Belgrado annuncia il ritorno delle sue truppe in Kosovo,gli Albanesi minacciano una nuova guerra (France Presse, Los Angeles Times)

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi@mail.inet.it>]

http://centraleurope.com/news.php3?id=208736

Kosovo Albanians Threaten New War If Belgrade Troops Return

PRISTINA, Oct 12, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Kosovo Albanian
guerrillas would take up arms to prevent Yugoslav forces returning to
their breakaway province, political leaders said Wednesday.
     "If they ever came back in uniform, we'd know how to react," Naim
Maloku, head of the Central Liberal Party of Kosovo and a former fighter
in the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), told AFP.
     "If anyone thinks the KLA is dead, they're kidding themselves," he
warned.
     Zoran Djindic, a close ally of the new Yugoslav president Vojislav
Kostunica, said in a interview published in Belgrade that 1,200 Serb
police and Yugoslav troops could return to Kosovo by the end of the
year.
     But Ramush Haradinaj, a former guerrilla leader and head of the
Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, said the Serbian forces would be
turned back at the province's frontier by fighters from Kosovo's ethnic
Albanian majority.
     "If they ever tried to come they would not be able to cross the
border," he said, adding: "There are NATO forces there and Kosovo
Albanian forces which would be well-prepared to resist them."
     Bilal Sherifi, chief of staff to Hashim Thaci, the former political
chief of the KLA and now leader of the Democratic party of Kosovo,
described the idea that Yugoslav troops could return as a "dream."
     "This idea is over forever," he insisted.
     Yugoslav personnel were to be given authorization to return to
Kosovo under a UN Security Council resolution which defined terms under
which the province became a UN protectorate at the end of the 1998-1999
war between the KLA and Belgrade.
     But the terms did not define the number of personnel to return or
the timing of such a move.
     General Juan Ortuno, leader of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in
charge of maintaining security in Kosovo, said that it was his decision
when Yugoslav troops could return and that no discussions had begun with
the new Belgrade authorities.

((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20001012/t000097297.html

Thursday, October 12, 2000

Kosovo Albanians Say Statehood Is Inevitable

Yugoslavia: As U.N.- supervised elections approach, many express
confidence that Serbian rule will never be restored.

By DAVID HOLLEY, Times Staff Writer

     PRISTINA, Yugoslavia--As Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica
struggles to consolidate power in Belgrade, Kosovo is heading toward its
first United Nations-supervised elections, with its ethnic Albanian
leaders confident that their fight for independence already has been
won.
     Leaders of ethnic Albanian parties say that even if Kostunica tries
to use his ties with the West to restore Serbian authority in Kosovo,
they see no risk that such an effort would succeed.
     Ethnic Albanians across the political spectrum say Kosovo will be
able to move from U.N.-supported self-governance to full independence.
This belief in the inevitability of independence is reflected in a
strong commitment by former leaders of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation
Army to participation in municipal elections Oct. 28 and in Kosovo-wide
elections expected next year.
     Many among the small Serb minority still hope that Kostunica's rise
to power will permit Yugoslavia to reassert sovereignty--and allow the
return of Serbs who have fled and the stationing of Yugoslav troops at
Kosovo's major border crossings with neighboring countries.
     Some Serbs predict that the ultimate solution will be to divide
Kosovo at the town of Kosovska Mitrovica, with the Serb-dominated region
north of the Ibar River belonging to Serbia while the rest becomes
independent.
     Ethnic Albanians, however, say that any attempt to permanently
divide Kosovo or to bring back Yugoslav troops would trigger such a
violent reaction that it is extremely unlikely.
     A decision to partition Kosovo "would mean restarting the war,
because Mitrovica for Kosovo is like Jerusalem for Israel," said Fatmir
Limaj, a former KLA commander who is now a candidate for mayor of
Pristina from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, headed by former KLA chief
Hashim Thaci.
     "I think that there will not be any war in Kosovo, and that the
international community did not invest in Kosovo to start a cycle of
violence, but to end it," Limaj added.
"I'm convinced the international representatives have this on their
mind. That's why I believe division of Kosovo is impossible. I believe
they are here to end crises and not start new ones."
     Oliver Ivanovic, head of the Serb National Council in the northern,
Serb-dominated part of Kosovska Mitrovica, said he believes it is
possible to reach a compromise that would maintain Yugoslavia's current
borders.
     "Kostunica used to be for dividing Serbia into regions, and I think
that concept will still be alive, and I think Kosovo will be included in
that regionalization," he said. "That prevents the separation of
Kosovo."
     But many ethnic Albanian leaders say democracy in both Serbia and
Kosovo can only lead to Kosovo's independence, and that key countries in
the U.N. administration and the multinational peacekeeping force known
as KFOR already understand this, even if they cannot say so publicly.
     "The upcoming Oct. 28 elections are seen by the people as the
beginning of getting responsibility for the future," said Naim Jerliu,
vice president of the Democratic League of Kosovo, the party headed by
longtime pacifist pro-independence leader Ibrahim Rugova. "I think this
process of building democratic institutions will confirm our democratic
potential and our abilities to be part of Europe as an independent
country governing ourselves."
     Kosovo already "is independent now, but with a U.N. presence," said
Baton Haxhiu, editor in chief of Koha Ditore, Kosovo's most widely
respected Albanian-language newspaper.
     It is impossible, he added, to bring Yugoslav troops back to
Kosovo's external borders as demanded by Kostunica and envisioned in the
U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the international presence
here.
     "I am sure if they come, every day one will be killed," he said.
"If you bring 2,000 Yugoslav army troops to the border, you will need
100,000 KFOR troops to protect them."
     In public statements, the foreigners who currently control Kosovo's
fate remain deliberately ambiguous about its future, even while pledging
to promote democracy and autonomy.
     Bernard Kouchner, the Frenchman who heads the U.N. mission in
Kosovo, or UNMIK, has offered what he calls a "pact" to its people:
"Offer me democratic elections without violence and discrimination, and
I'll help you find money to rebuild Kosovo, [and] UNMIK will help you to
get self-governance."
     Kosovo technically remains a province of Serbia, the dominant of
Yugoslavia's two republics. It has been under U.N. administration since
June 1999, when peacekeeping forces entered after the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. The U.N.
resolution authorizing the international presence makes reference to
Yugoslav sovereignty but is not clear on Kosovo's ultimate status.
     Virtually all ethnic Albanians, who now make up about 95% of
Kosovo's population of roughly 1.6 million, favor independence.
     "It is no secret that every Albanian I have met, whether moderate
or not, wants independence," Kouchner said Monday in a report to a
European Union meeting in Luxembourg. "Therefore, to try to solve the
final status of Kosovo now could lead anew to open conflict. We have to
accelerate the process of defining substantial autonomy and developing
institutions of self-government."
     U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Walter Slocombe, speaking at a NATO
defense ministers meeting in Birmingham, England, on Tuesday, said that
dealing with the question of Kosovo's independence or renewed ties to
Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, will be a gradual process.

Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times