Klaus Reinhard, said on Saturday while visiting the Russian contingent in south Kosovo that the Russian troops played an important role in the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo. He will take over as the Commander of the international security force in Kosovo from the British General, Michael Jackson, on the 8th of October.
     
  • The Prime Minister of the Serb Republic in Bosnia Hercegovina, Milorad Dodik, will pay a working visit to Moscow from the 3rd to the 5th of October. According to the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS he will have talks with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Trade Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

October 1

  • Even though international peacekeepers did what they could in a bid to ease tension in Kosovo, ethnic Serbs keep blocking roads in that troubled province. Traffic has, for example, been blocked on the road that cuts through the city of Kosovo Pole. The village of Bresje lies near that city. It is there that two hand grenades exploded at a farmers' market killing two and wounding about forty people, Tuesday, and tension mounted in Kosovo after what happened in Bresje. The road has also been blocked to the city of Urosevac, in the US zone. Two Serbs disappeared in that city early this week. United Nations emissary Bernard Coushner has pledged to introduce additional security measures in Kosovo Pole. KFOR commander Michael Jackson has sent more troops and armor to the Serb-populated areas of Kosovo.
  • International peacekeepers failed to prevent the murder of three ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. KFOR spokesmen say an elderly couple was shot down dead in the city of Prizren, in the German zone of responsibility. Three unidentified men beat up and inflicted knife wounds on two Serbs near the town of Vitana where US servicemen are holding drills. One of the two Serbs has died at hospital.
  • The United States have launched a five-day muscle-flexing war game in Kosovo. It is trying to intimidate Belgrade, which accuses the North Atlantic Alliance of inability to halt the wave of anti-Serb violence. The war game started with an airdrop, south of the city of Urosevac, 15 kilometers away from the Kosovo-Macedonian border. C-130 cargo planes took 130 paratroopers to the drop site. They were escorted by F-18 and F-16 fighter-bombers.
  • KFOR spokesman told newsmen Friday, October 1, in Pristina, that 10 cases of manslaughter, 27 arson cases and 26 robberies had been reported in Kosovo this week. There is not a single day without a criminal report to the peacekeeping command and the United Nations mission. It is not every time that the peacekeepers and international police manage to prevent a crime even if they know a terrorist act is about to be carried out. The peacekeepers were, for example, told about the plans to carry out a terrorist act at the Bresje marketplace but paid no attention to that information. As a result, two Serbs lost their lives and about 40 people received injuries.
  • An American paratrooper died in Kosovo, where the war game started on Friday, October 1. His parachute didn't open, and he fell on the ground. One of the game's commanders General Paul Mickolashek called the paratrooper's death "a tragic loss". Although, according to the General's opinion, the game has demonstrated the troops' being ready to complete tasks.
  • In spite of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) having formally completed its disarmament, the situation remains tensed in the province. This was declared to the German newsmen by the German minister of defense Rudolf Scharping, when he arrived to Prizren, where the HQ of the German KFOR contingent. As he thinks, some KLA militants can be gone underground. One should consider that a large number of secret weapon depots of the Albanian separatists exists in the province, Rudolf Scharping emphasized.
  • KFOR commander Mickael Jackson sees the need for sending more troops into the city of Kosovo Pole and neighboring villages. General Jackson is visiting Kosovo Pole in a bid to ease tension that mounted after two person lost their lives and about forty received injuries at a farmers market, in Bresje. The marketplace came under fife last Tuesday.

  • Some 30.000 people took part in an anti-government demonstration in Belgrade on Thursday at the call of the opposition. Such demonstrations to demand the resignation of the President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic have been organized by the opposition daily starting with September 21st. This is done with the political and material support of the NATO countries. On Thursday the American Department of States demanded that the authorities in Belgrade do nothing to prevent anti-government demonstration. The removal of Milosevic and the setting up of a regime in Belgrade obedient to NATO was the main purpose of the recent NATO air war against Yugoslavia and of the economic blockade of that sovereign country.

 
 


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