You can get a "quicky" translation here.
TEST POST***
RUSSIA WANTS "THOROUGH DEBATE" ON KOSOVO BY UNITED NATIONS
Moscow, Feb. 29, 2000 (Agence France Presse) Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov called Monday for the U.N. Security Council and the world's seven most industrial nations plus Russia (G8) to hold a "thorough debate" on Kosovo, the Interfax news agency reported.
"Such a debate and its subsequent resolutions" are needed to stop the security situation in the Yugoslav province deteriorating further, he added.
2. Dusty - 2/29/2000 3:15:08 PM
I'm not up on the recent history. can you link in some relevant articles?
3. Indiana Jones - 2/29/2000 3:15:58 PM
Nice digs, RS.
This site covers Kosovo quite a bit.
4. RosettaStone - 2/29/2000 3:19:42 PM
I have two problems, dusty. I still have to learn how to link. (And I will.) Two, my middle daughter is sick (not seriously) but once I go home from work I'll need to help my wife.
5. Indiana Jones - 2/29/2000 3:27:39 PM
Another source for frequent updates.
6. jexster - 2/29/2000 3:30:29 PM
We should have cluster bombed those Servile Serbian Pig Farmers into the stone age then invaded their sorry country of criminals.
End of thread.
7. janjon - 2/29/2000 3:45:09 PM
megadittos.
end of thread, indeed.
8. PelleNilsson - 2/29/2000 3:59:33 PM
I doubt if I'm going to post much in this thread which I strongly suspect RS has insisted upon in order to relive the days when he was so deliciously spanked by jexster. Unforgettable, artistically framed phrases like "feel the whip" and "lick my shit" come to mind.
That would be a pity since I know more on the subject than those two clowns together, not least because I spent the whole of 1997 flying in and out of Bosnia.
Those with a real interest in the subject and its background are recommended The Balkans, 1804-1999 written by tmachine's brother Misha. It's a hefty volume but rewarding.
9. jexster - 2/29/2000 5:01:36 PM
That would be a pity since I know more on the subject than those two
clowns together
Back to your ice house Swede. I'll be happy to educate you about the evils of Slavdom on the WWII thread.
Thanks for the book tho. I'll put in on my list.
10. jexster - 2/29/2000 5:05:21 PM
Pelle: Just checked the University library. Unfortunately this is the only title by Glenny.
The Fall Of Yugoslavia : The Third Balkan War / Misha Glenny.
Ever read it?
11. RosettaStone - 2/29/2000 5:25:49 PM
(AFP) A UN official was shot in the legs February 28 while driving on the Serbian side of the internal boundary between Kosovo and Serbia, a spokeswoman for the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) said.
Marcel Grogan was shot in both legs while driving in a "clearly marked UN vehicle" some five kilometres west of the predominantly ethnic Albanian town of Presevo in southwest Serbia.
He was driven to a U.S. military checkpoint on the Kosovo side of the frontier from where he was transported to the U.S. base at Camp Bondsteel near the town of Gnjilane in southeast Kosovo.
12. RosettaStone - 2/29/2000 5:32:04 PM
I wonder what the UN official was doing on the Serbian side of the border?
13. PsychProf - 2/29/2000 5:33:42 PM
RS...you need to provide history and context for this thread. Do you have first hand experience? In what capacity did you visit/work in this area? Frankly, I am afraid this thread will be used to shout your opines...please show me I am wrong.
14. janjon - 2/29/2000 5:37:20 PM
well, I wasn't going to chime in because I, um, do have more than apathy (call it innui) for the threadhost, but if 11 and 12 are examples as to how he intends to frame or move this thread along, it indeed will be short-lived.
15. PelleNilsson - 2/29/2000 5:41:14 PM
jexster
No, I didn't read that. Maybe we should try to contact Misha via tmachine and ask him to sort of grade his books. I will put a notice in the Notice thread. If this develops into a serious discussion it would be interesting to invite him in for a Q&A session.
16. RosettaStone - 2/29/2000 6:30:46 PM
Thanks for the advice.
But we'll take one day at a time. I am going to keep posting topical news items since, thanks to NATO, spring brings death to the people of the Balkans.
(AFP) NATO has called on its 19 member states to beef up the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR) to its full strength by next autumn, including 35,000 troops from alliance members from the 30,000 currently there, a NATO diplomatic source said Feb. 28.
NATO "exhorts its members" to "bring the KFOR units up to strength" and show "more flexibility in the use" of the armed contingents in Kosovo, the alliance ambassadors said at a meeting last Friday.
The UN-led multinational peace force in Kosovo was some 42,000 strong six months ago, uncluding 35,000 NATO troops and 7,000 from the rest of the more than 30 participating countries.
Today, that total has fallen to a total of 37,000, including 30,000 NATO troops, the source said.
Only three NATO states--Italy, France and Britian--have placed no restrictions on the use of their troops in Kosovo under the UN flag, a fact which has limited the flexibility of KFOR actions.
17. dusty - 2/29/2000 6:34:29 PM
RS
Linking is very easy. I urge you to click on the HTML hints link, and read how to create a link. It will take less than five minutes, and that's time to find the relevant section and read it twice.
Then you can practice in Try the Mote, and I'll be happy to help if you have any questions.
No proper host can function sans link abilities.
18. RosettaStone - 2/29/2000 6:36:32 PM
And what if the UN Security Council does not renew the NATO mandate?
19. andy - 2/29/2000 6:48:35 PM
http://www.newsday.com/ap/international/ap935.htm
20. andy - 2/29/2000 6:49:33 PM
21. RosettaStone - 2/29/2000 6:53:45 PM
Thanks, andy.
dusty: Making dinner for the kids and helping with their homework. I wanted to get this up and running, but I won't be able to do anything more until tomorrow afternoon.
I will learn how to link. If Cellar can do it, anyone can.
22. jexster - 2/29/2000 7:23:23 PM
Rose -
I wonder if you shoot all DC policemen who wander into Montgomery County?
23. jexster - 2/29/2000 7:24:20 PM
pring brings death to the people of the
Balkans.
God I hope so.
24. egg - 2/29/2000 9:48:29 PM
The true motive for NATO starting the bloodshed in Yugoslavia was to scare the Russians and other eastern European countries thinking of returning to communism--something on the line of "Don't even think about it, or we'll do the same thing we did to Serbia and Kosovo."
Moreover, NATO wanted to use the KLA as something like Reagan's Contras in Nicarauga. Now the KLA is out of control and NATO wants out.
25. concerned - 3/1/2000 2:44:41 AM
The 'NATO' (read: Clowntoon/Blare) Kosovo War Crimes were begun out of ignorance and the desire of the Wh Rapist, Phony Blare & the US State Department to grab a 'quick & easy' foreign policy which could be easily spun as a 'success'. The Rambouillet Ultimatum was merely the pretext for the ensuing military aggression which has led to the disastrous dislocation of nearly the entire Albanian Kosovar population, and the unnecessary deaths of thousands as well as the ongoing lawlessness in Kosovo and heightened regional instability.
The incredible arrogance and stupidity that the responsible parties exhibited in ignoring the option of a negotiated UN enforced peace, as well as the violation of Sebian sovereignty, the NATO charter and of International Law combined with the resultant heightened alienation of both Russia and China from the US and NATO have resulted in an abysmal foreign policy debacle.
26. concerned - 3/1/2000 2:45:42 AM
...Serbian..
27. egg - 3/1/2000 6:09:12 AM
I agree, concerned. Bill Clinton changed the mandate of NATO--to our country's shame. Cluster-bombing civilian targets from 15,000 feet make war criminals out of the military officiers.
From the London Times:
NATO's operation in Kosovo has been thrown into confusion by the Pentagon's refusal to allow US troops to be deployed in northern Mitrovica, the divided city that has become a flashpoint for ethnic conflict.
As the alliance struggles to contain a fresh outbreak of violence, America has stopped its troops from returning to the Serb-dominated northern half of the city, where US forces were attacked by angry crowds as they conducted a weapons search last week. The move is the latest indication that America, particularly in an election year, is not willing to suffer casualties in remote conflicts, even if it means losing face before its allies.
Washington's position was highlighted during the air war against the Serbs, when US aircraft were prevented from flying low and America's much-vaunted Apache helicopters were grounded. This time the American move has raised serious concerns about NATO's operational ability and has undermined the command of General Klause Reinhardt, KFOR's German commander.
American commanders are clearly fearful that their forces could suffer casualities if deployed again in the Serb area, where French forces are accepted but the Americans and British regarded as hostile.
28. Indiana Jones - 3/1/2000 1:55:44 PM
29. jexster - 3/1/2000 8:23:37 PM
We should do to Belgrade what the Ruskies did to Grozny.
30. RosettaStone - 3/1/2000 8:29:29 PM
-
31. RosettaStone - 3/1/2000 8:37:45 PM
"America has stopped its troops from returning to the Serb-dominated northern half of the city, where US forces were attacked by angry crowds as they conducted a weapons search last week. The move is the latest indication that America, particularly in an election year, is not willing to suffer casualties in remote conflicts. even if it means losing face before its allies." (London Times)
That's what NATO's "policing" to protect Greater Albania is all about--it's Clinton and Albright's way of avoiding military casualties while having Americans play globocop.
32. jexster - 3/1/2000 9:00:41 PM
From Radio FreeB92's Kosova Forum:
For more than a decade, Kosovo has been the scene of terrible repression, destruction and suffering. The NATO intervention and the Milosevic regime's ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians have caused real tragedy for hundreds of thousands of people.... The question of how to escape from the vicious circle of violence and transform not only Kosovo but the whole Balkans into a region of peace, stability and cooperation is being considered and talked about by more and more people.
The Answer: Message # 29
33. RosettaStone - 3/1/2000 9:29:01 PM
Expect Congressional hearings on Kosovo in the next two weeks.
Here's what Senator Carl Levin, the Foreign Relations Committee's ranking Democrat, said Monday:
"We just cannot have US soldiers continue to perform police and riot control tasks. That's bad enough. But when that pressure is on us because of the failure of the Europeans to carry out their commitments, it's totally unacceptable," he said.
"I think there's more than a whiff of hypocrisy when European countries talk about strengthening Europe's capability, and then talk about doing more, and then not carrying out commitments which have been made in Kosovo."
34. RosettaStone - 3/2/2000 7:20:48 AM
KLA NARCO TERRORISTS NOW WANT TO LIBERATE "EASTERN KOSOVO" (Serbia)
New York Times, March 1--Just across the boundary line from Kosovo, guarded more visibly now by American troops in watchtowers, armed Albanians wearing uniforms of a new branch of the Kosovo Liberation Army are training for a battle the West does not want them to have.
Their numbers and leadership are a mystery but NYTimes reporter Steven Erlanger saw 20 men, wearing a mixture of German and American fatigues, doing exercises in a muddy field with their weapons, including a heavy machine gun.
On their arms they wear a cloth badge of red, black and yellow that looks exactly like that of the supposedly disbanded and disarmed Kosovo Liberation Army. The only difference is their name: the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, all towns in Serbia itself, although their populations are largely ethnic Albanian.
Their commander here would not give his name, but said he had been wanted by the Serbs since the mid-1980s. The men said they were all former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the guerrilla army of Kosovo Albanians from Serbia, and villagers said they were local people who want to "liberate" what they call "Eastern Kosovo," where at least 70,000 Albanians live in the arc from Medvedja in the north to Presevo in the south.
By ordering the ambushing of Serbian police officers and the intimidation of Serbian farmers, the leaders of this new army "are hoping that the Serbs will retaliate with excessive force against civilian populations and create a wave of outrage and pressure on KFOR to respond," said a United Nations official. "It's explosive and dangerous, and we hope KFOR uses restraint."
35. Jenerator - 3/2/2000 1:01:05 PM
My boyfriend and I were in a little cafe today when one of the sandwich makers asked us where we were from. I noticed his accent and asked him if he was Russian. He vehemently replied, "NO!! I am from Kosovo." Georgians repond the same way, even when they're speaking Russian.
In other words, a simple mistake.
36. EricCartman - 3/2/2000 2:01:18 PM
Stone:
I think it's already apparent to KFOR that the people we're repatriating and defending aren't a whole lot better (hell, even different) than the people we bombed. They were Nazi sympathizers in WW2, they've conducted guerrilla warfare throughout the province, even on their own people, if suspected of "collaboration".
Since they've returned, they've taken their revenge on old women and retarded people, mostly. Which is pretty damned brave when you think about it. And they show no sign of cooperating with our silly notion of disbanding the KLA.
No, just as Milosevic dreamed his crazy dream of a Greater Serbia, so they dream of a Greater Albania. But it will be interesting to see how long it takes for NATO to admit it. Probably never, because we don't make mistakes.
Plus ça change....
37. Wombat - 3/2/2000 2:05:21 PM
Glad to see the intellectual quality of thinking on this subject hasn't changed.
38. RosettaStone - 3/2/2000 2:34:58 PM
Wombat: I'm determined not to go Jex's low road.
39. PelleNilsson - 3/2/2000 4:19:14 PM
Eric
Since they've returned, they've taken their revenge on old women and retarded people, mostly.
Please substantiate.
40. stostosto - 3/2/2000 4:36:13 PM
Jenerator:
You made a common error. To ask for confirmation of a preconceived opinion. The procedure is to simply ask where the person is from.
I learned this from a Norwegian teacher who was tired of having people asking her if she were Swedish. (A grave insult to Norwegians!)
So: "Where are you from?"; Not: "Are you from [country so and so]?"
This, in my experience, is a good rule to go by.
41. Candide - 3/2/2000 4:52:53 PM
It has been remarked that I do not know how to link. True and perhaps soon I will learn.
I did make a point during the bombardment of Serbia to daily translate a diary published in Italian (and I believe in "Der Spiegel") written by a young Serbian woman dramaturge who had employment offers out of the country but chose to remain although she loathed the Milosevic regime. Perhaps at some time I may either ask assistance to link some of it, or I may even learn how to do it myself. It is in the form of interior monologues and other anecdotes because, as you can imagine, in between the fear there was not much happening. She was a dissident before, during and after the bombing and when I showed her pieces to a Serbian friend, my friend was very cross with her.
42. Candide - 3/2/2000 7:19:58 PM
Sorry. Offer retracted because of copyright.
43. EricCartman - 3/3/2000 1:18:16 AM
Pelle:
Here are a few articles on Albanian revenge that I pulled from the July 1999 archives of the SF Chronicle:
Angry Ethnic Albanians Seek Vengeance in Kosovo
Excerpt: Bent on revenge against Serbs, returning refugees and Kosovo Liberation Army soldiers are acting out their rage in a punitive campaign of murder and ethnic cleansing not much different from what they recently endured themselves.
They are also attacking Gypsies they accuse of collaborating with Serbs.
Pristina Police Log Filled With Reports of Bloody Revenge -- NATO helpless to stop retaliation
Stanka Kujovic also says she was raped. Four times. The 61-year-old widow is one of two Serbs living in an apartment block less than a mile from U.N. headquarters in Pristina. "They grabbed me by my hair. They put the pistol to my head and they beat me," said Kujovic, her eyes still blackened from the assault on July 18. "Then they raped me."
Kujovic told authorities her four attackers were ethnic Albanians who singled her out because she is a Serb. "I didn't do anything wrong," she said.
44. EricCartman - 3/3/2000 1:21:04 AM
Guerrillas Take Charge in Kosovo
This is a good one, in which the UCK thugs even shake down their own countrymen.
Serbs' Exodus May Be Irreversible
Zoran Vujovic found his mother's body in her stylish two-bedroom apartment in the Sunny Hill section of Pristina. Her fully dressed corpse lay over the edge of the bathtub, her feet on the ground, her head in the water, where someone had held her until she drowned.
Ljubica Vujovic, 78, was a lifelong resident of Kosovo. She was also a Serb, and in the new Kosovo, that's enough to get you killed.
Every day since NATO-led peacekeeping troops assumed authority in this Serbian province, a Serb or Gypsy has been killed, tortured, beaten, kidnapped or threatened, according to tallies by NATO, human rights groups and Serbian officials.
I remember reading another article around that time, about an old woman and her retarded daughter, who was in her late thirties. Both women were raped, and the daughter was killed. Couldn't find it in the archive, though. But you get the idea. Estimates range from 80%-90%, the number of Serbs exiled from Kosovo by returning Albanians. These guys are just as vicious as the people we saved them from. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
45. stostosto - 3/3/2000 11:31:59 AM
Candide:
Der Spiegel is online. Perhaps the diaries are archived and can be accessed? (Although they would be in German, of course). If so, I would be interested. Do you have an idea of what the column was called? Or, could you give the name of the Serbian dramaturge?
46. Indiana Jones - 3/3/2000 11:45:33 AM
You can get a "quicky" translation here.
47. Wombat - 3/3/2000 2:21:49 PM
Wunderbar!! or is it singelsbar!
48. jexster - 3/3/2000 4:46:05 PM
Wanted: Slobo Dead or Alive -$5,000,000 Reward!!!
Details
49. RosettaStone - 3/4/2000 9:55:39 AM
A light-armored Greek force of 100 will be added to the KFOR peacekeeping force stationed in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica.
The Greeks agreed to send their trrops following a Feb. 28th speech by KFOR commander General Klaus Reinhardt, in which the German pleaded with Serbs in Mitrovica to stay in the town and promised that KFOR forces will protect them from the Albanians.
50. Jenerator - 3/6/2000 10:28:12 AM
Sto,
I must admit that I've gotten sloppy here. Before, I used to simply ask where someone was from rather than assume, but since every Brit here asks me what part of America I'm from before establishing whether or not I'm even from America, I assumed it was commonplace to make general assumptions based on the spoken language of other people. After the gentleman's reaction, I'll be more polite and follow your good advice.
[Sorry this isn't exactly on topic Rosetta.}
51. jexster - 3/7/2000 1:32:01 PM
Did Rose delete my
REWARD - Slobo Dead or Alive!!!!
post?
Bitch
52. cazart - 3/7/2000 9:51:06 PM
Sniff. Sniff
I smell a dead thread.
Good work, RS.
53. cazart - 3/8/2000 1:27:33 PM
Congratulations, RS.
This thread won't hit 100 posts before it's axed. You can't even get more posts than 'Chess.'
What'd I tell you?
54. Uzmakk - 3/9/2000 6:49:39 AM
RosettaStone:
I have very little time for the Mote these days but I do like your thread. Certainly we should be kept aware of how things are going in a country that we recently bombed the shit out of. I think I made a comment during the war that we do not have the means to do what we are ostenibly trying to do. No one has the means. Tito had the means, but Tito is dead.
Perhaps we should take complete control of the mass media in Yugoslavia and broadcast nothing but animated Disney movies for the next 50 years. Perhaps that will do the trick.
55. Uzmakk - 3/9/2000 7:25:01 AM
Perhaps we do have the means. What about the Disney movie idea.
56. jexster - 3/9/2000 4:39:04 PM
NATO Spy Leaked Bombing Plans to Slerbs
Its just a matter of time 'afore the FBI comes knockin at Rosie's door.
57. RosettaStone - 3/9/2000 7:31:15 PM
The Kosovo Mission of the United Nations is Being Left to Fail
by Flora Lewis
(International Herald Tribune)--A year after the start of the big bombing to chase out Serbian forces, it is undeniable that Kosovo isn't working. There is still no governance, no adequate security, not enough economy, no prospect for the 30,000 troops operating there under NATO command to complete their mission.
In the fashionable phrase of the TV strategists, there is still no "exit strategy"
It was obvious even before the allied forces went in that there was no government to take over civil administration, and that if it were not provided by a more or less occupation authority to get things going, Kosovo could not become self-sustaining.
But the situation is worse than had to be expected. Poor Bernard Kouchner, the French doctor who heads the UN administration, had to go to the Security Council and beg for money to pay teachers, municipal workers, police. He had received barely half of the international police force of 4,800 initially promised, which would not be enough, either. The cost of a couple days of bombing would make a big difference to his effort.
The enormously multinational force sent in to patrol is running into attacks. The troops are no longer seen just as the saviors who rescued Kosovo.
The presumptuous ambition of enforcing ethnic coexistence, even on a small local scale, has brought the absurdity of permanent guards to an apartment building where a handful of Albanians insist on remaining in the part of Mitrovica where Serbs are concentrated, and more or less the same for a few Serbs left in the Albanian areas. The soldiers complain that it's no job for them.
58. RosettaStone - 3/9/2000 7:38:50 PM
The pseudo-occupying powers cling to the principle of providing for Kosovar autonomy under continuing Serbian sovereignty. This adds to the incentive to provoke friction with Serbia so that the cause of independence can be advanced. The Albanian-populated area just across the border in Serbia is worrying the NATO commander because of threats to provoke Serbian retaliation so as to draw in NATO forces.
Since the United Nations will not define what it means by "substantial autonomy" for Kosovo, Mr. Kouchner had had to say that he will continue as best he can, that does not intend "to wait for a definition" of where he is headed, according to a New York Times report from the Security Council.
Dennis McNamara, in charge of UN humanitarian operations in Kosovo, is even more blunt that Mr. Kouchner, who had not given up on diplomacy. The conflict in Mitrovica, McNamara said, is "only the visible tip of this Kosovo-wide problem of attacks on minorities, harassment, intimidation and persecution."
Extremists on both sides push aside the moderates, and the particularly vicious mafia based in neighboring Albania has become an important factor in spreading crime.
Half the population receives foreign aid from the United Nations or private organizations. But the UN humanitarian mission is to be phased out in the middle of this year.
59. RosettaStone - 3/9/2000 7:55:59 PM
We are still hearing self-congratulatory rhetoric about how well the allies have done in Kosovo--from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, for example, who points out that they enabled 800,000 refugees to return. But we are not hearing anything decisive or encouraging about what now.
This is just another example of the rule of thumb that it is easier to bomb than build. In Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic remains, stronger than ever. The United States has descended to the demeaning old wild west tradition of offering a $5 million reward for capturing him so that he can be judged by the international tribunal, an admission of policy failure if ever there was one.
The British historian Timothy Garton Ash writes in the New York Review of Books that Mr. Milosevic cannot be forced out because "he has no safe exit." Mr. Ash has trouble with the urging of the Belgrade opposition that Mr. Milosevic be offered a place of asylum. "This would undermine one of the pillars of the liberal order we are trying to build."
The whole premise of allied actions in former Yugoslavia has been to get rid of Milosevic, and to expect that everything will then automatically improve. The Croatia parallel has worked, it seems, since the death of Zabreb's belligerent Franjo Tudjman, but Mr. Milosevic is younger and healthier.
The international "liberal order we are trying to build" is a great and noble project which a troubled world world truly needs. But it takes a lot more persistence, commitment and wise attention than is being lavished on Kosovo. Bombs are not the solution but the creation of an obligation.
60. jexster - 3/9/2000 8:22:27 PM
This one's for Pelle the Proud.
Swedish Forces on Patrol!!! 
61. jexster - 3/9/2000 8:23:23 PM
Damn fine lookin Swede boy if I say so myself!!!
62. jexster - 3/9/2000 8:38:05 PM
Deutschland Uber Alles! Germans On Patrol in Mitrovica 
63. jexster - 3/9/2000 8:44:26 PM
KFOR Press Update
Pristina, 09 March 2000
by Lt.-Cdr. Philip Anido, KFOR Spokesperson
Significant Weapons Confiscations
During the past two days, KFOR patrols have made a number of weapons
confiscations during their searches of cars at vehicle checkpoints and houses.
Two incidents are of particular importance and demonstrate KFOR's determination to rid all communities in Kosovo of illegal weapons.
On Tuesday, Multinational Brigade North reported that KFOR Belgian troops and French Gendarmerie had discovered a number of weapons and military equipment during searches of several Serb owned houses and properties in the village of Miolice. Miolice is located a few kilometres east of Lesak in the far north of Kosovo.
The following weapons were found and confiscated: one AK-47 assault rifle, three shotguns, two pistols, seven full AK-47 magazines (30 rounds each), hundreds of rounds of rifle ammunition, three hand grenades, and a Serbian VJ army uniform.
One man has been detained.
KFOR will continue its search operations for weapons with great vigor throughout Kosovo. The peacekeepers welcome the support of all good citizens in ridding the province of arms of revenge and destruction.
64. RosettaStone - 3/9/2000 8:50:50 PM
What the Nazi NATO troops want to do is take all the weapons away from the Serbs and then let the Albanians murder them.
65. jexster - 3/9/2000 8:59:52 PM
Rose -
Not a bad idea. The only good Slerb is a DEAD SLERB!
But I failed to include the entire press release:
Again on Wednesday, in Inatovce, an Albanian man was stopped at a vehicle checkpoint and detained for suspicious activity. The village is located 20 km south east of Gnjilane close to the boundary with Serbia. The subsequent search of the man's house revealed one medium machine gun,100 rounds of ammunition, 50 X 40 mm high explosive grenades, one 40 mm smoke grenade, 12 mortar grenades, assorted uniforms, bandoleers and other pieces of military equipment.
66. jexster - 3/9/2000 9:15:49 PM
KISHNOPOLE, Kosovo -- Children all over Kosovo seem to be enchanted with Americans. They follow U.S. soldiers of KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force, everywhere in the towns. They love to give the "black power" handshake, evidently learned from the soldiers.
CNN: Meet the Children of Kosova
Saved from Slobo the Murderer
67. RosettaStone - 3/9/2000 9:19:22 PM
Sounds like typical CNN disinformation. They were the same people who said that the Serbs had killed tens of thousands of Albanians.
68. EricCartman - 3/10/2000 1:51:31 AM
From James Rubin's mouth to Christiane Amanpour's ears.
69. jexster - 3/10/2000 5:56:53 PM
Anyone ever notice how Rose tosses around "disinformation" claims like so much kitchen garbage?
Seems anything that doesn't castigate NATO, Europe, or the Albanians is someone's "disinformation"
70. jexster - 3/10/2000 9:22:48 PM
71. jexster - 3/10/2000 9:23:51 PM
OOOPS - grovel
72. jexster - 3/10/2000 11:01:34 PM
Slobo - COCHON - nous sommes ici! Alons enfants de la patrie! Le jour de gloire est arrive!
73. sakonige - 3/10/2000 11:04:19 PM
I've heard of the Big Picture, and now I've loaded its blank outlie. Yow, that took a while.
74. sakonige - 3/10/2000 11:04:52 PM
outline
(oops)
75. sakonige - 3/10/2000 11:07:29 PM
The only good Slerb is a DEAD SLERB!
I talked to a male Slerb today. Have you ever spoken to one? I've chatted with a female Slerb, also.
76. sakonige - 3/10/2000 11:14:34 PM
I don't confront them, I just listen in on conversations they are having with others. What a mess the Old World is.
77. RosettaStone - 3/11/2000 4:08:40 PM
NAziTO STRUGGLING TO KEEP CONTROL IN KOSOVO
(Drudge Report, Saturday, March 11)--Less than nine months after they declared victory in the war over Kosovo, Washington and NATO allies are fighting over how to keep a deteriorating situation in the region from spinning out of control.
Clinton officials tell Sunday's NEW YORK TIMES that an "overriding priority is to avoid U.S. casualties and keep Kosovo out of the news during an election year." But since June, tens of thousands of alliance troops have failed to stop continued bloodshed.
"The threat of more violence is intensifying as both Serbs and Albanians try to foment unrest across the border," reports the paper's Jane Perlez.
"The problems are provoking mounting criticsm from Congress--which is even envisaging U.S. withdrawal--as well as reluctance from NATO allies to keep troops in Kosovo and pleas for more money from an underfunded U.N. mission struggling to keep the peace."
78. Indiana Jones - 3/12/2000 10:31:52 AM
79. jexster - 3/12/2000 6:10:49 PM
Sounds as if I was right - again.
The only good Slerb is a dead one. We should have taken Belgrade and turned Serbia into a pastoral pig farm. They are animals.
80. EricCartman - 3/13/2000 3:21:57 AM
Message # 79:
And exactly what about that article indicates that you're "right"? Maybe it was this part:
Much as the Serbian authorities singled out educated Albanians before and during the NATO air campaign, now Albanians are singling out the dwindling number of educated Serbs in an effort to expel all Serbs from the province, Mr. Kouchner said.
As an example of the increasing difficulties faced by Serbs in Albanian-dominated towns, he told the story of a Serbian gynecologist who chose to stay in his town, Gnjilane, after the war ended. The doctor, Josef Vasic, was one of two remaining Serbian doctors in the city, the American troops' main Kosovo base, and was shot and killed one Sunday morning as he left his clinic. He had spent much of his professional life treating Albanian women, and was one of the moderate Serbs working with Mr. Kouchner to try to build a functioning multiethnic Kosovo.
"He was my best ally," said Mr. Kouchner, who founded the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders. "His death was one of the most horrible defeats. We were not able to protect him."
Yeah, that must have been it. Bunch of goddamned gangsters, these Albanians. No better than the Serbs, or Tudjman's fascist Croats, for that matter. Wonder if the UCK is still smuggling guns n' heroin, now that there's no one to bother stopping them.
81. RosettaStone - 3/15/2000 9:09:25 AM
PENTAGON OFFICIAL SAYS NAziTO MAY HAVE TO FIGHT ITS ALLIES, THE ETHNIC ALBANIAN NARO TERRORISTS
(Washington Post, 03/15/00)--A senior Pentagon official warned yesterday that U.S. troops in Kosovo this spring may have to fight their former allies, ethnic Albanian guerrillas who are rearming themselves and threatening cross-border attacks against Serbia.
"This has got to cease and desist, and if not, ultimately it is going to lead to confrontation between the Albanians and KFOR," said the official referring to the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, which has dwindled to about 37,000 troops.
Worries that Kosovo might explode this spring were sounded yesterday in European capitals as well. "Today, we put the extremists on both sides on notice. We will not allow them to destroy the process of restroing stability and bringing reconciliation," said British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.
With increasing frequency in recent weeks, ethnic Albanian fighters have raked Serbian villages and homestead with gunfire and have assaulted Serbs on the way to work or to marketplace in an apparent effort to drive the remaining Serbs out of Kosovo.
82. RosettaStone - 3/15/2000 10:01:44 AM
...AT LEAST THE BRAVE NATO NAZIS DIDN'T CLUSTER-BOMB THE SERB CITY BRIDGE FROM 15,000-FEET (AGAIN)
(Associated Press, 3/15/00)--NATO troops fired tear gas and stun grenades Wednesday at angry Serbs as French assult troops took control of a key Serbian bridge in Mitrovica, Kosovo.
At least nine Serbs and an undetermined number of "peacekeepers" and "journalists" were injured in the melee.
The chief surgeon at the local hospital said nine Serbs were hospitalized, including two who each had a leg amputated because of injuries suffered by stun grenade explosions.
After a meeting between Serb leaders and French officers, both sides pulled back. The move was aimed at reducing chances of further clashes, Serb leaders said.
Nevertheless, Serb leaders warned that the operation would damage relations between the NATO-led Kosovo Force, and the embattled Serbian minority community.
"Today's events will seriously harm our relations with KFOR. If they insist on implementing the decision about the safety zone in Little Bosnia, they will face a complete civilian disobedience. We will not cooperate, we will not respect the curfew and everything else that goes with it. It will be civilian disobedience...
"This is a brutal reaction by KFOR against peaceful protesters," community leader Oliver Ivanovic said. He called the operation "an attempt to expel Serbs from here under the guise of so-called secured zones."
83. RosettaStone - 3/15/2000 10:00:55 PM
email from: s.deangelis@agora.stm.it
AGAINST THE WAR March 24th, in ROME 4 PM in front of Palazzo Chigi
Proposals have come from many parts of Italy and aboard in the present weeks to mark 24 March as the anniversary of the beginning of the NATO bombardments that have devastated Yugoslavia.
They call for a day of demonstrations and struggle to bring the NATO governments to account for their criminal aggression and to demand the cessation of the war which is continuing under other forms, as well as the payment of reparations to Yugoslavia for damages inflicted.
The Italian Tribunal against NATO crimes in Yugoslavia calls for mobilization of all who reject the criminal actions committed by NATO, by Western governments and by the D'Alema government, with the self-abasement of President Scalfaro. We intend to keep the anti-war struggle alive in Italy; we call also for the dissolution of NATO, for the closure of foreign military bases present in our country.
The Italian Tribunal against NATO crimes in Yugoslavia continues to collect evidence and to document the ever clearer responsibility of the West in this tremendous imperialist aggression. The Tribunal, united with lawyers and parliamentarians who have joined our initiative, also will weigh the modalities of a new political and judicial condemnation to bring to judgement to those responsible for the death of the volunteers killed in the PAM crash near Pristina, as well as those responsibilty for premeditated criminal action involving use of Depleted Uranium in the bombing.
84. RosettaStone - 3/16/2000 1:45:58 PM
KOSOVO UNITES SERBIA'S POLITICAL RIVALS
by Zvonko Tarle in Pristina
Western leaders searching for a lasting peace in Kosovo would be ill advised to pin their hopes on Serbia's political opposition. Many believe that toppling Slobodan Milosevic from power would solve Kosovo's problems in one fell swoop. But they should also remember that both the president's potential successors and his rivals share the view that Kosovo is--and should always be--Serbian territory.
In fact, even now, Serbian opposition leaders are all too ready to parrot the regime's well-worn slogans and fuel its propaganda machines. And talk of Kosovo's independence is nothing short of heresy.
The political mood of the opposition is largely a product of what they see as the failure of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, to protect Serbs from Albanian violence. They brand UNMIK, "a failure" and KFOR peace-keeping forces "Serb-haters."
While KFOR struggles to keep the peace in Kosovo, streams of refugees continue to pour into Serbia, exhausting local patience and resources. In the wake of the recent violence, the number of displaced people in Serbia is thought to have reached the one million-mark.
Opposition politicians argue that the international community fails to realise Serbia is the only multi-ethnic state in the Balkans, while regions once protected by international peacke-keeprs, such as Krajina in Croatia have been ethnically cleansed. To a large extent, these blinkered attitudes stem from a lack of access to objective information.
Kosovo and the myth of a Serbian holyland are among the few issues on which all Belgrade politicians find common ground.
85. RosettaStone - 3/16/2000 3:41:25 PM
(For Propaganda Purposes Only)
U.S. TROOPS SEIZE WEAPONS FROM ALBANIANS
American (storm) troopers in Kosovo carried out raids (wink, wink) on the strongholds (LOL) of ethnic Albanian guerillas (naro terrorists) on Wednesday, capturing bombs and other weapons (that NATO supplied them) in the largest effort to date (the first, obviously) by American forces there to end the guerrilas' threat to the NATO-led troop (war making) mission, American officials told the New York Times on March 16.
The real question is what do the NAziTO forces do with the weapons they gathered? Probably the war supplies were given to other Albanians.
86. RosettaStone - 3/16/2000 9:55:43 PM
DRAWING UP PLANS FOR "GREATER ALBANIA"
(Financial Times' editorial) Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) says NATO will only achieve long-term stability in the troubled region by establishing new borders.
NATO officials have been quick to call their Kosovo mission a success. But as the first anniversary of Operation Allied Force approaches, the upbeat tone belies reality.
Sadly, NATO's policy in Kosovo has come full circle. KFOR, the Kosovo peacekeeping force, was recently forced to deploy tear gas against the very Albanians on whose behalf NATO went to war. Last year, NATO took action to stop ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serbs. Yet, since the end of the war, NATO has witnessed ethnic cleansing of Serbs by Albanians, with a severity approaching that of those that motivated foreign intervention in the first place.
NATO must get off of this bizarre merry-go-round. Doing so will require even greater fortitude than it took to go to war. It must acknowledge that imposing multi-cultural democracy at the point of a gun is not working. Instead, NATO should bring the interested parties together and help them redraw the borders in the region. That would be the only way to ensure long-term stability.
87. RosettaStone - 3/17/2000 9:54:11 AM
ONE NAziTO WAR CRIMINAL CHARGED; THOUSANDS MORE TO FOLLOW
Pristina, Yugoslavia--A U.S. Army sergeant accused of killing an ethnic Albanian girl in Kosovo now faces additional charges of rape and sodomy in the case.
The Army said the new charges against Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi, 35, of Niles, Ohio, stem from the investigation into the death of an 11-year-old girl whose body was found in the countryside near Vitina, in southwestern Kosovo, on January 13. Ronghi is being held in the U.S. Army's confinement facility in Mannaheim, Germany.
Now, how about charging the American pilots who twice "smart" bombed the commuter train on the Serbian bridge? It turns out the video we saw then of the murder of 37 civilians was doctored by NAziTO. propagandists.
88. cazart - 3/17/2000 10:03:41 AM
Clear airway. Tilt thread back, pinch nose shut.
Four short quick breaths, mouth to mouth.
Listen.
Begin chest compressions. Fifteen.
Two deep breaths, mouth to mouth.
89. OhioSTOPAS - 3/17/2000 3:49:07 PM
RosettaStone: Are you really calling American soldiers serving in NATO operations "Nazis"?
90. RosettaStone - 3/17/2000 8:50:08 PM
Some are, others are just war criminals. Most are neither.
I have a problem with Americans bombing and killing thousands of Serbian and Kosovo civilians who are just protecting their country from the attacks of the narco terrorists.
91. cazart - 3/17/2000 11:30:49 PM
Charge to 300 joules.
Clear!
92. RosettaStone - 3/19/2000 8:16:44 AM
SERBS REFUSE PHONY KOSOVO COALITION
(CBS) An effort to find common ground between the Serbs and Albanians of embattled Kosovo faltered March 18, when Serb leaders turned down an offer to join the provincial government.
Kosovo's minority Serb community balked Saturday at joining a U.N.-led interim government, insisting that Western leaders first take strong measures to stop attacks against their dwindling community by the Albanian majority.
Leaders of the remaining Serb enclaves in Kosovo met with Bernard Kouchner, the chief U.N. administrator, at the Serb monastery in Gracanica, just outside Pristina, the provincial capital, Yugoslavia's independent Beta news agency reported.
Kouchner urged the Serbs to join the U.N.-established government currently dominated by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, as a way to protect their interests.
However the Serbs said that the community demands progress on stopping violence against Serbs in Kosovo before signing on to the government. The refusal comes as tension in the ethnically-divided province appeared to steepen.
93. cazart - 3/19/2000 11:19:46 AM
30 mikes adrenaline.
Stat.
94. RosettaStone - 3/20/2000 10:54:25 AM
GREEKS IN ANTI-NAziTO PROTEST
Greeks staged protests yesterday as an advance contingent of 2,000 NATO troops landed near the Greek city of Salonika bound for Kosovo to join a military exercise named "Dynamic Response."
200 Greek policemen were on hand at Litohoro beach near the port when about 40 military vehicles rolled ashore and headed north. The protests came just three weeks before Greek general elections on April 9, and any trouble or violence could have been embarrassing for the Greek government.
Though Athens supports NATO's presence in Kosovo and has contributed its own contingent to KFOR, a majority of Greeks, who have ties to their fellow Orthodox Christian Serbs, were strongly opposed to NATO's bombing campaign against civilians in Yugoslavia and the intervention in Kosovo.
95. RosettaStone - 3/20/2000 11:52:03 AM
LIMEY SPOOKS SEND SPY PLANE TO KOSOVO
Britain is sending surveillance teams to Kosovo, equipped with Phoenix spy planes, to monitor sensitive areas in the Serbian province.
The reinforcements come after months of British troop withdrawals. However, with tension rising in the southeast on the border between Kosovo and Serbia's Presevo Valley area, as well as the continuing friction in the northern town of Mitrovica.
Clinton-clone Tony Blair has agreed to send a battery of 170 troops from the Royal Artillery, equipped with about a dozen Phoenix unmanned air vehicles.
The spy plane, designed to spot enemy armour, is launched from the back of a lorry, and after its mission has to flip over to land on its back because all the delicate surveilance devices are attached to the belly of the air vehicle. Two Gazelle helicopters with spy cameras are also being sent to operate over Mitrovica.
96. Indiana Jones - 3/20/2000 11:56:27 AM
RS: Distilled Horseshit 100-proof has accused you of using Simon Templar as a false ID. I think you should complain to TT management.
97. cazart - 3/20/2000 11:58:13 AM
Why, Stinky?
You have more pseuds in TT than andy has brain cells.
98. RosettaStone - 3/20/2000 2:22:30 PM
Any comparison to Ace/Simon is a good one for moi, IJ. I'm honored that DuH/RjH thinks we're one and the same.
I can only hope to get Niner, Ace, JJ and others would return to Salon to take on the infidels at TT, the FreeRepublic of the left.
And, cazart, I was stinky at TT until I cleaned up my act. I thought everyone knew that.
99. cazart - 3/20/2000 2:32:06 PM
Sure, RS.
Indiana Jones is Stinky is Bart.
Besides, why would Niner, Ace, and JJ come to TT? It makes no sense. Why not stay in the small pond and be a big fish? Dealing with the likes of Pilotfish and Mr. potatohead and Chuckles is much easier than the big leagues.
100. JudithAtHome - 3/20/2000 2:50:30 PM
If you are an example of the Big Leagues, it's making me favor Bush ones....quite an accomplishment, blowfish.
101. RosettaStone - 3/20/2000 2:52:26 PM
You really know how to strike a nerve. Now, Navy girl, get on your knees and CALL ME ISHMAEL.
(I get the valuable 100 post. Next is 10,000)
102. RosettaStone - 3/20/2000 2:55:01 PM
Gosh darn it, JuDY. 100 is 2/3s of my IQ and my magic number. Go back to lurking at TT's Mote Cafe with CharleyL and cazart.
103. JudithAtHome - 3/20/2000 2:57:45 PM
I should think you'd be happy anyone posted in your thread...you have the majority of the other 99 posts; don't be greedy!
104. RosettaStone - 3/20/2000 3:01:03 PM
KOSOVO: THE CRISIS DEEPENS
--The NYPost.com editorial
Kosovo has begun to re-emerge in the headlines, and the news is not good. In a briefing for reporters the other day, an unnamed "senior Pentagon official" warned that the situation has reached a "decisive moment"--and that U.S. forces soon may find themselves actually fighting their former allies.
Ethnic Albanians--whom American-led NATO forces moved to protect through a 78-day bombing siege one years ago--have not unleashed their own campaign of ethnic cleansing against Serbs in Kosovo. This upsurge in anti-Serbian violence has become particularly acute just outside the U.S.-patrolled sector in southeastern Serbia.
Which means that American troops may be forced to physically restrain their erstwhile Albanian allies as soon as this spring--indeed, the Pentagon speaks of the impending possibiliyt of armed "confrontations."
So what's ahead for the 6,000 Americans currently stationed in Kosovo?
Good question. Unfortunately, we aren't hearing any answers out of Washington.
105. janjon - 3/20/2000 3:03:44 PM
I hesitate to post here because it adds to the "aura" of activity which is utterly misleading. However, some typos are so egregious that they cannot go without correction.
Rosetta said: "100
is 2/3s of my IQ and my magic number.
He, of course, meant to type ten.
This thread is a joke, right?
106. RosettaStone - 3/20/2000 3:06:49 PM
On the one hand, the Pentagon is
warning that "two to three times" more troops may be needed just to seal off the 125-mile-long border in the U.S. sector.
And James Rubin, the former State Department spokesman recently sent to the region as a trouble-shooter, reported that "there has to be a decision to recognize that there is a problem."
But the Clinton administration, as usual, isn't speaking with a single, coherent voice on Kosovo. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright dismisses the notion of any serious problem in Kosovo.
The administration has never been able to make clear the specific goals of its military operations--certainly not in Bosnia (where a "yearlong" deployment already has lasted more than four years) and not in Kosovo.
As far as the Pentagon is concerned, U.S. troops are in imminent danger of finding themselves in the middle of a re-ignited war in Kosovo.
President Clinton and Secretary Albright must address these concerns publicly--and make clear to the American people precisely what they intend to accomplish in Kosovo and how long it will take U.S. troops to get the job done.
107. cazart - 3/20/2000 3:12:03 PM
It's a bad joke.
But it serves a purpose. It allows CalGal to maintain the pretense that this chatroom belongs to everyone.
108. Indiana Jones - 3/20/2000 10:14:56 PM
US faces war with ex-KLA
"A year after Nato launched a bombing
campaign to rescue the KLA, Pentagon
commanders have formally alerted the US
military that it expects to have to engage
its former allies 'this spring'."
109. RosettaStone - 3/21/2000 2:36:23 PM
MAYBE IT WAS THE DESIGN OF THE HELMETS THAT CONFUSED THEM?
Hundreds of Greeks hurled sticks and stones against U.S. Marines who docked at a northern Greek port and moved to Kosovo for a NATO military exercise.
Holding blood red flags and chanting "Nazis" and "American killers," some 600 protesters lined a main highway near the port of Litohoro, in northern Greece, where 300 Marines and 80 heavy vehicles bound for Kosovo arrived in two U.S. helicopter carriers.
An additional 800 U.S. Marines were due to disembark at Salonika, the country's second-largest port, which NAziTO forces used last June to move more than 50,000 "peacekeepers" to Kosovo.
Live TV footage showed the protestors hurling sticks and stones as the U.S. troops were making their way through the region.
110. RosettaStone - 3/22/2000 7:27:38 AM
GROUND-BREAKING U.N. REPORT: SOVEREIGNY CAN BE FORFEITED ON HUMANITARIAN GROUNDS......BUT WHO DECIDES WHAT IS "HUMANE"?
(UPI) A United National University study of NATO's intervention in Kosovo said Monday a profound change in world politics has emerged, mainly that sovereigny can be forfeited on humanitarian grounds.
But the authors of the study warned the precedent will dangerously undermined international order unless world powers can agree on principles to guide future interventions.
Those steps include promotion of "an international consensus about the point at which a state forfeits its sovereigny," and removal of veto power in the Security Council in exceptional circumstances "so that the support of a majority of the great powers is all that is rquired to permit states to engage in humanitarian war."
"Kosovo confronted us with an abiding challenge of humanitarian intervention: namely is it morally just, legally permissible and militarily feasible? In today's dangerously unstable world full of complex conflicts, concerned countries and citizens face the painful dilemma of being condemned if they do and damned if they don't."
"The bottom line question for us is this: Faced with another Holocaust or Rwanda-type genocide on the one hand, and a Security Council veto on the other, what would we do?," the authors of the U.N. report ask. "A new consensus on humanitarian intervention is urgently needed."
111. RosettaStone - 3/22/2000 7:45:11 PM
FIRST THE RADIOACTIVE-PARTICLES NAZIS DENY; NOW ADMIT USING DEPLETED URANIUM IN KOSOVO
--31,000 ROUNDS!
(Reuters) NATO has admitted using depleted uranium weapons in Kosovo, exposing civilians, its own troops and aid workers to health hazards, a U.N. expert said on Tuesday.
But Pekka Haavisto, head of the U.N. Balkan environment task force investigating the use of munitions during the 70-day war, said NATO was still holding back crucial data on where and how it used depleted uranium weapons, which can contaminate land and water sources with radioactive and toxic particles.
The former Finnish environment minister said NATO's confirmation of its use of depleted uranium came in a letter from the Western military alliance's Secretary-General George Robertson to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In its letter, Haavisto said NATO disclosed having used 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition during some 100 missions throughout Kosovo by U.S. A-10 aircraft.
112. RosettaStone - 3/23/2000 10:00:54 AM
MOTHER RUSSIA THREATENS NAziTO CONFRONTATION
Claims Kosovo "peacekeepers" covering for ethnic cleansing against Serbs.
AN ARMED CONFRONTATION is possible between Russian and NATO forces in Kosovo, according to Russian Defense Minister General 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 or 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.
113. RosettaStone - 3/23/2000 10:10:52 AM
(continued)
SOME 350,000 REFUGEES have fled Kosovo, predominatly Serbs, but also included are Gypsies and Moslems.
Violence has continued to increase along the Kosovo-Serb border as a new Albanian guerrila 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 preacekeepers 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.
114. RosettaStone - 3/23/2000 12:18:10 PM
LIKE GERMANDY DID TO INNOCENT POLAND ON SEPTEMBER 1, 1939: NAziTO PREPARES PROVOCATIVE ROCKET ATTACK ON YUGOSLAVIA
Blaming the Serbs for the Albanian Naro Terrorists. That's the ticket!
NAziTO last night blamed Belgrade for the upsurge in violence in Kosovo and served warning that Serb forces were massing near the province's border and the military alliance would not tolerate it.
NATO warned that Serbia faced attack.
General Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander in Europe, said there was evidence of Serbs in Mitrovica being supplied with arms, ammunition and communications equipment by Belgrade. NATO sources said several thousand Serb troops were reported entering the border zone around the town of Presevo. Belgrade said it was in response "to provocation" by Albanian insurgence.
Belgrade says it is facing a campaign by armed ethnic Albanian extremists protecting by NATO "peacekeepers" intent on taking over the mainly Albanian area on Serbia's border.
On Feb. 2, two Albanians died in what Serbian sources said was a guerrilla attack on a police patrol.
115. RosettaStone - 3/23/2000 12:42:38 PM
WHEN YOU DROP CLUSTER BOMBS ON CITY CIVILIANS FROM 15,000-FEET, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?
NAziTO isn't enforcing three-mile security border around Kosovo.
The June 1999 peace deal accepted by President Milosevic included a "silver-bullet clause," writes the UK Telegraph newspaper.
That allows NATO to compel withdrawal of any forces or order the cessation of any activities that pose a potential threat to the mission of bring peace to those fighting in the Balkan Civil War.
The Yugoslav 3rd Army commander, General Vladimir Lazerevic, has accused NATO "peacekeepers" of failing to prevent guerrilla infiltration of the three-mile security zone that was set up around Kosovo under an agreement between the Western Powers and Belgrade.
116. jexster - 3/23/2000 2:13:31 PM
Rose -
Do you like talking to yourself? Has this been going on very long?
117. RosettaStone - 3/23/2000 3:19:52 PM
It's okay, Jexster. I know that I'm like David Halberstam in 1965 warning his NYTimes editors about the reality of Vietnam.
No one wants to hear it. Especially from me. But that's the way it is...
118. janjon - 3/23/2000 3:40:35 PM
I doubt very much anyone is reading any of these not so little epistles that Stone is posting. I for one certainly am not.
I again post with trepidation, because it gives the illusion of activity in this thing laughingly called a thread.
119. OhioSTOPAS - 3/23/2000 3:42:16 PM
Did David Halberstam call U.S. soldiers "mercenaries" and "Nazis"?
120. cazart - 3/23/2000 3:47:35 PM
Again, this thread is a goner. Flatline. Tits up.
The thread has served its purpose which was to give CalGal cover regarding the creation of new threads. She gave RS this thread, knowing this would happen.
Now, she can say to all those who propose new threads--well, we tried that; it just didn't work out. It's just best that I select the new threads.
121. RosettaStone - 3/23/2000 3:57:35 PM
Mark my words. This thread will be around a long time. After all, it's about the Balkan Civil War.
Thanks to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, we're the new Hessians.
122. Jonesatlaw - 3/23/2000 5:19:19 PM
Rosetta- Have you documented the NATO death camps yet? Any experiments of Serbian children? Has over half of the Serbian population been killed? Has NATO used slave labor to staff factories? Have the art treasures of Serbia been looted? Has any of this been done by NATO in Kosovo? Until there is some proof of any of this, other than the above propaganda for the gullible, comparisons between NATO and the Nazis are tripe.
123. Jonesatlaw - 3/23/2000 5:20:33 PM
We now return you to Rosetta Stone already in progress, talking endlessly to himself.
124. jexster - 3/23/2000 7:49:19 PM
Its OK Rose. I do it too.
I mean if you can't talk to yourself, who can you talk to?????
125. jexster - 3/24/2000 12:21:34 AM
Kosova Serbs in Limbo
Limbo's not far from hell....just a little nudge and the Slerb pigs will roast!
126. RosettaStone - 3/24/2000 9:16:02 AM
The Serbs were not forced to submit to Hitler, and they won't submit to force by NAziTO.
127. RosettaStone - 3/26/2000 12:17:24 PM
A year ago, today, American pilots became war criminals rocket bombing European-city dwellers whose parents had saved downed U.S. pilots lives against the old Nazis.
Today, in the Washington Post, the headline: WE WERE SUCKERS FOR THE KLA
"The United States and its NATO allies won a military victory in Yugoslavia a year ago but, as the deteriorating situation in Kosovo attests, it has proved a hollow triumph. As a test of the Clinton administration's doctrine of virtuous power--the notion that the United States should intervene when other countries' internal conflicts offend American values--the Kosovo war has proved one of the administration's more notable failures. It is a filure--strategic, diplomatic and military--that should have been predicted and avoided....
128. RosettaStone - 3/26/2000 3:20:03 PM
filure=failure
129. EricCartman - 3/27/2000 1:42:52 AM
Stone:
A link to the entire article would have been helpful. I couldn't find it on the Post site.
Anyway, here is an op-ed piece on the "Anarchy in Kosovo".
Excerpts:
"This week marks the first anniversary of the American-led campaign to create in Kosovo....a safe and secure environment....How safe is Kosovo, how secure? Safer and more secure than it was a year ago but still, in any real terms, not safe, not secure and becoming less so all the time.
....
"....the U.N. mission and its NATO musclemen are failing, according to their own definition of their mission. The continuing campaign to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of all but Kosovar Albanians has so far forced more than 100,000 Serbs and other non-Albanians to flee the province; about 400 Serbs have been murdered, and many of those who remain live under constant, heavy guard. An Amnesty International report issued last month concluded that after six months of peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, "human rights abuses and serious crimes continue to be committed at an alarming rate, particularly against members of minority communities, with virtual immunity." The report declared that KFOR soldiers and U.N. police officers have been "unable to prevent violent attacks, including human rights abuses, often motivated by a desire for retribution, against non-Albanians."
130. EricCartman - 3/27/2000 1:44:01 AM
(Post op-ed piece cont.)
"Meanwhile, as predicted, members of the theoretically disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army have emerged as leaders of a criminal mobocracy that is the real power on the streets. As the Sunday Times of London reported last week, the family of KLA leader Hashim Thaci is alleged to be deeply involved in smuggling, and KLA leaders have joined forces with former Serb paramilitary gangsters to establish themselves in drug peddling and prostitution. Dragan Kurvic, a Serb who had served with the infamous (and recently murdered) paramilitary leader known as Arkan, told the Times that he and his KLA partners had smuggled dozens of women from Russia, the Ukraine and Bulgaria into Kosovo, where they have been put to work servicing KFOR soldiers.
"Kosovo's new national guard, the Kosovo Protection Corps, made up almost wholly of former members of the KLA, is less than a help. Citing an internal U.N. report, The Post reported last week that Protection Corps members 'allegedly tortured or killed local citizens and illegally detained others . . . illegally forced local businesses to pay taxes; and threatened U.N. police who attempted to intervene and stop the wrongdoing.'"
So, no surprises here. The song remains the same -- we saved one group of gangsters from another group of gangsters. Your tax dollars at work, friends n' neighbors.
131. RosettaStone - 3/31/2000 6:10:18 AM
Eric-The article was in last Sunday's Outlook section of the Washington Post. I will look for it, and if found, post it this weekend.
It's been a busy week for me. Sorry.
132. RosettaStone - 3/31/2000 10:29:35 AM
NAziTO FORCES ENTER SERBIA
(London Daily Telegraph) BRITISH troops backed by fighting vehicles and tanks have cross into Serbia for the first time since their deloyment in Kosovo.
The move came following reports that Yugoslav army armoured vehicles had violated the three-mile-wide demilitarised zone on Serbia's border with Kosovo. The area has been the site of growing violence between Serb police and ethnic Albanian fighters.
The incident follows a worsening security situation in the border area. Last week British troops closed several roads across the internal boundary to prvent skirmishing by ethnic Albanian extremists and Serb police forces.
In the American-controlled eastern sector of Kosovo there are signs that an initiative to cut short an ethnic Albanian uprising in southern Serbia is failing. Last week rebels in the Presevo valley, an Albanian-populated area, pledged to halt attacks on Serb police. But there have since been reports of fresh operations by the former KLA inside Serbia.
NATO's European commander, General Wesley Clark, has given warning that Serbia was laying the ground for a takeover of Montenegro. With NATO already divided over Balkan policy, such a scenario would be likely to leave the West floundering.
133. RosettaStone - 4/1/2000 12:58:22 PM
IS NATO JUST A PR AGENCY?
(Editorial in Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 032900) The NATO spokesman during the Kosovo conflict has just stopped off in Switzerland to wow business and government bigwigs with tales of how he won the war.
Jamie Shea called his paid speech: "Selling a Conflict--The Ultimate PR Challenge."
His enthusiastically received tricks of the trade include things like: If there is no story, create one (as he did when he got Cherie Blair and Hillary Clinton to visit a refugee camp for CNN's cameras--how pleased the ladies will be to hear this!)
And because the public likes soap operas, make sure the war has leading characters--none better than the spokesman himself, who is now known all around the world. This narcissistic little spokesman seems to be forgetting that in a democracy, people want truth from their governments, especially when at war, not soap.
Credibility requires fidelity to the facts, and by declaring that the whole thing was a PR exercise, the man has lost all credibility, essentially rendering himself unemployable. It won't be long before we're scratching our heads and saying: Who was that spokesman? Jamie something or other, wasn't it?
134. EricCartman - 4/1/2000 6:10:09 PM
There was a bit of a Wag the Dog vibe to the whole PR campaign, n'est-ce pas? The only thing missing was the rousing anthem for mass pop consumption. Maybe Bette Midler was busy with a truckload of Little Debbie.
But that's to be expected. Panama and Iraq got the whole propaganda thing down to a clip-art science. Kosovo, and soon Colombia, will be even more finely honed.
At any rate, it is instructive to notice that the bits of criticism leveled at NATO by the major Western European countries (Germany and Italy in particular) are entirely ignored by the American media. And after a brief spate of articles recently indicating that we were going to have to kick some Albanian ass in Kosovo, because they simply can't behave themselves, now there's a rash of news items about Bosnian rape camp survivors.
So newer developments are being shoved aside for the purpose of revisiting past (but of course still horribly awful) atrocities? Hmmm, passing strange to say the least. But the agenda of discussion must never allow too much questioning of the whys, whats, and wheres.
Before we start mulling over the gangsterism of the KLA guys too much, we must be patiently reminded that the Serbs are the original bastards. Otherwise, hell, we might start wondering what all this money, manpower, and military commitment is going toward. People tend to expect results for their $20 billion, oddly enough.
135. PelleNilsson - 4/4/2000 6:49:06 AM
SFOR yesterday arrested former parliament speaker and pig farmer Momcilo Krajisnik in Pale, Republika Srpska. I've actually met him, there in Pale. Strange to think of.
136. PelleNilsson - 4/4/2000 8:03:27 AM
137. PelleNilsson - 4/4/2000 8:07:34 AM
Rosetta
I was playing around with the map and inadvertantly clicked "Cast Your Mote". Please delete.
138. Uzmakk - 4/4/2000 8:30:40 AM
I recall a piece on NPR concerning the Kosovar Albanian perception of the Albanian Albanians-- criminals and gangsters.
139. RosettaStone - 4/7/2000 9:00:48 AM
Pelle: Your map looks great. Thanks for the visual.
140. RosettaStone - 4/7/2000 1:28:17 PM
U.S. TROOPS FLED SERBS AND LOSE PRISONER
(The Guardian/The Observer)--April 6. AMERICAN TROOPS WERE FORCED to release a suspect, abandon vehicles and trek over a mountain path to escape stone-throwing Serbs in the latest humiliation suffered by international peacekeepers in Kosovo.
As full details emerged yesterday of the worst clash involving US troops since they arrived last June. It became clear that Tuesday's incident in an area close to the Macedonian border amounted to a fiasco. It also showed how well the Serbs have set up a network of vigilantes who can mobilise crowds at short notice.
The trouble started after US military police and Polish troops entered the isolated Serb village of Sevce to search the home of a man detained for illegal possession of two hand grenades. His neighbors quickly pulled logs across the only road out of Sevce and fighting broke out.
The Americans called up reinforcements but before they could arrive were forced to abandon their vehicles and trek through a narrow canyon to the next settlement, Jacinze.
"There were Serbs up on the sides of the canyon throwing rocks," Major Debbie (does Dallas?) Allen, a US spokeswoman (and sperm collector), said. The mile-and-a-half walk took the soldiers two hours.
At Jacinze the "peacekeepers" joined up with the reinforcements who had arrived by helicopter, and there was fighting with some 300 Serbs. The soldiers fired rubber bullets and used stun grenades and dogs. In the melee, a Serb woman dragged the arrested man away from the troops.
"The man escaped!" said another US military spokesman.
141. RosettaStone - 4/8/2000 11:56:51 AM
ALBANIANS THREATEN TO STEP UP BATTLE
(AP) Despite U.S. dismay, self-styled leaders of ethnic Albanian rebls in southern Serbia are threatening to step up their battle against Yugoslav soldiers in territory beyond the reach of NAziTO-led "peacekeepers." The emergence of a new ethnic Albanian rebel group in Serbia has raised fears in Washington and other Western capitals that the fighting could spill over into Kosovo and nearby Macedonia, perhaps involving Yugoslav forces pursuing rebels across poorly defined boundaries.
Against the background of those concerns, several thousand people attended the funeral in Kosovo on Friday of Ismet Aliu, 19, whose family and friends said was a member of the "Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac."
They said Aliu had been shot by a Serb sniper in southern Serbia, and buried him in a local "martyr's cemetery" reserved for Kosovo Liberation Army fighters killed during fighting last year.
142. jonesatlaw - 4/10/2000 3:43:06 PM
Radavan Karadich still a war criminal-
Francisco Franco still dead. Film at eleven.
143. RosettaStone - 4/11/2000 4:10:10 PM
SWEDES SHOOT AND WOUND SERB
Swedish "peacekeepers" must have been upset because the Serbs were protecting their monastery with pitchforks.
(more propaganda from KFOR)
by Stefan Racin
(UPI) A spokesman for the Kosovo international force (KFOR) has said Swedish peacekeepers were involved in a series of clashes with groups of Serbs in the village of Gracanica in the immediate vicinity of the monastery of the same name on last Thursday.
Spokesman Philip Anido said that at one point the Swedes shot and wounded a man who received eight serious wounds. He was taken to the Russian field hospital at Kosovo Polje and his condition was now stable, Anido said.
He said that earlier in the day the soldiers fired warning shots when they were set upon by "an angry Serb" wielding a pitchfork. He dropped the tool and the soldiers arrested him and took him away for questioning. Serbs began to gather in droves and a KFOR patrol set free the arrested man to calm down the situation.
However another Serb from the crowd, Momcilo Sekulic, then approached the "peacekeepers" with an ax in his hands and did not stop when they fired in the air to warn them that they were Swedes.
"His intention was clearly to attack them so they shot him," Anido said.
At about 8 p.m. another group of Serbs came to the house in which the Swedish KFOR troops are quartered. They hurled rocks at the house and tried to force their way in by breaking down the gate.
"The Swedes used tear gas and the Serbs dispersed. The situation returned to normal by 10 p.m.," the spokesman said.
Anido explained that KFOR soldiers have the right to use force.
144. RosettaStone - 4/11/2000 7:53:15 PM
We're going to be out of town next week (DisneyWorld, baby!) and I'm looking for help to keep this thread jumping.
Who wants to assist?
145. arkymalarky - 4/11/2000 7:59:18 PM
Goodness, Rose, I'd love to, but school's got me really busy this time of year.
Yeah...that's it.
146. pseudoerasmus - 4/11/2000 8:09:37 PM
So, arky, are you happy with the way things turned out in Kosovo? Or have you not followed events, after being pro-intervention?
147. arkymalarky - 4/11/2000 8:22:09 PM
I'm not happy, no. I haven't followed things closely (despite Rose's regular updates in this most exciting of threads), partly because I no longer have Serbian exchange students, but I don't know that the end results without intervention would have been preferable to the current situation. I did read your posts on the subject awhile back, and I know you think it turned out about as badly as it could have (unless I'm imagining reading that, too). What do you think would have happened had NATO just left it alone?
148. RosettaStone - 4/11/2000 8:50:38 PM
The Albanians would be living in Albania and the Serbians in Kosovo.
After all, it's their land and culture.
149. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 2:21:52 AM
Arky: Well, I don't want to associate myself with Rosetta's inanities, because Kosovo is home to Albanians as much as to Serbs. But it seems to me that if NATO really did prevent a mass ethnic cleansing of Albanians from Kosovo, then in exchange NATO seems to have made itself an unwitting accomplice to the ongoing Albanian ethnic cleansing of not just Kosovo Serbs but pretty much everyone else non-Albanian. For in-between the time NATO ended its campaign & occupied Kosovo and when this article from the German daily Die Welt was written (October 1999), some 350,000 non-Albanians were driven out of Kosovo. (There have been more since but I don't have the extra figures.) I quote both the German text and my own translation into English:
Seit dem 12. Juni herrscht offiziell Frieden im Kosovo, tatsächlich aber vertreiben rachelüsterne Albaner mit allen Mitteln die rund 350 000 Serben, Montenegriner, Roma, Muslime, Türken, Gonrancen und andere - offiziell leben im Kosovo über zehn verschiedene Volksgruppen.
Since peace came officially to Kosovo on 12 June, "revenge-covetous" Albanians have actually driven away through all means approximately 350,000 Serbs, Montenegrins, Roma [Gypsies], Muslims, Turks, Goranci and others -- over ten different ethnic groups officially live in Kosovo.
150. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 2:23:26 AM
What NATO should have done as soon as Serbia surrendered was partition Kosovo, into Albanian and Serb sectors, instead of keeping this lethal pretence that a multicultural Kosovo was possible. That Kouchner idiot still thinks it's possible.
Not to mention the 50+ precious Serbo-Byzantine churches which have been torched or destroyed by Albanians. Is NATO so incompetent to protect these, even if they can't prevent a busload of elderly Serbs from being attacked by KLA snipers? Well, to be fair, NATO peacekeepers don't do a good job of protecting mosques in Bosnia either, where dozens of the finest Ottoman mosques in Serb-controlled areas have been bulldozed.
151. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:15:43 AM
By the way, I forgot to mention that the other day, I found an extremely interesting and revealing article about Kosovo from the New York Times -- but from the NYT in 1987! This speaks much to the issue of the relationship between the Serbs and the Kosovo Albanians long before the NATO action, long before Rambouillet, long before refugees, long before Jexster and Rosetta had ever heard of Kosovo. (But the story of how I stumbled onto the article is better than anything in the article itself....)
The article coming in a minute.
152. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:26:06 AM
Please note that in 1987, Kosovo was an autonomous province of Serbia and ethnic Albanians had their own government in Pristina. This autonomy was removed in 1990.
153. EricCartman - 4/12/2000 3:28:45 AM
Pseudo:
Have you ever read The Missionary Position, Christopher Hitchens' polemic about Mother Teresa? Near the end of the book, Hitchens refers to Enver Hoxha's post-war ambition to annex Kosovo as part of a Greater Albania -- an idea apparently squashed only by the fact that Tito had more juice with Moscow than Hoxha did.
Considering that the WW2 alignment of the Albanians was of a dishonorable stripe to begin with, it is a bit surprising that the word of the Kosovars was taken at face value. NATO seems to have been heedless of the imminent danger of retaliation and ethnic cleansing on the part of returning Albanians.
154. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:29:05 AM
The New York Times
November 1, 1987
Section 1; Part 1, Page 14, Column 1
In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict
By DAVID BINDER, Special to the New York Times
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia
Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility of "civil war" in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 million people, in World War II.
The current hostilities pit separatist-minded ethnic Albanians against the various Slavic populations of Yugoslavia and occur at all levels of society, from the highest officials to the humblest peasants.
A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others. The army says it has uncovered hundreds of subversive ethnic Albanian cells in its ranks. Some arsenals have been raided.
Vicious Insults
Ethnic Albanians in the Government have manipulated public funds and regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. And politicians have exchanged vicious insults.
Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
Ethnic Albanians comprise the fastest growing nationality in Yugoslavia and are expected soon to become its third largest, after the Serbs and Croats.
155. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:29:34 AM
The New York Times (continued)
Radicals' Goals
The goal of the radical nationalists among them, one said in an interview, is an "ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania itself". That includes large chunks of the republics that make up the southern half of Yugoslavia.
Other ethnic Albanian separatists admit to a vision of a greater Albania governed from Pristina in southern Yugoslavia rather than Tirana, the capital of neighboring Albania.
There is no evidence that the hard-line Communist Government in Tirana is giving them material assistance.
The principal battleground is the region called Kosovo, a high plateau ringed by mountains that is somewhat smaller than New Jersey. Ethnic Albanians there make up 85 percent of the population of 1.7 million. The rest are Serbians and Montenegrins.
Worst Strife in Years
As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981 - an "ethnically pure" Albanian region, a "Republic of Kosovo" in all but name.
The violence, a journalist in Kosovo said, is escalating to "the worst in the last seven years".
Many Yugoslavs blame the troubles on the ethnic Albanians, but the matter is more complex in a country with as many nationalities and religions as Yugoslavia's and involves economic development, law, politics, families and flags. As recently as 20 years ago, the Slavic majority treated ethnic Albanians as inferiors to be employed as hewers of wood and carriers of heating coal. The ethnic Albanians, who now number 2 million, were officially deemed a minority, not a constituent nationality, as they are today.
156. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:30:23 AM
The New York Times (continued)
Were the ethnic tensions restricted to Kosovo, Yugoslavia's problems with its Albanian nationals might be more manageable. But some Yugoslavs and some ethnic Albanians believe the struggle has spread far beyond Kosovo. Macedonia, a republic to the south with a population of 1.8 million, has a restive ethnic Albanian minority of 350,000.
"We've already lost western Macedonia to the Albanians", said a member of the Yugoslav party presidium, explaining that the ethnic minority had driven the Slavic Macedonians out of the region.
Attacks on Slavs
Last summer, the authorities in Kosovo said they documented 40 ethnic Albanian attacks on Slavs in two months. In the last two years, 320 ethnic Albanians have been sentenced for political crimes, nearly half of them characterized as severe.
In one incident, Fadil Hoxha, once the leading politician of ethnic Albanian origin in Yugoslavia, joked at an official dinner in Prizren last year that Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential ethnic Albanian rapists. After his quip was reported this October, Serbian women in Kosovo protested, and Mr. Hoxha was dismissed from the Communist Party. As a precaution, the central authorities dispatched 380 riot police officers to the Kosovo region for the first time in four years.
Officials in Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling the foundations of the multinational experiment called federal Yugoslavia, which consists of six republics and two provinces.
"Lebanonizing" of Yugoslavia
High-ranking officials have spoken of the Lebanonizing" of their country and have compared its troubles to the strife in Northern Ireland.
157. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:30:43 AM
The New York Times (continued)
Borislav Jovic, a member of the Serbian party's presidency, spoke in an interview of the prospect of "two Albanias, one north and one south, like divided Germany or Korea," and of "practically the breakup of Yugoslavia." He added: "Time is working against us."
The federal Secretary for National Defense, Fleet Adm. Branko Mamula, told the army's party organization in September of efforts by ethnic Albanians to subvert the armed forces. "Between 1981 and 1987 a total of 216 illegal organizations with 1,435 members of Albanian nationality were discovered in the Yugoslav People's Army," he said. Admiral Mamula said ethnic Albanian subversives had been preparing for "killing officers and soldiers, poisoning food and water, sabotage, breaking into weapons arsenals and stealing arms and ammunition, desertion and causing flagrant nationalist incidents in army units."
Concerns Over Military
Coming three weeks after the ethnic Albanian draftee, Aziz Kelmendi, had slaughtered his Slavic comrades in the barracks at Paracin, the speech struck fear in thousands of families whose sons were about to start their mandatory year of military service.
Because the Albanians have had a relatively high birth rate, one-quarter of the army's 200,000 conscripts this year are ethnic Albanians. Admiral Mamula suggested that 3,792 were potential human timebombs. He said the army had "not been provided with details relevant for assessing their behavior." But a number of Belgrade politicians said they doubted the Yugoslav armed forces would be used to intervene in Kosovo as they were to quell violent rioting in 1981 in Pristina. They reason that the army leadership is extremely reluctant to become involved in what is, in the first place, a political issue.
158. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:31:12 AM
The New York Times (continued)
Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools and factories. Non-Albanian visitors almost immediately feel the independence - and suspicion -of the ethnic Albanian authorities.
Region's Slavs Lack Strength
While 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins still live in the province, they are scattered and lack cohesion. In the last seven years, 20,000 of them have fled the province, often leaving behind farmsteads and houses, for the safety of the Slavic north.
Until September, the majority of the Serbian Communist Party leadership pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the Kosovo party hierarchy under its ethnic Albanian leader, Azem Vlasi. But during a 30-hour session of the Serbian central committee in late September, the Serbian party secretary, Slobodan Milosevic, deposed Dragisa Pavlovic, as head of Belgrade's party organization, the country's largest. Mr. Milosevic accused Mr. Pavlovic of being an appeaser who was soft on Albanian radicals. Mr. Milosevic had courted the Serbian backlash vote with speeches in Kosovo itself calling for "the policy of the hard hand."
"We will go up against anti-Socialist forces, even if they call us Stalinists," Mr. Milosevic declared recently. That a Yugoslav politician would invite someone to call him a Stalinist even four decades after Tito's epochal break with Stalin, is a measure of the state into which Serbian politics have fallen. For the moment, Mr. Milosevic and his supporters appear to be staking their careers on a strategy of confrontation with the Kosovo ethnic Albanians.
Other Yugoslav politicians have expressed alarm. "There is no doubt Kosovo is a problem of the whole country, a powder keg on which we all sit," said Milan Kucan, head of the Slovenian Communist Party.
159. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:31:25 AM
The New York Times (continued)
Remzi Koljgeci, of the Kosovo party leadership, said in an interview in Pristina that "relations are cold" between the ethnic Albanians and Serbs of the province, that there were too many "people without hope."
But many of those interviewed agreed it was also a rare opportunity for Yugoslavia to take radical political and economic steps, as Tito did when he broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948.
Efforts are under way to strengthen central authority through amendments to the constitution. The League of Communists is planning an extraordinary party congress before March to address the country's grave problems. The hope is that something will be done then to exert the rule of law in Kosovo while drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia's mainstream.
160. EricCartman - 4/12/2000 3:35:11 AM
Interesting article. Amazing how, under basically the same circumstances ten years later, the whole thing was billed as a battle of evil incarnate against unsoiled virtue.
The free press, doing its job once again.
161. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:36:27 AM
(finished)
162. pseudoerasmus - 4/12/2000 3:57:49 AM
Oh, and also from Britain's The Independent, an article by the veteran Middle Eastern correspondent Robert Fisk,
NATO turns a blind eye as scores of ancient Christian churches are reduced to rubble.
163. uzmakk - 4/12/2000 6:34:52 AM
Rosie:
Be assured that when I see activity on your thread I read it. Ofcourse, the Nazi business is a bit annoying-- something like, "My eggMcmuffin was cold this morning, I bet the people who work in that retaurant are a bunch of Nazis."
164. RosettaStone - 4/12/2000 3:17:31 PM
DRINKING TO COVER THE GUILT OF CLUSTER-BOMBING CITY CIVILIANS?
Macedonia arrest 30 U.S. troops for drunken behavior
(Reuters) Police in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia said Wednesday they had taken 30 U.S. "peacekeeping" soldiers into custody for drunken behavior.
"Thirty American KFOR soldiers in Macedonia were taken in by the police Wednesday morning because of their indecent behavior and maltreatment of citizens," the Macedonian Interior Ministry said in a statement.
Officials from the KFOR "peacekeeping" force for Kosovo, which has a back-up base (translation: spy) base in Macedonia, were not immediately available for comment. (Maybe because they were the ones drinking, whoring and picking fights with the civilians.)
The statement said the soldiers had been acting in a drunk and disorderly way in a cafe in the Skopje. One Macedonian policeman was injured as he attempted to prevent a fight between the American soldiers and passers-by.
The Americans are being held in a Macedonian police station, not a KFOR detention center.
165. RosettaStone - 4/14/2000 1:50:04 PM
Leaving now for Orlando for nine days. Happy Easter, everyone.
166. Wombat - 4/14/2000 1:57:46 PM
May the Croat rise up to meet you.
167. uzmakk - 4/14/2000 2:12:19 PM
Kiss the mouse for me, Rosetta.
168. Indiana Jones - 4/14/2000 4:15:02 PM
I would like to point out that Ernest Tubb is still posting at this moment on TableTalk. The only conclusion I can draw is that Stone has decided to fake a vacation from the Mote to avoid the people's firing squad.
169. arkymalarky - 4/14/2000 10:46:39 PM
Very informative article, PE, and it jibes with what my male Serbian exchange student told me last year. He also said that Kosovo was not negotiable territory for the Serbs, and that Milosevic was a dictator and it worked in his favor to unify the Serbs in support of defending Kosovo. I know this has been discussed in the past, but I found it interesting hearing it directly from a Serb. He was a very sharp and informed young man, and I wish he could have posted some in the Fray last year when all this was being discussed. I thought about it, and decided it probably wouldn't be a good idea.
Btw, are you not going to share the story of how you found the article?
"What NATO should have done as soon as Serbia surrendered was partition Kosovo, into Albanian and Serb sectors, instead of keeping this lethal pretence that a multicultural Kosovo was possible."
Though I haven't read up on the situation in a while, I agree with that statement, and that NATO didn't handle things competently after defeating the Serbs. That makes it difficult for me to determine whether intervention was better than allowing Milosevic to proceed (assuming that what NATO claimed about his mobilization at Kosovo's border was correct). Had NATO followed through efficiently, it may have been a worthwhile move; but the fact that they didn't makes the question of whether intervention was preferable almost impossible for me to answer, and you're much more knowledgeable about the region than I and could better assess whether more damage was done by NATO than would have been done by Milosevic.
170. arkymalarky - 4/16/2000 12:51:32 PM
171. RosettaStone - 4/26/2000 6:19:26 PM
NAziTO ACCUSED OF WIDER URANIUM USE IN BALKANS
(Boston Globe) Yugoslavia said yesterday that NATO planes had fired depleted uranium shells on eight locations in Yugoslavia, near Kosovo during air strikes last year.
A UN official said last month that NATO had admitted using depleted uranium weapons in Kosovo, exposing civilians, its own troops, and aid works to health hazards, but that it remained unclear whether they were used elsewhere.
The Yugoslav Army estimated that US jets had fired 50,000 depleted uranium rounds during the 11-week campaign. The US had earlier said it had used 31,000 rounds.
"In this way, a very prosperous country can rid itself of its nuclear waste cheaply," Yugo Defense Minister General Slobodan Petkovic said at a news conference.
172. jexster - 5/7/2000 1:01:54 PM
Before this thread dies, I wish some more Serbs would.
173. EricCartman - 5/7/2000 7:49:38 PM
And some Albanians. Maybe some Croatians. They've all got blood on their hands; this isn't entirely the work of Serbian malfeasance.
Unless the 800,000 Serbs that have been driven back into Serbia, from various Balkan regions, did it to themselves.
174. Indiana Jones - 5/7/2000 9:19:14 PM
Newsweek reports NATO exaggerated bombing success
"A suppressed U.S. Air Force report obtained by Newsweek shows that the number of targets verifiably destroyed by high-altitude bombing in the Kosovo War was a tiny fraction of what top military officers publicly claimed. The report shows there were 14 tanks destroyed, not 120; 18 armored personnel carriers, not 220; and 20 artillery pieces, not 450. And instead of the 744 ``confirmed'' strikes by NATO pilots during the war, the Air Force investigators, who spent weeks combing Kosovo, found evidence of just 58 strikes."
175. EricCartman - 5/7/2000 10:02:25 PM
More from Indy's link:
The bombing, they discovered, was highly accurate against fixed targets, like bunkers and bridges. "But we were spoofed a lot," said one team member. The Serbs protected one bridge from the high-flying NATO bombers by constructing, 300 yards upstream, a fake bridge made of polyethylene sheeting stretched over the river. NATO "destroyed" the phony bridge many times.
In addition, artillery pieces were faked out of long black logs stuck on old truck wheels. A two-thirds scale SA-9 antiaircraft missile launcher was fabricated from the metal-lined paper used to make European milk cartons. "It would have looked perfect from three miles up," said a MEAT (Munitions Effectiveness Assessment Team) analyst. The team found dozens of burnt-out cars, buses and trucks - but very few tanks, and no indications that hit tanks had been hauled away.
Good grief, this sounds like the kind of shit Wile E. Coyote used to pull on the Road Runner. I guess this is to be expected, attempting to wage war from 15,000 feet.
176. joezan - 5/8/2000 6:33:24 AM
This is not news - I posted the exact thing months ago, along with reports that the numbers of EthAlbs killed or displaced were nearly equally as misrepresented.
But the quote upthread was exactly right - it was a cheap way to get rid of nuclear waste (depleted uranium).
I'm sure we've still got a few tons left, though.
...Mugabe better watch his ass.
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