SERBIA - ONLY MULTIETHNIC STATE IN FORMER SFRY says
> > Dutch newspaper
> >
> > The Dutch weekly "Elsevier" (in its latest issue)
> > made the following
> > points:
> >
> >
> >
> > Although overwhelming propaganda in the West
> > demonizes Serbs as
> > responsible for "ethnic cleansing", the facts are
> > that all former
> > Yugoslav
> > republics have remained ethnically cleansed, except
> > for Serbia.
> > Elsevier made public the facts that in
> > "Slovenia there never
> > have
> > been national minorities in significant numbers,"
> > that "Croatia has
> > expelled
> > 100,000 Serbs, that Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the
> > use of violence,
> > has
> > been divided into three ethnically cleansed
> > territories, and that from
> > Kosovo ethnic Albanians have expelled 90 percent of
> > the non-Albanian
> > population." At the same time, the daily added, "in
> > Serbia live 26
> > ethnic
> > communities and minorities."
> > "According to still unpublished data of the
> > federal institute
> > for
> > statistics, one third of the non-Albanian population
> > in Serbia and
> > ethnic
> > Albanians, one fourth are Slav Muslims, 350,000 are
> > Hungarians, 150,000
> > are
> > Romanians, and following are Gypsies, Wallachs,
> > Croats, Slovenians,
> > Macedonians, Montenegrins and Goranies," Elsevier
> > said and added that
> > "in
> > the years when in Croatia every form of Serbian
> > culture was
> > systematically
> > destroyed... Croats in Serbia were able to live
> > there peacefully and in
> > full
> > security."
> > "Serbs are a people who have been demonized
> > by the media, who
> > despite
> > the fact they were drawn into four wars and bombed
> > two times by NATO in
> > the
> > past ten years, have resisted the wave of
> > nationalist hatred and
> > preserved a
> > state as the only real multiethnic community in the
> > region," the Dutch
> > paper
> > said and illustrated this by the words of Muslim
> > Idriz Krahimirovic, a
> > hairdresser from Novi Pazar, that "it is easier to
> > be a Muslim in
> > Serbia,
> > than a Serb in Sarajevo."
> > "In Serbia, a minority population was never
> > isolated into a
> > ghetto,
> > and they all live in mixed communities," the paper
> > said, adding that
> > until
> > recently that had also been the case in Kosovo.
> > Although the world thinks that Serbs are
> > "aggressors" who
> > recognize
> > only their own culture, in the largest store of CD
> > discs and cassettes
> > in
> > Belgrade, heading the list of sales is the Croatian
> > pop group Magazin
> > and
> > the Muslim singer Haris Dzinovic, the weekly said
> > and added that "in
> > Croatia
> > listening to Serbian music means running the risk of
> > being killed."
> >
> >

Annan Comes to Serbs' Defense
U.N. Leader Unhappy With Treatment of Kosovo Minority

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 15, 1999; Page A23

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Oct. 14—U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan
called today for an end to the violence against Kosovo's dwindling Serbian
community and told senior U.N. officials here that they need to step up
their efforts to involve the local Serbian leadership in reconstruction.

The moderate Serbian leadership, led by the Serbian Orthodox Church,
has boycotted efforts to create a multi-ethnic transitional council for
Kosovo since the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was
transformed last month into a lightly-armed, uniformed civil defense force
as part of Yugoslavia's agreement with NATO.

Anti-Serb violence by ethnic Albanians has also radicalized the local
Serbian community and led most Serbs to look to the government in
Belgrade for leadership. Kosovo, a province of Serbia, the dominant
republic of Yugoslavia, has been run by the United Nations and a
NATO-led peacekeeping force since Yugoslav army and Serbian police
forces withdrew in June as a condition for ending the NATO air campaign.

Some Western officials here expressed exasperation with the suggestion
that Bernard Kouchner, the U.N. special representative in Kosovo, could
do more to involve Serbian officials, who have refused his entreaties to
return to the negotiating table, in the reconstruction process. The political
leadership of the former KLA, which fought a 16-month war-- starting in
February 1998--against Serbian forces for Kosovo's independence, also
takes part in the transitional council. Even after meeting with Annan
Wednesday, Serbian officials refused to say if they would participate in
U.N.-created councils.

On a two-day visit, which ended today, Annan and Kouchner had what
U.N. officials described as tense discussions over U.N. policy in Kosovo.
Annan argued that Kouchner has made decisions--such as recognizing the
German mark as the province's legal currency--that infringe upon the
sovereignty of Yugoslavia.

Annan urged Kouchner to slow down his decision-making process and
consult more with U.N. headquarters in New York.

Western officials here dismissed Annan's complaints as an attempt to
micromanage the administration of Kosovo. On a recent visit, the U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations, Richard C. Holbrooke, urged officials
to make decisions quickly without worrying about the reaction of the U.N.
bureaucracy--an approach Annan frowned upon during his visit.

Among the Western allies, U.S. officials in particular have complimented
Kouchner for his willingness to take decisive action.

At a news conference today, Annan made it clear that symbols of
embryonic independence, such as the Kosovo Albanians' demand for a
seat or observer status at the United Nations, do not have his support.

"The [U.N. Security Council] mandate makes clear that we should
administer this territory as an autonomous region, but within the boundaries
of the former Yugoslavia," Annan said. "Therefore, from our point of view,
we are not here to prepare the people for independence. . . . And I hope
this is understood by all."

Thursday, September 23, 1999 Published at 10:52 GMT 11:52 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_454000/454770.stm

World: Europe

Eyewitness: Serbia after the
war


The war is over, but life does not return to normal.
While Kosovo is part of an international plan to
reconstruct the Balkans, Serbia remains, in the
eyes of many, the pariah state, with an indicted
war crimes suspect at its head.

But there are some 11 million
ordinary people trying to repair their
lives, all against a backdrop of larger
and larger protests against the
Milosevic regime.
Kolja Novakovic, 19, is a student
studying in Novi Sad, Serbia's
second city and one of the hardest hit in the Nato
bombing campaign. BBC News Online asked him to
reflect on the war, how his contemporaries viewed it, and
the state in which Serbia now finds itself:

What are your feelings about the war now that
it's over?

My opinion about the war? I think it was a lost cause
and now we are in an even worse state than we were
before.


Before the Nato countries
bombed us, I assumed and
hoped that they would be
able to bring us some
justice, to understand the
situation in which the
Yugoslav people found themselves. But when the
bombing began, I felt betrayed. I simply did not believe it
could come to that.

The worst thing is, I don't feel it achieved anything, at
least nothing positive for the people of this country.

One of the worst things from my point of view was the
way politicians in other countries kept saying the
bombing was directed against Milosevic and not against
the people of Yugoslavia.

I simply cannot see how they harmed him. On the
contrary, the moment the bombing started, Milosevic
increased his power to such an extent that no-one could
touch him.

He wasn't harmed by anything, unlike the people.
Bridges and factories were destroyed, people lost their
livelihoods, homes and some lost their lives.

Weren't the losses mainly confined to the
military?

One of the assistant lecturers at my university was
called up into the army when the war began. He was
killed by a bomb as he manned a radar post.


What choice did he have?
Did he ignore the call-up and
thereby officially become a
traitor with all the
consequences that brings, or
did he answer and simply
pray that he would come
back in one piece.

He is one of those who didn't
make it. He was certainly not
pro-Milosevic, but he simply
had no choice.

He was 26 years old. It could have been me, or anyone
else.

So the war affected everyone?

Two of my friends came back from Kosovo completely
emotionally devastated.


I tried to talk to them about
what they had been through,
but they didn't want to talk
about it at all. I don't think I'd
want to if I were in their place
either.

Now that it's all over, I don't
think anything here has
changed. Or, if it has changed, it has only been for the
worse.

They didn't get rid of Milosevic with their bombs. He has
come out of it once more as a "victor" and been made
even stronger.

Tell us about Novi Sad. What state is it in?

In a word: Terrible. Novi Sad was one of the cities where
the greatest number of civilian targets was hit, despite
the fact that the opposition had won elections there and
most of its inhabitants were anti-Milosevic.


Before the bombing, Novi
Sad had three bridges over
the Danube. Now, they say,
the Danube flows over the
bridges, which would be
funny if it weren't so sad.

Freedom Bridge (Most
Slobode) was one of the few
bridges built at a gradient
and the second largest
suspension bridge in Europe.

Now more than half of the
bridge is lying in the river, one of the pillars is completely
destroyed, hit when about a dozen people were actually
on it.

As for the other two bridges - nothing is left of them -
they have completely disappeared into the Danube.
People cross the river now on rafts.

The large number of people who live on the far side of the
river have to cross it so they can get to work and the
children to school.

But you have to wait up to an hour for a raft across and
when it was hot people would pass out from waiting.

Up to 200 people get packed onto a raft, like cattle. I
was passing by once, in the rain, and I felt so sorry for
them. I can't imagine what it will be like in the winter.

What else was hit?

Novi Sad saw its oil refinery destroyed. It was hit about
80 times.


You cannot imagine the
extent of the pollution it
caused. There was a black
cloud above the town for
days, you couldn't eat
vegetables, there was acid
rain and the streets were
covered in soot.

One bomb fell in the
populated part of town near
the refinery, another literally a few yards from the student
hall of residence, but luckily it buried itself into the bank,
creating a huge crater.

I saw and heard this one fly over my house and land
500m away from me. Again, I don't even want to imagine
what would have happened had it hit the hall of
residence.

An unexploded missile was found near the house of a
friend of mine. I am afraid there will be more in the future.

Surely things must be returning to normal?

At the moment, there is no fuel, so the buses don't run
regularly. Lorries don't collect rubbish and the streets are
almost empty because there are no cars.

Bicycles have become the main means of transport. We
were also told that there will not be enough electricity,
gas or oil in the winter, so we'll have long power cuts.
We are all worried about the winter.

Has it changed the way that you and others
think about the future?

It was bad before, but it is going to be even worse now.
A good salary, which is about 200 DM a month (£65)
cannot cover living expenses, electricity, telephone,
taxes.


Looking for a job in this
situation is impossible. There
are no possibilities here for
young people - most only
think about how to get away
from here. They can't see
anything changing for the
better in the next 10 years or so.

One of my friends says it's better not to have children
here, because there hasn't been a generation that has
not experienced war, so the chances are our children will
experience it as well.

But isn't it always darkest before the dawn?

The worst of all is that nobody thinks this is the end.


Everybody thinks the worst is
still to come. The protests
against Milosevic have
begun, so we are afraid of
civil war. There are signs that
what happened in Kosovo
may happen in Vojvodina. I
really hope it won't come to
that, but who knows?

After so many years under
Milosevic, people have
become completely
financially and emotionally
impoverished. If it came to another war after all this, this
country would become poorer than the poorest African
countries.

Already, the health service is in dire straits. People only
go to the doctor if they absolutely have to.

There are no medicines, the hospitals, the ones still in
one piece after the bombing, are in a desperate state,
and their staff are totally unmotivated since their salaries
are months in arrears.

What do young people think of it all?

People say the programme in the universities has
deliberately been changed so it won't be recognised in
other countries - in an effort to stop qualified students
from leaving for the West.

Because of this many, including me, are wondering
whether it's even worth studying.

Many would like to leave for the West. But the problem
with that is that it's extremely hard to get visas,
something which makes prospects even more limited.

The queues for visas outside the embassies are huge
and the vast majority of those waiting are under 30 years
old.

What would you ideally like to do?

Without a doubt - I'd like to get out. I'd like to be able to
live a normal life and do a job which interests me in the
field that I am studying, computer science.

But I am slowly beginning to wonder whether I will ever
be able to. I don't think I will have either the money or the
will to stay for several more years in this country - which
is what I need to do to complete my studies.

Even if I did, I'm not sure my degree would be recognised
in the West.

And if I did go to the West I would have to do the worst
kind of menial work for years before I could get
established.

It would be difficult for me to get enough money together
to study there, but who knows? We'll see.

WIRE:10/16/1999 17:19:00 ET
NATO Bombed Chinese Embassy Deliberately -UK Paper

LONDON (Reuters) - NATO deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade after the Western alliance discovered the mission
was being used to transmit Yugoslav military communications, a British newspaper reported Sunday.

An official at NATO headquarters in Brussels denied the Observer newspaper's report but it is likely to rekindle diplomatic tensions on
the eve of a visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin to alliance hawk Britain this week.

The Observer quoted an unnamed intelligence officer as saying "NATO had been hunting the radio transmitters in Belgrade," including
one at President Slobodan Milosevic's house, during its air war against Yugoslavia.

"When the president's residence was bombed on 23 April, the signals disappeared for 24 hours," said the NATO officer, who monitored
Yugoslav broadcasts from neighboring Macedonia.

"When they came back on the air again, we discovered they came from the (Chinese) embassy compound."

The three cruise missiles that slammed into the mission on May 7 killed three Chinese and opened a diplomatic chasm between NATO
and Beijing, which holds one of five permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council.

Senior U.S. and NATO officials blamed the attack on a targeting error caused by outdated maps.

That explanation brought incredulity from Chinese leaders and the bombing sparked three days of government-backed protests
against the U.S. and British embassies in Beijing.

The Observer said it had been told by a NATO flight control officer in Naples that the Chinese mission was correctly located on a map
of "non-targets" which included churches, hospitals and embassies.

It said the Chinese embassy had been removed from the list after NATO electronic intelligence detected it was rebroadcasting
Yugoslav Army communications to units in the field.

The Observer speculated the Chinese might have helped Milosevic as a means of gaining access to radar-evading technology aboard
a U.S. F-117 Stealth bomber that went down in Yugoslavia in the first few days of NATO's air campaign.

"The Chinese were also suspected of monitoring the cruise missile attacks on Belgrade, with a view to developing effective
countermeasures against U.S. missiles," it said.

The NATO official in Brussels said of the Observer story, written in cooperation with Denmark's Politiken newspaper, "as far as I know
is not true."

"I can only go by the statements that have been made in Washington," he told Reuters.

A spokesman at Britain's Ministry of Defense said the story was not a new one after "wide speculation that it was a conspiracy, even
at the time of the incident."

"Apologies were given by the United Kingdom," he told Reuters. "In light of the Chinese visit next week, it is clearly muddying the
waters. I think they are throwing firecrackers in there."

Support Dwindles for Kosovo Rebels

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 17, 1999; Page A1

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Oct. 16 –
Just four months after they
descended from the hills as
conquering heroes and declared
themselves the new masters of
Kosovo, the political leadership that
emerged from the Kosovo
Liberation Army is suffering a collapse of its support, according to voter
surveys, interviews with ordinary ethnic Albanians and even senior figures
in the rebel movement.

The former guerrillas are ensnared in a deep political crisis, caused by
popular unhappiness with their heavy-handed power grabs, rising disgust
about the violence plaguing Kosovo and the rebels' underestimation of
their political rivals. The political party formed this week by Hashim Thaqi,
the political leader of the former guerrilla force, would be crushed in
provincial elections at all levels, according to Western and Albanian
analysts here.

And if presidential elections were held today, Thaqi would be easily
defeated by Ibrahim Rugova, the moderate ethnic Albanian political leader
who led a 10-year, nonviolent resistance campaign against the Belgrade
government. Only months ago, the KLA and some Western observers
were dismissing Rugova as a politician of little influence who had been
overtaken by events.

Rugova has the vote of Lumnie Musa, who comes from the village of
Prekaz, the scene in February 1998 of the first major Serbian assault on a
KLA stronghold, and home to the fallen national hero, Edem Jashari.

"He's more democratic, more civilized," said Musa, whose house was
leveled by Serbian forces.

A scientific opinion poll that was commissioned by a Western organization
and has not been released found 4-to-1 support for Rugova over Thaqi.
A recent, unscientific survey of 2,500 voters by an independent media
organization here found that Rugova would win 92 percent of the vote in a
two-way race with Thaqi. And the rebels' support in former KLA
strongholds, such as the Drenica area in central Kosovo, Thaqi's home
base, has withered to single digits.

Even allowing for a large margin of error in the surveys, the results
represent a stunning reversal of fortune for the rebels, who have quickly
wasted much of the political capital they enjoyed after NATO troops
entered Kosovo on June 12.

The first elections in Kosovo are still months away and will probably be
held only at the municipal level, according to U.N. officials, who want to
put off province-wide contests. But a senior Thaqi adviser said that the
rebel leader realizes the scale of his political problems and now needs to
initiate radical changes if his new political party – the Party for the
Democratic Progress of Kosovo – is to have any chance of governing.

"Hashim lost a lot of friends in the war and made a lot of sacrifices," said
an adviser. "He believes he is a better leader than Rugova, so it's very
bitter and disappointing to know that Rugova would win."

Much to the former rebels' disbelief, Rugova has large residual support
among ethnic Albanians. Interviews with potential voters found they
seemed to compartmentalize the two major political elements, viewing
Thaqi as a military man and Rugova as their natural leader.

"Rugova is a mysterious, mystical figure for people," said independent
analyst Ylber Hysa, who noted that Rugova became a distant but revered
figure partly because he was banned from Serbian television except when
he was pilloried. An intellectual who can be indecisive and isn't known for
his charisma, Rugova has never had his political weaknesses exposed,
Hysa said.

Rugova's strategy of "doing nothing" is working for him, Hysa said.
"People have had very little concrete contact with his politics. Their
contact with the KLA, on the other hand, is through war and destruction."

After the war, the KLA generally abandoned rural areas and carried out a
high-handed assumption of power in the cities that left many devastated
families bitter.

On April 2, during the second week of NATO bombing, Thaqi formed
the interim or Provisional Government of Kosovo , a KLA-dominated
structure. And within days of NATO entering Kosovo in June, it
established a series of national departments in Pristina, including ministries
of Reconstruction, Interior and Finance. By late July, the provisional
government had established local authorities, including "mayors" in major
municipalities.

This power play, often crudely executed, has been a disaster for Thaqi,
said one of his advisers and other independent observers. By declaring
itself the only legitimate government of Kosovo, the KLA unrealistically
raised expectations that it could get things done.

But real power, through its command of Western purse strings, lies with
the United Nations. It is administering the territory under a Security
Council resolution and does not recognize Thaqi's government.

Ethnic Albanians had unrealistic expectations of how quickly the country
would be rebuilt, said U.N. officials. And with winter looming and
hundreds of thousands of people facing the cold in temporary shelter,
resentment has rebounded on Thaqi's government as well as the United
Nations.

"They claimed to be some kind of government," said Hysa. "If you say
you're the government, people expect you to govern."

The KLA also set up an Interior Ministry with shadowy policing powers,
but Kosovo has been scarred by a wave of vicious violence against Serbs.
Human rights groups and others believe members of the KLA – now
transformed into a lightly armed and uniformed civil emergency force
called the Kosovo Protection Corps – are involved. And many ethnic
Albanians blame Thaqi, despite his public condemnations of the violence.

Some in Thaqi's circle now believe the interim government was an illusion
that bestowed only the trappings of power – fancy cars and bodyguards –
on the KLA leadership. And they believe Thaqi should concentrate on
building a grass-roots political organization and jettison the fiction that he
is head of a government. But that is a hard sell within the government.

"It's hard to tell the minister that maybe it's better if he's not minister
anymore," said the Thaqi adviser. Thaqi is said to be dispirited and in a
recent meeting with Western officials wisecracked that he wouldn't mind a
job in Washington.

The former rebels' problems are even more pronounced at the local level.
Young rebel soldiers, many with wads of German marks and late-model
Audis, swept into towns and installed themselves in municipal buildings.
They often excluded longtime and more moderate elements in the
community from participating in reconstruction.

"Thaqi's people are more arrogant and aggressive, acting like they are the
big bosses," said Bekim Mazreku, a shopowner in Malisevo. Mazreku
said he respects what the rebels did during the war, but now he is
disillusioned.

"The big jeeps and the fast cars are irritating people," said Xhafer
Murtezaj, 51, an activist for Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo in
Srbica, also a onetime KLA stronghold. "They got the Serb flats, and the
people who suffered a lot don't have anything."

In the southern town of Kacanik, for instance, an Albanian-American
restaurant manager from Greenwich, Conn., who fought with the KLA has
set himself up as "mayor" – to the consternation of many locals.

Rugova's party has not challenged these kinds of power plays, but is
instead registering new members and priming its parish-pump politics.

"They're going to weddings and funerals," said the Thaqi adviser. "That's
what we should be doing."

Violence at the local level – including the intimidation of political
opponents, particularly members of Rugova's party, and threats against
ethnic Albanian women who date international workers – have also
rippled through communities.

In August, at a meeting of all political parties in the eastern city of Vitina, a
KLA commander warned that anyone who engaged in anti-KLA
propaganda would be "punished." Thaqi's government, he said, would
begin "registering" political parties that could participate in the political
process, according to internal reports by the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe.

"Their arrogance is catching up with them," said one U.N. official.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/balkans.htm