http://www.telegraph.co.uk


Tony Blair knows how important a word
from your wife can be
By David Wastell in Washington and Christina Lamb


[...] We both share the objectives of Nato," said Mr
Cook. "We are totally agreed," echoed Mrs Albright.

Back in Europe, those objectives were once more in doubt as misdirected
Nato bombs continued to test diplomatic patience by damaging the Swedish,
Norwegian and Spanish embassies.

On Thursday, as State Department spokesman James Rubin was entertaining
Mr Cook and Mrs Albright with impersonations of CNN presenter Larry
King, on whose show they were due to appear, European diplomats in
Belgrade were sent running for cover at the Swiss ambassador's house. "Four
cruise missiles hit a fuel depot 300 yards away and an enormous pressure
shattered a very large window in the dining room," recounted Mats
Staffanson, the Swedish envoy. "Myself, the Slovakian and the Vatican
ambassadors threw ourselves under the table to avoid flying glass."

In Italy, where the population was outraged by news that fishermen near
Venice were finding unused cluster bombs in their nets, the Prime Minister,
Massimo d'Alema, suggested a ceasefire. Even Portugal, England's oldest
ally, criticised the campaign, furious at having truckloads of aid to Albania
rejected by the refugees.

With the alliance in imminent danger of cracking, and the European press
daubing Blair "Go It Alone Tony", Robin Cook's Washington mission took on
an air of desperation.
[...]

UNHCR - Refugees Daily
A digest of the latest refugee news, as reported by the world's media.
...

KOSOVO: UN MISSION

17 May 99 - A UN exploratory mission, the first of its kind since the
start of NATO bombing campaign on Yugoslavia, arrived in Belgrade
yesterday, to evaluate humanitarian needs in the country, especially in
Kosovo, reports AFP in Belgrade. "This is a combined humanitarian team
that will be looking obviously at emergency, humanitarian needs, at the
problem of the displaced, particularly in Kosovo," said Sergio Vieira de
Mello, the head of the team. During its 10-day visit to Yugoslavia, the
team would also be evaluating "needs of rehabilitation and
reconstruction, especially for those who would be able to return to
their homes in Kosovo," De Mello said. The UN team is composed of
representatives of a number of UN agencies, including those from the
UNHCR. The Guardian reports UNHCR has warned it will not go back until
ethnic cleansing stops and it can provide protection for more than
500,000 displaced Albanians.
[UN exploratory mission arrives in Belgrade - www.afp.com; UN risks
return to Kosovo - www.guardian.co.uk]

MACEDONIA: NEW INFLUX?

17 May 1999 - Macedonia is bracing itself for a new influx of thousands
of refugees after at least 1,200 refugees crossed the border at Blace
this weekend, reports the Financial Times. The latest flow will put
renewed pressure on Macedonia's already stretched resources. More than
45,000 refugees have been airlifted to countries outside the region, but
more than 230,000 remain there. UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said: "There
are probably tens of thousands more waiting to come to Macedonia,"
adding that the latest arrivals came as word spread inside Kosovo that
it was possible again to cross the border. UNHCR had hoped to transfer
several thousand refugees from Macedonia to Albania where sites have
been identified for up to 60,000 refugees. However, only 200 people have
agreed to be moved. Many have been deterred without guaranteeing they
will still be eligible for humanitarian evacuation to countries such as
Germany, Canada and the US. The BBC News reports UNHCR officials say
some of the new refugees were driven from their homes by Serbian police
while others, mainly from Urosevac, were prevented from buying food by
Serbian authorities and so had no choice but to leave. New York Times
adds refugees arriving in Macedonia said Yugoslav forces have killed
more than 100 civilians in villages in the Drenica region.
[Macedonia braced for big new Kosovar influx - www.ft.com; Refugees say
Serbs withhold food - http://news.bbc.co.uk ; Refugees Report Slaughter
Of Civilians In Kla Region - www.nytimes.com]

MACEDONIA: PRESIDENT URGES FASTER EVACUATIONS

17 May 99 - President Kiro Gligorov of Macedonia yesterday urged the
west to speed up the evacuation of Kosovo refugees from his country, as
Hillary Clinton, the US first lady, toured the country's crowded refugee
camps, reported the Financial Times this weekend. Gligorov, in an
interview, singled out Britain, France and Italy as "lagging behind"
other states in accepting refugees. He promised Macedonia would keep
open its borders to new arrivals thought to be on their way from Kosovo.
But he said the pledge was "linked" to European Union countries
fulfilling their promises to take 100,000 refugees. "This should move at
a much faster pace in order to create room for more refugees here and
enable us to keep to international conventions [on refugees] of which we
are signatories." President Gligorov also urged the west to provide more
money for refugee aid and to buy more supplies locally to help support
the Macedonian economy.
[Macedonia calls on west to speed up the evacuation of refugees -
www.ft.com]

MACEDONIA: HILLARY CLINTON, VIPs VISIT

17 May 99 - US First Lady Hillary Clinton visited Macedonia on Friday
morning, to highlight the plight of Kosovan refugees and assure
Macedonia that the US understands the stress that the influx has placed
on it, reports the Los Angeles Times. At Brazda refugee camp, Mrs.
Clinton announced the release of the first US$2m in a US$21m economic
development package for Macedonia to help it create new small
businesses. Several of the refugees with whom Mrs. Clinton spoke, said
they were happy and surprised by her visit. They did not know she was
coming until about an hour before she stopped into their tent. AFP
reports almost every day some jet-setting VIP pops in to walk the dusty
rows of crowded tents, chat with Kosovans, and beg the world not to
forget their plight. Others last week included actors Roger Moore and
Vanessa Redgrave; Bianca Jagger; Italian President Oscar Scalfaro; and
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is
expected this week. The Guardian adds that aid agencies, facing signs of
compassion fatigue, know there's no business like show business to keep
donations coming in.
[First Lady Hears Heart-Rending Story From Refugee Mother -
www.latimes.com; VIPs lend celebrity glitter to Kosovo refugee camps -
www.afp.com; Showbiz aid cuts compassion fatigue - www.guardian.co.uk]

ALBANIA: FEW CROSS BORDER AMID BOMBING

17 May 99 - NATO jets pounded Yugoslav targets close to the main border
point between Kosovo and Albania for the fifth consecutive day on
Saturday as only a handful of refugees came across, reports Reuters.
Relief officials said it was not clear if the flow had been reduced in
recent days because refugees feared being caught by NATO fire while
heading for the border. Eyewitnesses reported at least 10 explosions by
midday aimed mainly at the Kosovo town of Zhur beyond the border
crossing at Morina, near Kukes. The refugees crossing into Albania on
Saturday included an injured man carried by two others. He was said to
have been wounded by Serb shelling near the town of Meja.
[Fighting, few refugees, at Albanian border - www.reuters.com]

ALBANIA: 'EMERGENCY' ENDS

17 May 99 - The Albanian government has overcome the "emergency stage"
of the humanitarian crisis caused by the influx of about 430,000
refugees from Kosovo, Information Minister Musa Ulqini said on Saturday,
reports Deutsche Presse-Agentur. "We are now working on a medium-term
programme for the refugees," said Ulqini. Refugee camps have been set up
in several cities of Albania. The government has also turned formerly
factories, military buildings, dormitories and other public facilities
into refugee accommodation centres throughout the country. Ulqini also
said that for the first time, after several days of evacuation, the
number of refugees in Kukes had fallen below the figure of 100,000.
About 6,500 refugees were evacuated in 48 hours. But the Los Angeles
Times reports UNHCR's mass evacuation has taken less than 10% of the
displaced Kosovans southward since it began Friday, but officials expect
the pace to accelerate as new accommodation opens for 160,000 people
along Albania's coast. "We have always said that refugee camps shouldn't
be set up on borders. There is the risk of shelling, the risk of
spillover of the conflict and the risk of infiltration of non-refugee
elements," said UNHCR spokeswoman Melita Sunjic. But only those sleeping
in the open or under plastic sheets are being swayed by the call to move
out of Kukes.
[Refugee 'emergency stage' overcome, Albanian minister says -
www.dpa.com; Many Refugees May Have to Move Again - www.latimes.com]

ALBANIA: KOSOVANS KILLED ON BOAT TO ITALY

17 May 1999 - At least three Kosovan refugees died overnight Saturday
when a boat smuggling more than 40 refugees from Albania to Italy hit a
reef in the bay of Vlora off the southwestern Albanian coast, Italian
officials said, reports AFP. The bodies of a woman and two children were
found by Italian customs and navy boats, who carried out the rescue
operation, said Captain Bruno Biagi. Thirty-nine others were injured in
the accident, and "it is feared that three children are still in the
water under the rocks," Biagi said, adding that the exact number of
refugees aboard the craft was unknown. The smugglers fled the scene, he
added. It is not yet known how the accident, which occurred shortly
after midnight, happened. Thirty-eight of the injured were being treated
in a Vlora refugee camp run by the Italians, while one seriously injured
child was hospitalised in Tirana, Biagi said.
[At least three Kosovo refugees die in boat wreck off Albania -
www.afp.com]

MONTENEGRO: SERBS SEIZE MEN FLEEING

17 May 1999 - The Yugoslav army has seized up to 150 male Kosovo
refugees as they tried to flee to Albania and Bosnia via Montenegro,
local refugee organisations said yesterday, reports Reuters. Officials
believed that the ethnic Albanians had been transported back into
Kosovo, leaving their families stranded in Montenegro. "This is the
first time that the army has taken men and stopped people from going to
Albania. It is extremely alarming,'' said Dzema Nikaj, head of a refugee
crisis centre in Tuzi, a small southeastern town near Albania.
Montenegro's reformist government, which is strongly opposed to Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic, has denounced the army action and called
on the military to leave the border areas. The Daily Telegraph reports
the Yugoslav army tightened the noose around the increasingly
insubordinate republic of Montenegro at the weekend when it rounded up
about 100 ethnic Albanian refugees seeking sanctuary across the border
in Albania. Le Monde reports UNHCR has asked the government to relocate
refugees away from the tense border town of Rozaje.
[Yugoslav army seizes Kosovo men in Montenegro - www.reuters.com;
Montenegro refugees rounded up - www.telegraph.co.uk; Serb forces use
same methods in Montenegro's Rozaje - www.lemonde.fr]

KOSOVANS: NATO CHIEF WANTS RETURNS BY WINTER

17 May 99 - Nato chief Javier Solana has said he wants the Kosovo
Albanian refugees home this year, reports BBC News. "It is our wish, and
we are doing our best so they can return home as soon as possible, in
any case before the winter." He said he also expected to learn "dramatic
facts" of alleged atrocities of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo once
international troops had escorted the Kosovo Albanians home. The
Washington Post reports US and European officials have stepped up work
on how to restore order in Kosovo and resettle masses of refugees after
1.5 million ethnic Albanians were displaced and Kosovo's devastation
altered many of the assumptions behind peacekeeping plans drafted by
NATO before the bombing. Meanwhile Paul Rogers, professor of peace
studies at Bradford University, in the Guardian said it's time to talk.
Agree a ceasefire but insist on a UN military force in Kosovo. If it
comes to a ground war, it may not be feasible to overrun Serb forces in
Kosovo in the time-scale necessary and, even if Kosovo is occupied, the
difficulties of maintaining control may be sufficiently high to dissuade
refugees from returning. It could take up to two years to resettle the
refugees, with all the implications that entails for caring for
three-quarters of a million displaced people.
[Nato: Refugees home by winter - http://news.bbc.co.uk ; NATO Plans for
More Troops in Kosovo to Handle Damage, Refugees -
www.washingtonpost.com; Exit strategy - www.guardian.co.uk]

KOSOVANS: ALBRIGHT, COOK SAY FIGHT IS RIGHT

17 May 99 - We and our NATO allies initiated a campaign in response to
ethnic cleansing in Kosovo because it was the right thing to do, say US
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and British Foreign secretary
Robin Cook in an op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday. Continuing that
campaign is still the right thing to do. We will not stop until we have
prevailed - created the conditions under which the ethnic cleansing of
Kosovo can be reversed. It is time for a reminder of what this is all
about. We are fighting to get the refugees home, safe under our
protection. Their homes have been destroyed, their villages burned,
their lives ruined by a regime determined to achieve ethnic purity and
prepared to use cruel and violent means to achieve it. We are pursuing a
settlement under which President Slobodan Milosevic would withdraw his
forces and allow the deployment of an international security force, with
NATO at its core, thus enabling the refugees to return in safety. We
remain supportive of the political framework negotiated at Rambouillet
under which the Kosovars would enjoy genuine self-government, and the
territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would be
preserved. These are the terms of a fair settlement. If Milosevic
accepted and began to implement them immediately, the NATO air campaign
could end immediately. We are determined to persist in our efforts until
Milosevic reverses course and the people of Kosovo are able to return,
reunite and begin, with our help, to rebuild.
[The Air Campaign Remains the Right Thing to Do -
www.washingtonpost.com]

KOSOVANS: UNHCR COPES BADLY, SAYS REPORT

17 May 99 - A committee of British MPs has condemned UNHCR for its
handling of the Kosovo refugee crisis, reports BBC News. They said UNHCR
had not coped well when the crisis first broke and was still failing to
meet refugees' needs. The International Development Committee report,
published on Saturday, said: "UNHCR did not even make adequate
preparations for the volume of refugees which it itself had predicted
would flee from Kosovo . . . Several weeks into the crisis we have no
sense that UNHCR has as yet taken control of the situation, providing
clear direction, leadership and co-ordination." Committee chairman,
Conservative MP Bowen Wells, said it was no excuse that UNHCR had been
taken by surprise by the crisis. The report also highlights the failure
of UNHCR to set up a registration system for refugees after they had
their identity documents taken by Serb forces. It said little had been
done to provide proper shelter for winter or sanitation for summer. BBC
News separately reports UNHCR has attacked the report. UNHCR's London
representative, Hope Hanlon, said the criticism was "regrettable." UNHCR
was not consulted and in some cases it was based on inaccurate
information, she said. UNHCR spokeswoman Judith Kumin said observers
visit the camps for 24 hours, getting only a "snapshot" view. "It would
be much better to see them working day after day, week after week and
month after month in exhausting conditions," she said.
[UN failing Kosovo refugees: MPs + UNHCR hits back at critics -
http://news.bbc.co.uk ]

KOSOVANS: COSTS COUNTED

17 May 99 - Officials in Brussels and Washington are being forced to
produce numbers, however tentative, on the eventual costs for
reconstructing the Kosovo region and taking long-term care of the
hundreds of thousands of refugees, reports the Financial Times. The job
of assessing the needs and of mobilising donors has been handed to a
special task force formed last week by officials of the World Bank and
the European Commission. Initial estimates suggest humanitarian
assistance for coping with the refugees could amount to around US$780m
based on a total of 967,000 refugees, a nine-month conflict and a
12-month period of return and resettlement. Meanwhile, Michael Emerson,
a senior researcher at the Centre for European Policy Studies in
Brussels, also in the Financial Times says the European Union must add
substance to its promise to draw up a Balkan stability pact. The Balkans
need something as effective as a Marshall Plan. This should include
emergency assistance and compensation to households and local
authorities to accommodate refugees away from tent cities.
[Reconstruction costed + After the war is over - www.ft.com]

CYPRUS: SERBS FLEE BOMBS

17 May 99 - With no end in sight to the NATO bombing campaign on
Yugoslavia, growing numbers of Serbs are seeking safety in Cyprus,
taking advantage of Greek-Cypriot sympathy for their Orthodox
co-religionists, reports AFP in Nicosia. At least 120 Serb families have
applied for asylum in the island since late March, UNHCR's Cyprus
representative said. The Cyprus-Yugoslav Humanitarian Fund, a support
group which raises funds to help Serbs fleeing the war, said up to a
thousand Serb women and children had come to Cyprus via Bulgaria and
Hungary since the beginning of the NATO bombing campaign. "It's mostly
women and children coming here because a lot of the men are sending
their families away. The men don't want to leave - they are waiting for
the ground war," said a fund worker. The growing influx of Serbs fleeing
the war is hampering the authorities' ability to process applications
for full asylum.
[Serbs seek refuge from NATO bombing campaign in friendly Cyprus -
www.afp.com]

BOSNIA: SERBS SEEKING AID

17 May 1999 - The head of the Bosnian Serb refugee agency on Friday said
it did not have enough money to take care of some 30,000 Serbs who had
fled Yugoslavia since the NATO bombing campaign started on March 24,
reports Reuters. Dragan Kekic, commissioner for refugees, told the
Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA that he would seek funds from UNHCR and
the Serb republic's government for food, medicine and shelter. "The
arrival of these unfortunate people - mostly women, children, elderly
and sick - has caused new problems for the Serb republic Commissioner
for Refugees, which is not in a position to find shelter and feed all of
them," he told SRNA.
[Bosnian Serbs struggle to cope with Yugo refugees - www.reuters.com]

(...)

Europe

EUROPE: APPLICANTS DROP BY 20%

17 May 99 - In spite of the escalating crisis in Kosovo, the number of
people applying for asylum in European countries in the first three
months of this year was one-fifth lower than at the end of 1998, UNHCR
said Friday, reports AP. The number of Yugoslav citizens overwhelmingly
Kosovo Albanians who made applications in 21 western and central
European countries fell from 38,000 in the last quarter of last year to
26,300 between January and March, a 31% drop. "One can only speculate on
the reason for the decline," said UNHCR spokeswoman Judith Kumin. The
blocking of traditional routes across Serbia into Central Europe could
be a factor, she said. "And the fact that most people don't have any
money any more to pay for the passage because they've either spent it or
it was taken away from them when they were leaving would explain why
there has been less movement into Western Europe than we would expect,"
Kumin added. Asylum applications by Yugoslav citizens accounted for 29%
of the 92,200 new requests made in Europe a quarter of them in Germany,
19% in Britain and 13% in Switzerland between January and March. The
total figure was down from 114,590 between October and December.
[European asylum applications drop despite Kosovo crisis - www.ap.org]

(...)

This document is intended for public information purposes only. It is
not an official UN document.













Kosova Task Force
Action Alert
May 3, 1999

CBS News continues unjust coverage of the genocide occuring in Kosova.
Last night, in a 360 Minutes2 report, CBS News Anchor Dan Rather interviewed the
wife of Slobodan Milosevic, in which she denied the ethnic cleansing occuring in
Kosova. Such an outrageous statement can not go unanswered.

We must not remain silent on the sidelines while CBS News paints Milosevic as
the victim in this war. The victims of this eight year long war against
non-Serbs are the 50,000 women and girls as young as seven who have been raped.
The victims of this war are the ones found in the mass grave sites in Kosova.
The victims of this war are the 1.1 million Albanians forced to flee Kosova in
this ethnic cleansing.

Demand more accurate coverage of the war in Kosova. Remind CBSNews that the
genocide is in Kosova, not in Belgrade. Insist that CBS News move their team
out of Belgrade and onto the Kosova border, where the images from the refugee
camps speak for themselves. Ask Dan Rather why the interview was not conducted
in Kosova. Why not bring Milosevic1s wife face to face with the refugees. Let
her confront the tear-stained faces, full of suffering and then ask her again
if she can deny the killing and expulsion of these people. Get in touch with CBS
News and 60 Minutes and voice your opinion.

Please Call:
CBS News (212) 975-3247
360 Minutes2 (212) 975-2006 or (212) 975-3247

or Write to:
60 Minutes
524 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

or email CBS News:
http://www.cbs.com/

May God bless and protect the oppressed in Kosova and the innocent in Serbia.

====================================
Kosova Task Force, USA
730 W. Lake St., Suite 156
Chicago, IL 60661, USA
Phone: 312-829-0087
Fax: 312-829-0089
Email: kosova@justiceforall.org

The following organizations constitute the Kosova Task Force, USA:
Albanian Islamic Cultural Center, American Muslim Council,
Balkan Muslim Association, Council of Islamic Organizations of Chicago,
Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, Council on American
Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA),
Islamic Council of New England, Islamic Medical Association, Islamic
Shura Council of Southern California, Islamic Society of Greater
Houston, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Majlis Shura New York,
The Ministry of Imam W.D. Muhammad, Muslim Students Association of US
and Canada, The National Community.



At Least One Hundred Men Believed Executed
(April 30, 1999) -- Human Rights Watch has concluded three days of investigations into the April 27 massacre of ethnic Albanian men in the village of Meja, northwest of Djakovica. After nineteen separate interviews with eyewitnesses, the organization finds that at least one hundred, and perhaps as many as three hundred, men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were taken out of a convoy of refugees by Serbian forces and systematically executed. The precise number of victims is still unknown.

In the early morning of April 27, Serbian special police and paramilitary units, together with soldiers of the Yugoslav Army (VJ), systematically "cleansed" all ethnic Albanians from the villages between Djakovica and Junik, near the Albanian border. Beginning around 7:00 a.m., the security forces forcibly expelled residents from the following villages: Pecaj, Nivokaz, Dobrash, Sheremet, Jahoc, Ponashec, Racaj, Ramoc, Madanaj, and Orize.

All of the nineteen witnesses interviewed from these villages, who included people from elsewhere who had sought refuge over the past month in those villages, told Human Rights Watch that soldiers and special police forces surrounded their villages, rounded up the inhabitants, and forced them to flee along the road towards Djakovica, some in tractors and some on foot. Many of the villages were then systematically burned.

One eighteen-year-old woman from Dobrash said that the security forces held two male members of her family, Iber and Avdyl, as the family left the village. "The police told us to walk on and then we heard the shooting of automatic guns," she said. The two men are currently missing.

The villagers from the region were all forced to follow the road to Meja, a small village just outside of Djakovica. Their accounts reveal how, during the course of the day, the many police and military present in the village systematically pulled hundreds of ethnic Albanian men out of the convoy and away from their families. Villagers who passed through Meja around midday reported seeing security forces holding "hundreds" of men at gunpoint.

Those who had passed through Meja later in the afternoon reported having seen a "large pile of bodies," which some estimated to be as many as three hundred. This number could not be independently confirmed and, witnesses admitted, the count is based on the estimated number of men taken from the convoy who are currently missing.

Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed all nineteen witnesses in Kukes, northern Albania, within three days after they entered Albania on April 28. Although questions remain about some details of the events, the consistency and specificity of witnesses' testimonies paint an undeniable picture of forced expulsion, the systematic destruction of civilian property, intimidation and robbery, and the forced separation and summary execution of many ethnic Albanian males.

The refugees, severely traumatized, began entering Albania through the Morina border crossing near Kukes in the early morning of April 28. A Human Rights Watch researcher at the border at 6:30 a.m. interviewed some of the refugees a short time after they crossed into the country. The newly arrived refugees, made up almost entirely of women, children, and elderly men, spoke of a mass slaughter in Meja.

Witnesses interviewed over the next two days in Kukes area refugee camps provided more details of the atrocities. One witness said she was forced out of Sheremet around 8:00 a.m. on April 26 and arrived in Meja with her family on a tractor around 10:00 a.m. "They took the men from the tractors," she said. "There were about forty people on our tractor, and they took twelve men. They took all of the men." Other refugees who traveled through Meja that day confirmed that security forces took men as young as fourteen and as old as sixty out of the convoy.

Ray Wilkenson, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Kukes who was on the border as the refugees arrived in Albania, told Human Rights Watch that in his estimation sixty tractors crossed into Albania and "six out of seven" of the tractors reported that some men had been taken from their vehicles. Journalists who were on the border at the same time said that the refugees repeatedly said that at least 100 men had been killed.

A nineteen-year-old man who arrived in Meja between 10:00 and 11:00 a.m. described the scene to Human Rights Watch. He said:

Many people were in the convoy with tractors. The ones who were walking were mostly let through, but some were taken. They [the police and military] stopped the tractors and began to hit people with pieces of wood and they broke the tractor windows. The men were stopped and taken away, about one hundred men, to a field near the road. The police screamed for us to keep moving so we left the hundred men and we don't know what happened to them.

Human Rights Watch interviewed refugees who passed through Meja between 12:00 and 3:00 p.m. and reported seeing large numbers of ethnic Albanian men in the custody of security forces. One witness, a thirty-eight-year-old teacher who passed through Meja around 1:00 p.m., told Human Rights Watch:

I saw a big crowd of people separated from their families: old and young men. I think it was more than 250. They were kneeling on the ground ... along the road at a small forest on the side of a hill about twenty or thirty meters from the road. They were in the village center.

Another witness who was in Meja at the same time, interviewed separately, provided a corroborating account, adding only that the group of men was kneeling with their hands behind their backs, surrounded by soldiers.

Other witnesses who were in Meja around midday described slight variations of this scenario. A forty-year-old woman who was in Meja around 12:00 p.m. said she saw "seventy men or more" squatting with their hands behind their heads in a small canal that ran parallel to the road. Another witness said her husband was taken off their cart to join a group of Albanian men at the side of the road and forced to shout: "Long live Serbia; long live Milosevic." All of the witnesses said that Meja was full of police and special forces dressed in blue and green camouflage uniforms, respectively. Many members of the forces wore black ski masks, and some wore red bandanas on their heads, they said. Some reported seeing red patches with a double-headed eagle, a symbol of Yugoslavia, on the soldiers' sleeves.

One witness who passed through Meja around 12:00 p.m. claimed to have seen fifteen dead men on the right side of the road. The eighteen-year-old woman told Human Rights Watch:

The road was full of blood. On the right side of the road there were fifteen men. I counted them. They were lying face down with blood all around, and they were not moving.

The refugees who passed through Meja later in the afternoon told of seeing many dead bodies in the village. An eighteen-year-old man and a nineteen-year-old woman, interviewed together, who arrived in Meja on foot around 5:30 p.m., said they saw a large pile of bodies about three meters from the right side of the road in the center of the village. The bodies, tumbled together, covered an area of ground about twelve by twenty feet, and were stacked about four feet high, they said.

The witnesses admitted to being very scared and rushed along by the police, factors which prevented them from making any more than a very rough estimate of the body count. Based on the number of men that they believed were missing, they thought the number of dead totaled 300. Fifteen other men, they said, were sitting on the ground with their backs to the pile of dead bodies facing a group of security forces.

Human Rights Watch concluded today that Serbian police and paramilitaries, and probably Yugoslav Army forces summarily executed ethnic Albanian men on April 27 in Meja. The precise number of men and boys who were killed will not be known until forensics experts are allowed into Kosovo to examine the site. Urgent international action is needed to stop such slaughter. These war crimes should also be prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Five Serbian policemen were reportedly killed in Meja on April 21, 1999. Refugees from the region told Human Rights Watch that unidentified ethnic Albanians, perhaps from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), had shot and killed the five policemen after the victims had searched an Albanian house for arms, although this story could not be confirmed.




For further information about violations of human rights and humanitarian law in Kosovo, see the Human Rights Watch website at www.hrw.org on the "Crisis in Kosovo" page. To subscribe to Kosovo Human Rights Flashes, send an E-mail to @hrw.org">Donalds@hrw.org.
For further information contact:
Holly Cartner (New York): 1-212-216-1277 - Jean-Paul Marthoz (Brussels): 322-736-7838

Kosovo Human Rights Flash #31
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 28, 1999

RAPE OF ETHNIC ALBANIAN WOMEN IN KOSOVO TOWN OF DRAGACIN

(April 28, 1999) Two ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo told Human
Rights Watch yesterday that they had been raped by Serbian security
forces while being held captive in Kosovo. Three other rape victims from
the same village have also reported their cases to doctors in northern
Albania.

The two victims, from the village of Dragacin in the Suva Reka
municipality, gave testimony that was detailed and credible. Many
aspects of their stories were corroborated by eight other women
villagers, interviewed separately. Human Rights Watch is withholding the
names of the victims at their request to protect them from government
retaliation.

All of the women interviewed told how the police surrounded the village
of Dragacin on April 21. Most of the men fled into the mountains, but
between 200 and 300 women (including fifty women from the nearby
villages of Mujlan and Dujle (in Albanian)), as well as eleven elderly
men, stayed behind. The security forces gathered the entire group in a
field, where they searched and then separated the eleven elderly men,
including a ninety-three-year-old man named Ymer. None of the men have
been seen since, although three of the women interviewed said they later
saw one of the eleven men lying dead in a Dragacin street.

The government security forces divided the women randomly into three
private houses in the village (the houses of Shahin T., Avdi T. and
Halil T.), where they were held for three days. During this time, the
women were repeatedly threatened and harassed. One woman said that the
police held a knife to her three year-old boy, saying that they would
kill him if she didn't produce gold or money. Certain women were
compelled to cook and clean for Serb forces. Some were forced to have
sex with their captors.

The two rape victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch were held in the
same house, which was crowded with frightened women and children. Women
held in other houses described similar conditions.
One of the victims described how she was sexually abused on two
occasions, during one of which she was raped. At approximately 4 p.m. on
her second day of captivity, she was "chosen" from among a large group
of women by a man in a green camouflage uniform. The man took her to
another house and raped her, she said.

The following day another man demanded she go with him to a different
house some ten minutes' walk away. According to the woman's account, the
man did not tell her where he was taking her or why, but instead pushed
her forward with his gun when she started crying.

The house was full of members of the Serbian security forces, she told
Human Rights Watch. They asked her questions, using a mixture of
gestures and very basic words to communicate, as the woman hardly
understood Serbian. They asked her age -- twenty-three, she said --
whether she had any children, and the whereabouts of her husband. They
asked her for money. When she told them that she had none, they ordered
her to take off her clothes. She started crying and pulling out her
hair, which made the men laugh. They put on some music.

After she took off her clothes, the men approached her one by one as she
stood before them naked. She told Human Rights Watch that all of them
looked at her, then they left her alone in the room with the man she
believed to be their commander, and another officer. The commander, whom
she recognized as such because he had gold stars on his cap and he
issued orders to others, had ordered another the others around, reclined
on his back about ten feet away from where the victim and the officer
were lying on a bed. The man on the bed, who was nude, touched her
breasts but did not force her to touch him. "I kept crying all the time
and pushing his hands away," she said. "Finally he said to me, I'm not
going to do anything. The commander just stared at us."

After about ten minutes, the other soldiers returned to the room and,
still nude, the woman was forced to serve them coffee. She was then
ordered to put her clothes back on and clean up. She picked up the dirty
cups and dishes and swept the floor, she said. Then she was returned to
the house with the other women. When the others asked what had happened
to her, she refused to tell them.

The second rape victim, age twenty-nine, reported to Human Rights Watch
that the police took her away from the house where she was being held
and brought her to another house. There she was placed in a room and
forced to strip naked. One after the other, five members of the Serb
forces entered the room to look at her body, but it was only the last
man who raped her, she said. While he was assaulting her, the other
four entered the room and watched. The woman also stated that someone
had placed a walkie-talkie under the bed in the room, and that
throughout the ordeal the Serbian forces shouted at her via the walkie
talkie to scare her. In all, she was held in the room for about half an
hour.

A doctor at the camp in Kukes where the refugees from Dragacin are
currently living told Human Rights Watch that three other women had come
to him yesterday to report that they had been raped. The doctor said
that one of these women showed obvious signs of severe emotional
distress.
Other women held in the Dragacin houses told Human Rights Watch that
they had seen or heard women being taken by the Serbian forces during
their three days in captivity. One elderly woman from Mujlan said that,
on the third night, the police entered the house of Avdi T., shining a
flashlight in the faces of the women, many of whom were trying to cover
their heads with their scarves. They found one woman and said, "You
come with us." She returned approximately two hours later and, when
asked what happened, said, "Don't ask me anything."

On Saturday, April 24, all of the women in Dragacin were forced by
government forces to walk to the nearby village of Dujle, where they
were held in the local school for two days without food or water,
although no one reported further physical abuse. On April 26, they were
taken in two buses to the village of Zhur, where they were forced to
walk across the border into Albania. Human Rights Watch has received
unconfirmed reports that rapes occurred between April 24 and 26.

Witnesses' descriptions of the uniforms - green camouflage and blue
camouflage - indicate that the incidents described above were a joint
operation by the Serbian special police (MUP) and Yugoslav Army (VJ).
Some of the perpetrators also wore black ski masks.

For further information about violations of human rights and
humanitarian law in Kosovo, see the Human Rights Watch website at
www.hrw.org on the "Crisis in Kosovo" page. To subscribe to Kosovo
Human Rights Flashes, send an E-mail to @hrw.org">Donalds@hrw.org.

For further information contact:
Holly Cartner (New York): 1-212-216-1277
Jean-Paul Marthoz (Brussels): 322-736-7838

Kosova Task Force, USA
Action Alert
4/26/99


NEW YORK - Serbia1s savagery in Kosovo has finally exposed one of Europe1s
darkest and dirtiest secrets: the long racial and religious war against the
Muslims of the Balkans.

Hatred of Muslims is the 19901s version of the anti-Semitism of the 19301s that
led to the extermination of Europe1s Jews. Just as many Europeans were overtly
or secretly happy during the Nazi era to be rid of the Jews, so today, some
modern Europeans actively or tacitly support the latest campaign by Serbia1s
Muslim-hating racist regime to impose a `final solution1 to the `problem' of the
Balkan Muslims.

After the Ottoman Empire in Eastern Europe collapsed in 1912, hundreds of
thousands of Muslim Turks were slaughtered or driven out. At the end of
Turkish-Greek war 1920-1928, 400,000 Turks were expelled from the Balkans;
simultaneously, one million Greeks were driven from Aegean Turkey. From
1912-1928, large numbers of Slav and Albanian Muslims were expelled from Bosnia,
Kosovo, and Serbia. Today, there are almost 2 million people of Bosnian descent
and some 1 million of Albanian origin living in Turkey.

These vast expulsions still left some Turks, and millions of native Balkan
Muslims, the descendants of Serbs, Albanians, Greeks, and Bulgarians who had
voluntarily converted to Islam in the 15-16th Centuries to escape fierce
religious persecution by the Catholic or Orthodox Churches, or to avoid a head
tax on Christians levied by the Ottomans.

Today, there are some 10 million Muslims in the Balkans: nearly 3 million
nominal Muslims in Albania; 2.3 million in Kosovo and Sanjak; 2 million in
Bosnia; 2 million in Bulgaria; 180,000 in Greece; and 600-700,000 Muslim
Albanians in Macedonia.

In the 19801s, Bulgaria expelled 300,000 Muslim citizens and forced the
remaining Muslims to Slavicize their names and adopt Orthodox Christianity. A
few years later, Serbia began attempts to exterminate or drive out Bosnia1s
Muslims.

France and Britain, nervous over their own large Muslim minorities, and
traditionally anti-Muslim because of their colonial past, thwarted US efforts to
halt ethnic warfare against Bosnia1s Muslims.

Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia gave the Serbs economic and diplomatic support.
The west1s tacit approval, or ineffectual opposition, to this ethnic-religious
warfare opened the way for Serbia1s `final solution1 in Kosovo.

Today, there is wide support among Orthodox nations of Eastern Europe for
Serbia1s merciless campaign to eradicate its Muslim and Catholic Albanian
minority. What we are seeing is not just a war over land, it is an eruption of
the most vicious medieval hatred against non-Slavs and non-Orthodox people,
encouraged and enflamed by demagogue Slobodan Milosevic and some extremist
elements of the Orthodox clergy. Slavs in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Russia, and,
sadly, some Greeks, are cheering on this massive pogrom, just as Europe1s
Catholic right applauded Germany1s `purification1 of Jews from their midst.

Serb propaganda paints Albanians and Muslims as `dirty, violent Turks,1 who
`breed like rabbits,1 `run drugs,1 and flood Slav lands with their alien
offspring, the vanguard of a vast `Islamic horde about to invade Christian
Europe.1 Orthodox priests preach revenge for events 500 years past, even urging
a new crusade to `liberate Constantinople (modern Istanbul) from the Turks1
Milosevic began the horrors of ethnic warfare, vowing, a decade ago, `we will
send all the Muslims back to Mecca.1

Ironically, Albania was always renowned for religious toleration. Muslims drank
and celebrated Christmas and Easter; Catholics often observed Ramadan; Muslim,
Orthodox, and Catholic Albanians mixed freely and without the slightest rancor.
Every member of Albania1s small Jewish community was hidden from the Nazis and
Italian fascists.

Yet the easy-going, unreligious Albanians and other Balkan Muslims now are
paying a terrible price for long past centuries of religious and racial hatred.
They have become scapegoats for the frustrations, economic ruin, and low
self-esteem of the failed, only semi-Europeanized nations of the darkest
Balkans.

There are some reports in the above posting that are not favorable to NATOs cause, I left them in to show you that these are true about the genocide commited by the Serb forces.

guido-BS, would you be so kind as to provide the URL ?

puno hvala is correct, I insist.

You are twice a liar, plus an ignorant of this language which is clearly not yours.

I visit Belgrade several times a year and puno is so frequent that it was one of the first words I ever learned.

Carry on lying, you are not fooling anybody and I don't think you can fool yourself anymore.

The fact you post at the same time as Emina also confirms that you and her are the same person, but we knew that already.

You are totally invisible on this board.

The refugee thing was obviously targetted at you and the other fake names: why would I use it against Guido. Don't be as dumb as you sound.

There is no genocide committed by Serb forces.

The so-called victims shown on pictures are casualties from the KLA and have been dragged together by the terrorists to make it look like mass executions.

On all the pictures "advertised" you can spot the ammo belts and the guns bathing in the same blood alongside the victims...

They should never have started this agression.

Arms Control Damaged by Kosovo War

By David Hoffman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 23, 1999; Page A1

MOSCOW – The NATO strikes against Yugoslavia and resulting
tensions with Russia and China have created serious new threats to
nuclear arms reduction measures and other global arms control efforts,
many of which were already faltering, according to policymakers and
specialists.

Russia's anger over the assault on Yugoslavia has created complications
with the United States that jeopardize the long-delayed Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty (START II), which aims at slashing both countries'
long-range nuclear weapons. Also at risk are efforts to control the
thousands of short-range, or tactical, nuclear weapons that were never
covered by a treaty.

The worsening in U.S.-Russian relations threatens the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, efforts to halt the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, revisions on a treaty on troops and conventional arms in
Europe, and plans for joint early-warning cooperation to avoid an
accidental missile attack.

"What will happen in the next two years is the total collapse of arms
control" unless U.S. relations with Russia are repaired, said Sergei Rogov,
director of the USA/Canada Institute here.

"We may be looking at the end of bilateral, negotiated arms control," said
Joseph Cirincione director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. "This is not
too radical to contemplate. It is possible [President] Clinton will leave
office without ever negotiating and signing a strategic arms reduction
agreement."

The problems were aggravated by the accidental NATO bombing of the
Chinese Embassy in Belgrade May 6. China announced suspension of
current top-level military and arms control contacts with the United States.
China has been a key focus of U.S. efforts to prevent the proliferation or
spread of missiles and nuclear materials to Iran and Pakistan, among other
places.

"All of the principal nonproliferation regimes are under siege," said William
C. Potter, director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in
Monterey, Calif. "Without a concerted effort in Washington and Moscow
to revive cooperation of the past, the regimes run the risk of major
defections and collapse."

Moreover, the troubles on arms control and proliferation come at a time
when other regions are provoking fresh worries. In South Asia, a year
after India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, both countries have
embarked on a new missile race. In Iraq, the United Nations' effort to
root out weapons of mass destruction appears to have ended. Iran
continues to pursue a ballistic missile program, as does North Korea.

When the bombing of Yugoslavia began in March, Russia reacted with
sharp criticism and suspended all military links to NATO. Russia is
friendly with Yugoslavia, a fellow Slavic and Eastern Orthodox country.
The existing bilateral U.S.-Russian nuclear and chemical disarmament
programs, for which Russia is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars, so
far have not been seriously hampered.

Since the bombing began, Russia also has sought a role as a mediator
between NATO and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Although
this has put Russia in a less confrontational approach than in the early
weeks of the crisis, specialists said, the negative reaction to the NATO
airstrikes in parliament and among the Russian political and military elite
has seriously clouded future arms control and nonproliferation efforts.

The first major casualty of the NATO strikes was the START II strategic
arms treaty, signed in 1993 by Presidents Bush and Boris Yeltsin and
ratified by the Senate in 1996 but never ratified by the Russian State
Duma, the lower house of parliament. The treaty was close to approval
before the Kosovo crisis.

The treaty would slash both sides' nuclear arsenals from 6,000 warheads
each under the START I treaty, signed in 1972, to between 3,000 to
3,500 each, although experts say Russia cannot financially support such an
arsenal. Moreover, ratification would open the way to negotiations for a
follow-on treaty, START III, which would lead to even deeper cuts, to
between 2,000 to 2,500 warheads for each side under a preliminary 1997
agreement between Clinton and Yeltsin.

The START II treaty was making headway in December, but the Duma,
dominated by Communists and nationalists, recoiled after the bombings of
Iraq. Strenuous lobbying by then-prime minister Yevgeny Primakov
moved the treaty back on the agenda in March, but the Duma backed off
again after the NATO strikes on Yugoslavia. The U.S. decision to move
ahead on antimissile defenses also hurt Russian ratification efforts.

The negative reaction over Yugoslavia may be impossible to overcome.
Analysts say START II is all but dead. The Duma will be facing an
election campaign in the fall. "It's clear the treaty cannot be ratified," said
Alexander Pikayev, an arms control and nonproliferation specialist at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A prominent group of arms control specialists called on the United States
in February to try to leapfrog START II and secure new reductions of
warheads and take missiles off hair-trigger alert. But the Clinton
administration has refused to move ahead until START II is ratified.

If it is not, Russia may decide to prolong the life of older multiple-warhead
missiles that were due for retirement.

The arms control deadlock may also extend to the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty, a centerpiece of the Clinton administration's disarmament
efforts. Ratification was blocked by in the Senate by Jesse Helms
(R-N.C.) and may fare no better in the Duma. "The plan was to submit it
after START II," said Pikayev. But, he added, "There is a general
negative attitude in the Duma toward all arms control and nonproliferation,
and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is seen by some as a way of
diminishing Russia's nuclear might."

One of the gravest new threats to arms control has been the prospect that
Russia may reactivate short-range, or tactical, nuclear weapons, which are
not covered by any treaty. Yeltsin recently discussed modernizing such
weapons at a meeting of the Kremlin Security Council.

"It's obvious that we will have to carry out limited modernization of our
tactical nuclear capability and strategic nuclear force, and probably not
even modernization, but take a series of measures to increase their combat
readiness," Sergei Karaganov, deputy director of the Institute of Europe,
and chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, told
reporters recently.

When the Soviet Union was falling apart, both Bush and Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev took unilateral actions to pull back tactical nuclear
weapons. Bush announced on Sept. 27, 1991, that the United States
would eliminate its entire worldwide inventory of ground-launched tactical
nuclear weapons and would remove all nuclear weapons from surface
ships and attack submarines. Gorbachev followed Oct. 5 with a similar
pronouncement.

But the initiatives were never codified and could be reversed. Although
little is known about Russia's arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, the
Monterey Institute has estimated that it retains 7,740 warheads.

Potter said that the relationship between Russia and the United States was
the pillar of nonproliferation efforts but now is "greatly weakened and may
soon collapse altogether." Among other signs of trouble, he pointed to
Russia's economic plunge, continued difficulty in securing Russia's nuclear
materials and its growing reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence.
Other problems are the Indo-Pakistani arms races, Iraq's defiance of the
U.N. arms inspections and North Korean "missile brinkmanship."

"There are circles of impact," said Cirincione. "How does the Russian
relationship change with the states on their borders, Iraq and Iran? . . .
You could see increased trade, exactly the kind we don't like, with Iraq
and Iran." What's more, experts say Russia may instigate new arms sales
with other states to offset NATO. Already, there have been reports of
Russian plans to sell antiaircraft systems to Libya. Russia also may find
itself increasingly looking to alliances with China and India and less
responsive to U.S. pleas to halt proliferation through its huge and
weakened military-industrial complex.

Russia's defense minister, Igor Sergeyev, also threatened recently to
reconsider a just-concluded agreement on revisions to the Conventional
Forces in Europe treaty. Signed in 1990, the treaty limits heavy
conventional weaponry held by members of NATO and the former
Warsaw Pact. The collapse of the Soviet Union and admission of Poland,
Hungary and the Czech Republic to NATO led to negotiations to revise
the pact, replacing the Cold War blocs with national limits on arms. In
early April, a compromise was reached, which was expected to be signed
later this year.

Yet another casualty of the Kosovo crisis may be a planned U.S.-Russia
temporary joint center to share early warning information about a possible
missile attack. Russia announced after the NATO strikes that it was
abandoning military-to-military contacts on the project, part of a larger
effort to cope with the Y2K millennium computer bug.

Sorry *ick,
I forgot to put the URLs in my post. Here they are.

http://www.unhcr.ch/news/media/daily.htm

http://www.icrc.ch/unicc/icrcnews.nsf/DocIndex/home_eng?OpenDocument

http://www.unhcr.ch/news/media/daily.htm

D*I*C*K,
Sorry I missed a couple. I had to go fly fishing, and was in a hurry. I caught one bass and five sunfish!! I know you are glad to hear that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/
http://www.latimes.com/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.ft.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.reuters.com/
http://www.dpa.com/
http://www.afp.com/
http://www.lemonde.fr/
http://www.cbs.com/
http://www.hrw.org/

(DAVID BINDER, The New York Times November 1, 1987)

[...]
At the beginning of
sixties, Albanian
population made 2/3 of the
Kosovo population. At that
time the first public
demand for independence
was raised during the riots
in 1968 and again in 1981,
several months after Tito's
death. None of us had at
that time heard anything
about Milosevic, who was a banker with no political influence whatsoever. Their
demand for independence had nothing to do with repression, for if there was any
repression at that time, it could only have been an Albanian repression against the
Serbs in Kosovo. The New York Times, which can hardly be said to be in favor of
the Serbs, wrote at that time: "Serbs have been harassed by Albanians and have
packed up and left the region. The Albanian nationalists have a two-point platform,
first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then to
merge with Albania to form a greater Albania. Some 57.000 Serbs have left
Kosovo in the last decade" (NYT, July 12, 1982). Rape, murder, threats, the
destruction of property were the instruments of such a platform, and with the
police and courts in Albanian hands, nobody could get protection from the state.

[...]

If you want to sponsor a refugee family in the U.S. call 1-800-727-4420 (9AM-9PM)
In Canada, call 1-888-410-0009

Serbian Wartime TV Schedule

MONDAYS:
8:00 - "Touched by a Smart Bomb"
8:30 - "Martial Law & Order"
9:00 - "Suddenly Sanctions"
9:30 - "Slobo: Warrior Princess"
10:00 - "Bomb the Press"

TUESDAYS:
8:00 - "Just Shoot Me"
8:30 - Movie: "Honey I Shrunk the Population"
9:00 - "Pristina!" (in Spanish)
9:30 - Movie: "Grumpy Old Communists"
10:00 - "Belgrade, 4-3-2-1-0..."
10:30 - "Political Prisoners Say the Darndest Things"

WEDNESDAYS:
8:00 - "Fresh Prince of Bel-Grade"
8:30 - "World's Most Censored Videos"
9:00 - "BridgeWatch"
9:30 - "Two Guys, a Girl and a Refugee Camp"
10:00 - "Slobodany and Marie"

THURSDAYS:
8:00 - "As the World Turns Against Me"
8:30 - "Montenegro's Flying Circus"
9:00 - "Hitler: The Legend Continues"
9:30 - "Saved by the Bomb Shelter"
10:00 - Movie: "Harper Valley KLA"
10:30 - "Diagnosis Genocide"

FRIDAYS:
8:00 - "All My Children, Are Missing"
8:30 - "Men Behaving Badly"
9:00 - "Human Shields of the Rich and Famous"
9:30 - "Mad About You Being Muslim"
10:00 - "The Electric Company...Is In Flames"
10:30 - "Mister Roger's Ethnically Cleansed Neighborhood"

The Washington Times: Anti-Serbian troika acting

March 18, 1999

The Washington Times
Sunday, March 14, 1999

FORUM
Odd alliance at State, CNN?
by Stella Jatras

In my opinion, there is something unhealthy when the recently married CNN's
Christiane Amanpour and the State Department's James Rubin cover the same
"breaking news" story.

Ms. Amanpour, who never ceased to present a one-sided CNN perspective
throughout the Bosnian war, is now doing the same with her one-sided anti-Serb
CNN perspective of the civil war now raging in Kosovo. At the same time, Mr.
Rubin is touting the anti-Serb position from the State Department, which is in
effect: If the Serbs do not sign on the dotted line, NATO will bomb the Serbs. If the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) does not sign on the dotted line, NATO will still
bomb the Serbs!

The American people should be asking themselves, "What gives? Is CNN running
the State Department, or vice versa?" There is clearly a conflict here. Mr. Rubin
should step down as spokesman for the State Department. How can he have any
credibility considering with whom he shares pillow talk? How can there be any
semblance of journalistic impartiality with such a relationship between a "news"
agency and the government? If there was any doubt before, the identical slant of
Ms. Amanpour's "reporting" and Mr. Rubin's "official statements" out of
Rambouillet should make it perfectly clear.

Don't underestimate Ms. Amanpour's influence, not just on the news, but on U.S.
foreign policy.

You need only ask yourself if we would be involved in Bosnia if CNN, driven by Ms.
Amanpour, had not had Bosnia on the tube night after night. "Where there's a war
there's Amanpour," wrote Stephen Kinzer of The NY Times Magazine, Oct 9,
1994. She certainly has the drive and an instinct for the big stories; Haiti, Rwanda,
Bosnia and now Kosovo. But what happens when she gets there? In her own
words, from a New York Times article regarding Peter Arnett's involvement in the
discredited CNN story about U.S. forces allegedly using poison gas in Vietnam:
"The bottom line is that a television correspondent's most important contract with
the public. Trust and credibility are the commodities we trade in; without them we
are worthless." It's only fair to ask ourselves how well Ms. Amanpour has lived up
to her own standard.

The Stephen Kinzer article gives part of the answer in a quote from a longtime
T.V. associate of Ms. Amanpour: "She just insisted on going there [Rwanda], and
the impact of her coverage forced the other networks to follow. It was another
example of her great news instincts." But this same insider has doubts about
Amanpour's commitment to objective journalism. 'I have winced at some of what
she's done, at what used to be called advocacy journalism,' he said. 'She was
sitting in Belgrade when that marketplace massacre happened, and she went on
the air to say that the Serbs had probably done it. There was no way she could
have known that. She was assuming an omniscience which no journalist has.
Christiane is a journalist more in the British than the American tradition, more
willing to take sides on a story. And I think she has a little of that traditional
British contempt for America.' " The fact that a UN classified report concluded that
Bosnian Muslim forces had committed the Markale marketplace massacre seems
of no consequence to Ms. Amanpour. Deutsch Presse-Agentur of June 6, 1996,
wrote: "For the first time, a senior U.N. official had admitted the existence of a
secret U.N. report that blames the Bosnian Moslems for the February 1994
massacre of Moslems at the Sarajevo market." Christiane Amanpour has yet to
inform her viewers of this fact, but continues to allow them to believe the
massacre was a Serbian atrocity which United States and NATO used as an
excuse to drop over 6,000 tons of bombs on the Bosnian Serbs.

During her interview on the Charlie Rose show of 25 November 1997, Ms.
Amanpour said, "an ABC journalist was killed [in Bosnia]." She omitted the fact
that U.N. and military experts believe that David Kaplan, the ABC journalist, was
killed by Muslims. Another big CNN story early in the Bosnian conflict was the
killing, allegedly by Serb snipers of two "Muslim babies" on a bus. Who could not
have been horrified by the tragic sight of the funeral service for those innocent
Muslim babies? Where were Ms. Amanpour and CNN to set the record straight? If
it had not been for French 2 TV that covered the funeral, this writer would never
have known that the babies were Serbian (not Muslim) killed by a Muslim sniper,
as was made painfully clear by the presence of a Serbian Orthodox priest
conducting the funeral service. . . before it was interrupted by a grenade attack.
However, in the CNN coverage the priest had been cropped out, leaving the
American audience to believe that Serbs were not only the assassins, but were
also responsible for the grenade attack.

Mr. Kinzer goes on to say, "Advocate or not, Amanpour has developed a style of
her own. She has a strong ego, and is satisfied only when she can dominate a
story, as she has in Bosnia." I guess that includes a little stage management
when appropriate. According to another journalist who was with Ms. Amanpour
during a visit to Kosovo, some of the journalists were taken on a orientation flight
along the border between Kosovo and Albania by helicopter and were advised to
wear flak jackets for the flight because of possible ground fire from Albanian
positions. When the flight returned, Ms. Amanpour, wearing a flak jacket, taped
her report for the CNN audience with scenes photographed from the helicopter in
the background...really dramatic stuff. The only problem is, she had not
accompanied her camerman on the flight. The flak jacket and the taped film of the
flight were all for effect. And to think that Cokie Roberts was criticized for wearing
a coat and having a picture of the apitol Building in the background when, in fact,
she was being filmed in a studio.

In a full-page Washington Times ad of July 29, 1998, a Vietnam veterans group
wrote, "Now that the Sarin gas fraud has been exposed -- what about Bosnia
coverage by Christiane Amanpour who fed the American people a nightly diet of
slanted reports and chilling images? Her biased reporting promoted the "We Must
Do Something" approach that enabled President Clinton to send American GIs to
Bosnia without facing the hard questions from American taxpayers and their
elected representatives: What national interests justified that decision?" We hould
be asking the same question today: What national interests justify the decision to
send GIs to Kosovo? It appears the "We Must Do Something" mentality once
again prevails due to the biased anti-Serb reporting by the media.

The United States has always said that we would never negotiate with terrorists,
yet the Kosovo Liberation Army with its connections to Osama bin Laden was
invited to negotiate in Paris. NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, US
General Wesley Clark, as has Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, met with
key leaders of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the Paris region. The
question should be, "Why are we negotiating with known terrorists?" In his AP
commentary, "Ethnic Albanians Sensing Victory," George Jahn writes: "Life or
death, bombs or peace. The outcome of the faraway talks on Kosovo seems
irrelevant for many here, where ethnic Albanians are convinced they are winning
their independence struggle and many Serbs sense defeat."

Take the "ouillet" out of Rambouillet, and what do you get? RAMBO! Whether as
Rambo or her role model Xena, Warrior Princess, U.S. Secretary of State,
Madeleine Albright, in her macho cowboy hat, kowtows to KLA terrorists and
threatens the Serbian people ("Yugoslavia will 'Pay a Price,' Albright Warns," The
Washington Post, 8 March 1998). All the while Ms. Amanpour and Mr. Rubin sing
her praises in close harmony.

Christiane Amanpour, James Rubin and Madeleine Albright. What a troika!

WHO'S THE KLA?

GERMAN DOCUMENT REVEALS SECRET CIA ROLE

By Gary Wilson

The forces generating and sustaining the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army have remained mostly hidden. What's really
behind the KLA has become more important now that President Bill Clinton has started a war against Yugoslavia.

Many reports in the past have mentioned the covert forces involved with the KLA. For example, on July 15, 1998, PBS
Newshour reported that U.S. Vietnam War veterans were training KLA mercenaries in Albania.

Funding for the KLA has been shadowy, much of it funneled through drug sales.

Almost every European newspaper has reported on the known ties between the KLA and the sales of illegal drugs in Europe.
Only the U.S. media have ignored this story.

The European media, however, don't mention the history of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's use of illegal drug sales to
funnel money to various covert operations. This record--from secret operations in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War to
financing the contra war against Nicaragua-- has been documented.

Recent media reports tie several imperialist military and spy agencies to the KLA. This is significant since both U.S. Secretary
of Defense William Cohen and the top U.S. general, Henry Shelton, have said in the last week that the goal of the U.S.
military operation against Yugoslavia is a victory for the KLA.

On April 19, Canadian Member of Parliament David Price told reporters that 50 Canadian soldiers are working with the KLA
in Kosovo to help report "where the bombs are falling" so they can better target "where the next bomb should go," UPI
reported. Opposition to Canada's participation in the U.S. war on Yugoslavia is growing rapidly in that country.

Jane's Defense Weekly reported April 20: "Special forces involvement confirmed." The report said that that special units
from Britain, the United States, France "and other NATO groups'' were working undercover in Kosovo.

The April 18 London Sunday Telegraph reported that SAS, a unit of the British special forces, is running two KLA training
camps near Tirana, the Albanian capital. According to the Telegraph, the KLA units trained by SAS are infiltrating Kosovo,
using satellite and cellular telephones to help guide NATO bombing missions.

The same report said that the KLA also has contact with the Virginia-based MPRI, which is apparently expanding its role.
MPRI is a shadowy operation--the Telegraph called it a professional mercenary organization--which was set up by top U.S.
military officers.

MPRI was contracted by the Pentagon to organize and train the Croatian Army, which is acknowledged to have carried out
the most vicious campaign in the Balkans since the Nazi invasion in the 1940s--the August 1995 offensive against Serbian
farmers in the Krajina region.

A report in the July 28,1997, Nation magazine detailed the role played by MPRI and the Pentagon in this criminal campaign,
which left hundreds of thousands of Serbs homeless. Finally, this March 21, the New York Times carried a front-page story
about a report by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague that characterized this attack as probably the most
brutal event in the Balkans in the last decade. The report was then quickly buried.

The Croatian government recently confirmed that several of its generals have "taken leave" to go work with the KLA.

A more revealing report was released April 8 by Jurgen Reents, press spokes person for the Party of Democratic Socialism in
Germany. The PDS received almost as many votes as the Green Party, which is part of Germany's ruling coalition. The PDS
has actively opposed the NATO war on Yugoslavia.

Reents said the report came from someone who holds a "strictly confidential and high position in the offices of the German
government." The report came through a Catholic priest who has kept the individual's identity secret but has verified the
person's authenticity.

The report asserts that top NATO, U.S., British and German officials are "utterly lying in public concerning almost all the
facts in regard to the Balkan War." It says there are no pictures of any mass killings or of troops force-marching the people of
Kosovo out of their homes. There are no such pictures because this is not happening.

NATO has desperately attempted to create such pictures but has been unable to, the report asserts.

The report says that NATO has let it be known in the refugee camps in Albania and Macedonia that anyone who can
produce a videotape or still photographs of any kind-- including staged photos--showing these things will be paid $200,000 in
U.S. currency. Still, no pictures have appeared.

The report says that the German government knows NATO consciously created the refugee crisis. For example, the report
says, NATO has targeted and destroyed nearly every fresh-water facility in Kosovo. It also asserts that there are KLA units
in Kosovo--one is entirely U.S. mercenaries, the other German mercenaries--who report to the military commands of those
countries.

Perhaps most revealing is the report's description of a CIA covert operation cynically named "Operation Roots." It is aimed at
sowing ethnic divisions in Yugoslavia to encourage its breakup.

The report says that this operation has been going on "since the beginning of Clinton's presidency." It is a joint operation with
the German secret service, which has also sought to destabilize Yugoslavia.

The final objective of "Roots," according to this report, "is the separation of Kosovo, with the aim of it becoming part of
Albania; the separation of Montenegro, as the last means of access to the Mediterranean; and the separation of the
Vojvodina, which produces most of the food for Yugoslavia. This would lead to the total collapse of Yugoslavia as a viable
independent state."

The report asserts that the KLA was founded by the CIA. And the funding was funneled through drug-smuggling operations
in Europe.

When it appeared that an agreement for Kosovo autonomy was about to be reached between Slobodan Milosevic and
Ibrahim Rugova in 1998, the CIA stepped up KLA attacks on Yugoslav police units. The Yugoslav police attempts to curtail
the KLA were used as the pretext for NATO's attacks.



Table of Contents

Copyright © 1997 Harvest Trust. All rights reserved.
Revised: May 20, 1999.

Can you help the Media be Just?
The tragedy in Kosova is not only about the loss of life, but also about the lack of coverage. In this media-driven world that we live in, it is unfortunate that public policy and public outcry are often a function of the coverage that they receive. Fully understanding this principle, Belgrade has seen to it that an almost complete ban on media coverage of the carnage and "ethnic cleansing" stays in place. The pictures that finally exposed the ugly face of Serbian fascism in Bosnia are almost absent in Kosova, as is the accountability of the war criminals that committed them. Nevertheless, we must recognize the media's critical role in shaping foreign policy and its positive contributions in bringing to light injustices which are all too readily overlooked in various corners of the world.
Faced with a severe shortage of footage of the tragedy in Kosova, we need to monitor and respond to the nation's major newspapers which are the public's primary source on Kosova. By ensuring accurate coverage of this latest Serbian aggression, more people will know the truth about Kosova. Therefore it is vital that we take an active role in monitoring one or two forms of media on a regular basis. By informing the public, we may force a national debate.

When monitoring television and newspaper reports on Kosova, keep the following in mind and respond when needed:


Kosovars are not part of the agreement!
Whenever the so-called deal with Milosevic is mentioned in the media, tell them that this agreement is not signed by any Kosovars. You cannot ignore the victims of 9 years of genocide or their quest for self-determination.

Serb withdrawal - a farce
The Serbs have moved only 4,500 troops out of Kosova leaving a substantial army in place. It is hardly a withdrawal. Respond to the media by pointing this out whenever they use the word withdrawal.

It¹s aggression - not a conflict!
Watch for terms like "ethnic conflict" or "civil war." These imply that the genocide in Kosova is a conflict between two parties, not blatant aggression by Serb forces which is being resisted by the people of Kosova.

A brutal army - not police!
Protest the use of misleading terms such as "police" or "security forces" when describing Serb armed forces. Brutal aggressors don't deserve a gentler face!

Freedom fighters - not terrorists!
Do not allow the label "terrorist" to be used for those Kosovars who are defending themselves and their land.

Be critical, but objective!
Send a letter of agreement or a call of thanks for accurate coverage of the situation.