Yugoslav Daily Survey -------------------------------------------------------------------- (Morning edition) BELGRADE,8 March 2000 C O N T E N T S : F.R.YUGOSLAVIA - LAOS - YUGOSLAV FOREIGN MINISTER ENDED VISIT TO LAOS F.R.YUGOSLAVIA - UN - YUGOSLAV U.N. AMBASSADOR URGED TRUTH ABOUT KOSOVO AND METOHIJA KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS - ANNAN BALANCING BETWEEN FACTS AND KOUCHNER'S LIES - IVANOV FOR PREVENTIVE MEASURES - KONRAD: FORCE MUST NOT BE A MEANS TO AN END SERBIAN PROVINCE OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - KFOR, UNMIK FAIL TO IMPLEMENT KOSOVO AND METOHIJA RESOLUTION - TERRORIST SCENARIO OF "LIBERATING" KOSOVSKA MITROVICA - YUGOSLAV OFFICIAL ACCUSED KOUCHNER OF IGNORING U.N. MANDATE - IVANOVIC: TERRORIST ATTACK - LARGE SPECTACLE - ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORISTS IN U.S. PERSONNEL CARRIERS - THIRTY-SIX PERSONS WOUNDED IN ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORIST ATTACKS - ETHNIC ALBANIAN EXTREMISTS STORM SERB HOUSES IN OBILIC - KFOR BLAMES ETHNIC ALBANIANS - UN TRIES TO CONDUCT ILLEGAL CENSUS IN NORTHERN KOSOVO F.R.YUGOSLAVIA - LAOS YUGOSLAV FOREIGN MINISTER ENDED VISIT TO LAOS VIENTIANE, March 7 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic ended on Tuesday his three-day official visit to Laos during which he had met with the country's top officials. Laos President Khamtay Siphandon received Jovanovic on Sunday, on Monday he was received by Prime Minister Sisavat Keobounphanh, while on Tuesday he met with Parliament Speaker Saman Vignaket. The country's military leadership showed interest in learning the causes and consequences of NATO's March 24-June 10 1999 aggression on Yugoslavia. Jovanovic's meetings with the Laos officials showed that they shared Yugoslavia's positions on and assessments of the NATO crime. Vignaket said that the NATO aggression was a warning to all nations and that the Yugoslav people and leadership's heroic resistance to it served as an example to other countries fighting for freedom and independence. Jovanovic and Vignaket discussed the promotion of all-round cooperation between the two countries, agreeing to ensure the exchange of visits by the two countries' parliamentary delegations and their joint activity within the Interparliamentary Union. F.R.YUGOSLAVIA - UN YUGOSLAV U.N. AMBASSADOR URGED TRUTH ABOUT KOSOVO AND METOHIJA NEW YORK, March 7 (Tanjug) - For nine months, the U.N. Security Council has been in a blockade which prevents it from doing its duty in the right way and opening a debate on the true problems such as security in Kosovo-Metohija and the inefficacy of the international mission there, according to Yugoslavia's U.N. ambassador on Tuesday. Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic was making a critical appraisal of Monday's closed-door consultations in the Security Council, at which the civilian and security mission chiefs to the U.N.-ruled Serbian (Yugoslav) Kosovo-Metohija province, Bernard Kouchner and Klaus Reinhardt, submitted their reports. Speaking at a news conference, Jovanovic said the Monday debate again had completely ignored the burning questions concerning Kosovo-Metohija, where he said there was chaos and where ethnic Albanian terrorist operations were continuing unabated. He said the alarming nature of the situation was evident also from Tuesday's reports about the latest wave of terrorist attacks in Kosovska Mitrovica, in which a score of people were wounded, including international KFor force troops. Regrettably, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's report, published on the eve of the arrival of Kouchner and Reinhardt at U.N. headquarters, had done the same as the Council debate - viz., distracted attention from the true problems and causes of the chaos in Kosovo-Metohija to quite tangential ones. His report, too, avoided pointing the finger at the true culprits for the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo-Metohija of its Serbs and other non-Albanians, and made no mention of the genocide committed thereby, Jovanovic said. Although Annan did present some facts objectively, he yet buried the complete picture and the truth under an avalanche of unimportant details without making a right and comprehensive statement about the situation in Kosovo-Metohija or the true reasons for the difficult situation in the province, Jovanovic said. He went on to say that the international mission officials had done nothing to discharge their mandate. Turning a blind eye to what the terrorists are doing is the same as siding with them, according to Jovanovic, who said this only encouraged the separatists and fed their belief that one day they might detach Kosovo-Metohija from the parent state. If U.N. Resolution 1244 clearly provides for an autonomous status and self-rule for Kosovo-Metohija, then clearly Kouchner, with decisions that are at odds with it, is trying to open scope for wrong interpretations and distortions of the Resolution, Jovanovic said. He went on to say this was the first time that the U.N. flag had been abused for the purposes of ethnic cleansing. The truth and only the truth is the way to speak about Kosovo- Metohija, he stressed. Facts and only facts must be the language in which to talk about the situation in that U.N.-administered southern province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia and the true competencies of the international presence there, he emphasised. KOSOVO AND METOHIJA - INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS ANNAN BALANCING BETWEEN FACTS AND KOUCHNER'S LIES NEW YORK, March 8 (Tanjug) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan held a press conference at the U.N. New York headquarters on Tuesday which was mostly devoted to Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province. Reporters linked their questions with two events - Monday's consultations of the U.N. Security Council when Annan's special envoy Bernard Kouchner presented a series of unobjective assessments and excuses for the failure of the Kosovo U.N. mission, and, second, Tuesday's press conference by Yugoslav U.N. mission head Ambassador Vladislav Jovanovic and his evaluation of the failure of the international mission and the Security Council's inability objectively and comprehensively to discuss Kosovo and Metohija. Annan reiterated his concern over the situation in the southern Serbian province. He also said that it was not possible to deal with the situation in Kosovo separately from the rest of the region. Speaking about the announced elections in the province, he said it was necessary that the civilian mission UNMIK cooperate with the Yugoslav government. The secretary-general tried to make an artificial balance between hard facts and the lies relentlessly launched by his envoy Kouchner. Asked to comment Kouchner's countless illegal moves in the province, Annan tried to present them as practical measures and steps without which it would be difficult to manage the administration of the province. Annan said he was aware that Yugoslavia saw these moves by Kouchner as preparations for the independence of Kosovo and Metohija, but failed to mention that other council members, primarily Russia and China, share this opinion and the critical evaluations presented by Yugoslavia, and that they also warn against Kouchner's dangerous activities. Asked about Yugoslavia's criticisms of the inefficiency of the international mission, Annan said he was familiar with these criticisms. He then admitted that the international mission faced great problems from its very start and that the United Nations had a very difficult mandate from the very beginning. IVANOV FOR PREVENTIVE MEASURES MOSCOW, March 7 (Tanjug) - The situation in Kosovo-Metohija is volatile and it is necessary to take preventive measures to prevent the breaking out of conflict, said in Moscow on Tuesday Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Ivanov said, following talks with U.N. secretary general's special representative in the Balkans Carl Bildt, that it was necessary to increase the presence of international police forces in Kosovo-Metohija and to take "strong measures against Albanian extremists and separatists." "As long as they feel at ease in the province, the situation there will be full of tension," Ivanov said. He pointed to the need to formulate the status of Kosovo and Metohija within Yugoslavia. In the past eight months "we have been witnessing a process of forcible expulsion of persons of non-Albanian nationality from Kosovo-Metohija," the Russian minister said, adding that it concerned not only Serbs, but also representatives of other nationalities. The Russian foreign minister, also, pointed out that only strict compliance with UN SC Resolution 1244 can secure a political solution to the situation in Kosovo-Metohija, indicating that Russia will continue to play an important role in the stabilization of the region. Bildt said that the work of the U.N. mission in the Balkans "was difficult" and assessed that the "situation is complex, particularly in south Serbia." Bildt sad it was absolutely necessary to increase the number of U.N. policemen and U.N. representatives in the judicial system, as well as the number of international forces for Kosovo-Metohija, to the level that would be sufficient for ensuring the security of the local population. After Bildt assessed that closer cooperation between key members of the UN Security Council was necessary, Ivanov said he believed that coordinated joint measures of the international community would lead to the easing of tension in the region and the start of the process of a political solution to the situation. Ivanov and Bildt, in the meeting on Tuesday, it was said, also reviewed the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Macedonia, and in Croatia after the presidential elections, and the realization of the Pact for Stability in Southeastern Europe. KONRAD: FORCE MUST NOT BE A MEANS TO AN END BELGRADE, March 7 (Tanjug) - Renowned Hungarian writer Gyoergy Konrad said in Belgrade on Tuesday that force must not be a means to an end or to the attainment of an ideal, even such a lofty one as the protection of human rights. Konrad, visiting Belgrade as guest of the Serbian PEN Centre, explained to reporters his controversial intellectual and political position, since as the founder and member of the Hungarian Liberal Party Presidency, he actively urged Hungary's membership in NATO. However, during last Spring's NATO aggression on Yugoslavia, he vociferously opposed the bombing of a sovereign state, openly advocating the position that bombs dropped on the Serbian (Yugoslav) Kosovo-Metohija province had contributed to the general madness. Speaking about his book "The Yugoslav War", Konrad, until recently president of the European PEN Clubs and president of Berlin's Arts Academy, came out strongly against the use of military force for settling humanitarian and human rights issues. He was highly critical also of the policy of applying sanctions against Yugoslavia, describing it as extremely bad. According to Konrad, sanctions have only consolidated the hard, conservative structures in Europe and the world, instead of dismantling and marginalising them. He stressed that, with its air strikes on Yugoslavia, NATO had succeeded only in destroying its own system of values, and said that the dramatic decision to launch the air strikes had been taken rashly and without due consideration. Referring to ideological fermentation in the world, he mentioned many European intellectuals whom he said were putting themselves in pragmatic political service to their governments. According to Konrad, authors are not answerable to a higher power, so that intellectuals who have laid themselves down on the altar of state, nation or proletarian internationalism have become only tools in the hands of autocratic and tyrannical governments. Here he drew attention to the fact that Europe's intellectual scene has not produced the logical and expected voices of protest and rebellion against the stifling of human rights, genocide and persecution of Serbs and other non-Albanians in Kosovo-Metohija. SERBIAN PROVINCE OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA KFOR, UNMIK FAIL TO IMPLEMENT KOSOVO AND METOHIJA RESOLUTION VIENNA, March 7 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav ambassador in Vienna Rados Smiljkovic said here Tuesday that the U.N. peacekeeping force KFOR and the U.N. civilian mission to Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK) did not implement and even greatly violated U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244. Presenting the Yugoslav government's memorandum on the resolution, Smiljkovic said that the situation in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's southern province was deteriorating and that violence committed by ethnic Albanian extremists had begun spreading outside the province. Attacks on Serbian authorities and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic are used to conceal the international factor's failure, while elections in Kosovo and Metohija are placed in the focus of the world public's attention, he said. He said that no elections would be possible as long as the remaining non-Albanians in the province and loyal ethnic Albanians were killed on a daily basis by the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). He said that pressure on Yugoslavia was exerted through open attempts to trigger a conflict between the country's two federal entities, Serbia and Montenegro, to divide and radicalise political forces in Yugoslavia and to use them in ousting the country's authorities ahead of the coming local and federal elections. The further tightening of the sanctions against Yugoslavia, instead of their lifting and the creation of conditions for a speedy economic development and cooperation in the region, serves the same purpose, he said. He said that ethnic Albanian terrorists were used as an instrument to destabilise not only Kosovo and Metohija but also the entire region in order to conceal the United Nations' failure and justify NATO's further presence in the region. He said that there were indications that the retailoring of Balkan borders, which had begun in 1991, had not been finished, warning that another war might break out if certain countries continued to pursue such a policy. Independence for Kosovo and Metohija automatically leads to further retailoring of borders in the Balkans, he said. He stressed that Yugoslavia was doing all within its power to prevent another war, saying, however, that certain other parties were trying to provoke the country. TERRORIST SCENARIO OF "LIBERATING" KOSOVSKA MITROVICA PRISTINA, March 7 (Tanjug) - The Yugoslav committee for cooperation with the U.N. mission in Kosovo and Metohija and the provisional executive council of the autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija assessed Tuesday evening that the development of that day in Kosovska Mitrovica, in which scores of civilians were injured, but also KFOR troops, represents a "planned and precise scenario recently made public" by Albanian terrorists on the "liberation" of the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica. The statement said that "only two days ago the leader of Albanian terrorists who is favoured by a part of the international community, Hashim Tachi, announced when he spoke in the village of Donji Prekaz, 40 km south-east of Pristina, the "liberation" of the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica that was to be carried out by the "Kosovo Liberation Army," non-existent for the West. Also present in Donji Prekaz, when the new wave of terror was announced, were representatives of the international community, who did not react to the threats of violence, the statement said. "Western ideologists of crime against Serbs intend to continue in the same way, along with the terrorists, the ethnic cleansing of Serbs also from north Kosovo and Metohija." Developments in Kosovska Mitrovica have revealed the true face of the representatives of the international community, of resolve to complete the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija, the statement said among other things. YUGOSLAV OFFICIAL ACCUSED KOUCHNER OF IGNORING U.N. MANDATE PRISTINA, Serbia, March 7 (Tanjug) - Yugoslavia's official liaising with the U.N. mission to Kosovo-Metohija (UNMIK) said on Tuesday that UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner's plan to draw up a provisional constitution for that Serbian (Yugoslav) province was another instance of a wrong and biased policy. In connection with Kouchner's request to the U.N. Security Council on Monday to be allowed to draw up a provisional constitution of Kosovo-Metohija, Ambassador Stanimir Vukicevic said the latest request by the UNMIK chief was another proof that he is acting outside the mandate given him by the Security Council. "The U.N. Security Council's Resolution 1244 envisages for autonomy for Kosovo-Metohija, nothing more," Vukicevic, who chairs the Yugoslav committee liaising with UNMIK, said in Kosovo- Metohija's city of Pristina. He warned that, by promulgating a "constitution," Kouchner was seeking to endorse all his decisions taken so far, i.e., to sever all Kosovo-Metohija's ties with Serbia and Yugoslavia. "We expected Kouchner to put the true problem to the Council, i.e., to brief the Council members on inadequate security for the Serbs, Montenegrins and other non-Albanians, not to conceal the truth from them by asking for a provisional constitution for Kosovo-Metohija," Vukicevic said. He wondered who would vote for such a constitution in a situation where more than 360,000 people from Kosovo-Metohija are living outside the province. "Kouchner is obviously in a hurry to rush through a constitution in their absence, a legal document that would seriously upset plans for the return of the more than 360,000 people to their homes in Kosovo-Metohija," Vukicevic said. He said he hoped the international community had finally realised that the policy being pursued in that U.N.-ruled province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia was not one that would solve the problem but rather one that would prolong the Kosovo-Metohija crisis. IVANOVIC: TERRORIST ATTACK - LARGE SPECTACLE KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, March 7 (Tanjug) - The terrorist attack on Serbs on Tuesday is nothing but a large spectacle ahead of the arrival of Wesley Clark in Kosovska Mitrovica, said a local Serb official. Oliver Ivanovic, who heads the Serbian National Assembly in Kosovska Mitrovica, said that Albanian terrorists acted on Tuesday in conformity with "their doctrine" that prescribes as many wounded Serbs as possible and the greatest possible pressure on them. Such a large number of wounded Serbs has not been registered since October 12 when Albanian terrorists threw four grenades on Serbs gathered near the bridge on Ibar river and when 33 Serbs were wounded, Ivanovic said. At least 14 French troops were seriously wounded when they intervened during the afternoon to stop the Albanians who attacked Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica. In the attacks were wounded 22 Serbs, two of them seriously. Albanians attacked with two grenades the French after troops surrounded the house of Dzeljalja Ademi, an ethnic Albanian, in the northern (Serbian) part of town. A large number of French, German and Danish troops are patrolling in armoured cars the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, and helicopters are overflying the town. ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORISTS IN U.S. PERSONNEL CARRIERS BUJANOVAC, March 7 (Tanjug) - That ethnic Albanian terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija act in close conjunction with members of the international forces (KFOR) has been confirmed by the action of separatists who, accompanied by U.S. personnel carriers, arrived on March 4 in the village of Rejanovac, municipality of Kosovska Kamenica, and in the hamlet of Borovac opened automatic gun fire on the defenders of Serbian houses. This is what foreign reporters in Bujanovac learned from a Serb who managed to get away from Borovac, a hamlet near Kosovska Kamenica. In the action took part seven American armoured personnel carriers. While ethnic Albanian terrorists opened fire from the direction of the village, U.S. KFOR troops were silent observers and only filmed the scene, the man said. Ethnic Albanian terrorists were wearing uniforms of U.S. KFOR troops, and came from the direction of Rejanovac although that terrain is in the zone of responsibility of Russian units. >From Rejanovac, ethnic Albanian terrorists previously expelled 50 Roma and six Serbian families, but did not manage to complete the ethnic cleansing. When the shooting ceased, the terrorists climbed into two U.S. personnel carriers, parked in the fields, and then withdrew, failing to detect Serb defense positions. The man who managed to get to Bujanovac said that KFOR helicopters overflew Rejanovac only two meters above house roofs. Masked terrorists stormed into undefended Serbian houses, grabbing money, valuables and livestock. Some twenty days ago, terrorists even dared attack Russian KFOR troops, who returned fire. The Russians managed to seize from the terrorists an anti-tank mine and three hand grenades. THIRTY-SIX PERSONS WOUNDED IN ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORIST ATTACKS KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, March 7 (Tanjug) - Twenty-two Serbs and 14 French peacekeepers, including an officer, were wounded Tuesday in a series of attacks launched by ethnic Albanian terrorists in the Bosnjacka district of Kosovska Mitrovica's northern section. According to head of the town hospital's surgical and orthopaedic department Marko Jaksic, two Serbs were seriously wounded, while 17 other Serbs also had to remain in hospital. Most of the Serbs wounded in the attacks, which began just before noon and lasted for two hours, are secondary school pupils. The terrorists used hand grenades and opened fire with small arms and heavy weapons in the attacks. The violence broke out when Ljuan Muftari, an ethnic Albanian who was later arrested, approached a group of four Serb youths hitting one of them with an iron bar without any reason. After that, an ethnic Albanian came out of his house with a rifle and opened fire on the Serb youths, wounding one them in the thigh. Ethnic Albanian terrorists threw four hand grenades on another group of Serbs. All this was happening in the presence of German troops participating in the U.N. peacekeeping force KFOR who did nothing to prevent the violence. French KFOR troops arrested Dzeljaj Ademi, an ethnic Albanian from whose house terrorists opened fire. Ademi, who up to this point worked with Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica's northern, Serb-populated section, threw two hand grenades on a group of Serbs and a cordon of French KFOR troops. Around 1.30 p.m. local time, French peacekeepers surrounded the house ordering the terrorists to surrender. The terrorists responded by throwing two hand grenades on them. Strong KFOR troops guarded all three bridges dividing the town into its northern and southern, ethnic Albanian-populated section, while the town's streets were patrolled by a large number of armoured personnel carriers with French, German and Danish peacekeepers. KFOR helicopters flew over the town's northern section for two hours. Ethnic Albanian terrorist attacks on Serbs ahead of every international official's visit to Kosovo and Metohija, including Tuesday's visit to Kosovska Mitrovica by NATO Supreme Commander Europe Wesley Clark, are no coincidence. They are part of the ethnic Albanian terrorists' plans to provoke Serbs and pin the blame on them for unrest and clashes. Tuesday's terrorist attacks have also greatly resulted from KFOR's inefficiency because the force has been informed that members of the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) live in the Bosnjacka district. ETHNIC ALBANIAN EXTREMISTS STORM SERB HOUSES IN OBILIC OBILIC, March 8 (Tanjug) - About 1,000 ethnic Albanian extremists stormed a block of houses with exclusively Serb tenants in the Kosovo and Metohija town of Obilic on Tuesday evening, said the local Committee for Protection and Human Rights. There are no reports yet about possible casualties or damage. Ethnic Albanians hurled stones at six houses built within the Yugoslav program for settling Serbs and Montenegrins in the southern Serbian province. Serbs have lived here in constant fear of terrorist actions by ethnic Albanians, the sources said. Almost all windows on the houses were broken, and the attackers also used firearms. Ethnic Albanian extremists also went on a rampage in streets in downtown Obilic, the committee representatives said. The rampage went on for almost an hour. The local international force KFOR Norwegian contingent reacted only after the height of the violence abated, the committee said. KFOR BLAMES ETHNIC ALBANIANS KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, March 8 (Tanjug) - French KFOR spokesman Col. Patrick Chanliau late Tuesday blamed ethnic Albanians for the day's terrorist attacks in Kosovska Mitrovica in which many Serbs and French peacekeepers were injured. Col. Chanliau confirmed at a press conference that all shots and grenades had come from ethnic Albanians. Four ethnic Albanians were arrested on suspicion of participation in the day's terrorist attacks on Serbs in the Bosnjacka Mahala district of the northern Serb part of Kosovska Mitrovica, he said. He specified that 20 Serbs, 16 French troops and four ethnic Albanians were injured in these ethnic Albanian terrorist attacks. In the series of attacks which began shortly before noon and lasted two hours, ethnic Albanians threw several grenades, fired from light and heavy arms, and the injured Serbs were mostly secondary school students. The spokesman said curfew in Kosovska Mitrovica had been extended and would again begin at eight p.m. instead of ten. UN TRIES TO CONDUCT ILLEGAL CENSUS IN NORTHERN KOSOVO KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, March 8 (Tanjug) - The United Nations population agency UNFPA is secretly distributing forms in northern Kosovo and Metohija in an effort to collect data for an illegal census, within the illegal decisions of U.N. Kosovo and Metohija mission chief Bernard Kouchner, and in direct violation of Security Council Resolution 1244. The distribution of these forms began recently in the Serb-populated municipalities of Zubin Potok and Leposavic. The questionnaires are headed - demographic and socio-economic studies, and allegedly serve exclusively for statistical purposes. The U.N. civilian mission UNMIK administrators in Zubin Potok, a U.S. citizen, and in Leposavic, a Dane, are behind these illicit activities. The local Serb population who were given the questionnaires reacted by addressing the municipal authorities, which took the united stand that this was yet another manipulation and provocation by the international community, led by Kouchner. The authorities said Serbs should not respond to these actions. __________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi ___________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe/unsubscribe messages mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________
