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Kosovo's Latest Bloody Sunday Leaves Two Dead, Three Injured

   PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, June 24 (AFP) - Some 50 Serbs have been
killed and about 140 kidnapped by ethnic Albanians since the start
of the Kosovo peace force deployment on June 12, a Serbian Orthodox
priest said Thursday.
   The bodies of 10 Serbs were found in the western town of Pec on
Wednesday, said Father Sava, head of the Decani monastery near the
town.
   The monastery has been under the protection of Italian soldiers
from KFOR.
   The toll was based on information gathered by the church, the
priest said.
   The Albanians have been breaking in and looting flats belonging
to Serbs, while numerous rapes have been reported, he told reporters
in Pristina.
   "The Serbs are going through a real Golghota in Kosovo," Father
Sava said.
   He accused the Belgrade regime of being responsible for the
situation and criticised Serbian authorities for pressing Serb
refugees to return to Kosovo.
   Around 100 Serbs have found shelter in the patriarchate in Pec,
the seat of the Serbian Orthodox church, he said, adding that 400
others were still "awaiting evacuation" from the nearby village of
Vitomirica.
   Before the start of the withdrawal of Belgrade troops, there
were an estimated 10,000 Serbs living in the province.
   "Nowadays, the Serb villages are looted and burnt to the
ground," Sava said, adding that he had seen the village of
Gorazdevac "in flames" when coming to Pristina escorted by KFOR.
   He estimated that up to 100,000 Serbs have left the province in
the recent days, describing as "propaganda" Belgrade official media
reports of a return of Serb refugees to the region of Pec.
   "I believe they are sending them directly to death," he said.
   He indicated that only 21 Serbs, mostly elderly, were still
living in the small town of Decani, while only 20 remained in the
southwestern town of Djakovica, where they have found shelter in a
church while awaiting evacuation to safer areas.
   Pristina is nowadays "in anarchy, chaos and crime," he said,
adding that between 16 and 20 Serbs have been killed in recent days,
while 20,000 Serbs have left the town.
   In other parts of Kosovo, the priest said that all Serbs had
been expelled from the northern towns of Vucitrn and Podujevo.
   "Eighty percent of Serbs, some 4,000 people, have left" the
village of Obilic, near Pristina.
   In the southern town of Prizren, between 200 and 300 Serbs have
been hiding in the local Orthodox church, he said.
   "It is important that the Serb population remain and live in
Kosovo. Without its presence, it will become irrelevant whether
Kosovo is independent and how it will be called," Sava said.
   Father Sava and other church representatives will meet NATO
Secretary-General Javier Solana later Thursday and the Alliance
Supreme Commander, General Wesley Clark, who will be making their
first visit to Pristina.
   On Wednesday, the church officials met with British Foreign
Secretary Robin Cook and his European counterparts Hubert Vedrine
from France, Joschka Fischer from Germany and Lamberto Dini from
Italy.

KOSOVO, June 24 - The KLA rampage against Yugoslavian
civilians is continuing with the NATO KFOR troops basically
looking on and doing little else, the TiM sources within the Serb
Orthodox Christian church report from Kosovo.

Albanian terrorists have abducted at gun point at least 140
Yugoslavians in Kosovo during last 12 days, our sources say.
Most of the kidnapped Yugoslavians are men (36 to 40 in age) from
the territory of the Glogovac municipality.

All the citizens of the village of Slivovo escaped to the Gracanica
monastery on June 22 after the Kosovo Albanians attacked them.
In addition, about 300 Yugoslavian refugees "ethnically cleansed"
from Bosnia in 1995, who had been put up in the Velika Reka
camp near Pristina, fled after a large group of the KLA terrorists
broke into the settlement.

Bodies of six massacred Yugoslavians were found also on June 22
in the village Mazgit. These Yugoslavians were kidnapped June 16
in front of their houses in Obilic. Also the ANSA reported Albanian
retaliations in Kosovo continue. Four Yugoslavian shepherds were
killed yesterday in Novo Brdo and bodies of six Albanians killed by
KLA have been found.

At same time The Independent daily reported that, the "British and
French troops stood and watched as looters pillaged and burned a
Yugoslavian village yesterday, making a mockery of NATO's claim
that is proving security for both Serbs and Albanians".

A group of the armed Albanians killed three Yugoslavian civilians in
the village of Belo Polje near Pec on Sunday evening (June 20), the
Tanjug news agency reported. The killed were Stevan (60), Radomir
(51) and Filip (46) of the family Stosic, while Mirko Stosic was
badly injured.

The Yugoslavians in the village of Grece, 10 miles north of the
Kosovo capital Pristina, had apparently been warned on Saturday
night (June 19) by returning Albanians that they should leave
immediately. Early yesterday morning dozens of tractors and
trailers arrived in the tiny village, as the Albanians set about taking
anything they could find", The Independent's correspondent Andrew
Buncombe reported.

So far, at least 69,000 Yugoslavians have been cleansed from
Kosovo, according to the western relief agencies.
---
But who's counting, right?  After all, just as in Croatia and
Bosnia in 1995, when over 300,000 Yugoslavians were "ethnically
cleansed,"

Pristina, June 25, 1999 (www.inet.co.yu, Media centar) -
Since the withdrawal of the Yugoslav Army and police forces
from Kosovo and Metohia, about 350 Serbs have been killed, 180
abducted and disappeared and more than 80 000 fled in Pristina,
Lipljane, Kosovo Polje and surroundings, some 1500
apartments owned by the Serbs have been robbed and 300 taken
over in Pristina when the owners were thrown away to street,
beaten, injured and possibly killed, Serbs from Pristina and the
surroundings claim.

Some twenty Serbs left in Pristina were beaten and thrown away
from their apartments on Thursday night.

Between 500 and 600 Serbs form Pec who have been living mostly in
shelters during the last few days, suffering all kinds of threats and
humiliation, were evacuated and transferred to Montenegro across
Rozaje on Thursday.

KFOR is failing to accomplish its main task, the protection of the
citizens and the property in Kosovo and Metohia, calmly watching the
crimes of terrorists and, according to the testimonies of the fled Serbs,
often helping them. According to Radovan Urosevic, Pristina Media
Center director, Serbs are killed in the streets of the cities in Kosovo
and Metohja in broad daylight while KFOR watches and doesn't intervene.

Albanians, as Urosevic says, occupy whatever they can, the anarchy,
which seems to fit the KFOR troops as well, rules so the companies,
apartments and cars are been robbed.

Pristina Media Center will not work any more since it was taken over
by the KFOR troops due to the intention of the Albanian terrorists to
break into it.

   BELGRADE, June 28 (AFP) - The situation in Kosovo is
catastrophic, Serb opposition leader Vuk Draskovic said Tuesday, and
blamed the leading world powers for the problems.
   "It is false to say that KFOR does not have the strength to
prevent the expulsion of Serbs. If that were the case, it would be
its duty to call on our security forces to help it stop these
expulsions," the head of the Serb Renewal Movement (SPO) said,
according to the Beta agency.
   Draskovic said that "the situation in Kosovo is catastrophic and
could serve as the basis of charges brought against the most
powerful countries of the world."
   "We have had occasion to see KFOR soldiers calmly observe the
looting and murder of Serbs in Kosovo," he said, referring to
television news footage.
   "Thousands of bandits entered Kosovo after the withdrawal of the
Yugoslav army and are burning and looting Serb houses," he
fulminated.

KFOR representatives have announced that unknown persons in uniforms of the
separatist Kosovo Liberation Army killed a 65 year old Gypsy woman in Suva
Reka on Sept. 9.

KFOR has announced that one Serb woman died from injuries, after being
beaten up by KLA members in Prizren the night before. The KFOR spokesman
said that two Serb houses were burnt in Prizren the same night, but gave no
further details.

The Church and Peoples' Committee in Gnjilane announced on Sept. 9, that
threats against the Serbs, plundering and moving into their houses and apartments
by force, have continued in Gnjilane during the last 24 hours. The houses and
handicraft shops of five Serbs were looted and two flats were taken over by
force in Gnjilane on Sept. 8, BETA has learned through radio amateurs.

The Church and Peoples' Committee stressed that the Serbs in Gnjilane "are
irritated over the fact that KFOR has reduced the curfew by 80 minutes, thus
extending the time for looting and crimes by the Albanians."

The Committee also accused unnamed local officials who "have fled from
Kosovo," and who, by sending false information to the Serbian government, have

On March 27th President Clinton explained why we were
bombing Yugoslavia in the following words: "The time to
put out a fire is before it spreads and burns down the
neighborhood. By acting now, we're taking a strong step
toward a goal that has always been in our national interest
-- a peaceful, united, democratic Europe. For America
there is no greater calling than being a peacemaker. But
sometimes you have to fight in order to end the fighting."

So, now NATO is in control in Kosovo, and has been since
the Yugoslav army withdrew in mid-June. How are we
doing in creating a "peaceful, united, democratic" state
in Kosovo?

In three months over 90% of the Serbs, most of the Gypsies,
Jews, Turk, Egyptians and even about 100,000 ethnic
Albanians who lived in Kosovo are now refugees having fled
to the "undemocratic" Serbia because they feared they
would be killed in KFOR controlled Kosovo.

The world was told, many times, that President Clinton's
concern in Kosovo were humanitarian in nature. On May
6th, speaking to a group of refugees from Kosovo at a
Refugee Reception Center in Ingelheim, Germany, Clinton
said: "Let me begin by thanking Chancellor Schroeder, the
representatives of his government who are here and all the
people of Germany for their strong, strong leadership in
NATO, in defense of the people of Kosovo and for making
this place of refuge and shelter for people in need. "

Hmm-m. How many Serb, Montenegrin, Jewish, Goran,
Gypsy, Turk and Egyptian refugees from Kosovo,
something like 90% of the Kosovo minorities, are being
cared for in German camps today? I haven't found any signs
that ANY of the fleeing minoritiy Kosovars are fleeing
to Germany - or other nations. They all seem to be
fleeing to Slobadon Milosevic's un-democratic Serbis.

"It is very important that every freedom-loving person in
the entire world know the story of Kosovo." Clinton told the
refugees. "It is important that people not forget that what
is called ethnic cleansing is not some abstract idea; it is real
people with real families and real dreams being uprooted
from their homes, their schools, their work, their children,
their parents, their husbands and wives. NATO has acted in
Kosovo because we believe ethnic cleansing must be
opposed, resisted, reversed. We are doing all we can to
bring aid to the victims of the violence."

Freedom loving persons? How about the freedom of all of
Kosovo's minority groups? It's just amazing to me how
selective Clinton and his ilk are about the rights of
minorities. His concern for them seems to depend entirely
on the color of their skin. If they are black, we hear a whole
lot about minority rights. If they are Serbs, Jews, Gypsies,
Gorans, or Montenegrin in Kosovo - it's like neither the
minorities nor the rights even exist.

The Raska-Prizren Diocese of Serbian Orthodox Church has
documented the murder of 350 Serbs, by name, since
NATO and the KLA took control of Kosovo, between June and
August 1999. That would represent something like
.15% of the approximately 200,000 Serbs in Kosovo when
the bombing began. This figure does not include the
hundreds who have been kidnapped by the KLA and who have
never been heard from again. This only includes
those the Church has buried. About 90% of the Serbs
have fled the province, compared with about 30% of the
ethnic Albanians who were refugees between March 24th
and June 11th.

An equivalent figure, .15% of the 1,800,000 ethnic
Albanians were in Kosovo when the bombing began would be
2700. And, although we have been told that many thousands
were killed by the Serbs - up to 100,000 during the
bombing, nothing like that many bodies have been discovered.
The actual figures mentioned by forensic experts who
were rushed to Kosovo the document the "Serb killings" are
only a few hundred. So far proof that thousands of
ethnic Albanians were killed by Serbs simply has not
materialized. Since NATO occupation, not only have most of
the minorities fled the KLA-NATO occupation, but KLA
opposition among ethnic Albanians claim up to 150,000
ethnic Albanians who oppose the KLA also have fled
because their lives are in danger from the KLA terrorists.

According to Fred Abrahams of the Human Rights Watch,
in 1998 1200 people died in Kosovo. Of that number
140 were Serbs. That would indicate, if only 10% of
the population was Serb, and 90% were Albanian, which were
the figures given consistently by the United Nations,
that a higher percentage of Serbs were killed in 1998 than
Albanians. Others put the number of Serbs killed at 300 -
most of them police and other government officials. The
1200 people killed in Kosovo in 1998, which supposedly was
so horrendous that America bombed Yugoslavia for
79 days to solve the problem, compares as follows with the
numbers of people killed in other ethnic conflicts around
the world: Sudan - 2 million, Tibet - 1 million in the last
7 years, Rwanda - 500,000, Chechnya - 80,000, Turkey -
31,000, Ethiopia - 15,000, KOSOVO - 2,000 (source NBC News)
 The Human Rights Watch claims the dead in
Kosovo was only 1200. NBC used a nice round figure of 2,000.
We do not yet have the number of people killed in
East Timor in the last couple of weeks while the United
Nations sat on its hands waiting for permission from the
invaders, Clinton's friends in Indonesia, to "intervene."

Increasingly around the world this situation is being
discussed. ` Ghana's Foreign Minister, James VictorGbeho said
yesterday at the United Nations: `We have seen in the past
few months the kind of resources that the world has been
willing and able to mobilize in the Balkans at short notice,''
Ghana's foreign minister, James Victor Gbeho, said
Tuesday. ``We do not see the same response to the tragedies
of Africa,'' he said.

Clinton responded to that rising concern of US hypocrisy
in "humanitarian" matters saying, ""I know that some are
troubled that the United States and others cannot respond
to every humanitarian catastrophe in the world," Clinton
said. "We cannot do everything everywhere. But simply
because we have different interests in different parts of the
world does not mean we can be indifferent to the destruction
of innocents in any part of the world." Clinton defended
NATO's decision to begin an air war against Serbia, saying
that it followed a consensus in the Security Council that
Serbian atrocities against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians were
unacceptable, the New York Times observes in today's
paper.

What is troubling is the willingness to literally make up
"atrocities" supposedly committed by Serbs in Kosovo, which
have since been proven false, to justify spending billions
of dollars to bomb Yugoslavia for 79 days, , while the
Clinton administration simply ignored really the death of
literally millions of non-whites around the world.

Why? Has the situation in Europe now been stabilized with
the withdrawal of an intact Yugoslav army from Kosovo
and the occupation by KFOR and its obvious ally, the KLA?
Don't count on it. Sources inside Yugoslavia are
predicting the KLA will now turn its weapons against KFOR
forces since all minorities have been effectively
cleansed..

What seems to be occurring is an increasingly jaundiced
look at the so-called "Western Democracy" which NATO
intends to force on the Balkans. It is becoming increasingly
clear that the so-called "democratic forces" in Serbia are
losing, not gaining ground against Milosevic. Efforts to bomb
out, freeze out and destroy civilian electrical and
industrial plants have not driven the Serbs into the arms of
NATO. Anti-Milosevic forces which were able to bring 2
million Serbs into the streets of Belgrade two years ago
are able to muster only a few thousand protesters today. The
protesters are not blocked by Serb police. The public is
simply not supporting the confused and splintered parties
who are promised money from America for their opposition
to Milosevic. Their anti-Milosevic campaigns are
increasingly viewed in Serbia as part of NATO's aggression.

All of this could very well herald the start of a much wider
war than we've seen so far. If the KLA turns its weapons
on KFOR forces, it is not clear what the NATO response would
be. At least one Yugoslav source tells me that it
would only take a "few days" for the KLA to totally dismantle
the KFOR forces based on the weapons it has kept.
Then what would happen? Would Clinton send in more troops?
Would they ask for the Yugoslav troops to come
back in? Would Milosevic just stand back and wait until
the KLA and KFOR killed each other off? From what I'm
hearing, this could begin as early as this fall. Stay
tuned. Contrary to a lot of Western wishful thinking, the Yugoslav
army is still intact, and still well-trained and knowledgeable.
It wouldn't be the first time in history that the Serbs
waited until their enemies weakened each other, and then
moved in to regain their land.

To comment:   mmostert@originalsources.com

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

Dear Sirs,

I am taking this opportunity to express the protest in the name of the
Serbian community in Kosovo because of the photo which has been put on
your main Web Page.
http://www.usip.org/

The photo shows one US military doctor who delivers a little plastic bag
with medicines to a Serb doctor in Strpce donated by the by the
University Clinical Center in Pristina, Kosovo,
as a gesture of goodwill from ethnic Albanians to ethnic Serbs.

In our opinion this photo creates entirely wrong impression of the
situation in Kosovo now, especially in Pristina Hospital. The same photo
can be seen on the official USIA Web Site.

http://www.usia.gov/regional/eur/balkans/kosovo/homepage.htm

In Pristina hospital there are no more Serb doctors and patients because
all doctors and medical personnel were driven away by the armed KLA
gunmen in June, in the very presence of KFOR soldiers. Proffesor Andrija
Tomanovic, a respected Serb surgeon who operated hundreds of Albanians
in the hospital, was brutally beaten and was abducted by armed
Albanians. Some inofficial sources say that he was killed in one of
Albanian illegal detention centers run by KLA. Since the arrival of KFOR
more than 400 Serbs have been abducted, 300 killed by the Albanian
extremists. More than 70 Orthodox Christian churches were destroyed or
seriously damaged by the Albanians.

Kosovo Serbs now cannot have any medical assistence in Pristina hospital
as well as in majority of other Albanian dominated hospitals in the
province. Serb students and proffessors are barred from entering the
University hospital, as well as all other University facilities in
Pristina. The public use of Serb leanguage is not allowed as well as
nowhere else in Pristina. All Serb inscriptions which stood together
with inscriptions in Albanian were torn down as almost everywhere in
Kosovo.

Two English millitary priests, Fr. Kingsley Joyce and Fr. Brian Walton,
testified themselves that a Serb patient who was wounded by Albanians
and trasferred by KFOR to Pristina Hospital was refused water and food
by Albanian medical personnel. At the end he had to be evacuated from
the Hospital and soon died because of the lack of proper medical
treatment in the first days. This incident  was reported to Dr Kouchner
and he ordered investigation. So far we have not heard that anyone lost
his job because of this serious human right abuse.

Unfortunately any evenhanded visitor to Kosovo can learn that Pristina
Hospital is a classical example of ethnic discrimination and human
rights abuse, completely opposite to all moral rules of medical
profession. In the worst days of Mr. Milosevic repression and terror
Pristina hospital was never without Albanian doctors and patients. Now
in the time of peace and 50.000 KFOR troops it is reserved for one
ethnic group only.

Serbs in Kosovo who need medical treatment are forced to travel out of
Kosovo. The only exception still is the hospital in Mitrovica. In all
other areas only local clinics operate but cannot offer anythinig but
basic first aid.

A plastic bag of medicines allegedly donated by Albanian doctors from
Pristina to a Serb clinic in Strpce can only be understood as a cynical
attempt to cover up serious human right abuses performed by those same
Albanian doctors who work in Pristina hospital.

I sincerely try to believe that the USIP does not intentionally support
creating of false picture on what is going on in Kosovo where the
repression of one criminal regime was replaced by another. This tome the
human rights abuses happen in the very presence of KFOR troops and
UNMIK.

Sincerely
Fr. Sava

--
Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Raska and Prizren
Gracanica Monastery, Pristina,
Kosovo and Metohija

M. Laketic, Politika

Pristina, September 21 - Albanians committed unheard crime
two days ago in Kosovska Kamenica. They slaughtered an
old woman Stanica Arsic (69) who lay immobile in her bed at
home. After that they set up fire in the house. Tomislav Arsic,
the son of the old woman, found her headless body totally
carbonated.

Houses of her sons, Obrad, Predrag and Tomislav, situated in
northern part of Kamenica are surrounded by Albanian homes.
Obrad and Predrag left with their families into central part of Serbia
after the Albanians expelled them from their houses, while
Tomislav found a place to hide in the center of the town, close to
the KFOR. He didn't want to leave his ill mother who refused to
leave the house. Tomislav used to be with his mother every day,
but two days ago he had to go to the center of the town where he
temporarily settled because of threats of the Albanians. When he
saw the site of fire, he couldn't believe that the neighbors could go
against immobile woman with knives in their hands. KFOR soldiers
and UN Civil Mission are investigating the case. The old woman
was buried yesterday on local cemetery, said local priest.

The persecution of Serbs in Pristina is continued. Yesterday the flat
of Dragica Jorgic in Pristina was robbed. One Albanian family
moved in shortly after that. Jovan Mitric from Pristina was
threatened by the Albanians to leave his house, but he reported it
to the KFOR. Yesterday, the Albanians stoned the house of Nikola
Plecas in Pristina. They broke all windows and cut off electricity and
telephone cables.

Yesterday at around 2.00 p.m. a group of 200 Gypsies and
Egyptians left towards Skoplje. They were escorted by KFOR and
humanitarian organizations. People are walking or travelling by

Gnjilane, Oct 23 (Tanjug) - Albanian terrorists have burnt and
robbed 400 Roma houses in Gnjilane in the last four months,
Roma activist Tefik Agusi said to the KFor representatives at
the yesterday's meeting, announcement of the Church and national
council of Gnjilane said on Sunday.

Agusi said that a genocide over Gnjilane Roma was committed
stressing that he possesses data on numerous atrocities and
crimes of Albanian terrorists.

Before the KFor's arrival, 6000 Roma lived in Gnjilane and now
there are some 200 of them left, Agusi said.

Church and national council of Gnjilane has also announced that an
Albanian family moved yesterday to a broken and robbed
apartment of Milorad Cvetanovic, same as in the apartment of
Dragojlub Mitanovic where a family from the Gnjilane village of
Capar moved in.

A bomb was dropped on a house in Vojvode Stepe St. on Thursday
night while the owner Dobrivoje Metodiejvic was in. His son Miroslav
was kidnapped back in June and the latest assault is only one of
many committed against the family.

High school principles, teachers and 90 parents signed an petition
for the KFor's chief administrator of the area Richard Hislip
demanding transportation and full protection for the students and
employees in Gornji Kusac to be provided on the way from school
to their homes.

Church and national council of Gnjilane said that 70 years-old
pensioner Jovan Stosic has left his house in Gnjilane since Albanian
terrorists burnt a house of his ant, separated from his with a single
wall. Gordana Djodjevic, of same age as Stosic, was molested for
the fifth time by Albanians who were forcing her to leave her flat in
Kneza Lazara St.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia, Mar 2, 2000 -- (Reuters) A Russian
soldier serving with the KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo died of his
wounds after being shot in an ethnic Albanian town, the French army said
on Thursday.
"The Russian soldier died of internal bleeding overnight," said Major
Philippe Maurin, a spokesman for the French KFOR forces stationed in the
north of the turbulent province.
The Russian soldier, whose name was withheld pending notification of his
family, was shot on Tuesday in the overwhelmingly Albanian town of
Srbica.
The town is about 20 km (12 miles) south of Kosovska Mitrovica, the
mining city which has become the frontline of continuing ethnic tension
between Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and the dwindling Serb minority.
French officials said the incident was under investigation and have
declined to comment on a motive for the shooting.
The soldier, a driver, was hit once in the chest in broad daylight in
the center of Srbica, where he had taken his commanding officer for a
meeting with local officials.
Srbica is just north of the area of Kosovo usually patrolled by Russian
KFOR troops, who are distrusted and feared by ethnic Albanians who see
the Russians as natural allies of their fellow Orthodox co-religionists,
the Serbs.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia,
Mar 6, 2000 -- (Reuters) A suspect in the killing of a Russian
peacekeeping soldier in Kosovo escaped from prison just two days after
he was arrested, a spokesman for the KFOR peacekeeping force said on
Sunday.
"The 15-year-old who was arrested for the killing of the Russian soldier
escaped," said Major Kristian Kahrs, a spokesman for the peacekeeping
force. He said he had no further details, including the suspect's name
or from which prison he escaped and how he got out. Private Igor
Korshunov, 31, was shot once in the chest in broad daylight by a gunman
in the overwhelmingly Albanian town of Srbica, 40 km (25 miles)
northwest of Pristina, on Tuesday.
French gendarmes in the French-controlled northern zone of Kosovo have
been investigating the incident but have not so far revealed the reason
for the shooting.
Korshunov is the third Russian soldier shot on peacekeeping duties in
Kosovo but the first to die. Russians have not been welcome in ethnic
Albanian areas of the predominantly Albanian province because of their
perceived sympathies for Orthodox co-religionist Serbs.

                       Vitina, January 10th 2000. (Beta) - About 800 Serbs remain
                       in Vitina, one of the four towns in Kosovo pomoravlje region,
                        since the last year's withdrawal of the Yugoslav army units
                        and police, stated Mitar Stanojevic, one of the remaining
                                        Serbs in that town.

                         About 3.000 Serbs lived in that Kosovo town before the
                        arrival of the International military forces, and those who
                          remain in the town today "are living in a ghetto", said
                        Stanojevic, the principal of the elementary school in Vitina.

                       "The Serbs in Vitina live under constant strain", Stanojevic
                       stresses, adding that they are not able to leave their houses,
                             and when they try to, they are often harassed.

                      Stanojevic reminds that "the Serbs suffered a lot" in Vitina and
                       the surroundings. Since the arrival of multinational forces in
                      Kosovo "more than 20 Serbs were killed and kidnapped" in the
                         town and in the whole district. In November 10th, while
                        working in my field with a friend, I avoided execution when
                          we were attacked by the Albanians", Stanojevic said.

                        He added that none of the Serbs, having learned from his
                       experience, have gone to fields in the surroundings of Vitina
                      since November. The fields are untilled and unsowed. Now, in
                       wintertime, people are without firewood, because they could
                       not go to the woods, and there is no place where they can buy
                        them. The Albanians do not want or are not allowed to sell
                                        them to the Serbs.

Moscow, February 16th (Tanjug) - Russia's First Deputy Foreign
Minister Alexander Avdeyev said Wednesday that the latest
developments in Kosovska Mitrovica showed that the world
community was incapable of dealing with ethnic Albanian bandits
in Kosovo and Metohija.

Avdeyev told Russia's Itar-Tass news agency that the ethnic
Albanian terrorist organization calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) had not been disarmed nor had criminal structures been
dealt with. Moreover, ethnic Albanian separatists have been given a
free hand in carrying out their plans of detaching Kosovo-Metohija
from Yugoslavia, he said.

He said that ethnic Albanian bandits, separatists and criminals still
controlled the province. He said that they were so impudent that
they did not hesitate to open fire on the UN peacekeeping force
KFOR, saying that the only thing that could be done at this point
was to offer sympathies to France's KFOR troops that had been
the target of ethnic Albanian terrorist attacks.

Avdeyev also said that the KFOR command must draw certain
conclusions from the developments and decisively deal with all
attempts to destabilize the situation in Kosovo-Metohija through

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Feb 28 (AFP) -
Rising tension on Kosovo's eastern boundary with Serbia, blamed by
Belgrade on ethnic Albanian "terrorists," is raising fears among KFOR
peacekeepers of a new conflict which they could be dragged into.
Violence flared again Saturday when a Serbian police officer was killed
and three injured near the town of Bujanovac in an area of southeast
Serbia populated by around 75,000 ethnic Albanians.
One ethnic Albanian also died in the attack, according to the official
Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, which identified the man as a member of the
Kosovo Protection Corps, the KFOR-sponsored civilian successor of the
rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
The killing was the latest in a spate of incidents in the last four
months in the area known to Kosovo Albanians as 'East Kosovo.' Fears are
mounting of an open conflict.
KFOR officials admit that tension has increased with the build-up of
Serbian police in the area and an increase in the flow of local
Albanians into Kosovo in recent weeks.
The NATO-led peacekeepers offically deny any knowlegde of organised
ethnic Albanian fighters crossing the border and attacking Serb security
forces around the Presevo valley, the heartland of 'East Kosovo.'
But a KFOR intelligence officer, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP
of the appearance of a new "East Kosovo Liberation Army."
He said US troops had met members of the organisation "in uniforms
bearing insignia resembling those of the KLA but with the letters PMB
added -- for the towns of Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac."
Fighters of the organisation "want to create a sort of Greater Kosovo
encompassing this zone of southern Serbia," the officer said.
The group's tactics would include cross-border "harassment operations"
launched from the Yugoslav province's eastern sector, which is under the
control of US forces.
The group is a source of "great concern" to the US command, he added.
"This could become a more troubled area in the spring," KFOR's
commander, General Klaus Reinhardt of Germany, told reporters last week.
Under the UN resolution which ended NATO's 78-day air war against
Yugoslavia last year, KFOR's mandate concerns security issues only in
the province, wrested from Belgrade following widespread oppression of
ethnic Albanians.
However, a US army spokesman said KFOR troops would consider intervening
if an "atrocity" were committed across the five-kilometre (three-mile)
demilitarised zone on the Serb side.
"The only thing which would bring KFOR into Serbia proper would be
atrocities" said Lieutenant Scott Olsen at the US base of Camp Montieth
in the southeast.
Following the recent rise in tension, US forces asked KFOR command
Saturday for a specific description of what constituted an atrocity and
was still awaiting an answer, he said.
He said US troops had moved their checkpoints right up to the border
following the murder of three Serb men on the road to the border last
month.
Until then they had kept a kilometre (0.6 mile) from the frontier to
avoid US troops straying into Serb territory and provoking incidents, he
said.
However, "certain extremists took advantage of the border zone," and the
triple slaying near the village of Pasjane, just southeast of Gjnilane,
"brought the situation to a head," Olson said.
"Things are starting to warm up," he said.
The ethnic Albanian mayor of Presevo, Riza Halimi, recently told AFP
that Kosovo Albanians were making "incursions" into the region.
Last month, witnesses said 10 men in KLA uniforms were present at the
funeral on the Serbian side of two Albanian brothers killed in an attack
which relatives blamed on Serbian police.
Since last June, some 25,000 Albanians have fled the region to avoid
Serb reprisals, the Belgrade branch of Helsinki Human Rights Committee
said in its 1999 report.
To the south, Macedonia is also gearing up for a refugee influx, the
daily Dnevnik quoted Social Security Minister Bedredin Ibrahimi as
saying Friday.
French ambassador to Skopje Jean-Francois Terral told AFP western states
were observing developments with concern following reports that
unidentified extremists were tring to spark clashes to force KFOR
intervention.

A year ago the Clinton administration was beating the
war drums in the Balkans. Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright seemed more interested in bombing Serbia than
encouraging a peaceful settlement.

And bomb the United States did, for 78 days. The
result, evidenced by the call for more U.S. troops for
Kosovo, is a policy failure veering toward disaster.

NATO's attack was supposed to bring peace to this
territory of Yugoslavia. But immediately after
Washington's "triumph" came the mass flight of ethnic
Serbs.

Those who did not run, including Croats, Gypsies, Jews
and even non-Albanian Muslims, have been bombed, shot,
kidnapped, beaten and robbed. Scores of orthodox
churches, monasteries and other religious sites have
been despoiled.

Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, head of the NATO "peacekeeping"
force (KFOR), admits that Kosovo remains too dangerous
for the 150,000 to 250,000 refugees to return. Reports
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe: "House burnings, blockades restricting freedom
of movement, discriminatory treatment in schools,
hospitals, humanitarian aid distribution and other
public services based on ethnic background, and forced
evictions from housing recall some of the worst
practices of Kosovo's recent past."

The situation deteriorates daily, especially in the
mixed city of Kosovska Mitrovica. Although leading
Albanians formally disavow the violence, most do
nothing to stop it. Those who speak out on behalf of
tolerance are themselves threatened; local officials
allied with moderate Ibrahim Rugova have been
murdered.

The Kosovo Liberation Army has disarmed in name only,
formally transmuting into the Kosovo Protection Corps.
Armed thugs rule the night and organized crime is
spreading.

The police and courts don't function and no one is
safe. Reports Steven Erlanger of the New York Times:
"robberies, apartment thefts, extortion and even
murders take place with near impunity."

Human rights abuses by the Serbs were bad enough. Now
the same practices are being carried out under the
West's authority. NSC adviser Sandy Berger's response:
to threaten ethnic Albanians with the loss of the
"support of the international community."

But more than a few Kosovars don't care what the
"international community" thinks. A United Nations bus
was hit by an anti-tank rocket. Albanian snipers in
Mitrovica have injured French peacekeepers. Halit
Barani, head of the Human Rights Council, says the
French are "the same as the Serb soldiers."

American and German troops have also been deployed to
Mitrovica. When U.S. forces searched apartments for
weapons, breaking down doors along the way, they were
met with a hail of stones, bottles and ice by Serbian
crowds. German soldiers were also attacked.

Thus, the Kosovo civil war rages on, with only a
temporary lull in the worst violence. The United
States must decide whether it is prepared to maintain
its occupation for years, if not forever, or to do
what it should have done last year leave the Balkans
to the Europeans.

NATO's decision to intervene looks ever worse as
hindsight lengthens. Kosovo never represented a
special humanitarian crisis: More people had died in a
score of conflicts around the world. The only
difference was that none of the other victims were
white Europeans.

Nevertheless, NATO launched what by any criteria was a
war of aggression. Instead of saving lives, Washington
sacrificed them.

As many Serb civilians died under NATO bombs as ethnic
Albanians had died during the preceding year. And it
was allied bombing the sparked the mass expulsions
from Kosovo.

Washington did eliminate Serb authority in the
province. But having allied itself with the KLA in
war, the West now upholds formal Serbian rule,
refusing to allow either independence or union with
Albania. Only the Clinton administration could concoct
such an incoherent policy.

As a result, NATO faces a choice between policy
failure and policy disaster, as my Cato Institute
colleague Gary Dempsey puts it.

If the alliance acknowledges reality and gives up on
its objective of preserving a multi-ethnic Kosovo
under Serb suzerainty, it will have failed. If NATO
attempts to achieve its objectives and stave off
failure, the consequences will be far worse.

In the latter case, the ethnic Albanian majority is
likely to turn on allied forces. The possibilities
range from overt hostility and sporadic sniping to a
serious guerrilla campaign against the NATO occupiers.
Imagine explaining to American audiences that their
sons and husbands are dying to defend Serb sovereignty
over Kosovo.

Allied policy has failed. Washington's objective today
should be to forestall disaster. The United States
should get out. Now.

The Balkans is in Europe, not North America. The
Europeans are about to take over command of KFOR and
claim to be serious about creating an independent
military capability. Leave them responsibility for
Kosovo.

A year ago the administration was set on making war.
Now it should make peace. Instead of augmenting U.S.
forces in Kosovo, Washington should tell the Europeans
that U.S. forces are coming home. Then it should bring
them home.

   MOSCOW, March 17 (AFP) - The failure of the NATO-led peace force
to protect non-Albanians in Kosovo has led to genocide and ethnic
cleansing of catastrophic proportions, Russia said Friday.
   Russia's defence and foreign ministers lambasted KFOR for the
situation in the region, warning that the West would have to
shoulder the blame if Kosovo split from Yugoslavia.
   "The task of the peacekeeping force, that is to say ensuring
security in the region and the return of refugees, is not being
met," Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev told a session of the State
Duma lower house of parliament.
   "Instead, we have a genocide and ethnic cleansing of the
non-Albanian population which have reached the level of a
humanitarian catastrophe," he said.
   The Russian minister accused KFOR, commanded by German General
Klaus Reinhardt, of 20 separate breaches of a UN Security Council
resolution on the province.
   The peacekeepers had effectively armed Muslim Kosovars by
incorporating them into a defence force for the province, he
charged.
   "The Russian military command has contingency plans should the
situation deteriorate," said Sergeyev without elaborating.
   Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov meanwhile told deputies that Moscow
had no intention yet of pulling its 3,600 soldiers out of the
37,200-strong force, which comprises troops from 36 nations.
   "If the situation deteriorates, if the separatists succeed in
splitting Kosovo from Yugoslavia, then Russia will not share the
blame with the West," Ivanov said.
   Moscow has repeatedly threatened to review its participation in
the peacekeeping operation if Yugoslavia's territorial integrity is
not respected.
   Lawmakers approved a fresh motion heavily criticising the NATO
air campaign against Yugoslavia a year ago which preceded the
deployment of KFOR troops.
   Moscow broke off relations with the Atlantic alliance over the
attacks, only moving to slowly restore relations on Wednesday.

Gnjilane, March 18th - Normal life and movement of Serbs
from the multi-ethnic village of Cernica is constantly being
threatened by the terrorists from the Albanian part of this
village, who are systematically stoning Serb automobiles on
every going to and out of this village, reported today the
radio-amateurs from Kosovo-Metohija.

This is why there are only a few properly functioning vehicles
left in the Serbian part of the village, with which the Serbs
are bringing food and other supplies, and thus, Serbs are
now forced to seek KFOR escort which, according to the
statement, does not wish to intervene against the Albanians
who are attacking the Serbs.

Cernica has before also been the most frequent target of Albanian extremists who wish
to expel the remaining Serbs from the village, it was said in the statement, and added
that regardless of their torment, the majority of Cernica Serbs decided not to leave their
homes.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/382058.asp

ANALYSIS By David Binder MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR

WASHINGTON, March 19 - At the beginning of this new century we may ask what
problems we inherited, unresolved, from the last century. One of those
problems is the Balkans. No other region caused such grief to so many
foreign empires in the 20th century.

THE BALKANS have long tempted foreign interventions and the result is
generally the same: grinding destruction, bloodshed and little long-term
effects on the region's tangled ethnic, religious and territorial disputes.
It's early days yet in Kosovo - just one year ago, NATO began bombing
Yugoslavia with the goal of forcing the Serbs to their knees. Yet it would
be difficult to argue that the unprecedented use of NATO power against
Belgrade altered things for long. At best, the war halted one side's abuses
and opened the door to the other's transgressions.

This is nothing new in the Balkans. Interventions past - whether by Ottoman
Turks, Germans, Russians, Italians or others - have had the opposite effect
 - retarding development of normal relations between
the indigenous peoples of the Balkan peninsula and discouraged their own
political evolution beyond the stage of satrapies or petty despotism.
In 1991, Yugoslavia had only been free of German and Italian domination for
scarcely 40 years. When the communist state of Josip Broz Tito plunged into
dissolution and fierce ethnic fighting, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger said: "I am personally of the view that the only thing
that may bring it to an end is when all of the participants are exhausted."
This view was derided as cold-blooded, and the Croatian, Bosnian and Kosovo
wars were horribly savage. But the way things turned out, Eagleburger's
prescription might well have saved lives, property and untold future years
of instability in the region.

'THE EVIL SERB'
The error of the approach taken by the United States and its European allies
to the problem of Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s lies in their belief that
they could succeed where others failed. Then they chose sides narrowly in
what inevitably became a series of civil wars: Here uniformly innocent
victims; there uniformly genocidal aggressors. Here ethnic cleansers, there
the ethnically cleansed. At the root lies a simplistic dogma that blames one
nation, the Serbs, as the origin of evil in the Balkans.

Portraying the Serbs as such is an unwritten doctrine adopted by the State
Department at the beginning of the Yugoslav conflicts and continued today, a
doctrine endorsed and spread by the mainstream media, human rights groups
and even some religious communities. It is a doctrine also embraced by Dr.
Bernard Kouchner, the head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo. Kouchner declared
unabashedly before Albanians in Gnjilane last December that "Kosovo does not
belong to anyone except the Kosovars," (meaning ethnic Albanians. "I feel
very close to the Albanian people," he said, adding later, "I love all
peoples but some more than others and that is the case with you."

NO ONE IS BLAMELESS
Yet the indisputable reality of the Balkans is that none of its peoples has
been an innocent victim of vicious neighbors. Except possibly the Roma. All
were complicit at one time or another in killing, rape, plunder and burning.
That was true in the first and second Balkan war, true in both World Wars
and true in all of the Yugoslav civil wars of the 1990s.

Yes, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo in the spring of
1999. Yet, there is a curiosity documented by the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) from the 78-day bombing campaign in terms
of "cleansing" - the OSCE found that 863,000 Albanians left Kosovo, or 46
percent of the total. But it also reported that 100,000 Serbs and
Montenegrins fled Kosovo in the same period, or about 60 percent of the
total. That is, to repeat, proportionately more Serbs were displaced during
the bombing, and they did not return to Kosovo.

IMPERIAL OVERREACH
A year ago after a difficult start, the American-inspired Kosovo Diplomatic
Observer Mission of more than 1,000 was beginning to get traction,
separating the Serbian military and police forces from the Kosovo Liberation
Army and enabling thousands of displaced Albanians to return to their homes.
The final report to OSCE by a German general who was part of KDOM confirms
this.

But in its hubris, the Clinton Administration sought more dramatic results -
amounting to abject submission of the Serbs to NATO rule. This was the
message of the failed "peace conference" in the French town of Rambouillet,
the collapse of which led directly to war. Had the observer mission been
allowed to continue, Kosovo would have been a much gentler, happier place
today. Possibly even the seemingly endless cycle of ethnic revenge could
have been halted.

There are few easy explanations in the Balkans. Even so, the State
Department is hard pressed to describe how it could list the Kosovo
Liberation Army among the world's terrorist organizations in 1997, denounce
it as a "terrorist group" in February 1998, then turn around 180 degrees
overnight and embrace it as a formation of freedom fighters who would
ultimately be installed by NATO as a legitimate political force in the
summer of 1999.

Through the war, some correspondents and policymakers continued to ask these
questions. They also pointed to disclosures of links between the KLA and
Albanian heroin trafficking rings in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and other
European countries, and the connection of the KLA leader Hashim Thaci to
assassinations of Albanian rivals.

Even without light being shed on those behind-the-scene developments, a
strong case can be made that $11 billion military campaign against the Serbs
and for the Albanians was largely a failure.

1. We know it greatly accelerated the flight of Albanians from
Kosovo.
2. It did not substantially hurt the Serb military.
3. It did billions in pointless damage to civilian infrastructure
throughout Serbia and Kosovo province (for which NATO countries will end up
paying some of the repairs).
4. It left Slobodan Milosevic, the named and targeted enemy, firmly in
power.
5. It sucked the United States and NATO into an open-ended commitment with
no exit strategy.

Military and political planners themselves acknowledged that the strategy
was deeply flawed, that they were shocked when the Serbs did not capitulate
after three days of bombs.

In the wake of the Cold War, some view the United States as the last great
imperial power. The Balkan adventure of the United States in the last decade
shows that if it is imperialism then it is essentially haphazard and
makeshift in execution.

From the start, Kosovo was not so much a military problem as a policing
problem - as it was under the Serbs. Kosovo has been an indigestible stone
in the stomach of the Balkans for at least the last hundred years. It
promises to be just as indigestible for the international community for
decades longer. Thanks in considerable part to feckless interventions by a
succession of imperial powers, its previous multiethnic character has been
all but eradicated. But that does not make Kosovo any more compatible to its
surroundings. On the contrary, an ethnically cleansed Albanian Kosovo
threatens to destabilize southeastern Serbia, where there is an ethnic
Albanian minority of 70,000, and destabilize Albania itself and Macedonia by
way of its ambition to serve as the motor of a Greater Albania. In short,
Kosovo remains a time bomb. And like it or not the Clinton administration is
now presiding over the evolution of yet another mono-ethnic state - an
Albanian Kosovo. Put it another way, the U.S. and NATO, though it was the
opposite of their declared intentions, have succeeded in cleansing Kosovo of
one ethnic group in favor of the other.

David Binder has covered the Balkans for The New York Times since 1964.

By Amra Kevic

  BELGRADE, March 20 (Reuters) - The U.N. special human rights investigator for
former Yugoslavia said on Monday a lack of organised civilian power
structures in Kosovo had turned it into ``a paradise for different mafias.''

``There is chaos in Kosovo,'' Jiri Dienstbier said at the end of a 10-day
tour of Yugoslavia in which he focused on problems in and near the province,
a de facto international protectorate since NATO-led peacekeepers (KFOR)
deployed there last June.

``There are very different private structures of power...It is a paradise for
different mafias which not only control certain regions and villages, they
even fight each other.''

Tensions have been rising in Kosovo ahead of the first anniversary of NATO
air strikes against Yugoslavia undertaken to halt its repression of the
province's majority ethnic Albanians.

KFOR took military control and the United Nations began setting up a civilian
administration in the bitterly polarised province last June after a 78-day
NATO bombing campaign forced Serbian security forces to withdraw.

But Dienstbier, who criticised the bombing from the start, said the
international community had been slow to take control.

``I see that what is happening in Kosovo now is the result of a mistake of
policy of the international community... bombing Yugoslavia without knowing
what will be next,'' the former Czech foreign minister said.

``Meanwhile, Kosovo Liberation Army weapons came and they took over control
and are now cleansing non-Albanians.''

KLA CONTROL HARD TO BREAK, DIENSTBIER SAYS

The KLA has since been officially disbanded, but according to Dienstbier its
power structures retain a firm grip on the province which would now be hard
to break.

Dienstbier quoted a New York-based international anti-narcotics organisation
as saying in a report that 40 percent of Europe's heroin trade was now going
via Kosovo.

He also appealed for the release of Kosovo Albanian humanitarian worker and
activist Flora Brovina, jailed for 12 years for ``anti-state'' activities,
saying it was a clear case of misjustice and that her release would help
Serbs held in Kosovo.

``Mrs Brovina belongs to those ethnic Albanians who refused ethnic cleansing
and who support cooperation and a multi-ethnic society in Kosovo,'' he said.

The U.N. Human Rights investigator also visited the volatile Presevo valley
in southeastern Serbia, where tensions have risen following armed incidents
between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.

He said the Albanian majority there did not want guerrillas from Kosovo to
destabilise the region and that Belgrade should allow it to have its own
media and re-admit Albanians to police ranks.

Dienstbier also criticised a trade blockade by Serbia against Montenegro, its
tiny partner in the Yugoslav federation, which has been edging away from
Belgrade since it elected pro-Western Milo Djukanovic as its president in
1997.

And he called for freedom of media and speech in Serbia, saying a recent
campaign to close non-government radio stations was a sign of government
weakness.

``I think we all have to fight for freedom of media,'' he said. ``Without
this society can only stagnate further.''
====================================
On the same issue:

PRISTINA, Mar 20, 2000 -- (Reuters) The UN human rights special envoy for the
former Yugoslavia said Sunday that the failure of the international community
to decide on a clear future for Kosovo meant the mission to the province was
thus far a "total failure."

"The present situation in Kosovo just confirms the total failure to achieve
the goals of the operation," Jiri Dienstbier told AFP in Belgrade during a
tour of Yugoslavia in which he has held many meetings on the Kosovo problem.

He said that the main problem for the UN administration to the disputed
province and the NATO-led KFOR peace keeping force was that their mission had
no clearly defined aims, adding that no-one on the international scene seemed
ready to provide one.

"We have UN resolution 1244 saying that Kosovo is a part of Yugoslavia, but
nobody wants to confirm it and say that it is a solution and that nobody will
dispute it and that Kosovo remains a part of Yugoslavia," he said.

"On the other hand, nobody wants to say that Kosovo will be independent," he
added.

The goal of NATO and the United Nations to ensure a multi-ethnic, democratic
Kosovo had been destroyed by the violent confrontations between Serbs and the
ethnic Albanian population which forced KFOR troops to divide the town of
Kosovska Mitrovica in two, Dienstbier said.

The envoy also lamented the continuing influence of the supposedly defunct
ethnic Albanian guerilla group the Kosovo Liberation Army, the presence of
Albanian mafia gangs in the province, the lack of sufficient international
police to control the situation, the absence of a legal system and the UN
mission's lack of money.

The UN mission and KFOR were working in "impossible conditions" he said.

"It is very important for the people that they have a perspective. If they
dont know the perspective, anything may happen," he added

(C)2000 Copyright Reuters Limited.

http://www.consider.net/forum_new.php3?newTemplate=OpenObject&newTop=200003270025&newDisplayURN=200003270025

New Stateman (UK)
Helena Smith Monday 27th March 2000

Kosovo is host, not just to the UN forces, but to
Bible-bashers and adventure junkies. Helena Smith
reports

Imagine Wales. Imagine Wales, after a terrible war,
dotted with the debris of death; its fine hills
brimming with roofless red-brick villas, its roads
heaving with all manner of military hardware, trailers
and trucks.

Now imagine this devastated slither of land as a tower
of Babel, with thousands of foreigners, speaking
dozens of different tongues, flooding in, all bent on
rebuilding and protecting it.

Imagine the people of Wales - a little unsure of their
own national identity - watching these foreign imports
as if they had been flown in from another planet.
Imagine them looking on with relief and resentment as
they hurtle past in their mammoth four-wheel drives.
Imagine this wretched place flying the United Nations
flag.

You have just imagined Kosovo, the colony that belongs
to the world: 4,250 square miles of brewing anarchy
and anger that is now awash with visionless
well-intent.

One year after Nato liberated it, Kosovo, they say, is
on the mend. A spot of ethnic trouble here and there,
now that spring is in the air (always the Balkans'
favourite killing time), but as near to paradise as
the Albanians have ever got, now that their Serb
tormentors have gone.

Children may play marbles in the mud. Their parents
may pick their way through their collapsed homes,
fallen factories, burnt animal sheds and other symbols
of savagery that will probably surround them for years
to come. Both may shiver in the frost and have dark,
expressionless hollows for eyes (such is the horror
one knows they have seen). And both may live in a
climate of spiralling confusion and crime. But for
those who have arrived to protect and reform them, the
Kosovars have never had it better. "You will see how
much they love us," says the Danish corporal, waxing
lyrical as he issues the international peacekeeping
force Kfor's must-have entry pass into the straggly
province. "Every day in Kosovo is Wednesday. There is
never a day off," he chatters, reciting a line I will
hear more than once. "They just love us for it. Do
anything to say 'thank you', shake your hand, come up
to you in the street, you'll see."

Gratitude, you quickly discover, is a constant theme
in Kosovo - along with pot, sex, love among the
internationals, the dangerous driving habits of the
locals and the innate hatred that continues to pit the
Albanians against the Serbs.

In the nine months since Nato triumphantly marched
into the benighted territory, every do-gooder,
Bible-basher, adventure-junkie and wide-eyed idealist
has pitched up. Forget Mozambique or Chechnya. Kosovo
has become the place if you want to seek penance,
divest yourself of creature comforts, assuage
middle-class guilt or simply put "expert" theories
into practice. The freaks and the faithful have come
a-flocking, just as they did in the colonies of yore.

On the last count, there were some 370
non-governmental organisations which had set up shop,
alongside some some 30,000 Nato forces. Among them are
the Vietnam Veterans' Association, Lay Volunteers
International, Japanese Need Foundation, the
American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and
Glasgow City Council Social Group. They work alongside
the likes of the UN and OSCE, whose desire to leave
their mark on the land has surprised even the most
cynical.

On my first night installed in Pristina's determinedly
ungrand Grand Hotel, I bumped into a bespectacled Finn
who inquired whether I might be the new recruit who
had come to teach handicapped women how to sew. No, I
said, but did she like Kosovo? "Aw, ya," she burbled.
"We internationals are like one big happy family. It
is hard, ya, but when it gets too hard you can find
help with marijuana. You go to any bar and there it
is, our little friend that makes the place seem much,
much better."

How, I wondered, had people endured a winter of power
cuts that was also the coldest on record? "Easy,"
replied a Russian bureaucrat. "Sex, sex, sex under at
least five blankets with another international . . . "

Never mind that few of the foreign missions have
problem-solving skills in this field. Bernard
Kouchner, the UN's special representative, tells
anyone who will listen that international parsimony
has forced him to become a professional panhandler -
the good doctor's entire annual budget amounts to less
than a day's worth of the Nato bombing campaign.

But the internationals, one soon discovers, are on
fat-cat salaries. Throw in hardship-post allowances,
supplemented wages and days off and you are looking at
a nice little earner - money, many now think, that
would be much better spent training the Kosovars to
take over the place themselves.

It is an open secret, among foreigners in Pristina,
that Kosovo is run as if it were a classic colony -
and a badly run one at that. "It didn't work in the
19th century and it's clearly not going to work in the
21st," says Joly Dixon, the interim administration's
amiable and honest British finance minister. "It's
totally wrong."

You see them, the "white men" in their shiny brogues,
striding purposefully along Pristina's litter-strewn
streets. Entrusted with the task of rejuvenating a
civil administration that is currently neither civil
nor administrative, most work nine-to-five days in
bureaux that could be in Brussels, were it not for the
wretched views beyond their windows.

And then there are the "natives": unsure of the rule
of law, after ten years of marginalisation under
Milosevic's rotten regime, a little reticent, a little
slow, but good people. Just too "hot-headed" to be
handed the trappings of power (even if the colonisers
are ambivalent about having too much of it themselves)
and far too different, culturally, ever to socialise
with.

The creation, this month, of a joint interim
administration, one that has seen Kosovo's two main
political parties collaborate with Dr Kouchner, has
quickly been rubbished as a cosmetic move by Albanians
furious at their lack of access to decision-making.
The Serbs may have boycotted their seat in protest,
but among Kosovars, at least, there is a growing sense
that their destiny has been taken out of their hands.

"They listen to us, they'll hear our views, but
there's no way that we can actually participate in
formulating policy," says one Albanian official who
understandably preferred not to be named. "This
colonial approach is not what we expected."

Locals are the first to say that it is the
internationals who have made life tolerable, providing
employment for innumerable interpreters and
bodyguards, who now earn more than their parents could
ever have dreamed. "We have this really ridiculous
situation, where a child who is a translator for the
OSCE will take home 2,000 Deutschmarks a month while
his father, who for 25 years has worked as a doctor,
gets DM200 a month," says Dreni Hoxha, an interpreter
himself.

Rarely has the gap between those who govern and those
who are ruled been as pronounced, say UN officials who
have worked on similar missions around the world.
"It's us and them. We live in very different worlds,"
said another UN official. "I realised the other day
that, after eight months being here, I've never
actually had dinner with an Albanian."

It is a gap that speaks volumes about the
international community's clumsiness in getting Kosovo
back on its feet. At no level - as an institution, in
terms of security, on an economic level - is the
provi