April 9
- President Boris Yeltsin, reiterating
his call for a political settlement in Kosovo, has expressed confidence
that the West will eventually have to admit that its military intervention
in the conflict was a mistake. At a meeting in Moscow with regional executives,
Mr. Yeltsin said that certain forces had been striving to seize Yugoslavia
and make it their protectorate, but Russia would not allow it. He stressed
that it's impossible to force one's principles upon others, and this was
the case in Vietnam, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. NATO, he said, can
frighten the whole of Europe with its air strikes, but in the long run
it will have to return to a negotiating table. My Yeltsin pointed out that
Russia would not let itself be dragged into the conflict unless it was
provoked by the United States. He described as barbarism NATO's air raids
on Belgrade during which historical monuments, schools, kindergartens and
hospitals were bombed.
- Earlier today the speaker of the
Lower House of the Russian parliament (State Duma) Gennady Seleznev passed
President Yeltsin a request from the Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic
for his country's admission to the Russia-Belarus Union. Mr. Seleznev had
just returned from a trip to Yugoslavia. According to Boris Yeltsin, this
request is quite understandable considering the present situation in Yugoslavia.
Mr. Seleznev told the Duma after the meeting that Mr. Yeltsin had backed
Yugoslavia's request. He said the President had immediately phoned his
Belorussian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko who approved the idea of a
three-member union. According to the speaker, corresponding ministers and
departments were ordered to draft a joint statement about a union of Russia,
Belarus and Yugoslavia.
- The chief of the Russian TV and
radio service Mikhail Seslavinsky and Voice of Russia chairman Armen Oganesyan
have cabled the European Broadcasting Union. They have requested the Union
to do its utmost in a bid to avert NATO bombing of Yugoslavia radio and
television stations. They said the media people of no country in the world
might be held responsible for what the North Atlantic Alliance was doing
in Yugoslavia. French General Jean-Pierre Kelsh said on behalf of the Alliance
that NATO aircraft may yet be sent to bomb Yugoslav TV and radio.
- Knowledgeable sources in the Russian
military put the NATO death toll in Yugoslavia at least 50. The Allied
command rejected reports on the death of its men in Yugoslavia. It has
only admitted that an American Private and two American officers have been
captured.
- A German Green Party leader Roland
Appel feels the NATO operation in Yugoslavia may eventually turn into a
Vietnam in Europe. He said, in a radio interview, that the dispatch of
ground forces to Yugoslavia would surely compare to those of the war in
Vietnam.
- China has reiterated its call for
an immediate end to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. A Chinese foreign ministry
spokesman said in Beijing that his country insisted on a political accommodation
for Kosovo and urged all the parties involved to take advantage of anything
in a bid to bring closer this kind of an accommodation.
- The Finns are getting to be disillusioned
about the NATO action in Yugoslavia. The last opinion poll shows as many
as 78 percent of the people oppose the idea of joining the North Atlantic
Alliance. Only 51 percent of the Finns did not want their country to join
the Alliance before NATO aircraft bombing Yugoslavia.
- Russia's president Boris Yelzin
today ruled out again the possibility of delivering Russian arms to Yugoslavia.
He is convinced that the Yugoslav crisis could be settled by political
means alone. He expressed his vies when meeting with the speaker of the
Lower House of Russia's parliament Gennady Seleznev who returned from Yugoslavia
on Thursday. The president expressed doubt about whether NATO decides on
a land operation against Yugoslavia. That, he added would lead to big casualties
among NATO troops since the Serbs are determined to fight to the end. Gennady
Seleznev, on his part, said the Serbs feel just like that - they won't
be broken down.
- Two loud explosions jolted central
Belgrade early on Friday In a fresh new series of NATO airstrikes Which
also hit the country's automaking center Kragujevac and a number of towns
in Kosovo. A Pentagon official said the NATO aviation had pounded Serb
military deployments In Pristina and several other locations in southwestern
Kosovo. According to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, an artillery
shell had set ablaze a fuel storage in Smegerovo and a television transmitter
had been fired on in Kragujevac. Wednesday night saw the most fired NATO
air attacks since the strikes began 14 days ago which destroyed a number
of houses and offices in downtown Belgrade, In Kralevo and near the town
of Cuprije. During the two-weeks of airstrikes, the Yugoslav air defenders
have shot down nearly a dozen NATO jots and more than a thousand people,
most of them peaceful civilians have died as a result of the barbaric bombings
of Yugoslav cities, oil reservoirs, bridges and other non-military facilities.
- NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia
besides military has objectives a number of economic ones. Such an opinion
has been expressed by Roman Popkovich, chairman of the defence committee
of the Lower House of parliament. When taking part at the Voice of Russia
program " vis-a-vis with the world” Roman Popkovich pointed out that
by wiping out civilian sites and industrial enterprises in Yugoslavia the
Western countries seek to split the country, destroy its economy and remove
a trade rival. And that is why the NATO countries refused to accept the
latest peace proposals of the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. Roman
Popkovich also stressed that the propaganda in the West speaks only about
strikes being hit at military facilities. However 52 factories which used
to turn out civilian goods have already been razed to the ground.
- The crisis around Yugoslavia will
be among the cardinal ones the political directors of the foreign ministries
of the G-B countries will discuss at their meeting in Dresden which opens
today. The two-day forum will be attended by representatives of the Federal
Republic of Germany, Russia, the United States, Great Britain, France,
Canada, Japan and Italy. The head of the Russian delegation, deputy foreign
minister Georgi Mamedov said that besides the Yugoslav crisis attention
will be given to preparing the G-8 summit to take place in Cologne from
June 18th to the 20th.
- Russia and France proceed from
the belief that a political solution of the Kosovo problem should be found
which would ensure the safe return of refugees to their homes and which
would give Kosovo the broadest autonomy within the territorial integrity
of Yugoslavia. This is said in a report on the meeting held in Moscow on
Thursday between Russia's foreign minister Igor lvanov and general secretary
of the foreign ministry of France Louik Hennik. The two sides expressed
concern over the escalation of tension in the Balkans which has led to
big casualties and destruction. The number of refugees from Kosovo already
runs into hundreds of thousands.
- The world famous Russia writer
Alexander Solzhenitsin said NATO trampled upon the UN Charter and proclaimed
the law the stronger is the right one. In an interview for the news media
the Nobel prize winner condemned NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia.
And with mach bitterness he remarked that a wonderful European country
is being destroyed in front of all mankind and with civilized governments
applauding. Desperate people leave bomb-shelter and stand out in the open
risking their lives to save the bridges across the Danube. And the Russia
writer added that it could well be that tomorrow Clinton, Blair and Solana
will order to burn those people alive or drawn them.
April 8
- Russian president Boris Yeltsin
has disclosed that Russia was preparing a new proposal on the settlement
of the Yugoslav conflict, in a chat with journalists before his Kremlin
meeting with defense minister lgor Sergeyev Mr Yettsin condemned NATO's
new airstrikes against Yugoslavia and described them as lack of elementary
conscience. NATO is widening its bombing of Yugoslavia and attacking state
objects said Mr Yeltsin. He said that NATO's action has increased anti-US
feelings ground the world and people now say that if America was seen as
the bulwark of democracy in the past , they now hold a diametrically opposite
opinion. Mr Yeltsin has again called for a meeting of foreign ministers
of the G-8 to consider events in and around Yugoslavia Russia would not
supply military hardware to Yugoslavia so as to avoid dragging the country
into the Yugoslav morass. President Yeltsin has spoken very highly about
Yugoslav unilateral cesation of military operation in Kosovo describing
that decision as a constructive step towards a peaceful solution and said
that the Yugoslav decision has been taken because of Russia's peace efforts.
- Leader of the "Our home Russia"
movement Vladimir Ryzhkov has said that if the Yugoslav conflict escalates
the lower house of the Russian parliament might meet to reconsider the
issue of Russia giving military assistance to Yugoslavia. He was speaking
to journalists on Thursday after a meeting of Duma council. Mr Ryzhkov
believes that NATO would not got a quick military victory. Yugoslavia though
that's its plan. The military alliance should accept president Milosevic`s
latest-offer end start peace negotiations immediately, concluded Mr Ryzhkov.
- A poll conducted by independent
analysts suggests most people in this country see the NATO aggression against
Yugoslavia as posing immediate threats to the security of Russia. Only
7 per cent dismiss any such threat. As many as 30 per cent would applaud
Russian military aid to Yugoslavia. Just a few days ago, the proportion
stood at 15 per cent.
- Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic
and 8 Albanian communities have agreed a peace formula in Kosovo precluding
the deployment of foreign troops in that province. The news was defense
broken to journalists on Thursday by Russian defense minister lgor Sergeyev
immediately after his meeting with president Yeltsin. Speaking about NATO's
airstrikes against Yugoslavia he said that the alliance has not achieved
its objectives even concerning the first phase. NATO's bombing has caused
minor damage to Yugoslav army despite the high number of civilian a casualties
and massive destruction of civilian facilities. The Kosovo conflict would
take on a protracted character if NATO send in land troops to that Serbian
province said minister Sergeyev. Fighting could also spill over into other
states in the Balkans.
- Speaking after his meeting with
current OSCE chairman Norwegian foreign minister Knut Vollebak Russian
foreign minister lgor lvanov has said that events in Yugoslavia have shown
that Europe needs a new security system and that the OSCE could play a
key role. The Yugoslav events took centre stage in discussion between the
2 men and both ministers also considers stops that could beta taken to
halt the Yugoslav tragedy. Mr lvanov said that the UN and OSCE can and
should play their part in solving the Kosovo conflict. Certain aspects
of the Rambouillet peace agreement could be useful in future negotiations
though that document as well as the entire Rambouillet process have gone
into history following NATI-NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia said Mr
Ivanov.
- On his return from Yugoslavia speaker
of the lower house of the Russian parliament Gennady Seieznyov said that
in Belgrade the Russian and Yugoslav political efforts at halting the Yugoslav
war were coordinated. The Russian parliamentary delegation held talks with
Yugoslav leaders and Mr Milosevic proposed a return to the document he
and Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov thrashed out at the end of
March.
- NATO again bombed Yugoslavia in
the early hours of Thursday destroying one government building in the Yugoslav
capital. Civilian facilities nearby including an hospital had their windows
blown off. About 10 fresh powerful explosions were heard in the town of
Kralevo and 3 in the region of Chuprie NATO carried out one of its most
intensive bombing of Yugoslavia in the early hours of Wednesday and according
to western sources about 100 war planes took part. Yugoslav air defenses
shot down an American pilotless plane over Kosovo The downing of the Hunter
has increased the number of NATO planet shot down by Yugoslavia since the
beginning of the war of aggression against independent union republic of
Yugoslavia.
- Thousands of Belgrade citizens
responded to first air raid sirens late on Wednesday by forming a human
chain along the Brankov Bridge across the river Sava in a desperate bid
to protect that vital link from NATO bombs. At approximately 10 p.m. Central
European Summer Time, a defiant rock concert started there, with the singers
calling to put up stiff resistance against the NATO aggression. Six hundred
people in Novi Sad, the capital of the northern province of Vojevodina,
chose a similar way to defend the city's last remaining bridge over Central
Europe's main waterway the Danube. The two other bridges collapsed in earlier
raids. Eyewitnesses, speaking with tears in their eyes, related hair-raising
stories of people and vehicles falling into the river as cruise missiles
struck.
- The Greek daily ATINAIKI quotes
a source inside the NATO headquarters in Brussels as disclosing that the
Alliance's casualty toll in the assault on Yugoslavia stands at 88. Almost
half of them are American. All 88 are missing in action, a mild word for
dead.
- The paper VERDENS GANG in Norway
confirms reports of bodybags already arriving in the US and Germany. It
says Macedonian customs officials discovered coffins with bodies of German
and American servicemen during a routine check-up at a crossing point into
Greece. The paper cites eyewitness reports from the area. The Russian reconnaissance
ship LIMAN is sending back important intelligence two days after arriving
in international waters off Federal Yugoslavia. According to the agency
ITAR-TASS, the information is being processed by officers of the Black
Sea Naval Fleet at that fleet's headquarters in Sebastopol.
- A squadron of 7 more Russian warships
is ready to set sail from Sebastopol to the Adriatic to join the reconnaissance
harbinger already there. Accroding to the Navy's press service, the force
includes a powerful cruiser and two high-tech submarine hunters.
- A convoy of 120 heavy trucks carrying
Russian relief to Federal Yugoslavia has crossed into Byelorussia after
spending the night in the city of Smolensk 400 kilometres west of Moscow.
Officials keep saying the supplies are supposed to reach victims of NATO's
air assault irrespective of ethnic origin.
- NATO aircraft have again been bombing
Yugoslavia. A Yugoslav government building downtown Belgrade was destroyed
in a missile attack, and neighboring buildings, including a hospital, suffered
damage last night. Hospital staff workers say their physically incapacitated
patients were unable to make it for the bomb shelter on their own. About
a dozen powerful explosions shook the environs of the city of Kralevo.
Three bomb blasts shook the city of Chuprije. More than one thousand human
lives have been lost in the two weeks of the NATO attacks on Yugoslavia.
Material damages top 100 billion US dollars.
- Japanese prime minister Keidzo
Obuchi said, in an informal letter to President Yeltsin, that his country
hails what Boris Yeltsin and the Russian foreign ministry were doing for
the political settlement of the Kosovo crisis. The General Secretary of
the Japanese Cabinet Hiromu Nonaka has told newsmen in Tokyo that the letter
was written in response to what President Yeltsin wrote to tell prime minister
Obuchi Wednesday. President Yeltsin turned Keidzo Obuchi's attention to
the importance of the latest Yugoslav initiative. The Yugoslavs made a
unilateral move for a cease-fire in Kosovo.
- Russia takes a downright negative
view of the use of military force in the efforts to settle the Kosovo problem.
Russia's first deputy foreign minister Alexander Avdeev has told newsmen
in Brussels, where he attended a session of the international contact group,
that Russian diplomats have been doing their best in a bid to make the
West see the need for an immediate end to the bombing and for the resumption
of the peace negotiations. Avdeev pointed out that the latest statements
by President Yeltsin laid a solid foundation for a political solution to
the Kosovo problem.
- A multitudinous rally of protest
against the NATO aggression at the Balkans was held Wednesday by the wall
of the Moscow Kremlin. Many young participants in the rally dresses up
like their contemporaries in Belgrade, as if they were targets for NATO
attacks. The speakers denounced the NATO aggression against sovereign Yugoslavia
and pointed to the possibility of a spillover of the war action to the
rest of Europe.
April 7
- At about 12.30 GMT air alarm was
sounded in a number of Serbian cities. NATO aircraft have carried out another
raid on Leskovats, Nish, Chachak, Kraguyevats, Kralevo, at a time when
concerts and meetings are held in most Yugoslav cities to protest against
NATO's aggression, and huge crowds gather in streets and squares.
- The Russian President Boris Yeltsin
has urged the G-8 leaders not to reject out of hand Yugoslavia's new initiatives.
He's suggested that those should be considered without bias, constructively
and an adequate reaction to the proposals would be to take the Kosovo problem
from the military and give it to the diplomats. This comes in a message
the Russian President has sent to a number of western leaders. The Russian
news agency RIA-Novosti has received the text of the message from the presidential
press service. Boris Yeltsin calls attention of the western leaders in
question to the fact that Belgrade has unilaterally taken important decisions
on ending all action by the Army and police against the so called "Kosovo
Liberation Army", on launching direct dialogue with Kosovo Albanians'
political leaders to reach agreement on Kosovo and draw up a programme
of having refugees returned to their home places.
- The Yugoslav authorities have suggested
that Kosovo Albanians should return to their home places and have assured
them that they run no risk. This has come in an interview with the Reuters
news agency in Tirana by a spokesperson for the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe Andrea Angelli. The official said there were
so more refugees on the Yugoslav-Albanians border, the refugees that on
Tuesday stood in line waiting for permission to leave the country. Reuters
also quotes eye-witnesses as saying that the improvised refugee camp on
the Macedonian border is likewise empty. On Tuesday Belgrade announced
unilateral cease-fire in Kosovo but the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army
rejected cooperation.
- The President of Yugoslavia Slobodan
Miloshevich has said he is ready to release the three American prisoners-of-war
through the Cyprus government us a gesture of goodwill and in view of the
Orthodox Easter holiday. The acting President of Cyprus Spiros Kipriany
announced this on Wednesday. He said the proposal had already been discussed
by the leaders of the country. Mr. Kipriany told reporters that he would
perhaps leave for Belgrad on Wednesday to collect the American prisoners-of-war.
Then the three men will be hand over to the American embassy in Nicosia.
They were captured on the 31st of March. Yugoslavia insists that they illegally
crossed border from Macedonia.
- Some 20 NATO combat places of various
types have takes off from the Aviano air base in Italy to bomb targets
in Yugoslavia. According to western news agencies, the aircraft include
F-15 and F-16 fighter-planes, two unmanned aircraft AE-68, two A-IO places
otherwise known as "tank killers". A spokesman for the NATO military
command has claimed that in the day time on Tuesday allied aircraft had
for the first time attacked a column of armored personnel carriers in Kosovo.
A spokesman for the Serbian police in Kosovo's administrative center Pristina
has said 10 civilians died in the NATO air attacks on Tuesday night. And
a spokesman for the Pentagon in Germany says two US Army battalions with
24 helicopter gunships "Apache" will shortly be transferred from
Germany to Albania to go into action in Kosovo.
- The Russian reconnaissance ship
LIMAN has arrived in the Adriatic and is now in the immediate vicinity
of NATO's theatre of operation against Yugoslavia. This has come in a statement
by the Italian news agency ANSA.
- As the Patriarch of Moscow and
All Russia Alexiy the Second conducted a service in memory of Patriarch
Tikhon in the Danilov Monastery in Moscow earlier this Wednesday he voiced
hope that the NATO countries that are engaged in a war against the small
Orthodox people of Serbia would follow the example of the Yugoslav authorities
and cease fire for the period of Easter and Holy Week. The Patriarch pointed
out that however long voiced had been raised in protest against the barbaric
bombings, these would continue unrelentingly. Destroyed in the process
are both military and civilian facilities first of all, life-support systems
- electric power stations, water pipelines, bridges. Dying are civilians,
he said, that have nothing to do with military conflicts.
- The first Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister Alexander Avdeev and the First American Deputy Secretary of State
Strobe Talbott have discussed how to settle the crisis in Kosovo at their
meeting. The contact group at the level of political directors of the foreign
ministries is expected to hold a meeting later today at the German embassy
in Belgium. Mr. Talbot participated in the NATO Council meeting where the
situation in Kosovo, including the alliance's moves to solve the Kosovo
refugees was discussed. On Wednesday the American Defence Secretary William
Cohen arrived in NATO head-quarters and met with Secretary General Javier
Solana.
- The chairman of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut
Vollybek has ended his two-day visit to Albania where he met with the leaders
of the country and visited Kosovo refugee camps. Today, he will visit Macedonia
and Romania and on Thursday he is expected to arrive in Moscow to discuss
how to solve the Kosovo crisis with Russian leaders.
- NATO warplanes again made massive
raids on Yugoslavia on Wednesday night. A series of explosions was heard
in the outskirts of Belgrade where there were strikes at the Batainica
air base and the capital's Surchin airport. Among other targets of air
strikes were the capital of Montenegro - Podgorica, the administrative
center of Kosovo - Pristina and the city of Bor close to the border with
Bulgaria. Seven missiles hit a chemical works in Lucjani 170 kilometers
south of Belgrade. Serbia's second city Nish came under heavy air attack,
as did the southern industrial towns of Uajce and Kacak. There are killed
and wounded among civilian. Yugoslavia's civilian death toll in the two
weeks of the American-led aggression against it exceeds 1000. Its air defenses
have brought down about a dozen NATO planes and nearly 3 dozens cruise
missiles.
- NATO again hit rocket and bomb
strikes at Yugoslavia this morning. One target of attack was the city of
Nish in the north of Serbia where, as the TANYUG news agency reports -
a civilian site - an oil refinery was hit. NATO planes again bombed the
administrative center of Kosovo - Pristina. Serbian television says there
were strikes at a residential quarter and there are killed and wounded
among civilians.
- President Yeltsin has welcomed
the unilateral Yugoslav cease-fire in Kosovo. Announcing this, his media
spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin described Belgrade's initiative as falling in
line with Mr Yeltsin's confirmed policy of pursuing a negotiated solution
to the separatist crisis in the rebellious region in southern Serbia. The
agency ITAR-TASS carries a parallel statement by Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov, which says the Yugoslav initiative opens a political way out of
the Kosovo crisis.
- NATO Secretary General Javier Solana
sees the Yugoslav cease-fire as falling far short of what is needed to
settle the crisis over Kosovo. He said this in Brussels after emerging
from an informal gathering of the North Atlantic Council on Tuesday night.
He re-iterated Western demands for Yugoslavia to comply with all NATO terms
including the deployment of a NATO-led force in Kosovo.
- The Yugoslav military command says
it has confined all its forces in Kosovo to barracks in line with a unilateral
cease-fire announced on Tuesday night. All people in Kosovo including international
aid workers' are welcomes to enjoy full freedom of movement everywhere
in the southern Serbian province.
- The Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister
Vuk Draskovic has called on all refugees from the Kosovo conflict to return
to their abandoned homes. In an appearance on Belgrade TV on Tuesday night,
he also announced his country would ask Albania and Macedonia, where most
displaced people are currently staying, assist in tackling with the resettlement
problem.
- NATO powers have largely failed
to deliver on their trumpeted promises to accept part of the Kosovo exodus.
According to the agency ITAR-TASS, a UN-sponsored conference of 56 countries
and international bodies in Geneva on Tuesday ended without agreement on
coordinated measures to help the Kosovo refugees. Deputy head of the UN
High Commission on Refugees Soren Jensen Petersen told reporters the participants
had offered temporary asylum for only 75 thousand people whereas the Kosovo
out-migrants currently number over 430 thousand. Most have fled the province
for fear of being killed by NATO bombs.
- Russia begins implementing its
program of humanitarian aid to the people of Yugoslavia. Russia's Emergencies'
minister Sergei Shoygu said in Moscow on Tuesday evening that medical supplies,
food, flock warm clothes and tens will be brought to Yugoslavia by both
trucks and planes. Trucks with 900 tons of relief will start oat today
across Belorussia. Humanitarian aid will then be sent by planes to Budapest
and from there by land to Montenegro where refuges from Kosovo have amassed.
April 6
- The governments of Yugoslavia and
Serbia have announced a unilateral suspension of their military and security
operations against the armed ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo. The
suspension should hold for the Orthodox Easter week beginning next Sunday.A
parallel report on Belgrade TV says the decision follows top-level meetings
with the moderate leader of the ethnic Albanians in the Southern Serbian
province Ibrahim Rugova who saw President Slobodan Milosevic last Thursday
and Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Shainovich on Monday. At both meetings,
Mr Rugova called for an immediate end to the NATO bombardments and welcomed
further diplomacy to resolve the Kosovo crisis. In a reaction from Moscow,
the Russian Foreign Ministry advises MATO to seize on the latest Yugoslav
initiative as an excellent chance to roll up its military campaign in the
Balkans.
- President Yeltsin has again demanded
an immediate end to the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia indicating this
country has a comprehensive plan of how to settle the conflict politically.
He was speaking in Moscow on Tuesday minutes before starting an important
meeting with Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov. Russia, he told reporters,
will press for peace in the Balkans but it's now up to the West to determine
the future course of vents. This country, the President said, is shipping
relief to Yugoslavia hoping it will reach stricken people irrespective
of their ethnic origins. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov says this country
is struggling to put flesh on a recent initiative by President Yeltsin
for the foreign ministers of the G-8 to hold a emergency get-together on
Yugoslavia. Delays and prevarications, he argued, spell more bombings and
more loss of life. Mr Ivanov was speaking in Moscow today heading for a
Kremlin rendezvous with the President. He also announced plans for a series
of personal and telephone contacts with his colleagues in the big powers
club. Germany and Japan have welcomed Mr Yeltsin's proposal for an urgent
meeting on Yugoslavia. The US an Great Britain appear skeptical.
- NATO has subjected Yugoslavia to
another overnight bombardment, the heaviest since the start of the aggression
nearly two weeks ago. The agency TANYUG reported at least one powerful
explosion outside the Kosovo capital Pristina, and as many as five, near
the town of Vranje in southern Serbia. In the town of Aleksinace, NATO
bombs hit a residential area killing 5 people and injuring over 30. In
the country's second city Nis, the headquarters of Yugoslavia's 5th army
received a series of hits. A number of bombs and rockets fell on the town
of Sombor and the northern city of Novi Sad, the scene of horrific destruction
in earlier NATO raids. According to the Russian military, the NATO aggression
against Yugoslavia has claimed over 100 civilian lives. NATO has lost about
a dozen planes, including two F1-17 stealth bombers, and nearly 3 dozen
cruise missiles.
- Some of the European peace monitors
in Kosovo were in fact NATO spies on a mission to install radio beacons
ahead of planned air raids. According to the Russian army daily KRASNAYA
ZVEZDA, on Monday last week, days after the monitors had ostensibly packed
up and left Kosovo, the authorities there detained three men trying to
place a lazer beacon near a Yugoslav command post. At least seven similar
detentions have been reported near Belgrade this month.
- The agency ITAR-TASS quotes deputy
head of the defence committee in the Russian Lower House General Bezborodov
as warning the US military of heavy losses if it goes ahead with its plans
to use APACHE ground attack helicopters against Serbian force in Kosovo.
He believes that Yugoslav gunners entrenched in the rugged woodland of
western Kosovo can easily hit low-flying helicopters with shoulder-fired
missiles and bullets from large-caliber machine-guns.
- This country is sending its first
relief consignment to Yugoslavia on Wednesday. A column of heavy trucks
will carry food, medical supplies and warm clothing. Minister for Emergency
Situations Sergey Shoigu says this will be in response to a Yugoslav request
delivered by Ambassador Borislav Milosevic, the younger brother of the
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. This country's western neighbour
Byelorussia, too, is preparing a consignment of relief to Yugoslav civilians
driven from their homes by NATO air raids.
- Most of the Czech politicians have
come out against the escalation of NATO's Military actions in Yugoslavia.
Speaking about NATO's possible ground operation in that country, a deputy
of the Czech Parliament, Yan Zagrad said that it would be doomed to failure.
The vice-premier of the Czech government Egon Lanskoy believes that NATO's
airstrikes will never make Belgrade sign a peace treaty on Kosovo. Three
parliamentary parties in the Chech Republic have assessed positively the
proposal of the Russian President Boris Yeltsin on the convocation of the
emergency session on Kosovo with the participation of the Group of Seven
plus Russia foreign ministers.
- Italy's minister of justice Olivero
Diliberto believes that NATO's airstrikes are aimed not only on Serbia
but also on the whole of Europe. He has said that they are proving that
a final sentence has been passed on NATO. The sinister has called for the
convocation of a world conference on the Balkans under the United Nations
auspices. In Helsinki the Finnish foreign minister Mrs. Tarya Halonen has
welcomed Russia's efforts aimed at the continuation of the talks on Kosovo.
Besides, she believes that the international community has underestimated
the possible consequences of the Yugoslav crisis.
- Northern Ireland's former prime
minister John Bruton has urged the NATO countries to stop the bombings
of Yugoslavia for the Easter period. A cease-fire would enable the two
sides to assess the situation in a new light. The return of the Kosovo
Albanians home is possible only under the United Nations' patronage, while
NATO's troops will be helpless in this, emphasized Mr. Bruton in an interview
for the BBC.
- President Yeltsin said before meeting
with prime minister Primakov, in the Moscow Kremlin earlier today that
he had in mind a comprehensive formula for a Yugoslav accommodation. Boris
Yeltsin and Yevgeny Primakov were meeting to discuss the Balkan developments.
Yeltsin said Russia had a good chance for political action but the course
of development depended on moves by the western democracies. Yeltsin voiced
indignation over what he described as the barbarous bombing of Belgrade.
NATO aircraft he said, had dropped bombs on what the United Nations Educational
Scientific and Cultural Organization listed as monuments of history and
culture. Russia had, according to Yeltsin sent large quantities of humanitarian
aid to the Balkans. Yeltsin stressed that the Russian aid relief army hardware.
- Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov
says Moscow may come out with a new initiative for the settlement of the
Yugoslav crisis. The Russian news agency ITAR-NASS has quoted Ivanov as
saying the mouthpieces of the western democracies are trying to justify
the continued bombing of Yugoslavia with calls for more action to avert
a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo. But, Ivanov said, there was no humanitarian
catastrophe before the 24th of last month, when Allied aircraft started
bombing Yugoslavia. The war action had several hundred thousand refugees
driven out of their homes, which was why, Ivanov said, Russia demanded
an emergency conference of the foreign ministers of the world`s seven most
advanced nations with its own foreign minister. Ivanov pointed out than
every day of delay produced new tragedies, left room for more air raid
and sent the death toll higher up. The longer in took, Ivanov said, the
more difficult in would be to solve the problem. In Ivanov`s view, emergency
situation required emergency moves.
- NATO aircraft have again been bombing
Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav News agency TANYUG says eight cities came under
air attacks Monday night. The south Serbian city of Nis, with the headquarters
of Yugoslavia's Third Army, suffered damages. Several bombs were dropped
on the central part of the city of Novy Sad which lies 70 kilometers the
north of Belgrade. Powerful explosions shook the suburbs of south Serbian
city of Sombor, and a fourth bridge across the Danube River was destroyed
there. Fire blasts were reported in Kosovo administrative capital of Pristina.
The cities of Guchevo and Loznica came under attack in western Yugoslavia,
and a radio and television transmission tower suffered damages there. Five
people were killed and about thirty received injuries in the city of Aleksinac,
in central Yugoslavia. The NATO forces also suffered losses. Two planes,
including what is described as an invisible F-117 were downed near Novy
Sad. Yugoslavia's civilian losses of the past two weeks are put at more
than one thousand.
- A truck convoy with humanitarian
aid for the victims of the NATO attacks on Yugoslavia is about to leave
Moscow. Eighty trucks will deliver 900 tonnes, or about one million dollars
worth of aid relief to Belgrade and Montenegro where many Kosovars have
found refuge. They are due to arrive in the Yugoslav capital next Sunday.
- Belgrade is urging United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan to do his best for an end to the NATO aggression.
Yugoslav foreign minister Zhivadin Jovanovic says in a letter distributed
Monday at UN heard quarters in New York, than Annan will bear responsibility
for the loss of the prestige of the United Nations if the aggression goes
on. Jovanovic voiced disillusionment over the Security Council's inability
to take decisive action against those who've been ignoring the United Nations
Charter.
- Russian defense minister lgor Sergeyev
says more than one third of the NATO missile and bombing attacks have been
targeted on Kosovo, which explains the exodus of the local population.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says almost 400,000 residents
of Kosovo has fled their homes since the beginning of the NATO attacks.
- The United States Security Council
has, in the meantime, voiced concern about the exodus of people from Kosovo.
The fifteen members of the Security Council signed Monday a call for everyone
who can help the Kosovar refugees to do his best to help, thanked the countries
which have given roof to the fleeing Kosovars.
- Greek foreign minister George Papandreu
said, after Monday`s meeting with United States deputy secretary of state
Strobe Talbott that Greece and the United States held different views of
the Kosovo problem. Papandreu stressed the need for the earliest end to
the war action against Yugoslavia. He felt the European Union`s strategy
for the Balkans must rest of the inviolability of national borders and
respect of democratic institutions.
- April
4-5
- April
2-3
- April
1
- March
30-31
- March
25-29
- March
24
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