>From Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald
Saturday, March 27, 1999
New target: Milosevic
<Picture>Villagers from Lacevci near Kralevo look at missile damage. Image
taken from Serbian television; (Below) USAF Force technician, Sgt Robert
Roemer, checks a missile at an F-16 Falcon fighter hangar at Aviano's NATO
air base in Northern Italy. (Bottom) A RAF Harrier fighter is prepared for
take-off from Gioia Del Colle air base in Southern Italy. Photos by AFP
By GEOFF KITNEY, Herald Correspondent in Berlin
NATO has threatened to target President Slobodan Milosevic and his military
commanders after the Yugoslav leader defiantly ordered his forces in Kosovo
to continue their brutal campaign against ethnic Albanian separatists.
A second and bigger wave of missile and bomb attacks on Serb targets was
accompanied by escalating threats from both sides, with NATO indicating
that it was prepared to fight until Milosevic's military structures were
destroyed.
NATO's supreme commander, General Wesley Clark, said there would be "no
sanctuary" for Milosevic or his military leaders and that NATO was ready to
destroy the Yugoslav Army.
The United States Vice-President, Mr Al Gore, also raised the political
stakes, saying Milosevic had "blood dripping from his hands" from
"murdering his own people".
This heightened political rhetoric suggests that the US goal now is to
force Milosevic from power and bring him to account for years of military
atrocities.
As the threats intensified, B-52 bombers were preparing to take off from
their base at Fairford in England to spearhead a third wave of bombing, a
US Air Force spokesman said.
<Picture>But the prospect of a longer, more intense conflict is testing
NATO unity and putting increasing domestic political pressure on alliance
governments.
Italy, which is critical to the operation because most aircraft involved
are flying from its bases, indicated at a meeting of European leaders in
Berlin that it wanted a quick end to the operation.
British newspapers have reported that both Italy and Greece have cast doubt
on continuing the bombing campaign.
As well, Russia is a fierce critic of the air strikes, and the official
China Daily newspaper has called the campaign "blatant aggression" and a
barbarity.
Hopes that Milosevic would back down and agree to a Kosovo peace plan
receded further when Yugoslavia announced that it was severing diplomatic
relations with the US, Britain, France and Germany.
This came as protesters attacked Western embassies and representative
offices in neighbouring Macedonia and Bosnia, and in Moscow and Canada.
NATO's initial military objective had been to limit Milosevic's capacity to
continue his Kosovo security operations.
<Picture>But it has hardened its position amid reports of renewed fighting
in Kosovo and declarations by Serb leaders that they would continue to try
to destroy the ethnic Albanian separatist movement and would never
surrender to NATO military force.
The Serbs claimed that the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had used the
cover of the NATO air strikes to step up attacks on government forces.
But a spokesman for the KLA in London, Pleurat Sejeu, told the BBC that
Yugoslav MiGjets were being used against ethnic Albanians.
He said Serb forces had rounded up thousands of displaced ethnic Albanian
civilians in the central Drenica region and were marching them towards
Pristina.
NATO's second wave of attacks - cruise missiles fired from warships and
laser-guided bombs from nearly 70 aircraft - appeared to be directed more
at targets in Kosovo, although targets throughout Yugoslavia were also hit.
Western officials dismissed comments from Yugoslavia's Deputy Prime
Minister, Mr Vuk Draskovic, suggesting that military operations in Kosovo
could be stopped if the NATO bombing ended.
One NATO diplomat said: "We have seen absolutely nothing from Milosevic to
encourage us to believe that he is ready to back down. On the contrary, he
is marshalling his forces for a long fight."
There was also concern that the conflict was feeding tensions in
neighbouring countries, increasing the risk of it spreading beyond Yugoslav
borders.
The Macedonia Government in particular indicated that it was worried
following the violent protests outside a number of Western embassies by
angry Serbs.
But the alliance leadership strongly reaffirmed its determination to
continue the military operation until it had achieved its objectives.
Both political leaders and NATO military commanders said the air campaign
would continue until President Milosevic agreed to political autonomy for
Kosovo, policed by an international military force.
Saturday, March 27, 1999
NUCLEAR THREAT
Seoul pinpoints 14 missile sites in North
North Korea has at least 10 missile launch bases and four factories
producing missiles, according to the latest assessment by South Korea of
its rival's ballistic strike-power. The disclosure comes as South Korean
and United States officials issue new warnings about the North Korean
military threat, which they say is still potent despite cutbacks to its
conventional weapons arsenal.
It also comes two days before crucial talks in Pyongyang between North
Korean and US officials on efforts to dismantle the communist country's
missile program. News reports in Seoul quoted a government official giving
the precise locations of missile factories in North Korea, even specifying
the type of missile components made in some plants. "There are even reports
that there are eight factories and over 12 bases," the official said,
adding that the Stalinist state was building more missile bases.
The official said North Korea began developing missiles as far back as
1965, when a national science university was established in honour of the
North's founding father, Kim Il-sung.
North Korea can produce up to 100 short-range Scud missiles a year as part
of a missile export program that earns much of the country's export
earnings. But its suspected development of long-range intercontinental
ballistic missiles is of more concern, particularly since its test firing
of a medium-range Taepo-Dong missile over Japan last August. That launch
sparked panic in Tokyo and set off alarm bells in Washington, as Pyongyang
is already suspected of possessing plutonium for use in nuclear devices
which, if mounted on long-range missiles, could reach the US east coast.
Washington wants North Korea to stop all development, testing and export of
missile technology. Mr Stephen Bosworth, the US Ambassador to South Korea,
declared this week that the North was more dangerous than ever given the
new threat of its weapons of mass destruction.
"We see an active missile-development program and activities that could be
related to the production of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass
destruction," he said. "Combine this military potential with a failed
economy and the North's self-imposed isolation, and we clearly have a more
complex situation and potentially more dangerous situation than in the
past."
South Korea's Defence Ministry told President Kim Dae-jung earlier this
week that the North's land and sea forces were weaker due to the crumbling
economy. But it warned that the North compensated for its inability to wage
full-scale conventional war by developing long-range missiles, chemical
weapons, and possibly nuclear warheads.
"The North has a terrible ability to launch destruction against South
Korea, but no staying power beyond that," said Dr Kenneth Quinones, a
former North Korea desk officer at the US State Department, now based in
Seoul. "The army could come south quickly, but a frontal assault would
expose it to devastation."
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A<>E<>R
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