Landing Strip Bernstein Carlingview and Airport Road.

UNHCR wary of NATO Kosovo refugee return estimate






BELGRADE, April 13 (Reuters) - A U.N. official on Wednesday cast doubt on a NATO estimate that up to 25,000 Serbs could soon return to homes in Kosovo they fled after NATO air strikes last year drove Serb forces from the province.
"I think that's a nice optimistic figure," Eduardo Arboleda, deputy chief of the U.N. High Commission for Refugees office in Belgrade, said a day after a NATO official in Brussels made the estimate, acknowledging it could be on the optimistic side.

"I have no idea where they get these figures from. They are not in charge of returning people," Arboleda told a news conference.

He noted that the Kosovo-based Serbian National Council had recently identified numerous villages around Istok, Klina and Pec, in western Kosovo, where it said 20,000 Serbs could return. But he said many unanswered questions remained.

"We have been informed that there are various IDP's (internally displaced persons) who are ready to return to these areas...but we have not been told exactly where they are and who they are."

Along with the NATO-led forces in Kosovo and the U.N. civilian mission there, the UNHCR also had to identify those who could guarantee their safety, Arboleda said.

And echoing a view expressed by his boss, Sadako Ogata, during a vist to Serbia last month, he said the UNHCR could not promote the return of non-Albanians to Kosovo before security improved.

"As the High Commissioner has said during her recent visit to Serbia, there are still many problems with the return of the displaced population to Kosovo before the UNHCR makes a formal commitment to assist.

"In the light of what has been going on with the non-Albanian population being persecuted and kicked out, it obviously puts us in a difficult position to assist people to return to places where security conditions are not guaranteed," Arboleda said.

Serbs and other non-Albanians have flooded out of Yugoslavia's southern province in the past year in fear of attacks by ethnic Albanians angry at years of Serb repression.

The international community has pledged to keep Kosovo multi-ethnic, but its peackeepers have been unable to prevent continuing violence against minorities left in the province.

The UNHCR is currently trying to count how many have left to improve its aid efforts and give itself a better idea of who wants to go back. Arbodela said the deadline for registration had been extended to April 19 to give people more time.

The Yugoslav Red Cross earlier registered 204,000 displaced from Kosovo. The government says the total is 350,000.

NEMESIS :Here a German politicians view of Nato vis a vis Russia

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Conservative German Politician Lauches Fierce Attack Against NATO War
by Rainer Rupp
Saarbrücken, Germany
Special to Antiwar.com
4/14/00

"Serbia, the only truly multi-ethnical state left in the Balkans"
Willy Wimmer, Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE and member of the German Bundestag (National Parliament) for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, has never held back with his sharp criticism of NATO's war against Yugoslavia. But his recent statement, distributed on 3rd April in the lobby of the Bundestag has caused a stir in German politics and was given broad attention in the national media.

In his statement Mr. Wimmer warned that one year after the beginning of the NATO attack against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" the Kosovo War was increasingly proving to have become a watershed for the future development of the world." Referring to his recent talks in Moscow he emphasised that, after years of having waited in vain for a fruitful dialog with Europe and the USA, Russia had now passed a new military doctrine, "which specifically addresses NATO and the West." (NATO is designated in the new doctrine as a potential threat to Russia). "What makes Moscow publish its guidelines for the (first) use of nuclear weapons now," asks Mr. Wimmer and offers the answer: "What other reason could there have been than the war against Yugoslavia."

In Beijing too, things had changed to the worse, asMr Wimmer recalls his talks there. In spite of all American apologies and assertions to the opposite, the Chinese firmly believe, " that one single US-bomber flew all the way from the United States in order to hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade."

Despite all assertions about the "humanitarian war" by NATO-officials, Mr. Wimmer urged Europeans to draw the right conclusions from an operation, "which was essentially led, in order to ensure the expansion of NATO and to underpin its credibility."

Moreover, in Mr. Wimmers's view the NATO-Operation in Kosovo seems to have "got out of control." Referring to Western newspaper reports Mr. Wimmer emphasises that "the Jews of Kosovo have now fled, almost without exception, to Belgrade." He added that "it goes without saying" that the KLA "has almost completely cleansed the remaining ethnic Serbs and Roma from Kosovo; the ethnical Turks had to go, and the catholic Albanians report acts of violence against them. Even Albanian intellectuals are leaving Kosovo and apparently flee to Belgrade." From these observations the conservative representative Willy Wimmer draws the only logical conclusion, that Belgrade remains "the only large multi-ethnical state in the Balkans." He considers that Kosovo is "on the eve of another civil war between rival albanian groups, which are supported by competing drug barons. What will NATO do then? – An undignified withdrawal or the provocation of a new war?"

He sternly warns against a new war against Serbia and ridicules NATO's grand claims. "What is left of NATO's big mouth announcements of a year ago, that it would cut the Yugoslav army into pieces?" he asked. "After 78 days of war and approximately 36,000 bombing missions the Yugoslav Army left (Kosovo) with polished tanks!" Next time, Mr. Wimmer expects, that NATO might not get away so easily: "It is highly questionable if a future conflict in Kosovo would follow the old pattern, or if a President Putin would again refuse the S-300 air defence systems to the Serbs, as happened in October 1998. In the actual air duels the most modern US technology confronted Soviet technology of the 70ies. That might change. "

In conclusion Mr. Willy Wimmer addresses the increasing tensions between Europe and the USA and requests Europeans to think again before they get dragged into the next Balkan war: "Europeans should ask themselves, how they see their own role against the background of the official American defence planning guidelines? This Pentagon document states razor-sharp that all American efforts must be directed against the emergence of a rival power while upholding NATO as the substantial channel for American influence in Europe and as an instrument for participation in European decision making."

With reference to The Hague, Mr. Wimmer, the deputy chairman of the OSCE's parliamentary assembly does not see "much of a future" for the International War Crimes Tribunal. Quoting a high official in the German government he said: "the tribunal would quickly unravel once it started in earnest to pursue the complaints that have been filed against NATO."

BALALAIKA's father UKrainian colonel SAVCHENKO was caught helping chechen bandits to escape chechnya. $25,000 dollars found in his car were fake. Bwahahaha

EX-colonel.. was fired in 1999. ukrainian didn't want to live in ukraine.. hmmm

By IGOR ( - 206.47.244.62) on Thursday, April 13, 2000 - 09:39 am:
Threat of Russian Air Strikes in Afghanistan
0241 GMT, 0003

Yeah@! baby! I wish the Russians would! that way the russians can get another good beating in Afganistan, like they did they last time!

So the albanians have hacked the serb web site! wow! I gotta check this out!

By IGOR ( - 206.47.244.62) on Thursday, April 13, 2000 - 07:04 pm:
Do you expect them to just sit by and let US do what ever they want.Baltic countries are discriminating with their visas and putting the old Russian guy in jail.Serbs are abused in Kosovo and resolution 1244 was signed by Russia,then Clarke says no Serb troops and Afghanistan training bandits that end up in Kosovo and Chechnya.

Thanks for the great news Igor! can it any better!!

Thumbs up to:

The Baltic countries
The Albanians
The Ukrainians
The Afghans
The Chechens

& General Wesley Clark

By mini basaev ( - 63.192.212.2) on Friday, April 14, 2000 - 01:44 am:
BALALAIKA's father UKrainian colonel SAVCHENKO

Gee, even though I have not visited the board for a long time, it is nice to feel that I am remembered so much. Thanx a lot for your appreciation.

Your gratefully,

Balalaika

balalaika we feel for your father, we will do anything to save him from russians, even though he is just an ukrainian drunk who couldn't do his job in the army because of his alcohol addiction and was fired for it in 1999 and was dumb enough to accept 25,000 fake dollars, probably printed right there in front of him.

chechen + chertyonok = chechenyonok

oh, JAKOB:

if i had not adequately insulted you and your
ludicrous sephardic posse yet, please consider it
done at this time.

=INSERT BRONX CHEER=

-_-

Igor,
You answered it Yourself with Your Thursday, April 13, 2000 - 08:13 pm: and Thursday, April 13, 2000 - 08:24 pm:o)
R. has the S400 already.
Remember Tor M1? My best guess - they are, by now, in Serbia.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/NewsST041200.htm

http://www.genocideproject.org

Igor

You braindead goy, How would I know where this airstrip is? I don't know Canada, you probably went to Canada for the extra welfare benefits.
I need an address?