Subject: Serbia issues NATO ultimatum over guerrilla violence on Kosovo border
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 12:00:26 PST
From: C-afp@... (AFP)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Nov 24 (AFP) - Belgrade gave NATO three
days Friday to put an end to ethnic Albanian guerrilla attacks in
the demilitarised buffer zone between Kosovo or Serbia, warning its
forces could otherwise return in breach of a military accord with
the alliance.
The violence and the ultimatum overshadowed the EU-Balkans
Summit in Zagreb, where Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica dubbed
the Kosovo issue "the biggest problem in Europe," and called into
question the future of last year's ceasefire agreement between NATO
and Belgrade.
"We're serious. We will wait 72 hours beginning at 7:00 pm (1800
GMT). After that, we will return to this territory with all the
forces at our disposal," said Bozo Prelevic, one of Serbia's three
interior ministers.
He said that if the multinational peacekeepers from the Kosovo
force (KFOR) had failed to produce results by Monday at 7:00 pm
(1800 GMT), the police will ask Kostunica and NATO to re-open an
accord on the buffer zone.
KFOR had no response to the ultimatum other than to reaffirm its
committment to the ceasefire agreement -- the Military Technical
Agreement signed in Kumanovo, Macedonia in June last year ahead of
the Atlantic alliance's deployment in Kosovo -- and to call on "both
sides to show restraint."
Under the terms of the agreement, Yugoslav forces are not
allowed into a three mile (five kilometre) buffer zone along the
province's borders with Serbia and Montenegro.
The resulting power vacuum has allowed the Liberation Army of
Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac (UCPMB), to attack Serb forces from
within the zone. The guerrillas' stated aim is to unite Presevo
valley and its 70,000 ethnic Albanians to a future independent
Kosovo.
But after at least three Serb police, who are allowed into the
border zone but not to deploy heavy weapons, were killed in an
ambush Tuesday, Belgrade renewed its calls for NATO to crack down on
the rebels -- which it says receive support from extremists within
Kosovo.
"We have the means to get rid of them if we cut off their
communication and their logistical support from Kosovo," said
Prelevic. "If KFOR detains or confiscates their weapons, the attacks
will stop. KFOR and the international community are responsible for
the arrival of weapons in the security zone."
Serbian police in the frontline village of Lucane told AFP they
were awaiting the "green light" before launching a riposte against
the rebels after three days of violence which has left at least
three officers dead.
A spokesman for KFOR said that troops had on Thursday seized a
cache of arms inside the breakaway province after their radar
detected rebels firing a mortar shell into Serbia and reaffirmed
it's determination to seal the border.
"KFOR will not tolerate any insurgent activity based in Kosovo
and will prevent any action that would make Kosovo a staging area
for exporting violence," Flight Lietenant Mark Whitty said.
But the UCPMB remained defiant, denying that KFOR had succeeded
in cutting off its links to Kosovo, whose ethnic Albanian population
sympathises with its cause.
"There are still routes over the border, come and visit us,"
Shefket Musliu, one of the UPCMB's senior commanders, told AFP by
telephone.
Serb anti-terrorist police units were seen by AFP near Lucane,
ten miles (six kilometres) west of the town of Bujanovac on the
Serbian front line.
Rebel fighters could be seen in the hills round the village.
Prelevic estimated their numbers at between 800 and 1,000, while
police at the scene said there were 400.
In Pristina, Astrid van Genderen Stort, a spokeswoman for the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees, said that some 600 people had fled
Serbia for Kosovo since the start of the latest round of fighting.
The renewed fighting in Presevo comes against the background of
increased violence in Kosovo itself, as suspected ethnic Albanian
extremists target minorities, Yugoslav targets and moderate leaders
from their own community.
The right-hand man of moderate Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim
Rugova, Xhemajl Mustafa, was shot dead Thursday outside of his
apartment. On Wednesday a bomb attack on the home of Belgrade's top
representative in Pristina killed a member of his staff.
Speaking at the Zagreb conference, Kosovo's chief UN
administrator, Bernard Kouchner, said: "We do not need any more
victims to understand that the conflict in Kosovo is not over. There
is a wall of blood between Serbs and Albanians.
"Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo are finally starting to live with
each other. If some bastards are planting bombs and killing people,
then this fledgling detente will disappear."