Cold Southern Wind

"This is the same way things happened in Kosovo," states Riza Halimi, Mayor of Presevo and Vice-President of the Party for Democratic Action which gathers together Albanians living in the southernmost part of Serbia. Commenting for VREME the incident in neighboring Bujanovaca, Halimi says that "But things don't need to be that way. The solution does not lie in concentrating the police and the army. The more police there are, the more incidents there will be," Halimi speaks, but in vain.

Incidents with firearms have become a daily occurrence in the southernmost part of Serbia. On Tuesday, in the vicinity of Bujanovac, a UN worker, Marcel Grogaine was wounded. As his Chief, Robert Painter told Fonet, Grogaine's car was stopped "by individuals wearing uniforms that are similar to those of the Kosovo Protection Corps." In all likelihood one of the uniformed individuals accidentally pressed the trigger on his gun, thus wounding Grogaine in the leg. Only three days earlier, at 11 p.m., Police Major Slavisa Dimitrijevic was killed and three policemen were wounded from ambush set up near the village of Konculj, in the community of Bujanovac. Konculj is the last village in the ever narrowing territory of Serbia on the Bujanovac-Gnjilane highway. Since the Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo, Serbian Police has been checking vehicles and passengers traveling from Konculj to Gnjilan. Albanians from Bujanovac complain that the Police molests them regularly at this checkpoint. However, the police vehicle was attacked with a hand grenade and automatic weapons in the part of the village which is closer to Bujanovac. In the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) announcement regarding this incident, it is stated that the attackers are "Albanian terrorists who crossed the border from Kosovo and Metohija." Returning fire, the police killed one of the terrorists and found documents on him indicating that he is Fatmir Ibisij, member of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) located in Gnjilane, the police announcement indicates. The villagers said that shooting lasted for around twenty minutes. The next morning the Police called the village priest to attempt to identify the killed man, Riza Halimi told VREME. "The village priest confirmed that the deceased is not from Konculj," stated Halime who visited the village on Monday. "Five-six families immediately left Konculj after this incident, where otherwise the population is around 1300," Halimi continued.

One day prior to this incident, on Friday evening, a bomb exploded in the center of Bujanovac itself, close to the heating plant which provides heating for the entire town. No one was injured, but the explosion shattered the heating plant reservoirs, causing 36 tons of crude oil to spill through the streets of the town. The nearby district court building was also damaged. Slavoljub Mihajlovic, District Investigating Judge of Vranje stated for the Beta Agency that "it is supposed that the explosive device was planted by extremist from Kosovo, although the investigation is still continuing."

Since the beginning of November to today at least 15 incidents using firearms and explosives occurred in which at least eight people were killed and ten were wounded. As far as we know and as the London Times confirms from its western military sources, five policemen died along the Kosovo-Serbian border, as well as 15 members of the Kosovo Liberation Army who infiltrated the territory.

In the community of Bujanovac, on whose territory nearly all of the incidents occurred, vigils were introduced in all public and private enterprises. There are fewer people in the street than there used to be, although it is not true that businesses are closing earlier, before sunset, as reported in the media. Several stores, owned and operated by Albanians, are altogether closed. "Albanians are unwilling to speak out these days," a Serb from Bujanovac told us. "They are scared and they want all this to be resolved as soon as possible."

PROHIBITING THE INVISIBLE: NATO General Secretary George Robertson announced last Monday, February 21, that "it is clear that tensions are growing in Southern Serbia, because a large number of Yugoslav troupes arrived in that region recently." Supposedly, four police battalions, or around 300 people, arrived in this region in the past two weeks, and they began searching houses, battering the population and planting land mines. Colonel General Vladimir Lazarevic, new Commander of the Third Yugoslav Army (VJ), issued a denial two days later all claims regarding the increased presence of Yugoslav troupes on the territory of Presevo. "We have border patrol units in that area and they are very efficient in guarding the border toward Macedonia, preventing anywhere from four to five attempted illegal border crossings per day in that border zone," stated General Lazarevic in the Novosti daily. It is well known that in military exercises by the Yugoslav Army have been taking place for some time in the mentioned regions, beyond the tampon zone, and even NATO officials stated that there is nothing unusual in this, adding that exercises can easily be transformed into something far more aggressive."
Riza Halimi stated that the first police reenforcements arrived to Presevo immediately after the war, and the second group of reenforcements arrived in the second half of December. "Since then there have been no further police reenforcements in Presevo, nor do I have any information regarding this in Presevo," stated Halimi.

On the same day that General Lazarevic spoke out, State Department Spokesman James Rubin literally denied statements made by Robertson. He warned that the USA is "closely following" Yugoslav reinforcements in the communities of Presevo and Bujanovac, but admitted that there is no proof of any amassing of Yugoslav forces in the area.
KLA - PART TWO: Troubles for the residents of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja began with the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. Riza Halimi claims that during the war 11 Albanians were killed in that area, that 25,000 of them fled to Macedonia and that many of their houses have been looted. After the war nearly all refugees returned to their homes, but Yugoslav forces prevented free movement of Albanian peasants in the newly established five kilometer zone along the border of the two regions within the Republic of Serbia. At that time local Albanians began to move to Kosovo mainly for economic reasons, as they themselves admit.

The present spiral of violence began in the middle of November of last year, when the resident of the Village of Dobrosin in the community of Bujanovac, a man by the name of Shefket who is a member of the Kosovo Liberation Army and commands a group of ten people. When the police went to arrest him, an exchange of fire occurred. The police withdrew, but according to Halimi, all peasants coming home from Bujanovci (it was market day) got a beating from the police. That same day, all the women and children from Dobrosin moved withdrew to the neighboring village in Kosovo. "Judging by all accounts, after the KFOR intervened, three to four days later, all civilians returned to the village, while everyone who came from Kosovo also went back," Halimi told us.

The next time that Shefket's group confronted the police was on January 26 in Dobrosin, and at that time a member of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs was wounded. Shefket was not overpowered, although the brothers Salipi, Isa and Saip, died in that incident. They were returning to the village in a tractor loaded with wood. Their relatives claim that the police murdered them. The women and children form Dobrosin once again moved back to Kosovo. According to UNHCR information, around 43 people fled Dobrosin to return to Kosovo.

Since then the village has been under the control of 30 to 50 armed men. Several thousand people came to the funeral of the Salipi brothers. Around ten people who attended the funeral wore uniforms with insignia that is very similar to that used by the KLA, except that instead of the Albanian "UCK", their insignia read "UCKPMB," Albanian initials for the "Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac." The German daily, Frankfurter Rundshau in its Tuesday edition carried a report on Dobrosin in which we learn that the entrance to the village is guarded by uniformed men with Kalshnikovs. The Washington Post recently quoted unnamed "western officials" who stated that the group in Dobrosin is one of four groups in the region which still do not have unified command.

VISITING FRIENDS: UN Mission Spokesman for Kosovo, Susan Manuel, stated on Monday that the Albanian who was killed in the armed conflict with the Serbian Police Patrol in the Village of Konculj was not a member of the Kosovo Protection Corps. However, the participation of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is nearly exclusively made up of former members of the KLA (and on whose premises the KFOR regularly finds KLA automatic weapons and uniforms, and even the uniforms of Serbian Policemen), in incidents on this side of the border is unquestionable. Shaban Shalja, KPC Commander for the region of Gnjilane, recently stated that at the end of January a member of a six-member unit of Serbian Special Policemen was killed near the Village of Knculj, but on the Kosovo side of the border. He claims that this Serbian unit was trying to enter Kosovo with the objective of "bombing certain buildings." When he was asked whether the KPC killed this man, Shalja answered, "Let us say that the KPC assisted this action." Shacir Shaciri, Shalja's Deputy, who was born in Presevo and is a member of the KPC, told a Los Angeles Times reporter in Pristina last year that since the beginning of the war, 300 young men joined the KLA from Presevo alone. At one of the KFOR checkpoints toward Bujanovci, soldiers told the Guradian reporter that members of the KLA, now the KPC, regularly cross the Serbian border in that region. "They wear civilian clothes, they do not carry weapons, they show their KPC documents and say that they are 'visiting friends' on the other side of the border," the Guardian reports.

The territory of Eastern Kosovo, as the Albanians call these communities, are bordering with the part of Kosovo which is under the control of American troupes. Until recently American soldiers were prohibited from approaching the Serbian border at a distance less than a mile, but that rule has been discontinued since. Lookout towers are being built along the border from which the Americans are trying to figure out what the Albanians are doing in the Albanian villages in the tampon zone. The Times recently quoted "a high KLA official" who claims that the American permit them to make sorties across the border.

DOUBLE PROVOCATION: What is in fact happening? Albanians who have been crossing the border into Kosovo from communities on the Serbian side claim that the Serbian Police has began an aggressive campaign of locating separatists. They report that the Police is terrorizing the population, forcing people out of their homes, setting fire to certain homes and "arresting young people." Certain western media are quick to accept such reports which fit in with the cliche so dear to them from "Kosovo of '98." The Washington Post is calling village self-protection militias "separatist groups."

Razi Halimi states that during January and the beginning of February, at least six or seven citizens of Presevo were molested in the street by the Serbian Police. "The Police behaved as if the state of war was in effect," Halimi tells. "They patrolled in groups of six to seven policemen, entering restaurants and cafes and behaving very roughly. In the last two weeks there has been a lot less of this going on," Halimi tells us. Every demonstrator from Belgrade knows that the Serbian Police is anything but gentle, but the extent of Police violence in the South of Serbia is very much open to speculation.

Some people in the West are attempting to make a connection between the situation in Presevo with the vents in Kosovska Mitrovica, concluding that an exchange or territory is probably at hand an exchange of mostly Serbian territories north of the Ibar River for mostly Albanian territories east of the Bliss of Kosovo. Do the French, British and Scandinavian soldiers, who were assailed on seven occasions by the Albanian mob in a single afternoon in its attempt to break through into the Northern Part of Kosovska Mitrovica, believe in such a disposition of territories? And do the Serbs whose doors were knocked on by the boots of American soldiers also believe in such a distribution of territories? Does anyone who watched the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the past ten years seriously think that Milosevic is doing anything at this moment to expand his territory?

Perhaps the dilemma is best resolved in the statement made by the above mentioned Shacir Shaciri. "War is inevitable. The best solution would be to join that territory to Kosovo. Belgrade does not need territory over which it has no control. The local population will inevitable be faced with the situation in which they will have to take up arms to defend themselves." It is clear that the KLA is repeating its tested strategy of double provocation. By creating riots it will provoke Serbian forces into reacting which will force NATO to intervene.

Clark: "Let Me Deal With Milosevic"

General Wesley Clark, NATO Commander for Europe, requested this February from all the members of this Alliance to transfer sever thousand soldiers from Macedonia and Albania into Kosovo. Engaging armies in Kosovo is expensive and is now becoming even risky, so that now the number of KFOR soldiers has been reduced from 49,000 to 37,000, of which only 30,000 are in Kosovo itself. Along with that, the majority of countries does not permit the use of its soldiers outside of the regions in which they are located, so that the KFOR is unable to react to a situation like the one recently created in Kosovska Mitrovica. Beside the French, who promised 700 soldiers, no one was willing to listen to Clark's request: following this, Pentagon officials stated, of course anonymously, that they feel more at ease because of recent developments, because reserve troupes located in Albania and Macedonia are intended for emergency situations, "such as a Serb invasion of northern Kosovo." The fact that the NATO Permanent Council made a "concession" to Clark by reducing the deadline within which KFOR reserve troupes are allowed to respond from 14 days to 4 days, indicating that "emergency situations" are expected in the near future. 2000 soldiers are expected to take part in NATO exercises in Kosovo, from March 19 to April 10, NATO Supreme Command announced. Soldiers will carry out "ground command exercises" under the name "Dynamic Answer 2000." "Reserve strategic forces are an international unit that is very mobile and has at its disposal considerable air and navy force," it is indicated in the announcement.
Former Chief of the Supreme Command of the Greek Supreme Headquarters, General Joanis Verivakis stated for the Athenian radio station Sky that the possibility of military intervention by the KFOR against Serbia exists. "What will happen will not take the shape of last year's bombing, but the strengthening of KFOR forces also means the possibility of intervention," Verivakis claims. He added that looking beyond is necessary, at "all Albanians, outside of Kosovo itself," and that they could get US support for creating a Greater Albania. In the radio show it was also said that the Permanent US Delegation in NATO submitted "a plan for a potential intervention in Serbia" and that beside the authorizations it already has, the KFOR "should get authorization to carry out interventions." The Guardian wrote on Monday about the possibility of intervention. This newspaper quoted officers that are part of the American contingent of the KFOR who stated that "international forces will enter the territory of central Serbia if there are occurrences of bestiality," with emphasis on the fact that a definition of the term "bestiality" is under review.
Belgrade finds itself in an impossible position. If it does not take any action against the UCPMB, it will lose control over the mountain regions around Presevo. There is no doubt that Albanian extremists will not be satisfied with this, and, as has always been the case thus far, victory would only spur them on. Very soon they would threaten the highway to Skoplje and Thessalonika which passes through the Presevo Valley. If the regime decides to deal with the terrorists, that job will be carried by the police force which would be required to change its nature and to carry out actions figuratively using pincers, always taking around ten foreign journalists with it. If such a miraculous way of operating will hardly sway western public opinion in its favor. A NATO intervention will inevitably follow and once again a valuable piece of land will be lost.
It is questionable whether the Americans and the British know exactly what it is they are doing and what they will do if the conflict spills over into Macedonia, where the police is presently confiscating literally tons of weapons from Albanians. Lord George Robertson does not appear to be wholly aware of what is happening (or he is playing dumb), because he warned Milosevic to stop trying to do what he is presently trying to do, whatever that something might be. At the very least, General Wesley Clark, NATO Commander for Europe, realizes that the other side shares responsibility also. On February 21 in Tirana he demanded that Hashim Taci, Leader of the Kosovar Albanians, and Arben Dzaferij, Leader of the Macedonian Albanians, use all their influence in calling upon the Albanians in Serbia to refrain from responding to Serb provocations. Dzefari claims that on that occasion, Clark stated: "Let me deal with Milosevic!" May God help us!

Shooting in the South

November 23, 1999
A police patrol near the Village of Bresic in the Community of Bujanovac was attacked on the Bujanovac-Gnjilane Highway.
Caslav Ivkovic, Deputy Police Commander and Policeman Zoran Stojiljkovic received non-life- threatening wounds in Vranje.

December 8
In Presevo, an explosive device constructed from plastic explosives was detonated close to the Police Station without wounding anyone.

December 11
A bomb exploded in the school yard of Branko Radicevic Elementary School in Bujanovac, also close to the Police Station there. Windows on the school building were shattered, as well as the windows on the Gumplastic factory nearby, as well as in the neighboring sport complex facility.

December 30
Two Gypsy women were wounded when three hand grenades were thrown into their houses.

January 16, 2000
Three Serbs killed near the Village of Pasjane, close to Gnjilane, on their return to Bujanovac.

January 17
Cemalj Musrafi, Director of the elementary school in the Village of Muhovac and Vice-President of the local SPS Community Council in Bujanovac was killed.

January 17
 In the attack on the home of Trajko Dimic in the Village of Levosoj, Blagica Trajkovic was wounded when a hand grenade was thrown into the Dimic home.

January 22
A bomb exploded close to the police station in Biljaca, along the administrative border with Kosovo; no one was wounded.

January 26
Brothers Isa and Saip Salipi were killed in the attack against a police patrol near the village of Dobrosin in the Community of Bujanovac, while Policeman Zarko Grujic was wounded.

February 7
In Bujanovac a bomb was thrown into the yard of Nijaz Mustafija, Director of May 28 Elementary School, as well as into the yard of the earlier killed Cemalj Mustafija.

February 11
In Bujanovac a bomb was thrown into the yard of journalist Sevdailja Hisenij, activist for the Party for Democratic Action.

February 12
Ejup Hasani was killed in the Village of Leovica.

February 25
A bomb exploded in the center of Bujanovac, damaging the town heating plant a the community court house. No one was wounded.

February 26
In the attack on the police near the village of Konculj in the Community of Bujanovac, Policeman Slavisa Dimitrijevic was killed along with one of the attackers, Fatmir Ibisi, while three policemen were wounded.

February 29
UN worker Marcel Grogaine was wounded near Bujanovac.

Border I.D.

Data on the population and the percentage of Albanians are estimates made in 1991. Albanians in these three communities boycotted the last census