TO PETE ROSE.

Well i saw my sister wrote quite a bit already about religion and jugemental behaviour.
The only thing i can say is and i said it all since i was a little girl. God is for everyone, we only infented new rituals and called them a new religion.
But it stays dumb(thats a understatement) that people still use it as a weapon.Or in a lot of cases let themselves be misquided that its a war all about religion.

Emina

Published in Washington, D.C. 5am -- June 4, 1999 www.washtimes.com





KLA buys arms with illicit
funds


By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


The Kosovo Liberation Army is buying sophisticated
weapons with cash from an "independence tax" levied
against expatriates and from profits of illicit drugs and
prostitution.
According to a secret intelligence report by NATO's Office
of Security, the weapons have been smuggled to the KLA from
arms dealers in Albania, Italy, Switzerland, Cyprus, Turkey,
Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro. Some have
been hidden in shipments of medical supplies, food and clothing
bound for Kosovo's refugees.
The Clinton administration has said it wants the KLA
disarmed once the NATO bombing campaign ends.
The 24-page NATO report, a copy of which was obtained
by The Washington Times, said the weapons include SA-7 and
Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, RPG-7 anti-armor rocket
launchers, AK-47 and HK G3 assault rifles, SSG-69 sniper
rifles, 9mm submachine guns, 82mm and 120mm mortars,
shotguns, handguns, grenade launchers, ammunition,
explosives, detonators and anti-personnel mines.
The KLA, formally known as the Ushtria Clirimtare e
Kosoves, or UCK, also has purchased laser aiming devises,
infrared night vision gear and communications equipment,
including satellite telephones, according to the report.
"The acquisition of arms from abroad is funded mainly by
the Kosovar Albanian communities in Western
-- Continued from Front Page --
Europe, using the proceeds of a 3 percent 'independence tax'
on expatriate income, drug trafficking and prostitution," the
report said.
"Some funds from the drug trade, in which the Albanians
traditionally acted as couriers and more lately as suppliers,
reportedly are being used to purchase weapons for the
Kosovo insurgents," the report said. "The profitability of the
drug trade and the Kosovo Albanians' extensive involvement in
it suggests this activity is a significant source of income for the
insurgency and other Albanian causes."
It is not clear how the purchase of huge amounts of
weapons by the KLA over the past several months will affect
efforts by the Clinton administration and NATO to call for the
rebels to disarm once the bombing ends. The KLA guerrillas,
who fight under the black double-headed Albanian eagle, want
no less than to separate from Serbia and join their brethren in
Albania and Macedonia -- a push for independence that is
opposed not only by Yugoslavia but also by the United States
and its NATO allies.
The Rambouillet peace plan calls for the "demilitarization of
the KLA" and touts a need to secure the "sovereignty and
territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
The NATO report said the KLA has bank accounts in at
least 19 countries, a dozen of which are part of the
organization's Homeland Is Calling fund. The independence
tax, according to the report, was established to fund Kosovo's
schools and hospitals, but now also is routed to purchase arms.
Several other expatriate organizations, the report said, also
are collecting money, much of which is deposited in banks in
several European countries.
Intelligence documents obtained by The Times have
described the KLA as a terrorist organization that has financed
much of its war effort with money sent to the rebels by ethnic
Albanians throughout Western Europe and the United States,
and through profits from the sale of drugs, mainly heroin.
The documents said drug agents in five countries, including
the United States, believe the KLA has aligned itself with an
organized crime network centered in Albania that smuggles
heroin to buyers in Western Europe and the United States.
They tie members of the Albanian Mafia to a smuggling cartel
based in Kosovo's provincial capital, Pristina.
The cartel is manned by ethnic Albanians who are members
of the Kosovo National Front, whose armed wing is the KLA.
It is believed to be one of the most powerful heroin-smuggling
organizations in the world, with much of its profits being
diverted to the KLA to buy weapons.
The clandestine movement of drugs over land and sea
routes from Turkey through Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia
to Western Europe and elsewhere is so frequent and massive
that intelligence officials have dubbed the circuit the "Balkan
Route."
Jane's Intelligence Review estimated in March that drug
sales could have netted the KLA profits in the "high tens of
millions of dollars." The British-based journal noted at the time
that the KLA had rearmed itself for a spring offensive with the
aid of drug money, along with donations from Albanians in
Western Europe and the United States.
The 24-page NATO report described the KLA's supply
system and the financial base that supports it as a "loosely
organized international and Balkans network" that developed
as a result of the unexpected and rapid escalation of armed
conflict in Kosovo.
It said the KLA is supported financially by a number of
organizations composed of Albanian expatriates as well as
Albanian crime syndicates. Most KLA funding originates in
Europe, although some comes from expatriates and
sympathetic groups in North America and the Middle East.
During the early stages of the insurgency, the report said,
the KLA was supplied by arms stolen from the Albanian
military during that country's spring 1997 unrest. However, the
KLA's rapid growth and the need to counter the Serb's
superior firepower necessitated the development of additional
sources of more sophisticated arms and funding.
The report said the KLA has sought to purchase weapons
and equipment in Switzerland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Israel,
South Africa, Romania, Bulgaria, China, Turkey, Ukraine and
Cyprus. It said KLA commanders have funds at their disposal
and are known to pay directly for weapons and ammunition for
their local units' needs.
The KLA, according to the report, uses a variety of routes
for bringing weapons into Kosovo, with most shipments
entering through Albania.
KLA commanders have begun to diversify their supply
routes, relying less on Albania and more on other routes, the
report said, noting that arms traffickers have begun to exploit
humanitarian-aid shipments by including arms and ammunition
among otherwise legitimate-aid cargo into Kosovo.

******************************************
!!!!!!!!!!...........

What's Democracy Got To Do With It?

By Norman Solomon

A few days ago, the president of the United States openly violated the War Powers Act -- and the national media yawned.

The war powers law, enacted in 1973, requires congressional approval if the U.S. military is to engage in hostilities for more than 60 days. As that deadline
passed on May 25, some members of the House spoke up. "Today, the president is in violation of the law," California Republican Tom Campbell pointed out.
"That is clear." And Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich added: "The war continues unauthorized, without the consent of the governed."

But sophisticated journalists in the nation's capital just shrugged. To them -- and to the Clinton administration -- the law is irrelevant and immaterial, a dead
letter undeserving of serious attention. In this dark time of push-button warfare, when more and more eyes are getting adjusted to shadowy maneuvers, it's
possible to discern a pattern of contempt for basic democratic principles.

Forget all that high-sounding stuff in the civics textbooks. Unable to get Congress to vote for the ongoing air war, the president insists on continuing to bomb
Yugoslav cities and towns, destroying bridges and hospitals, electrical generators and water systems. Boasting of the Pentagon's might, he pursues a Pax
Technocratica with remote-control assurance.

Attorney Walter J. Rockler, a former prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials more than half a century ago, is among the Americans outraged at
what is now being done in their names. On May 23, his essay in the Chicago Tribune denounced "our murderously destructive bombing campaign in
Yugoslavia."

"The notion that humanitarian violations can be redressed with random destruction and killing by advanced technological means is inherently suspect," he
wrote. "This is mere pretext for our arrogant assertion of dominance and power in defiance of international law. We make the non-negotiable demands and
rules, and implement them by military force."

With enormous help from mass media, the White House has been able to marginalize the public on matters of war and peace. Reporters and pundits routinely
portray top U.S. officials as beleaguered experts whose jobs are difficult enough without intrusive pressures from commoners. More than ever, the American
people are serving as spectators while elites make crucial foreign-policy decisions.

When military action is on the agenda in Washington, public opinion can be troublesome, even obstructionist. That's one of the hazards of democracy -- or at
least it should be. But the Clinton team has learned to mitigate the danger that the public will intrude on the process of deciding whether the United States
should go to war. It's a trend that has been accelerating in recent years.

In February 1998, key U.S. officials traveled to Ohio State University for a "town hall meeting" about a prospective American missile attack on Iraq. Airing
live on CNN, the session went badly from the vantage point of Madeleine Albright, William Cohen and Samuel Berger, whose responses to tough questions
seemed inadequate to many viewers. The trio left Columbus with egg on their faces.

Evidently, the debacle made a big impression. Since then, leery of any high-profile forum that could get out of control, the White House has not even gone
through the motions of consulting the public before launching a military attack -- on Sudan and Afghanistan last August, on Iraq last December, and on
Yugoslavia this spring. With warfare on the horizon, President Clinton's attitude toward the American public seems to be: When I want your opinion, I'll ask
for it.

This approach has met with little challenge from news media. In fact, many journalists in Washington seem to share the view that the public is inclined to be
too meddlesome -- and should not be allowed to tie the hands of foreign-policy specialists who may wisely wish to pursue the goals of U.S. diplomacy by
military means.

While the decision to go to war is momentous, the public has found itself in the role of passive onlooker. Rather than submit to a process of national debate,
the White House prefers to present Americans with a fait accompli. One of the effects of the missile attack launched against Yugoslavia on March 24 was to
truncate the public debate before it had even begun.

When U.S. military action is involved, Clinton's policy-makers seem to regard the public as a sort of unruly -- and perhaps rather dumb -- animal that must be
tamed and herded for its own good. What we've seen is the implementation of a formula for bypassing genuine public discourse: Go to war first. The public
can raise questions later, while the war escalates and the propaganda machinery spins into high gear.

And they call it democracy.

Norman Solomon's new book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media."


http://www.fair.org/media-beat/990527.html

To Daniela

I knew you would not understand my postings, wether they are articles or opinions. But, it doesn't matter. Slow learners need time.

Zoja

By Jim Miklaszewski and Robert Windrem
NBC News

WASHINGTON, June 4 — NATO plans a cease-fire beginning Sunday if Belgrade shows that a withdrawal of forces from Kosovo has started, the Pentagon said Friday. U.S. and U.N officials told NBC News that if talks Saturday between NATO and Yugoslav military chiefs go as expected, a truce would be followed quickly by deployment of U.S. Marines and Army Rangers into Kosovo as early as Tuesday.

NATO KEPT UP its airstrikes over Yugoslavia on Friday, but at the same time it held the first military-to-military contacts via phone as officials tried to devise a timetable for the Yugoslav pullout.
NATO said Friday's contact will be followed by a meeting Saturday between alliance military officials and Yugoslav generals along Macedonia's border with Kosovo.

U.S. and U.N. sources told NBC News that initial plans call for a phased pullout, giving Yugoslav troops and Serb police 36 hours to reach yet-to-be determined pullback points, and about a week for a complete departure from the shattered province.

The military talks Saturday will seek to identify:

• An exit corridor for Yugoslav forces and specific routes that must be taken to get into that corridor.

• The types of equipment that Yugoslavia will be allowed to withdraw. The 200 tanks in the province, for instance, must be left behind.

• The precise timing of the departure.

• The rules of engagement for NATO-led troops that will enter Kosovo.


Deployment of U.S. forces and some NATO elite units could begin as early as Tuesday, led by 1,900 U.S. Marines from the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, 500 elite Italian troops, accompanied by Army Delta Force troops who will provide additional security and are prepared to deal with stragglers, particularly any paramilitary forces that may opt to stay behind.

At the same time, U.S. Army Rangers will be air-dropped in to secure two airfields in Kosovo, including one in Pristina. Once they have secured the airfields, U.S. Air Force air traffic controllers will set up operations and make the airfields ready for NATO airlifts.

NATO plans to replace the Marines within days by regular U.S. Army troops, primarily a mechanized brigade from the 1st infantry division in Germany. In total, the United States is committing 7,000 troops to KFOR, as the Kosovo peace force is known. The rest of the approximately 50,000 troops will be European and possibly Russian.

In addition to the Marines, over 15,000 troops with NATO's rapid reaction corps are standing by in Macedonia ready to deploy as the vanguard KFOR.

Large British, French and Italian contingents are included in that force. Britain said Friday it was rushing another 4,000 troops to the region to be part of KFOR. DETAILS OF THE TERMS
The peace terms include:

• A quick and verifiable withdrawal of Yugoslav army and Serb police troops.

• The deployment of a security force "with essential NATO participation" — shorthand for a NATO-dominated peacekeeping force.

• The safe and free return of the ethnic Albanian refugees driven out over the past months.

• Substantial autonomy for Kosovo.

The terms would actually leave Milosevic weaker than conditions his representatives rejected at talks in France in February and March.

Then, talk was of up to 11,000 Serb security forces remaining in Kosovo. But the latest peace deal would limit Yugoslav forces to "hundreds, not thousands" and restrict them to guarding Serb churches and other cultural and religious sites under supervision of the Kosovo peace force.

http://www.msnbc.com/msn/230178.asp

DISPATCH FROM KOSOVO
Ethnic Albanians, Serbs Work Together in Power Struggle

Infrastructure: Linemen battle damage caused by NATO bombs. To many
Kosovars, they are heroes.



By PAUL WATSON, Times Staff Writer



UROSEVAC, Yugoslavia--Wars aren't fought with guns and
bombs alone, and in Kosovo, teams of Serbs and ethnic
Albanians are defending the province against NATO with ratchet
wrenches and lengths of cable.
They are linemen working for the state electric utility,
Elektrokosmet, and each day they wage their own battles against
the damage that allied pilots, with their relentless bombing, are doing
to this country's power grid, trying to make it collapse.
It's a crime under the laws of war to attack civilian infrastructure
such as bridges, water pumping plants, fuel storage sites and power
supplies beyond what is necessary to cripple a country's armed
forces. And NATO insists that its continuing airstrikes against
Yugoslavia's infrastructure are aimed only at the military.
But after 67 days of airstrikes, just flipping a switch and seeing a
light go on can be cause for celebration.
The Kosovo Albanians and Serbs working together to repair
severed cables, often under bombardment, aren't likely to get
medals. To the doctors, bakers and everyone else depending on
them here, however, they are heroes just the same.
"Each time we repair a problem, it's a victory that boosts our
morale," Serbian lineman Nenad Milosevic, 31, said Saturday in this
Kosovo city about 30 miles south of the provincial capital, Pristina.
Linemen who work on the high towers that form the backbone
of Yugoslavia's crippled power grid are under orders to tie
themselves to the damaged structures in case NATO warplanes
return for another strike.
"That way, if there's an explosion and the shrapnel wounds them,
they won't fall off and get killed," said Bozidar Kovacevic,
Elektrokosmet's director of power grid maintenance.
Kovacevic believes he is alive today only because he was an
hour late for a job Tuesday.
He and his eight crew members were supposed to repair a
section of the grid on a hill between the towns of Decani and
Djakovica, near Kosovo's western border with Albania, at 11 a.m.
They didn't get there until noon.
"At 11 a.m., NATO bombed the particular tower which we
were supposed to fix," Kovacevic said. "After that event, we went
straight to the Pec patriarchy to light a candle [in prayer]."
Of about 60 linemen working for Elektrokosmet in Urosevac,
roughly half are Serbs and the other half ethnic Albanians, according
to Slobodan Miletic, the firm's local financial director.
"Everybody works, of course, because Albanians need
electricity too," Kovacevic said.
Dalib Recica is among several thousand ethnic Albanians who
stayed in Urosevac after most left to escape Serbian attacks,
NATO bombardment and a renewed civil war between security
forces and separatist guerrillas.
On a rainy day recently, Recica struggled with about a dozen
other ethnic Albanian and Serbian linemen to piece together a
downed cable that was blown apart in a NATO cluster bomb
attack.
The cluster bomb apparently was aimed at the pipe factory
across the street. When it opened in midair, about 200 smaller
bombs dropped out and hit the road and a dozen ethnic Albanian
houses.
Recica and the rest of the crew had the power cable back up in
less than an hour, which was somewhat of a shock to spectators in
a country where people aren't used to seeing state employees work
so hard.
"Of course Serbs and Albanians are working together to fix
things," Recica said Saturday from behind an Elektrokosmet bill
payment counter, where he doubles as a clerk. "It's for the good of
all of us."
That may sound like a line from a war propaganda poster, but
there wasn't a police officer or soldier anywhere nearby, or anything
else to suggest that Recica was being forced to work in some kind
of chain gang.
Recica was reluctant to say much because, like many ethnic
Albanians still working for the state in Kosovo, he fears being
branded a collaborator and punished by separatist Kosovo
Liberation Army guerrillas.
An estimated 600,000 ethnic Albanians are still living in Kosovo,
but the number drops almost by the hour as refugees continue to
flee into neighboring Albania and Macedonia.
While some ethnic Albanians reportedly are hiding in forests and
mountains without food or shelter, Serbian police are allowing many
others to return to towns and cities.
Yet NATO's airstrikes, which are intended to give lasting peace
and security to Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, are making life
difficult for those still trying to survive here.
NATO warplanes almost flattened the main water filtration plant
that feeds Pristina, but repair crews managed to get the supply
flowing again after a couple of days.
But when NATO bombs knock out the power supply again, as
they do almost every day, the pumps go down again and people
wait to see how long it takes the emergency crews to work yet
another miracle.
Pristina's hospital, which treats war casualties from all of
Kosovo's ethnic groups, routinely loses normal power for three and
four hours at a stretch--even 10 hours on the worst day, director
Dr. Rade Grbic said Saturday.
The hospital has four large generators that suck up about a ton
of fuel in five hours, Grbic said.
Since NATO has destroyed most of Yugoslavia's fuel depots
and refineries, and the generators also need frequent maintenance
and fresh parts, it's getting harder to count on emergency power,
the surgeon added.
"As a result, we might come to a point when the generators will
not work and the lives of the patients on life-support machines, the
lives of babies in incubators and the lives of those patients who need
operations will all be endangered," Grbic said.
* * *
All of Watson's dispatches from Kosovo are available on The
Times' Web site at http://www.latimes.com/dispatch .

Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved

"The terms would actually leave Milosevic weaker than conditions his representatives rejected at talks in France in February and March." "


hardly: 7 000 instead of how many in Rambouillet Accord ? and all over YU; this time only in Kosovo.

plus: no referendum after three years for independence.


those two were the only reasons for refusal...

http://www.msnbc.com/msn/230178.asp

DOMESTIC PRESSURE ON MILOSEVIC

Inside Yugoslavia, meanwhile, the leadership attempted to portray acceptance in the best possible terms.

"Two months of our resistance resulted in the fact that Kosovo will stay within Serbia," said a statement by the neo-communist Yugoslav left, allied with President Slobodan Milosevic and published by the state-run Politika daily.

But the peace plan offers Yugoslavia even less control of its southern province than a plan rejected only three months ago, and Milosevic's opponents are asking why he didn't he strike a deal before the country was devastated in NATO attacks.

The swift and vicious calls for accountability are unusual in the tightly controlled regime.

Zoran Zivkovic, deputy president of the opposition Democratic Party and the mayor of the city of Nis, which has been heavily hit during the NATO strikes, expressed his anger because the Serb parliament refused the Rambouillet plan less than three month ago, leading to the NATO strikes.

"Between the two sessions of the parliament, several thousand people were killed, the economy is ruined, and the country is devastated," said Zivkovic. "Who is going to pay the price and bear the responsibility?"

Similar sentiments were expressed by opposition leader Goran Svilanovic, who urged Milosevic to resign, blaming him for "the deaths of a large number of citizens, and the destruction of the largest part of the country's infrastructure ... so that we could obtain ... what we were basically offered before the bombing."


Another old Milosevic rival, former Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic, said Friday he would be willing to head a transitional government if Milosevic left office.

Panic also said the West must help Yugoslavia get rid of Milosevic and asked the world to shun the Serbian strongman now that he has been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. "His record of bringing mad misery to Serbs is now at the ultimate point," Panic said

True, no referendum.

But what idiot would want a referendum after the genocide?
After all, Serbs have deported and intimidated
all those not on their side.

Referendum is not necessary
because Kosovo will remain a part of YU.

But SERBS have EFFECTIVELY lost control there.
Just as Serbs have no control in Montenegro either.

As is, "YUGOSLAVIA" will be a shadow of what it was.
"YUGOSLAVIA" has become a confederacy
of nations that intensely dislike one another.
A state intensely disliked by the rest of the world.

Isolated, defeated, humiliated.
Long Live Yugoslavia (HA!)

A referendum is not necessary.
Because Kosovo has de facto become an independent province.
Milo is weaker because his country is weaker.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

June 4, 1999

NATO

Peacekeeping Force of 50,000 Allied Troops to Enter Kosovo
as Yugoslav Forces Withdraw

By STEVEN LEE MYERS with CRAIG R. WHITNEY

WASHINGTON -- The first of nearly 50,000 NATO troops will
begin moving into Kosovo within days of a final agreement,
taking over the ravaged province as Yugoslavia's army,
police and paramilitary forces withdraw in stages over seven days,
American and European officials said Thursday.

NATO's peacekeeping force, known as KFOR, will ultimately
occupy the entire province, as well as a three-mile buffer zone
inside Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, according to a senior
defense official here.

The force will be under the auspices of the United Nations, but the
troops will remain under NATO's command, according to officials
here and in Europe.

The peacekeeping force, nearly the size of the one that entered a
much larger Bosnia in 1995, will divide the province into five sectors,
each overseen by one of NATO's five largest members: the United
States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, the officials said.

Even though American and NATO officials long predicted the air war
would prevail, President Slobodan Milosevic's abrupt acceptance of
NATO's terms caught the alliance and the Pentagon by surprise,
leaving officials scrambling to prepare for peace.

Many of the details of the peacekeeping force are still unformed;
alliance diplomats met only two days ago to begin discussing the
exact size and shape of their countries' contributions of troops and
weapons.

Most of NATO's 19 members have pledged some troops, including
the United States, which has offered 7,000. The force is also
expected to include soldiers from other nations, among them Jordan
and the United Arab Emirates, officials said.

NATO still hopes that Russia will agree to participate, contributing a
contingent of soldiers that would operate within one of the NATO
sectors. A senior American defense official said that the Russians
would operate within the American sector, as is the case in Bosnia.

Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state, said Russia had still
not agreed to contribute troops, though an alliance official said it had
acceded to NATO command of the force.

In Europe and here in Washington, alliance officials responded
cautiously to Milosevic's sudden reversal. Wary of halting the
bombing before nailing down details of an agreement, they said
NATO's warplanes would continue to strike in Yugoslavia until there
was clear evidence that the army and police units were pulling out.

"At this point, not a single Serb soldier has withdrawn from Kosovo,"
Secretary of Defense William Cohen said at the Pentagon Thursday
evening.

NATO's strikes continued Thursday and into Thursday night, though
officials said the attacks would be less intense as long as
Milosevic's government appeared to be sincerely moving toward a
final agreement.

Still, Cohen said that he expected a military delegation from NATO
to meet with Yugoslav army leaders within a few days to work out
the details of what will amount to NATO's occupation of Kosovo.
That delegation is expected to be led by the British officer, Lt. Gen.
Michael Jackson, who will also serve as field commander of the
peacekeepers.

In Europe, an allied official said that the delegations would meet
somewhere in Europe and hammer out a specific timetable and
plan for withdrawals, even designating evacuation routes for
individual army and police units.

In addition to withdrawal of troops within seven days, NATO's terms
also call for the removal of Serb anti-aircraft defenses within 15
miles of Kosovo within 48 hours of an agreement so that allied
reconnaissance aircraft can safely verify when Serb troops begin to
move out, according to a written agreement of terms Yugoslavia
accepted Thursday.

When NATO will actually stop bombing is a delicate question of
timing. President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, the mediator who
returned to Germany from Belgrade Thursday to report that
Milosevic's government had agreed to NATO's terms, said that
NATO could order a pause in the bombing once it had verified the
Serbs' withdrawal.

"In theory, if there was an agreement tomorrow, it would be in days,
and only a very few days that I understand a suspension in
bombing, in other words a pause in the bombing, could take place,"
he said. "I'm not in a position to say one, two, or three days."

NATO has nearly doubled the size of the peacekeeping force it had
planned to send before the bombing began because of the extent of
damage within Kosovo, including the destruction of entire villages by
the Serbs and NATO's systematic destruction of roads, bridges and
other installations over the last two and a half months.

Britain has pledged more than 17,000 soldiers, nearly a third of the
total, and will control a central sector that includes Kosovo's
provincial capital, Pristina.

The American force of 7,000 is expected to include three heavy
armored divisions and a fourth lighter infantry division from the 1st
Infantry Division in Germany, known as the Big Red One. The
American contingent will also include helicopters and other support
units, which could be culled from the 5,000 soldiers already sent to
Albania with Apache helicopter gunships.

The first American troops, though, could be Marines. The 26th
Marine Expeditionary Unit, with 2,200 personnel already nearby,
could establish the American presence immediately and then
gradually turn over the mission to the Army units.

The American sector, the officials said, will be in the southeastern
part of Kosovo. The French, Germans and Italians will control
sectors on the western side.

Accepting NATO command over the sectors was a significant
concession for Milosevic, who had long insisted that he would not
allow NATO countries to participate in any peacekeeping force. It
was also a concession by Russia.

A senior NATO official said that one Russian proposal in the
negotiations was to create separate occupation zones inside
Kosovo. Under that proposal, which was rejected, Russians would
have occupied Kosovo's north, near Serbia and most thickly
populated with ethnic Serbs and Serbian landmarks, while
American, French, and British forces would have been limited to the
areas near borders with Albania and Macedonia.

"There will be no exclusion zones where only Russians could tread,
or anything like that," the official said.

NATO's European members insist that any peacekeeping mission
in Kosovo should be mandated by the United Nations, with a civilian
administrator overseeing the reconstruction of the province and the
resettlement of the refugees, the same as the mission in Bosnia.

Diplomats from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Germany,
Russia, Japan and Canada have begun discussions to draft a
Security Council resolution authorizing the force and a temporary
Kosovo administration. They hope the countries' leaders will
approve it at a meeting in Cologne, Germany, beginning June 18.

Peacekeepers and international authorities, not Serb officials, would
take over administration of Kosovo and would control decisions
concerning the refugees' return, officials said.

When it comes to the military force, however, NATO's spokesman,
Jamie P. Shea, said NATO's control was clear. "We are talking
about a single force with a single chain of command and a single
set of rules of engagement," he said.

At some point after the peacekeepers move in, the allies agreed to
allow "a few hundred" Serbian troops to return to the province under
international administration to symbolize continued Serb
sovereignty. But officials said that exactly how many Serb officers
could return, where they would go, and when they could come back
had not been decided.

After more than a year of fighting between the Serbs and the rebels
and weeks of bombing, the peacekeepers will face daunting
obstacles. Not only is there extensive destruction, but mines, booby
traps and, according to reports, wells poisoned by decaying human
corpses or animal carcasses dumped by the Serbs. Peacekeepers
will also have to cope with disarming Kosovar Albanian guerrillas, as
called for in the agreement.

The senior American defense official said that NATO would, at first,
prevent the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Albania and
Macedonia from returning

THE NEW YORK TIMES

June 4, 1999

Text of the Peace Plan Approved by the Serb Parliament

A copy of the Kosovo peace plan approved by the Serb
parliament today, obtained by The Associated Press from
parliamentary sources.

The text was in Serbian and translated by the AP:

In order to move forward toward solving the Kosovo crisis, an
agreement should be reached on the following principles:

1: Imminent and verifiable end to violence and repression of Kosovo.

2. Verifiable withdrawal from Kosovo of all military, police and
paramilitary forces according to a quick timetable.

3. Deployment in Kosovo, under U.N. auspicies, of efficient
international civilian and security presences which would act as can
be decided according to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter and be
capable of guaranteeing fulfillment of joint goals.

4. International security presence, with an essential NATO
participation, must be deployed under a unified control and
command and authorized to secure safe environment for all the
residents in Kosovo and enable the safe return of the displaced
persons and refugees to their homes.

5. Establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo ... which
the U.N. Security Council will decide and under which the people of
Kosovo will enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia . The interim administration (will) secure transitional
authority during the time (for the) interim democratic and
self-governing institutions, (establish) conditions for peaceful and
normal life of all citizens of Kosovo.

6. After the withdrawal, an agreed number of Serb personnel will be
allowed to return to perform the following duties: liaison with the
international civilian mission and international security presence,
marking mine fields, maintaining a presence at places of Serb
heritage, maintaining a presence at key border crossings.

7. Safe and free return of all refugees and the displaced under the
supervision of UNHCR and undisturbed access for humanitarian
organizations to Kosovo.

8. Political process directed at reaching interim political agreement
which would secure essential autonomy for Kosovo, with full taking
into consideration of the Rambouillet agreement, the principles of
sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia and other states in the region as well as demilitarization
of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The talks between the sides about
the solution should not delay or disrupt establishment of the
democratic self-governning institutions.

9. General approach to the economic development of the crisis
region. That would include carrying out a pact of stability for
southeastern Europe, wide international participation in order to
advance democracy and economic prosperity, and stability and
regional cooperation.

10. The end of military activities will depend on acceptance of the
listed principles and simultaneous agreement with other previously
identified elements which are identified in the footnote below. Then a
military-technical agreement will be agreed which will among other
things specify additional modalities, including the role and function of
the Yugoslav, i.e. Serb, personnel in Kosovo.

11. The process of withdrawal includes a phased, detailed timetable
and the marking of a buffer zone in Serbia behind which the troops
will withdraw.

12. The returning personnel: The equipment of the returning
personnel, the range of their functional responsibilities, the timetable
for their return, determination of the geographic zones of their
activity, the rules guiding their relations with the international security
presence and the international civilian mission.

Footnote. Other required elements: Fast and precise timetable for
the withdrawal which means for instance: seven days to end the
withdrawal; pulling out of weapons of air defense from the zone of
the mutual security of 25 kilometers within 48 hours; return of the
personnel to fullfill the four duties will be carried out under the
supervision of the international security presence and will be limited
to a small agreed number -- hundreds, not thousands.

Suspension of military actions will happen after the beginning of the
withdrawal which can be verified. Discussion about the
military-technical agreement and its reaching will not prolong the
agreed period for the withdrawal.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

June 4, 1999

MAN IN THE NEWS

A Proven Peacemaker: Martti Ahtisaari

By WARREN HOGE

LONDON -- Geography, history and some stubborn Nordic
patience gave Martti Ahtisaari, 61, the president of Finland, a
reasoning power with Slobodan Milosevic and his Russian
advocates that no other European leader could match.

A European Union member whose very survival as a nation long
depended on its ability not to antagonize its mammoth Soviet
neighbor, neutral Finland has found itself in the pivotal position of
providing honest-broker services between Moscow, Belgrade and
Brussels.

And Ahtisaari, who helped persuade Milosevic to accept the peace
plan for Kosovo worked out by Russia, the United States and the
Europeans, is a man of proven staying power. He spent 13 years
heading up the U.N. effort leading to a peaceful resolution of the
struggle that resulted in the independence of Namibia in southern
Africa.

Today it is Ahtisaari's purpose to help Finland, the one Nordic
country to adopt the euro as its future currency, overcome its
location on the northeastern fringe of the Continent and become a
central player in Brussels, Belgium, the seat of the European Union,
as well as a bridge between Russia and the Europeans.

Ahtisaari was a vigorous supporter of his country's decision to enter
the European Union in 1995 and the European monetary union this
past year, and he has repeatedly argued that the European Union's
primary responsibility is to be patient with Russia and help it achieve
democratic stability. Finland holds the European Union's rotating
presidency starting in July.

A career diplomat for 30 years and a politician only since his
election in 1994, Ahtisaari occupies an office that under the Finnish
Constitution has the responsibility for shaping foreign policy.

In recent years, Finland has become the most wired nation in the
world, symbolized by the international success of its Nokia
telecommunications products, and it has taken on the leadership of
a new Baltic area of influence opened up by the end of the Cold
War.

The new presidential residence that Ahtisaari lives in is a fitting
testament to the self-confidence of the nation and the comfort it
takes in its frost-bound maritime location. Granite solid outside and
minimalist and unadorned inside, it is a modernistic building
designed to symbolize ice, snow and light and is set into an outcrop
overlooking the sea near Helsinki.

As if to dramatize his country's prominence as a technological
innovator, Ahtisaari delights in entertaining the growing number of
foreign guests to the mansion by flicking on the single button that
floods the acoustically tuned spaces with classical music.

Martti Ahtisaari was born on June 23, 1937, in the city of Viipuri,
which is now on the Russian side of the border in territory ceded to
the Soviet Union after World War II. His father, a naturalized Finn
born in Norway, was a noncommissioned army officer.

The son went to school in Oulu in the north of Finland, graduating in
1959 from a teachers college and pondering life as an educator. But
eager to see the world, he worked on a school project in Pakistan
for the Swedish Agency for Industrial Development, and his career
as an internationalist was set.

He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1965 and went abroad in
1973 as Finland's ambassador to four African countries: Tanzania,
Mozambique, Somalia and Zambia. The contacts he developed
throughout Africa served him in good stead in 1977 when Javier
Perez de Cuellar, the secretary-general of the United Nations, was
looking for someone to serve as commissioner and special
representative to Namibia, where a guerrilla war for independence
from South Africa was under way.

He kept at it even after returning to Helsinki in 1984 as Finland's
under secretary of state for international cooperation with developing
countries. Three years later he became the U.N. under
secretary-general for administration and management and retained
his position as special representative for Namibia. The new nation
named him an honorary citizen in 1990, and many Namibians have
since named their own children Martti.

In 1991 he became head of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
and a year later was appointed chairman of the Bosnia-Herzogovina
Working Group of the International Conference on the Former
Yugoslavia.

In the only political contest of his life, he became Finland's first
directly elected president. His first six-year term ends in 2000, and,
though he is permitted to run for re-election, he announced last
weekend that he would step down as the Social Democratic Party's
candidate in favor of Tarja Halonen, currently Finland's foreign
minister.

Ahtisaari is married to the former Eeva Hyvarinen, a
secondary-school teacher. The couple have a son who studied
philosophy in the United States and now plays in a rock band in
Finland.

Ahtisaari is a lover of the country's frigid countryside and such a
devotee of the nation's most famous relaxation activity that he has
been known to take his counselors into his sauna and continue
discussions there.

He has had a lifelong problem controlling his weight, which has led
to a degeneration of his knees and altered his walk. He has had
several operations to correct the problem, but still moves in a
labored fashion.

When he was reported to have stumbled or fallen at receptions, the
local press suspected something other than his weak knees,
speculating that he instead had been living up to the Finns'
reputation for being hearty vodka drinkers. The president went on
television to complain that these reports were intrusions on his
personal life.

"I think the nation can differentiate between events of a private
nature and official work," he said.

The Finnish press respected his wishes and reported no more
rumors. But one newspaper took note of a report that President
Boris Yeltsin of Russia had appeared unsteady on a visit to
Germany. Its headline read: "Yeltsin Stumbles Too."

I see the USA is going to send in the Marines before the Army. They must expect some resistance from residual Serb personnel in Kosovo. God help the Serbs. The US Marines are the most brainwashed, disciplined, efficient, killing machines in existence. Any Serbs in that area, that put up a fight, will die. The unofficial Marine motto is KILL!!! KILL!!! KILL!!! Those guys are totally insane.

Did I scare everyone off?