Danas, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
November 27, 2000

Weekend in the southernmost part of Serbia marked by ceasefire on part of
terrorists

Serbs demanding weapons, too

Bujanovac - The positions of armed Albanians are only 400 to 500 meters from
the police checkpoint furthest to the west in the Bujanovac hinterlands
toward Kosovo, a policeman told a Beta reporter upon arrival in the village
of Lucane. The policeman said that it is clear that these are Albanian
combat fortifications and added that these were the same fortifications used
by the Yugoslav Army during last year’s NATO aggression. According to him,
movements of armed Albanians have been observed in the hills surrounding
Bujanovac.

Tension in the south of Serbia is rising as the deadline set by the Serbian
government for the withdrawal of armed Albanian groups from the crisis
region of Bujanovac municipality nears. During the last 24 hours there have
been no exchanges of fire between Serbian security forces and the terrorists
but, as Beta reports from Bujanovac, state security forces have brought out
heavy weaponry in case the ultimatum proves fruitless in preparation to
intervene against positions in the villages of Lucane, Mali Trnovac and
Breznica which are being used as bases by armed Albanian extremists.

The deadline for the ultimatum of the Serbian government to the armed
Albanians and KFOR is today at 7:00 p.m. Representatives of the ministry of
internal affairs of Serbia have announced that they will intervene using all
available means if the Albanian armed groups do not withdraw from the
region.

On Saturday FRY president Vojislav Kostunica called on the leader of the
Democratic Alliance of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, to begin dialog to resolve
the problems in Kosovo as soon as possible.

“No solution imposed from outside will bring any good to Kosovo, to Serbia,
to Yugoslavia, or to the balkans. Therefore I think it is essential that we
begin talks with the conviction that a solution can be found. It is no use
to ignore problems; we must meet them head on. And we need to do so as soon
as possible. Too much time has already been lost,” it is said in Kostunica’s
letter sent to Rugova on Saturday. (Beta)

* * *

The Yugoslav president assessed that “for lasting peace and stability in
Kosovo” which he claims “must remain a multiethnic community” it is
essential to hold “fundamental dialog between the two largest national
communities, the Albanian and the Serbian”. Kostunica expressed his
condolences upon the murder of Xhemajl Mustafa, Rugova’s close associate,
citing that he “assumes there is no need to reiterate how much he condemns
every terrorist act, no matter against whom it is committed”.

“It is obvious that violence is again spreading in Kosovo and beyond Kosovo.
The responsibility for stopping that wave of violence, whose victims in the
last few days have been four Serbs and one Albanian, falls first and
foremost on NATO and the UN who, by the Military-Technical Agreement of
Kumanovo and Security Council Resolution 1244, tok on this responsibility,”
stated Kostunica. He went on to say that the international forces can only
stop the violence but that in order to achieve lasting peace, dialog between
the Serbian and Albanian communities is essential.

After a series of terrorist attacks on Serbian police last week, the
self-proclaimed armed formation “Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and
Medvedja” declared a ceasefire two days ago within the buffer zone along the
administrative border of Kosovo and Serbia. According to KFOR spokesman Mark
Whitty, “KFOR was involved in talks and in the process of defining terms of
the ceasefire” and continues “to oversee the situation in order to achieve a
peaceful solution to a difficult situation. KFOR called on armed rebels and
Serbian security forces to “exercise restraint” but two days ago occasional
shots were exchanged in the five kilometers-wide security zone along the
administrative border.

Several hundred Serbs blocked traffic on Saturday in central Bujanovac,
demanding that state security organs give them weapons. The demonstrators
expressed the fear that in the event of “total withdrawal” by Serbian police
from positions within the demilitarized zone, security forces might also
turn the town of Bujanovac, an ethnically mixed community with an Albanian
majority, over to the rebels. On the same day, a column of Serbian refugees
in two buses, several large trucks and forty-odd passenger cars returned
with a KFOR escort to Kosovo. These are Serbs who left their villages in the
vicinity of the administrative border due to battles waged there and then
blocked the highway from Nis to Skopje, demanding that they be allowed to
return in safety.

“I have been in contact with police who are in the region and I was informed
that the Albanian terrorists are regrouping in the background. There are
approximately 4,000 armed men there who have entered the trenches abandoned
by our police forces and, according to my information, they are bringing out
heavy weaponry and fortifying their positions,"”said the president of the
Democratic Party, Zoran Djindjic, in a statement for “Palma Plus” television
of Jagodina. Djindjic emphasized that two kilometers from the center of
Bujanovac there are approximately 200 armed terrorists who successfully
passed through the demilitarized zone”.

“Our police forces in that zone are inadequate; even in the numbers foreseen
by the Military-Tehcnical Agreement, they are poorly organized; and in terms
of numbers and available arms, they are completely unprepared to respond to
the initiative which is coming today, tomorrow or two days from now,”
stressed Djindjic. According to him, it is essential “to form a crisis
headquarters immediately which would include representatives of the army and
police, and which should be in session around the clock”.

French president Jacques Chirac visited Kosovo on Saturday accompanied by
senior officers of the French ministry of defense. Chirac spoke with the
head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, and French officers
commanding troops in the northern part of Kosovo.

R. D.

Translated by S. Lazovic (Nov. 27, 2000)

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