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December 31
- Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic
has ruled out chances for the sovereignty of Kosovo. He says a Kosovo accommodation
must be based on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia,
which, in fact, is what the UN Security Council resolution on Kosovo says.
Milosevic said, in an interview with the newspaper Politika that the NATO
presence in Kosovo would not last forever. If the people wanted it, he
also said, the republic of Montenegro could secede Yugoslavia.
- The president of Yugoslavia Slobodan
Milosevic has stated that nobody will take Kosovo away from Yugoslavia.
According to the TANJUG news agency, the president predicted that the stay
of NATO troops in the province would be temporary and called for patience.
NATO forces entered Kosovo after an almost two-month long air aggression
against Yugoslavia last spring. In an interview for the press, Milosevic
also said he does not rule out changes in the constitution, as insisted
by Montenegro, which is part of Yugoslavia. It seeks to be more independent
in relations with Belgrade and the outside world. The West is trying to
take advantage of the constitutional differences and break away Montenegro
from Serbia.
- The United States has reacted with
irritation to the intention of the chief prosecutor of the International
Tribunal in the Hague Karla del Ponte to investigate information about
the crimes committee by NATO pilots and the command during the 78 day air
war against Yugoslavia. Washington hastened to describe as unjustifiable
any investigation of the action of NATO pilots who bombed civil sites in
the cities and villages of Yugoslavia. The facts presented to the tribunal
name the number of civilian casualties during the NATO aggression in which
the United States air force played a leading role and the entire operation
was prepared and carried out under the command of American generals.
December 30
- A Russian armoured personnel carrier
went up on a landmine in Kosovo yesterday. It happened in what is known
as the American zone of responsibility, in eastern Kosovo. Two Russian
peacekeepers were wounded. The landmine was most likely laid in the time
of fighting between ethnic Albanians and Yugoslav law and order forces.
It may, however, been laid a short while before the personnel carrier was
to pass there.
- Yugoslav foreign minister Zhivadin
Jovanovic has told the National news agency TANYUUG that Belgrade opposes
the US attempts to impose its will on the rest of the world. One such attempt
resulted, Jovanovic said, in the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. The
North Atlantic Alliance and the United States launched the aggression in
a bid to set a precedent for interference in the affairs of other nations.
December 29
- The International Tribunal for
former Yugoslavia has begun to study the materials testifying to NATO's
military crimes against Yugoslavia. According to the tribunal's representative,
Chief Prosecutor Karla del Ponte has been analyzing the behavior of NATO
pilots and commanders during the recent air campaign against Yugoslavia.
Hundreds of civilians were killed and many civilian facilities were destroyed
as a result of the bombardments. Among the 68 accused are heads of government,
foreign ministers and defense ministers of all NATO countries and leaders
of the North Atlantic alliance itself.
- UN secretary general Kofi Annan
has called on the world community to make an urgent effort to ensure the
safety of the non-Albanian population in Kosovo. This is said in the report
presented by Annan to the UN Security Council on Tuesday. It is suggested,
among other things, to urgently increase the number of international policemen
and strengthen judicial institutions.
December 28
- 10 Serbs were wounded on Monday
Night in Vatina, in the south-east of Kosovo, when some Albanians threw
a grenade into the local bar. The two wounded men are in a very serious
condition, as the reports say. Serbs are attacked in Kosovo almost every
day, but the international forces, whose backbone is made up of the NATO
contingents, in fact, are taking no measures against the terrorists.
- The press-service of the international
security force in Kosovo has said 10 Serbs are wounded in a bomb explosion
carried out by ethnic Albanian extremists in a cafe in the town of Vitina.
Four suspects have been detained.
December 27
- Yugoslavia's Prosecutor-General
Vukashin Jokanovic has accused the NATO forces, that are deployed in Kosovo,
and also the head of the UN mission in Kosovo Bernar Cousner of connivance
with the Albanian terrorists. The UN decisions on Kosovo, among other things,
provide for the disarmament of the outlawed Albanian Kosovo Liberation
Army and also for the protection of Serbs out there has been done nothing
on that score. Parallel with this, Serbs - the residents of Orehovats -
demanded that the Russian forces contingent be deployed there for the purpose
of ensuring protection from Albanian terrorists. A corresponding decision
on the arrival of the Russian servicemen was reached with NATO last summer
but the Albanians living in Orehovats are strongly opposed to this.
- In the city Orahovac, in Kosovo,
a committee has bean set up to guarantee security of the Serbian population.
The Committee has demanded that the International force in Kosovo, KFOR,
and the United Nations civil mission should defend the local Serbs from
attacks by Albanian extremists. The Committee members feel that a deployment
of Russian peacekeepers in the city would prove conducive to better security
of the entire Orahovac population. But Russians cannot take their positions,
as provided for by the relevant international agreements, because of counter-
action by Kosovo Albanians. Agreement to resolve the problem has been reached
at a recent meeting in Kosovo between the Russian Defence Minister Igor
Sergeyev and KFOR Commander Klaus Reinhardt.
December 26
- The Yugoslav Foreign Minister,
Jivadin Jovanovic, arrived in China on Saturday for a four-day official
visit at the invitation of his Chinses counterpart, Tan Tzisuan. Like Russia,
Chins was vehemently opposed to NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia and favored
a political settlement of the Kosovo crisis through the United Nations
Security Council. Well-informed sources say Beijing has given Yugoslavia
300 million dollars to help it rebuild industrial sites destroyed during
the 78-day NATO airstrikes.
December 25
- The Yugoslav Parliament has adopted
a budget for the year 2000, with expenditures making up 22.5 billion dinars,
or 1.9 billion dollars. The budget will largely be used to restore the
civilian and military facilities that were destroyed in the NATO bombing
raids, and also to provide for an upkeep of hundreds of thousands of refugees
and displaced persons. All of theme arrived in Serbia and Montenegro in
a bid to escape from the war that the NATO-supported separatists unleashed
in the former Yugoslavia.
December 24
- NATO's policy in the Balkans threatens
peace and stability in the region. This is stressed in a statement published
in Belgrade on the results of the meeting held on Thursday by the President
of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic and Russia's Defence Minister Igor Sergeev.
They assessed as impermissible the situation in the Serbian province of
Kosovo and called on the United Nations to take urgent measure against
those who fail to comply with its decisions. Igor Sergeev will today visit
the Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo.
December 23
- The Russian defense minister Igor
Sergeyev has warned that Russia could reconsider the degree of its participation
in the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo if the NATO-led force falls short
of implementing a pertinent Security Council resolution on this long-troubled
Serbian province. Speaking upon his arrival in Belgrade earlier in the
day, he reminded that the resolution had in mind keeping Yugoslavia united
and establishing multiethnic peace in Kosovo. Marshal Sergeyev also blasted
NATO's criticism of Russia's ongoing anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya.
He said that if terrorism is not uprooted in Russia, it might soon crop
up in Central Asia, Europe and just about elsewhere in the world.
- A delegation of the lower house
of the Russian parliament is in the Hague to hand over to the International
tribunal for former Yugoslavia evidence testifying to crimes against the
country during NATO's aggression last spring. The evidence collected by
a parliamentary commission will also be sent to parliaments of member countries
of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
- Prosecutors in Pristina have begun
legal proceedings against the United Nations administrator in Kosovo Bernard
Coushner on charges of genocide against the non-Albanian population. The
announcement was made on Wednesday by Serbian television. According to
the prosecution, Mr.Coushner deliberately violated resolution 1244 of the
UN Security Council and took no measures to put an end to the terrorist
activity of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army.
December 22
- The Kosovo Serbs have confirmed
their decision to boycott the Interium Administrative Council formed a
week ago by the UN administration and the Kosovo Albanians. The Serbian
national assembly of Kosovo said the participation of their representative
in the Council would mean recognizing the lawful character of that body
which has been given the functions of a government in the province. The
Serbs say they will lift the boycott only if they are allowed to form their
own self-governing bodies under the UN auspices in the Serbian communities,
as the Albanians have been permitted to do.
December 21
- Yugoslavia accuses head of the
UN mission in Kosovo Bernard Coushner of profiting from the illegal marketing
of humanitarian aid to the region. According to the Yugoslav Information
Minister Goram Matic, Mr Coushner is also directly responsible for the
expulsion of 200 thousand Serbs from Kosovo and crimes such as murder a
kidnapping committed against people who are ethnically non-Albanian. Yugoslav
radio meanwhile says the ethnic Albanian rulers of Kosovo have dismissed
all Serb medical personnel and systematically deny health care to local
Serbs. Many Serb patients undergo deliberate mutilation instead of treatment
and receive no medicines or water in their hospital beds. They have nowhere
but the Russian military hospital to take their health complaints.
- The Yugoslav Defence Ministry has
said the Russian Defence Minister, Igor Sergeyev, during his forthcoming
visit to Yugoslavia will discuss with President Slobodan Milosevic the
issues of military and technical co-operation between Russia and Yugoslavia.
The Russian Defence Minister will visit during his two-day trip to Yugoslavia,
which begins on Thursday, the bases of the Russian peacekeeping troops
in Kosovo.
December 20
- The KFO units have blocked 6 Serb
settlements in the central part of Kosovo. The NATO command demands that
Serbs living in the suburbs of Lipljan, 15 kilometers south of Pristina,
lay down their arms, as the TANYUG news agency reported earlier today.
However, the Serbs have refused to satisfy the KFO demands. They are claiming
that they need these weapons for the organization of defense against the
Albanian extremists. The persecution of ethnic minorities on the part of
Albanians has been in progress since the deployment of the KFO force in
Kosovo.
- On Sunday the Yugoslav opposition
has abandoned the idea of holding rallies of protest in Belgrade and other
cities of the country. Since the 21st of September such rallies have been
held daily to call for president Slobodan Miloshevic's resignation and
early general elections. Yet these slogans have not got support of the
population and the opposition leaders decided they would not hold any more
rallies.
December 19
- One Serb is reported killed and
9 others wounded as Albanians opened automatic gun-fire and threw a grenade
at a cafe in the city of 0rakhovats. The Commander of international forces
in Kosovo the German General Klaus Reinhardt has condemned the terrorist
act. The terrorist however, are yet to be found. Speaking in Berlin on
Friday at a meeting with his G-7 counterparts the Russian Foreign Minister
Igor Ivanov said Moscow is sounding the alarm over the developments in
Kosovo which may result in a new hotbed of international terrorism, arms
smuggling drug trade.
December 18
- Moscow has been sounding the alarm,
as it were, over the developments in the Serbian province Kosovo. This
came in a statement by the Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov as he addressed
the German Society of Foreign Policy in Berlin on Friday. He said that
in Kosovo, in the very heart of Europe, a new hotbed of international terrorism,
illegal arms trade and narcomafia was being created at a rapid pace. The
Russian Foreign Minister stressed that it made one wonder and grown concerned
about the reason why Russia's western partners were so passive about the
processes under way there, above all, the fact that the terrorist "Kosovo
Liberation Army" had only changed its name, but preserved its objectives,
plans and combat units. According to Igor Ivanov, what is behind the developments
is the tearing of Kosovo away from Yugoslavia, which threatens with not
only another explosion of the situation in the Balkans but with the spread
of extremism throughout Western Europe.
December 17
- The lower house of the Russian
legislature known as the State Duma intends to hand over next Thursday
to the international War Crimes Tribunal documentary proof of what the
North Atlantic Alliance did last spring in Yugoslavia. The State Duma has
suggested criminal charges against the national leaders who made the decision
to bomb Yugoslavia and the NATO commanding officers who met that decision.
- Russia's Foreign Ministry assesses
as a step in the right direction the approval by the UN General Assembly
of the resolution on humanitarian aid to Yugoslav, initiated by Russia.
In its statement Russia's Foreign Ministry also stresses that a number
of countries have failed in their attempt to have the General Assembly
approve a draft resolution on "excommunicating" Yugoslavia from
the United Nations. The discussion of the draft has been put off for an
indefinite period of time.
- A delegation of the Lower House
of Russia's parliament will hand document on NATO crimes in Yugoslavia
during the Kosovo conflict to the prosecutor of the International Tribunal
in the Hague on Thursday next week. This has been made known by a member
of the House Tamara Pletneva. She also said that the Russian parliamentarians
intend to discuss in the Hague prospects of cooperating with the leadership
of the International Tribunal in assessing NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia
from the point of view of International Law.
December 16
- Russia is not happy to see the
NATO-backed separatists of the Kosovo Liberation Army becoming a predominant
political and military force in the Serbian province. The head of the Russian
Defense Ministry's international relations department, General Leonid Ivashev
made this clear during an ongoing visit to Greece. Speaking at a news conference
in Athens on Thursday, he voiced serious Russian concern about the international
peacekeepers' inability to end the campaign of violence and expulsions
against the Kosovo Serbs.
- NATO foreign ministers were in
Brussels on Thursday hearing a report made by the head of the UN civilian
administration in Kosovo. Bernard Kouchner blamed the slow pace of peaceful
reconstruction of Kosovo on the lack of funds, which he said are not enough
even to maintain a sizeable police force in the province. He said that
at least 3,000 more police officers were needed to reinforce the 1,800
men already enforcing law and order in Kosovo. The UN administration and
the NATO-led peacekeepers are still unable to keep in check rampant crime
in the region where as many as a hundred people, mainly Serbs, have been
dying each day since KFOR entered the province in June.
- The Serb community of Kosovo won't
go along with the decision, by the UN mission and the Albanian community,
on the formation of an interim administrative council which will be playing
the role of Kosovo government. The Serb community of Kosovo rejects the
agreement signed Wednesday by UN emissary Bernard Coushner and the leaders
of the three leading political parties of the Kosovar Albanian community.
It feels the agreement contradicts the UN Security Council resolution and
conditions for the sovereignty of Kosovo.
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