Spring in December

Holbrooke showed up in Pristina unexpectedly.  The first news of the chain of events which took 45 lives in the region within 24 hours (36 Albanians in a border incident south of Prizren between 2:00 and 7:00 a.m., three officials of the French Embassy in Belgrade in a car accident on the Podujevo-Pristina highway at noon, and six youths in Pec in the evening hours), he received, as he himself says, from Ambassador Walker the previous evening while he was getting ready in Athens for a meeting with Milosevic, scheduled for Tuesday evening.

That morning Holbrooke flew into Belgrade Airport and immediately continued on to Pristina.  There was considerable activity in the KVM and the American Information Center regarding the place and time of the press conference to be held for journalists who went to Pristina's Airport in Slatina, only to be directed back to the Mission offices in the building formerly housing the Bank of Ljubljana, where, after an hour long security procedure (every journalist had to be frisked individually and to pass through a metal detector) they were allowed to wait for the diplomats in company with numerous security personnel, while the Mission Spokesman, Duncan Bullivan announced the rules of behavior for the occasion (the most important thing - not to make any movements after Holbrooke enters the room).

When they finally showed up, Richard Holbrooke, Mission Chief William Walker, Austrian Ambassador to Belgrade and EU Envoy to Kosovo Wolfgang Petrich and Operating Mission Chief Gabriel Keller, they appeared very worried.  They had just gotten the news of the demonstrations in Pristina.  Demonstrations followed the incident on Monday evening in the Pec cafe "Panda" in which six youths lost their lives, with three wounded.  Several hundred demonstrators gathered at noon in the center of Pristina.  Albanian sources claim that there was brandishing of weapons and shooting into the air.

BANGS AT "PANDA":  According to the first findings in the investigation, two masked assailants opened fire at 8:10 p.m. on Monday evening at the visitors of the cafe who were mostly high school students.  "Panda" is right across the Pec High school.  There were 13 people in the cafe.  "I sat at the table with three guests, with my back turned toward the door," tells the seriously injured proprietor of the establishment, Mirsad Sabovic.  "The door opened with a bang, and then fire was directed at us."  Ivan Obradovic (15), Dragan Trifovic (17), Vukosav Gvozdenovic (18) and Ivan Radevic (25) died instantly.  The assailants fled immediately with a car, some witnesses say that the color of the car was red, while others say that it was blue.  26 cartridges with a caliber of 7.62 millimeters were found on location.

Zoran Stanojevic (17), Svetisav Ristic (17) and Vlado Lonsarevic (18) arrived at Pristina's Surgery Clinic at about 10:00 p.m., in very serious condition.  "Stanojevic and Ristic died one hour after they checked in with us," states Dr. Andrija Tomanovic, Director of the Clinic.  "We did not even get to operate on Stanojevic, while Ristic died on the operating table."  Even though Lonsarevic regained consciousness and spoke, his condition is still critical because of heavy injuries to the brain and limbs.  Mirsad Sabovic, wounded in the leg, is being treated at the hospital in Pec.  The less seriously wounded Nikola Rajovic was released to home care after medical attention was administered to him.

It is possible that the motive for the attack could be found in last week's arrest of an Albanian woman and man who were suspected of having participated in the attack on the hospital in Pec on December 4.

ANY TIME, ANY PLACE:  Ambassador William Walker, KVM Chief, immediately issued a statement in which "in the strongest possible terms the violence of the previous 24 hours is condemned," with all members of the Albanian community and federal authorities being called upon "to demonstrate restraint and to remain calm."  Officials at the Pristina Media Center claim that on Tuesday morning they received many calls from Pec's residents who cited Walker's statement in which the murder of high schoolers and the border incident are being equated, as reason for their profound sense of bitterness.

The Executive Committee of SO Pec announced a three-day period of mourning.  In Pec, state and public institutions will be closed, along with schools, Serbian stores and companies.  On Tuesday at noon, several hundred people gathered in the center of Pec.  On Wednesday, a service was held by Patriarch Pavle and Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren at the central square of Pec.  The funeral with an attendance of over ten thousand people passed without incident.  A commemorative meeting was held in Pristina, with more than five thousand people present.  Serbian schools are not working in Mitrovica.  Community officials in Decani are talking about stopping work until the security of the population can be guaranteed.  Serbs from the community of Podujevo, who have been organizing protests for days already, directed an appeal on Tuesday to state officials in which they demanded protection from "kidnapping, murder and every sort of terror" to which they are exposed.  In their letter, Milosevic and Milutinovic are being asked to come to Kosovo, to Podujevo, and to explain "how they imagine that the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija are supposed to defend themselves and to survive on their own land."
The families of the civilians kidnapped by the KLA have called on their fellow citizens to come to a protest rally on Thursday in front of the KVM offices in Pristina.  These people have already asked several times to be accepted by William Walker, but he has always been busy.  The last time, on Monday, family members of the kidnapped met with the political assistant to the Mission Chief, Vladimir Ivanov, with the operative chief, Gabriel Keller and assistant to the Mission Chief for human rights, Nigert Borschard.  Diplomats promised to do everything that they can, while family members of the kidnapped announced that if there are no results by then, they will go on a hunger strike on Thursday.
The multiple murder in Pec is the first terrorist attack on civilians in one of the bigger cities in Kosovo.  "Until now it was still known that you are safe at work, at home or in a restaurant," states a Serb woman from Kosovo.  "Now you can get killed any time, anywhere."

LIMITS OF PATIENCE: The information center of the Pristina corpus of the Yugoslav Army suggested on Tuesday that in the border incident in the region of Liken and Gorozup, in the night between Sunday and Monday, 36 individuals got killed, with nine members of the KLA having been arrested.  Among the arrested there are two women.  In the first announcement, issued on Monday, it is stated that on that occasion 12 armed Albanians were wounded.

The latest military announcement indicates that at night, around two thirty, around 140 armed individuals attacked Yugoslav border patrols.  This attack was resisted, but the attackers made two more attempts - at five o'clock and at 6:15.  Albanian sources claim that the incident took place on Pastrik Mountain, in the village of Kusanin, six kilometers into Yugoslav territory.  The Yugoslav Army states that among the killed were many Albanians from Stimlje, Kacanik, Orahovac and Malisevo, who spent "some time in one of the training camps in Albania."  Albanians claim that "these were merely young Albanians coming home from Albania."  What everyone agrees on, which has also been confirmed by KVM staff who went to the scene that morning, is that the killed wore uniforms with KLA badges and that they were armed.  Verifiers described what they saw for Reuters as "a normal military operation."

Professor Sabhudin Cena, Ph.D., who is introduced on the daily Albanian news "Kosovo sot" as the "Director of Public Administration of the KLA," continues to claim that innocent civilians are the people who were killed, while trying to come back to their homes.  Cena states that "on the other side of the border, there is not a single KLA soldier."  According to Cena, the KLA is withholding from all activity because it would constitute an end to the "shaky, mediated cease fire."  But, Professor Cena continues, in the future, the KLA will be obliged to defend returning refugees, for otherwise "people will stop listening to the KLA and will begin to offer spontaneous resistance."

According to the Albanian press, one of the foreign observers tells how one of the local KLA commanders tried to arrange for the release of the wounded using his phone.
This is the 16th incident since the signing of the agreement between FRY and the OSCE.  In the incident on December 13, also near Gorozup, eight armed Albanians were killed.  There have been incidents even deeper into Metohija, around the Djakovica-Decani highway, where a policeman was wounded on Sunday.  A DSK official in Djakovica claims that on Monday evening, Serbian forces bombarded the village of Erec near Djakovica for nearly four hours.

At Holbrooke's press conference, one journalist from Turkey stated: "People here do not fear the winter, but the spring."  And truly, since the "cease-fire" all that’s been heard in Kosovo has been talk about spring, for here the only guarantee of security is considered to be the winter.  But the KLA could not wait for spring.  Then there would be so many verifiers in Kosovo that you wouldn’t be able to honestly throw even a hand grenade without hitting one.  The presence of the verifiers is hindering the KLA'a activities even now, so that the incident in Pec appears as if made to order.  The percentage of Serbs, and especially Montenegrins in Pec is fairly large by Kosovo's standards.  Added to that, the residents of Pec have a nasty reputation.  Certainly, the presence of the Verification Mission is not all roses for the Serbs, either.  It is easy for people who are ready to shoot at an unarmed teenager, to incite the Serbs of Kosovo against the OSCE.