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[RRE]news from Yugoslavia
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[I've enclosed an issue of the valuable daily reports on Kosovo by
the Institute for War and Peace Reporting
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From: Tony Borden
WELCOME TO IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 11, 29 MARCH 1999
BLOOD ON THE WALK. While the situation throughout the province deteriorates, our correspondent in Pristina sees burning and looting, and bloodstains on the sidewalk.
TIRANA CALLS FOR GROUND TROOPS. While terror increases in Kosovo, and refugees mount in Albania, Tirana appeals for NATO to intervene with ground troops to halt the violence. Fron Nazi reports.
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IWPR's network of leading correspondents in the region provide inside
analysis of the events and issues driving crises in the Balkans. The
reports are available on the Web in English, Serbian and Albanian;
English-language reports are also available via e-mail. For
syndication information, contact Anthony Borden
The project is supported by the European Commission and Press Now.
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Editor: Anthony Borden. News and Internet Editor: Rohan Jayasekera. Assistant Editing: Alan Davis. Translation by Denisa Kostovic and Alban Mitrushi.
"Balkan Crisis Report" is produced under IWPR's Balkan Crisis Information Project. The project seeks to contribute to regional and international understanding of the regional crisis and prospects for resolution.
The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is a London-based independent non-profit organisation supporting regional media and democratic change.
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The opinions expressed in "Balkan Crisis Report" are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR.
Copyright (C) 1999 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting
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BLOOD ON THE WALK
While the situation throughout the province deteriorates, general chaos reigns in Pristina, with burning and looting, and bloodstains on the sidewalk.
An IWPR Correspondent in Pristina *
The situation outside the capital seems to be descending into a real nightmare, while in Pristina we have the same chaos we have had for days.
Up to 30,000 Albanians have fled their towns and villages for Albania, and we hear that tens of thousands of Albanians have been taken out of their homes in Pec, in the western part of the province, by Serbian police and are being escorted in columns towards Rozhaje over the Kosovo border in Montenegro. Albanian sources say that more than 100 people in the town have been killed, dead bodies are lying on the streets, and after shelling and looting, the old part of the town has been destroyed. Gjakovica, it seems, is also aflame, and many people have been killed there, too.
According to reports from Kosovapress, the news agency of the Kosovo Liberation Army agency, Serbian police entered the village of Cirez, where more than 15,000 refugees live in the open for more than two weeks, and forced them into a nearby military building-a possible NATO target. The actual events here, and the number of people involved, are hard to confirm, but everyone fears mass executions.
In Pristina, the only people out on the streets are police and a great number of armed (Serbian) civilians wandering around the streets of the town, shooting in various directions. The looting, burning and general destruction continues. Shops are completely gutted, and everything taken. Cafes and restaurants--including the small hidden cafe where all the journalists used to meet--have been heavily damaged.
Last night there were many explosions in the town--and not just from NATO bombs. This is the case especially around Dragodan, a residential part of Pristina, where there have been constant explosions. Albanians living in private houses there are particularly vulnerable.
I don't sleep at home at night, but in the mornings when I come back, I can see lots of blood on the ground, though it is impossible to know who got wounded or killed the previous night.
It seems that the authorities are trying to get people to flee. In many residential buildings, little papers were posted with the emblem of the Kosovo Liberation Army calling on people to leave their houses and go away from the towns. But some regional KLA commanders denied any links with the documents, and since the Albanian language in it has many mistakes, we expect they have been posted by the authorities. This isn't the first time counterfeit posters have been pasted around town exhorting the people to do one thing or another.
The problem is that there's not much chance of going anyway. The bus station in Pristina is full, and buses are still travelling. But they only head north, towards Serbia, and only Serbs are allowed to board. Albanians are kicked off. Otherwise, there is no way to get out of town. The streets are full of paramilitary units controlling the roads, and no one would dare to try to pass. Some, through bribes and other means, have apparently found a way out, and almost none of my journalist colleagues are around any more.
Even if you have some money, there's almost nothing to by in the shops. In those few that haven't been destroyed, there's very little to buy: no bread, no milk, no flour, no sugar. You need a fortune to buy a pack of cigarettes-and they are becoming increasingly scarce-or medicine. We had a better night with the phone lines last night, and we able to receive calls. But now only a few lines are still working, the mobile network is down, and we are afraid the whole system will simply be switched off soon. The Internet, through which I was able to file this report, belongs to a family linked to the Serbian government, and we expect it will also stop functioning.
Meanwhile, on state-run media proudly proclaims that "Yugoslavia has entered history as the only state that shot down a NATO plane." The burnings and destruction that we see every night are, according to Serb TV, all caused by NATO.- This report is written by IWPR's correspondent in Pristina, whose name is withheld to protect from reprisals.
TIRANA CALLS FOR GROUND TROOPS
While terror increases in Kosovo, and refugees mount in Albania, Tirana appeals for NATO to intervene with ground troops to halt the violence.
By Fron Nazi in Tirana
NATO air strikes were intended to bring Belgrade to its knees. But Belgrade has responded by building an iron curtain around Kosovo and launching a wave of terror against the Kosovars. In the past two days, up to 30,000 refugees have crossed the border into Albania, into the towns of Kukes and Has. The stories they tell are of extreme violence, and immediate expulsions from their homes. Key figures in the Albanian elite have been killed, gone into hiding or escaped Kosovo. Others are reported to have been detained.
According to Gazmund Pula, President of the Kosovo Helsinki Committee, "Twenty thousand people have been detained by Serb forces, but it is not known what has happened to them. Also, criminals have been released from prisons to assist the Serbian forces with their anti-Albanian campaign." Speaking from Kosovo, Pula added, "We know that 20 people were killed in front of students. . . . As to the journalists, activists, and political leaders, Belgrade has put a death warrant on their heads. Yesterday, the actor Hadi Shehu best known for portraying Albanian patriots, was killed in Pristina by the Serbs."
Since the beginning of NATO air strikes, not only have the Serbian forces increased their activity against the Kosovars but also against Albania proper. Serb forces have launched bombs in the northern village of Tropaj, destroying four homes, while in the nearby village of Kamnic, Serb forces entered the village and began shooting indiscriminately. There were no reports of any serious injuries.
Rexhep Meidani, the president of Albania, has appealed to the West to intervene with ground troops in Kosovo to stop the killing. At a press conference with journalists he stressed that there was "only one war going on in the territory of what has remained from Yugoslavia and this is the inhuman war of Slobodan Milosevic regime against an undefended population, against Albanians." Arguing that the terror in Kosovo will not end without NATO troops, he stressed, "It is essential to accelerate NATO actions and find a way . . . to intervene on the ground."
Fron Nazi is an IWPR senior editor.
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 21:38:46 +0100
From: Karl Waldron
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from: malisha, miroslav hristodulo, malisha@mrvica.opennet.org , http://office.opennet.org/~malisha
I listened to Radio Free Europe today. It seemed just fine, since i had enough of hysteria spread through state and para-state media and of mental constructions like "aggressor armada of evil nato butchermen army". I was fed up of non informative propaganda, inspired by patrotic blerbs from all kinds od so called public persons.
For example I have heard through RFE for the first time about recent fightings in Kosovo, about Koha (Albanian daily, translator) beeing banned, about the murder of Bajram Keljmendi and his sons (he was a negotiator for A lbanian side in Rambouleu. transl.). Then, I have also heard that there are different interpretations about the purpose of nato attack (within nato). Greece, Portugal and Italija are more moderate... Then I have heard about splits within Italian and German govermnents, I have heard opposing opinions from Yugoslav and foreign experts about the strategy of the intervention, which 5 phases of the attack are we talking about, why infantry can/can't come. Also about diplomatic initiatives from Russia and Italy... I must admit that I could get this kind of info only through BETA info service which doesn't exist anymore, because it's war state censorship time. It was banned. Today Yugoslav media transmits (brings) only official statements from the state, selected and filtered agency news, mainly from our national news agency Tanjug.
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Beta agency and studio B have forwarded the news that death penalty could be reinstoled in Yugoslavia. Not that the state has only suggested this option, but they want to shorten the procedure, cancel privacy of mail and private property...
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NATO shouldn't have bombed FRY for the following reasons:
legal reasons: they didn't have the permission of UN security council (although Russian resolution against the attack was outvoted with 12:3, which is an indirect support, legaly invalid offcourse). One regional organizatios has dared to take over UN's role.
factical reasons: nato intervention has caused a counter effect - they wanted to protect civilians in Kosovo, and today they suffer more than ever. Similar effect had the uprising of KLA one year ago.
political reasons: if they don't accomplish total capitulation of Yugoslavia, meaning with ocupation and ocupational government, i don't see anything will change to better once they stop bombing. There won't be any Albanians in Kosovo, Milosevic will have a 100% support, the country will remain unstabile.
moral reasons: Usage of violence can't be justified. Just like secession of Slovenia, military intervention in Slovenia, Serbian uprising in Croatia, Croatian military intervention, bombing of Vukovar, Sarajevo, Mostar, Srebrenica, NATO bombing of Bosnia, repression in Kosovo, KLA terrorism, paramilitary Serbian offensives can't be justified as well. There is no conflict which can't be solved through (often long and difficult) dialogue.
Knowing that my life will never again be the same, that Serbia will fall to lower and lower spheres i have to mention one horrible and simbolic fact:
28th March 1989, in Pristina, Kosovo, 22 citizens of Serbia have died while protesting against suspension of the new constitution. That's when Yugoslav crisis had begun. In Belgrade, in front of SKC building a rock concert was held.
28th March 1999, Serbia is paying the final check for it's bloody politics of turf ocupation, hatred, conflict provocation, ethnical cleansing, vicious murders... for it's ten year long bloody dance Serbia has found partners in Slovenia, Croatia, Krajina, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Serbia and Kosovo...
At the end, the show is beeing closed with another rock concert. Even the same bands are playing. And what will remain from Serbia? It's destroyed, thorn to pieces, dieing from theft, inflation, sanctions....What will remain after this schouvinist drunken party?
Wake up, this is a logical end of an orgy over dead bodies.
I don't know what we'll do when all this ends, but I probbably won't do any public activist work. This is too hopeless for me, as there is no chance for anything constructive. At least not before things change. Not just the regime, not just the system. A whole generation has to cry over the graves of innocent victims and heal, in order to be able to build anything new with clear conscience. I don't dare to predict in which century that'll happen.
good bye.
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From: Branko, Belgrade
"I don't know what's it with you, you're calling from all sides and are telling us about the situation here, and what can be seen on the TV screens and other tools of misinformation. If you want real information, read the few following lines. The alarm howling here around 8pm is letting us know about air raids.
I am suggesting to my family to go down and look for a shelter. My mum says "No way, not until "Esmeralda" has finished (a Mexican soap-opera watched by all retired women and broader). Jasna says, "I won't go. I am hungry, and I have only just came home from work and want to see the soap too."
Igor says, "as pets are not allowed in the shelter, I won't even go down, and BTW the cat has shitted itself, so go and change the sand and throw the shit in the container, so the terrace won't stink."
I am going down, and in front of the building there are some 13-14 year old kids waiting for paratroopers with baseball sticks. No one cares for any sign of warning. Four 15-story high-rises in front of our building with their turned on lights seemed more magnificent than Las Vegas and what should I think rather than, brother American we are not made for these scaring tactics and some kind of explosions and us going down to the shelters and similar jokes.
It is Friday now, 30 minutes past midnight, which means 48 hours of declared war state and I give you my word that that me and my family where in the shelter for 00 hours 00 minutes and 00 seconds, We are playing remy with the neighbours, learning about windows 98, looking at silly things at TV (kosava was running rap music for the first few hours, and the others the movies "Neretva" and "Sutjeska". The Vuk Draskovic movie "Noz" (Knife) is taken off the program, for it's supposed to be too heavy and not suitable for the present time?! The movie theatres are open, but the films are domestic. The children are playing on the street carefree although they have not slept half the night.
The West is not able to understand that we are indirectly at war for the last ten years, and that we have watched everything we are going through now on TV from Croatia and Bosnia, and one can see that we have learned our lesson. We don't care about anything, which shows that life is not at a very high price here. It's not as if we do not give a dam if someone gives us hell, but everything has its charms.
As I have not slept for the last two days because of people phoning from all over the world, I'll try and go get some sleep because we have organised football on the parking place in front of the building, for the people here are not going to work, more or less. It's supposed to be a declared state of war.
Lots of love from the Jeremic family
If you need your parents to be called and bugged, just say so for my phone is not working anyway. Just kidding. I usually go to people whose numbers start with a 6 or 3, these are modern switchboards, which usually function regardless of the increasing number of users.
I will stop here, for I have another 14 messages to look at and answer, but not really have to send off. You like CNN better anyway. You can reach us but we are not allowed out especially at the time of bombings when the local population is experiencing a catharsis masturbating over the phone while one can hear explosions outside."
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from: Mirko S.Mandrino, Miroslav Samardzic, human rights and peace activists, Pancevo, Zrenjanin. (Vojvodina)
A call for cease of NATO attacks
For almost ten years now, peace activists in Vojvodina have been fighting with courage and determination against war, violence, militarism, hate, schouvinism, and for tolerance, understanding and human rights. During wars lead in former Yugoslavia we have bitterly opposed the bombing of Vukovar, Sarajevo and other cities in Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina. Since the escalation of Kosovo crisis we are putting our efforts info peaceful conflict resolution and respect for human rights of Albanians and all other inhabitants of Kosovo.
We energically oppose NATO air strikes against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. We can not believe that statesmen and politicians which decide on world's future aren't able to come up with another solution for political violence other than violence.
Bombs and missiles don't bring peace. They bring death, destruction and wish for retaliation.
We demand that bombing of FRY stops immediately, that opposing sides in Kosovo conflict immediately stop with all their activities, give up violence and negotiate about lastable and just solution of Serbian-Albanian conflict. We are happy because our friends, western pacifists, support our views. Today it is much more difficult than ever to persuade citizens of Serbia that cooperation, mutual respect, tolerance and compromise among people are possible NATO bombers have irrecoverably damaged all our pacifist activities.
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from: natasa, women in black, belgrade
...here are some thoughts, observation and feelings that are totally personal, of course...
So in Belgrade Women's centre has organised crisis centre, where during the day call women from all over country and give support and talk with women from NGO's...they are very consistent so they manage to get even some contact in Pristina...mobile phones don't work anymore because something on Kopaonik was hit...tonight they spoke with Igbalu who sounded OK and told that today one part of people succeed to flee from Kosovo, which is good balance considering all other news which state that last couple of days they killed all politicians, journalists, intellectuals... also paramilitaries have tactics door to door taking all male family members which then disappear, and if they don't want to go they g3et executed right away... in shops which are run by Serbs they ask for ID card if you want to buy something, in buses that go from Pristina only Serbs are allowed... today I succeed to talk to Nora in Ohrid, she said that her parents left Pristina but she doesn't know if they arrived to Macedonia... In Belgrade, Incest trauma centre organised shelter for children who are refugees se don't have anymore to be with... Everyone from women's peace and human rights organisations are trying to keep contacts with Pristina and they watch foreign channels news... also we try to find them on Internet, which for now works without problems... so, from the moment I arrived in country three days ago, seems like three weeks, this city became quiet, few people on streets and fear is in the air...OK further, I was on the rock concert yesterday which was organised by city government (opposition), there was around 1000 people, aside from nationalism )every possible serbian sign), vandalism (burning out american flag) and sexism ("we will fuck you Chelsie"), I think those are some new, different and unknown, at least to me, people which gather... I mean, I was with a friend and we both live in this city, we didn't meet anyone we know...today it was concert with Arkan who showed...so it seam that I have big luck in life, because yesterday and today I met Seselj in the centre of city, yesterday he was with his dear friend Tomo "grave-digger" and 1 gorilla, and today he had whole group of people around him...that light, self -sufficiency, pride and vainglory that rise from him are indescribable... I tried to see how I feel, first day I looked at his eyes with disgust, today I couldn't even look at him... all those bombings doesn't bother me so much because I see the problem of it in smaller terms than Kosovo problem... sirens are that what gets to me, especially because from start of this concerts at noon, sirens go on before the concert and last for a whole day, but nothing is happening, so they manipulate whenever they can and with whatever they have, in order to produce the effect - they are bombing us but we don't give the fuck... I have some anger which doesn't apply to this what is happening right now because I see it in short terms, but at the moment when all of this will finish, considering all this homogenisation, Milosevic became king for life, not just president... Kosovo will, with large amount of victims, get international protectorate or state, but Serbia will be in shits for next 30 years... that is what pisses me off and what I can not deal with... talking to other activists these days I realised that some of them are frustrated that whole their work, life project, whole peace orientation is falling apart... I don't feel like that yet, but this anger in relation to future days doesn't leave me... because this is country with 2-5% of people with high level of education and 30-40% of people who are illiterate... media brainwash lasted for 10 years, war was always in the air and it was never materialised, and if for most of the people stays just this relatively short bombing experience with shelters and military targets, it won't get to the bottom... when we speak about responsibility of citizens, first this is not citizens' state, because that term I use for aware population that is responsible first to itself and then to the everything else in their lives and to expect that because of wars, killings, hunger and poverty someone would stand up it is utopia... In some parts of Belgrade, there is no bread, which is also manipulation because there is enough production, but it is another way of producing panics, only thing which is really missing are cigarettes. Way to help aside of writing appeals and protest letters is to write and call people you are already in contact with... that kind of support is important and not totally faked because those are people you care for...you shooed write and call when you feel good, when you are positive...so it won't lead to paradox situation that happen when someone from Belgrade or Pristina needs to confort you on the phone...
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