WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS
Russia threatens
NATO confrontation
Claims Kosovo peacekeepers covering
for ethnic cleansing against Serbs

---

By Toby Westerman
© 2000 International News Analysis

An armed confrontation is possible between Russian and NATO forces in Kosovo, according to Russian Defense Minister Gen. Igor Sergeyev.
In an address to a special assembly of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, the Russian Defense Minister said that a stand-off between Russian and NATO forces could develop in two to three months on the border between Kosovo and Serbia.

The Kosovo-Serb border has seen an increasing number of armed conflicts between Serbs and ethnic Albanians crossing into Serbia from Kosovo. Moscow blames NATO for allowing the clashes, as well as for not protecting Serbs in Kosovo itself.

Segeyev set out one possible scenario in which Russian forces already in Kosovo would find it necessary to march out of their designated area and into the Kosovo-Serbian border. Such a move would be a violation of the NATO-imposed division of the nominally Serb province, and place the Russians in conflict with other NATO troops patrolling the border area.

British, French, and U.S. troops shoulder most of the responsibility for the border region between Kosovo and Serbia.

Segeyev stated that Russia was attempting to avert such a confrontation.

At the same Duma special session -- which was heard via the "Voice of Russia" World Service Short Wave Radio Broadcast -- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov declared the political situation in Kosovo to be "very alarming." He accused Albanian extremists of turning Kosovo into a center for drug dealing. Ivanov found it "even more alarming" that militant Albanians are using NATO peacekeepers as a "cover" for a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Serb population.

Some 350,000 refugees have fled Kosovo, predominantly Serbs, but also included are Gypsies and Moslems.

Violence has continued to increase along the Kosovo-Serb border as a new Albanian guerrilla group has arisen in the area, according to the BBC. The new group is challenging both Serbian police and NATO troops.

The new guerrilla force operates in a predominantly Albanian area of Serbia, and has named itself after three villages in the area, calling itself the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac.

Russian criticism of NATO and its conduct in Kosovo has been continuous and bitter since the end of the alliance's air war against Yugoslavia. Moscow claims that NATO favors the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, and that NATO peacekeepers are responsible for the flight of Serbs from Kosovo.

NATO's ultimate goal, according to the Russian government, is the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia.

L'MENEXE DARLINK:

Top of the day to you..kindly provide me with a clarification as relates to your last posting...i.e., Ms Mary was an easy target. I am confused by that statement. Thanks

HM

Tip o the morning to you.I think we should ignore these imbeciles and not respond to them since they contribute nothing to the discussion and only spew hatred without even knowing the reason.

Re: 99% give the rest a bad name

Serb lawyers get ransom for
freeing Albanians.

Jonathan Steele in Pristina
Thursday March 23, 2000

Serbian lawyers are reaping exorbitant
sums to arrange for the release of
Albanians from prisons in Serbia, in
what appears to be a ransom racket
supported by the government of the
Yugoslav president, Slobodan
Milosevic.

Albanian families are making contact
with the Serbian lawyers at a
makeshift "prisoners' bazaar", which is
held on Saturdays on the open road
near one of Kosovo's borders with
Serbia.

The lawyers take the names of the
Albanian detainees, most of whom
where hurriedly transferred to Serbia
after the Kosovo war, in exchange for
a telephone number in Serbia that the
families can later ring to find out the
price and an approximate release
date.

(more...) http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,149884,00.html

hello, ms. mary:
....witness the 0219 and 0309 posts from the FAKE.
firing his little darts you and kisako,
respectively.

maybe i should have clarified my comment to the
extent that as females, you are easier targets
for the FAKE's poisoned, chauvanistic pea of a
brain.

even though k-san and yourself have whaled the tar
out of him on numerous occasions....he must dig
it.

there's an old joke about how the most painful
thing you could do to a masochist when they say
"hurt me" is to _not_ hurt them. they're denied
their idea of 'satisfaction' right to the end.

he must come here to beaten up by those who hold
him in contempt, which would mean EVERYONE.

especially the ladies. he likes that the best

American Soldiers Desert in Large Numbers from Kosovo and Metohija
March 21, 2000

---

http://www.serbia-info.com/news/2000-03/21/17925.html

igor:
well said, comrade.


{and yet...heh}

"He accused Albanian extremists of turning Kosovo into a center for drug dealing."

I think they have bigger headaches in Kosovo at the moment.(no pun intended..)

Kim

Igor,

usually your links have credibility...
You are letting yourself down with that one!!
What a bunch of Crap.
SERBIA-INFO- Your guide to Serbia

Shea couldn't have done better himself.......

Kim

Hi Mary-babes,

yeah, well put it this way,
I'm glad we're friends. ;o)
Luv Kim

L'menexe, I guess it isn't very Ladylike
to defend yourself, is it now.
(hum,hum.......:o)

khokhma wrote: Another day, another bunch of dead bandits in Chechnya.

AND ANOTHER BUNCH OF DEAD OMON'S!


Thursday 23 March 2000 Mujahideen Wipe Out Russian OMON Special Police Convoy near Novo
Grozny

The Mujahideen ambushed and wiped out a Russian Convoy yesterday, near Novo Grozny, in the Province of Gudermes. Two trucks, one fighting vehicle and one armoured personnel carrier, full of Russian OMON Special Police Troops, were
destroyed. 52 bodies of OMON troops were counted by the Mujahideen after the ambush. Praise be to Allah there were no casualties on the Mujahideen side.

A Mujahideen unit destroyed a Russian troop-carrying truck near the village of Aler, by a remote-controlled land-mine. The truck burst into flames, killing all its occupants.

Fierce battles between Mujahideen and Russian Forces continue near Saadi-Khutor (Komsomolskoye). Komsomolskoye still remains under Mujahideen control.

The in-fighting between rival Russian Army units near the Chechen-Dagestan Border has intensified. In the latest fighting, heavy artillery was used by both sides, causing damage and destruction on both sides. We ask Allah to confuse the Russian ranks and cause chaos within them.

Amen.

I tend to agree with AllAmerican. You guys all should get over it. Silly as it is, it took a phony jew to run a couple of fictitious quotations and voila - board en masse basically went for answers to the same place where these quotations were invented. Occam's razor. Silly me, I thought it's only applicable to the exact science.

hi kim!

no, one less 'ladylike' should come a'runnin. a
more benevolent chauvanism....(sigh/blush)

but the harangued femmes fatale in question didnt
_ask_ whether they could whale the tar out of FAKE
or not.
he got in their face and INSISTED upon it.

and you, he's merely _afraid_ of you, mum.

LMAO, as the saying goes...heh

Putin's Future Russia May Resemble the Soviet Past

By David Hoffman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday , March 21, 2000 ; A17

MOSCOW, March 20 –– Acting President Vladimir Putin recently recalled an episode from his days as a Soviet KGB agent
in St. Petersburg that offers a clue about his view of democracy.

A group of political dissidents was planning to stage a public event and called in journalists and diplomats to witness it. When
the secret police got wind of the plan, Putin recalled, they quietly organized a wreath-laying ceremony on the same spot.

The KGB brought in party officials and union leaders for the ceremony, the police sealed off the site, and a band struck up.
When the invited journalists and diplomats arrived for the dissidents' event, they found instead the KGB theatrics. The reporters
"watched for a while, yawned a couple of times and went home," Putin recalled.

Putin said in retrospect that the KGB "shouldn't have acted in this way," but he went on to praise the agency for performing its
subterfuge without being detected. "They proceeded carefully so that the ears wouldn't stick out," he said.

Such are the often-stated values of Putin, who is described by many analysts and critics as determined to lead Russia away
from its pluralistic, often chaotic experiment with post-communist democracy. In the short time he has been in the spotlight,
Putin shown little tolerance for dissent or political competition and has sent unmistakable signals that he intends to take a more
authoritarian tack.

In particular, some critics say, Putin has expressed hostility to the basic building blocks of a civil society--the process by which
the ruled communicate with their rulers through a free press, public associations and competitive elections. Such channels exist
in Russia today, but they are often embattled; Putin himself seems to prefer a more Soviet approach, in which the Communist
Party had an absolute monopoly on power.

The Soviet experience obliterated civil society. The press was a tool of the state, elections were a sham, and public associations
were impossible without party sanction. The party controlled jobs, resources and the legal system. Those who refused to
conform were sent to prison camps or shot.

Russia is a different country from that one. One of President Boris Yeltsin's most profound legacies is a nation that has sprouted
a great many voices, one in which such freedoms as speech, association and worship have at least taken root, if not flourished.
If anything, there are complaints that the freedoms gained in recent years have spun out of control, especially in the economic
sphere, and have proved disorienting for a country with a 1,000-year history of authoritarian rule.

On the eve of an election to choose a successor to Yeltsin--a ballot Putin is overwhelmingly favored to win--the key question
about the former KGB operative is whether he will try to change Russia's direction, and if so, whether he can. Many political
analysts say there is no doubt that he wants to.

"Psychologically, Putin's attitude to the system of checks and balances is much less positive than that of Yeltsin or the
democrats or, on the whole, of this entire generation of the 1990s," said Igor Bunin, a political consultant, analyst and director
of the Institute for Political Technology here.

"He does not think in terms of democracy," Bunin added. "Psychologically, Putin is a technocrat, a pragmatist, a workaholic,
allowing for no counterbalance to power. The system of checks and balances is going to be sharply weakened. Not legally, but
by Putin's way of election, by his character, by his urge to concentrate power in his hands and control everybody and
everything."

Alexander Podrabinek, editor of the human rights newspaper Express Khronika, says Putin lacks democratic ideals. "He is an
embodiment of the Soviet mentality; he is a child of the Soviet epoch," he said.

"There must be constant impulse, constant movement if we want democracy in Russia," Podrabinek added. "At the beginning of
the 1990s, the impulse was coming from the society; there were demonstrations, hopes, inspirations. If there is a stop to this,
Russia will start sliding back into the bog of socialism, or traditions of empire, which are still alive. Putin does not have it in him,
this impulse, to make Russia move further along democratic traditions."

Yuri Korgunyuk, an analyst with the Indem Foundation, took issue with this view. "The development or stagnation of the civil
society does not depend on Putin," he said. "It depends on the society itself. Putin cannot add or take away anything here. . . .
If civil society is strong enough, it controls power. If there is no civil society, power exercises control over everything it can."

Putin vaulted to his present position without participating in the raucous, hard-fought battles of Russia's recent democratic
experience. While other leaders, such as the Yabloko bloc's Grigory Yavlinsky, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, have faced voters repeatedly in elections, Putin was appointed by Yeltsin, first as prime
minister and then as acting president. He then capitalized on the war in Chechnya to forge what polls show to be the strongest
support for any Russian politician in nearly a decade.

Putin's rise, while in keeping with the constitution, effectively bypassed the grass-roots test of the ballot box, and he was quietly
aided by a coterie of Yeltsin aides and politically powerful tycoons whose aim was to predetermine Yeltsin's successor. They
helped Putin by using their control over Russia's largest television channel to smear his potential rivals.

Putin has not told voters what he stands for. Neither he nor his parliamentary party have published a detailed platform, and he
has refused to debate any rivals. When asked directly if big changes could be expected after the election, he replied bluntly: "I
won't tell you." While Putin has assembled a group of top analysts to develop a long-term strategy for the country, the program
won't be revealed until after the election.

"This election is not about transfer of power but about keeping the power," said Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace here.

The most noticeable change in direction so far has been Putin's attempts to restrain media coverage of the Chechen war, using
both harassment and deception. The government has warned radio and television stations against broadcasting statements by
Chechen leaders. In war, truth is often the first casualty, but what has struck many analysts here is the personal attacks that
Putin unleashed on one reporter, Andrei Babitsky of U.S.-funded Radio Liberty, who dared to cover the war from the
Chechen side.

"He was working for the bandits," Putin said to Russian journalists in a recent interview that was published as a campaign book.
"What Babitsky did is much more dangerous than firing a machine gun."

Bunin said that the Babitsky became a target "out of the blue" because he refused to conform. "His behavior, from the point of
view of the current general mood in the country, was abnormal . . . and Babitsky is sticking out in the crowd."

Putin has indicated that he may try other ways to rule with a stronger hand.

He has suggested doing away with the popular election of regional governors, making them Kremlin appointees once again. He
has signed orders giving the security services wider investigative powers, and he has brushed aside reports of human rights
abuses by Russian troops in Chechnya.

help:
what the hell are you talking about?
or does your alignment with the FAKE say it all?