Terror

Nebojsa Covic, Chief of the Coordinating Body of the Governments of Serbia and Yugoslavia for the South of Serbia and Vice-President in the Serbian Government, called on representatives of Albanians living in the communities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedaj to come to the negotiating table, and announced initial contacts on establishing the makeup of delegations, and the place and time of the negotiations by Wednesday already. The proposal by the Serbian side is that negotiations should be held either in the Community Center of Bujanovac or in the Community Center of Presevo. Beside Covic, the Serbian delegation will include representatives of the Federal Ministry for the Minorities, the Serbian ministers of justice and police, representatives of the Yugoslav Army, the Serbian Orthodox Church and of local Serbs. Covic also invited UN, KFOR, EU and UNHCR representatives to attend the negotiations, and informed the Albanian side of the decision to keep all Yugoslav Army and Police forces in their present positions until the negotiations are completed. The seriousness of the Yugoslav plan for resolving the crisis which was presented to the international community last week met with undivided support, especially after the deaths of at least nine Serb civilians in a terrorist attack on a bus near Podujevo last Friday, and the deaths of three policemen who came across an antitank mine in the community of Bujanovac two days later.

BUS NUMBER 2: Each of the seven Nis Ekspres buses which departed on February 16 from Nis for Pristina, that is to say to the Serbian enclaves of Gracanica and further on in Strpci, had a number clearly indicated on the dashboard. At the administrative border in Merdare the seven buses formed a convoy, with bus number 2, license plates NI 117-61, coming ahead of bus number 1, the whole convoy preceded and followed by KFOR vehicles. About quarter past 11 a.m., twenty kilometers ahead, bus number 2 was blown to pieces near the village of Livadice, close to Podujevo.

Judging by all accounts, the bus was carrying 56 passengers and two drivers. Fifty tickets were sold in Nis, with another six passengers coming on board in Kursumlija. The first reports indicated seven dead and different figures for the wounded, from 21 to 40. Since the Serbian Kosovars informed UNMIK of their suspicions about the number of dead, the international directorate in Kosovo allowed two Yugoslav pathologists, Dr. Sasa Dobricanin and Dr. Zoran Stankovic, to take part in the autopsies, with lawyer Gradimir Nalic accompanying the two Yugoslav pathologists to the scene of the atrocity. On Monday they examined four bodies. Pathologists with the German contingent of the KFOR examined four bodies on Sunday, and on Tuesday Dr. Dobricanin announced the names of the murdered Serbs, which number among them the two-year-old Danilo Cokic. KFOR soldiers take the names of all adults entering the Region, but they do not record the names of children. The KFOR list has 56 names, but Njegos and Snezana Cokic, Danilo's parents, do not show up on that list, even though they also perished in this atrocity. It appears likely that the bus carried over 60 people. UNMIK Spokeswoman Suzan Manuel announced on Monday that "at least ten people" were killed in this terrorist attack. That evening Dr. Stankovic told the Beta Agency that pathologists have yet to examine "a bag full of human body parts." On Tuesday Dr. Stankovic stated that identification of two more victims is pending, with suspicions that they are the driver and co-driver of the bus, and that at that point it will be determined whether a tenth passenger died in the attack, even though no family members have turned up yet claiming a missing person who was known to have been on that bus. Dr. Stankovic's statement does not agree with Suzan Manuel's last statement to the effect that eight victims had been identified, with three bodies remaining for identification, nor does it agree with the list of the wounded which indicates that the fate of at least ten other passengers is still not known.

11 wounded were taken with helicopters to the American hospital in their base Bondstil, near Urosevac, with another 12 having been taken to the British military hospital in Kosovo Polje. Two wounded were transferred from Bondstil to the hospital in Kosovska Mitrovica because of the seriousness of their condition, while six persons were transferred from the British hospital for the same reason. Four lightly wounded individuals were released from Bondstil. The rest are still in hospitals in Kursumlija and Prokuplje, while ten of the wounded are still in critical condition.

Near the road British soldiers found about 2000 feet of wire with which the device, some say containing 140, some say 200 pounds of explosive, was activated. The KFOR armored vehicle which preceded the convoy passed without any consequences over the location where the mine was planted, in a sewage duct underneath the road. The other end of the wire was found in a house on the neighboring hill. Two individuals were arrested under suspicions of having activated the mine and are assigned to prison for 30 days. That same day soldiers with the Ukrainian contingent of the KFOR deactivated as many as six similar devices with remote controls on the roads leading to Strpci, the Serbian enclave in the South of Kosovo.

UNRESTS AND BLOCKADES: The news of the terrorist attacks on the Nis Ekspres bus has inspired unrests in all Kosovar Serb enclaves. Protests first began in Gracanica and Caglavica where Serbs immediately erected barricades on the Pristina-Gnjilane road, that is to say the Pristina-Skoplje highway. In Caglavica, a Mercedes Benz which tried to break through the barricade injured Slobodanka Jevtic, braking both her legs and one arm, so that she also ended up in the hospital in Sremska Mitrovica. In Caglavica, Serbs set fire to the famous restaurant "Kralj" which was recently bought by an Albanian, and they also set fire to a truck owned by an Albanian. Albanians already began leaving Caglavica and the neighboring village of Laplje, fleeing to Pristina.

At that point the KFOR showed considerable force in closing access to Strpci, from where UNMIK evacuated its personnel. Only several days earlier, Serbs in Strpci clashed with international forces out of anger at the sniper attack on the Serbian convoy from Urosevac to Strpci in which one of their neighbors was killed, and two were wounded. Kosovar Serb representatives demanded that the KFOR secure access to villages around Strpci in order to avoid eventual conflicts with the local Albanian population.

That afternoon Swedish soldiers with the KFOR stopped the Kosovar Serb convoy heading from central Kosovo to Gracanica. Around 200 Kosovar Serbs who came during the day from various places in central Kosovo, gathered in the center of Gracanica to protest this decision and demanded for armed escorts to be provided for them to places where they came from. The local UNMIK office asked the residents of Gracanica to take this people into their homes, but they refused, demanding that the KFOR ensure safe passage, as was already planned. In the end, Kosovar Serbs were transferred to Strpce with American helicopters.

Highways remained blocked in the following days also without incidents because the KFOR placed its blockades in front of the Kosovar Serb blockades. Several hundred Albanians, mostly younger individuals, attempted to pass on foot through Kosovar Serb blockades on Sunday. Members of the international forces stopped them at the exit from Pristina. After unsuccessful negotiations with Kosovar Serbs on removing the barricades, officials with the international forces decided to tolerate the blockades of highways until the funerals are held for the murdered individuals in the bus atrocity.

The Serbian National Council of Kosovska Mitrovica decided to stop all contact with the KFOR and UNMIK because of this atrocity, with protests being held on Saturday in Mitrovica with several thousand participants.

MINES, ROCKET LAUNCHERS, CANNONS: Two days later, on Sunday around ten o' clock in the morning, on the day of mourning because of the murder of the as yet undetermined number of civilians near Podujevo, two antitank mines blew up a jeep carrying food to Yugoslav policemen on the line of separation. The mines were dug in, one atop the other, on a dirt road near the Village of Lucane in the Community of Bujanovac, about one thousand feet beyond the security zone separating the Yugoslav Army from the KFOR. Three policemen from the Police Department of the Belgrade Suburb of Vozdovac were in the vehicle. The jeep was completely blown apart, with the bodies of the three policemen remaining completely charred near the wreckage. This time there was no reason to be wary of the KFOR so that the mines did not require remote controlling. Since traffic in the line of separation between the Yugoslav Police and the armed Albanians unfolds normally, there was a possibility of a civilian vehicle being blown up in like fashion.

The very same day the Government Press Center in Bujanovac announced the names of the people suspected of planting the antitank mines, without citing their sources. The announcement indicates that this atrocity was commanded by the well known terrorist Redzep, alias Redza. The mines were supposedly planted by the terrorist threesome "directly commanded" by Arifi Bajrami, alias Balja, from the village of Turija in the Community of Bujanovac. "According to reliable sources, this action was carried out shortly after midnight. Besides Arifi, the remaining two members of the terrorist threesome are residents of Kosovo and Metohija," the Government announcement indicates. Dusan Mihajlovic, Deputy Minister of Police of Serbia, called the release of this announcement "a bad mistake." The Minister appears to be expecting that the Yugoslav Police will arrest the perpetrators of this atrocity at some point.

Serbian investigators examined the scene of this atrocity and television cameras filmed the location, but only after members of the EU Observers Mission convinced Albanians not to open fire. However, at dusk, when policemen tried to remove the wreckage of the jeep from the scene of the atrocity, fire was directed at them from the village of Lucane. The armed Albanians began their attack with light artillery, after which they fired two grenades and then used a cannon. The Police responded with "fire directed at the source of the shooting." Albanian sources later reported that the Police response to the shooting resulted in the death of "high officer of the UCPBM, better known as 'Commander Miratoca'," and that six members of the so-called UCPBM were also wounded. Albanian extremists hit three buildings housing Yugoslav Policemen, damaging several other buildings, but with no casualties on the Yugoslav side. The exchange of fire stopped at eight o'clock in the evening, only to begin early next morning. This time the fighting lasted from 6:40 a.m. to nine o'clock. There is unofficial information that the attack stopped after members of the KFOR came to Lucane. In any case, the road leading to Kosovo from Bujanovac through Lucane is completely desolate at this time.

In the meantime, the Yugoslav Police position on Mount Saint Elija, three and a half miles outside the City of Vranje was attacked during the night. The Police responded to the sniper and rocket launcher fire which lasted from 10 p.m. to quarter before midnight, but it is not known whether there are any wounded and dead on the Albanian side. There were no dead and wounded on the Serbian side, even though the Albanian extremists launched 26 rockets in under two hours. That same day Albanian extremists attacked the Yugoslav Army in the in the Community of Presevo, in the southernmost section of the security zone, directing fire from the villages of Bukovac, Kozarnik and Gola Glava, but luckily there were no casualties in this attack.

CONDEMNATION: The explosion of the Nis Ekspres bus found Nebojsa Covic, Chief of the Coordinating Body of the Governments of Serbia and Yugoslavia for Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja and Vice-President in the Serbian Government, in Vienna where, together with Yugoslav Minister of Foreign Affairs Goran Svilanovic, he was presenting the Serbian Government's plan for the resolution of the crisis in the South of Serbia to OSCE officials. Covic announced an invitation to Albanians for negotiations for that fateful Friday. On the previous day Covic and Svilanovic were in Bruxelles, where Covic's plan got the support of the European Union. The European Committee immediately decided to offer financial support for this plan and announced that it will send 900,000 euros to the area and called on Albanians to put an immediate stop to all violence and to come to the negotiating table. With certain reservations and evident asymmetry toward the conflicting sides, NATO General Secretary George Robertson also expressed his support for the plan. Most importantly, Robertson announced at a joint press conference that the Alliance is willing to review the proposal for changing the tampon zone, under conditions that a change will not lead to a hole, that is to say, that it will not lead to further conflicts. Covic responded by saying that authorities in Belgrade guarantee that after the security zone is lifted there will be no open show of force nor will brutal methods be applied. Covic added that the security zone will be lifted in phases. "I am expecting a decision on this proposal," Covic stated. He also stressed that there is expectation that the KFOR and NATO will completely close off the administrative border to any insurgence by extremists, and that negotiations can under no condition consider changes in the border or any issues of a special status of autonomy.

It takes little erudition to realize that the attack on Kosovar Serbs near Podujevo is a response to such clear support for "Covic's plan" coming from the international community. The raising of the temperature in Kosovo and incitement of conflicts between Kosovar Serbs and international forces would postpone, if not make impossible the implementation of the plan. But the terrorists seem to have overlooked the fact that the international community could look at Kosovar Serbs as victims, and merely achieved the opposite effect. The perpetrators of the atrocity near Podujevo has been condemned by absolutely everyone, from George Robertson to Tirana. Not only that, even Albanian politicians in Kosovo are been asked to distance themselves from violent elements. Finally, even leaders of the UCPBM expressed regret and condemnation.

Covic exploited well this opportunity and pressure from the international community to force Albanian representatives to the negotiating table. He stated at a press conference in Bujanovac that the invitation to the negotiations was received by presidents of the two Albanian parties in the South of Serbia, Riza Halimi and Zecirja Fazliu who confirmed that they received the invitation with their signatures. Still, Saip Kamberi, president of the local Committee for Human Rights, claims that they did not get the invitation. Albanians also have a problem with agreeing upon a platform for the negotiations and with constituting a delegation from all relevant political factors. They managed to agree that their delegation should include two representatives of the mentioned political parties, three representatives fo the UCPBM and two representatives of the Political Council of the UCPBM, a body which is under the control of the terrorists. The leader of the delegation would be Secket Musliu, one of the Commander of the UCPBM. Initially it was announced that the Albanian side will come to the negotiations with two platforms, that is to say that Riza Halimi's Democratic Action Party will present its position. Still, finally it turned out that the Albanian platform will be uniform. The presentation of the platform to the public was cancelled on several occasions, only to be announced for February 28. According to Riza Halimi, Albanians will demand a demilitarization of the crisis region (which appears only to presume a withdrawal of the army and the police). Albanians from the South of Serbia see the resolution of the issue of their status in terms of the referendum results from 1992. This status presumes autonomy for these three communities with the right to join Kosovo in the event that the FRY disintegrates. It appears that Albanian political parties are under great pressure from their armed fellow Albanians and that they have little room for independent decisions.

As far as the Kosovar Serbs are concerned, with their tragedy only having improved their negotiating position, there are no serious signs that their position will improve. Albanian attacks on Serbs continued there even on the day of mourning. The first sign of improvement, for instance, could be that KFOR soldiers begin riding in Serbian buses, which is something that Serbs demanded on several occasions already.

CHILDREN AROUND BUNKERS

In Bujanovac, the town in whose vicinity the biggest number of incidents occurred recently in the security zone, everything has changed. Even though here, like in neighboring Presevo, the majority of residents are Albanians, the relations between the Albanian and Serb communities here were never anything like those in Kosovo. There were no pressures on Serbs to move and until the withdrawal of the police and the army from Kosovo in 1999, Serbian armed forces never mistreated the Albanian civilians there. In the past year and a half, since the Albanian armed insurgence spread to these parts, and until the changes that happened in Serbia, there were many incidents of unseemly behavior by armed forces on both sides, with 29 people having lost their lives. The once correct relations between Serbs and Albanians are now ruined forever. Serbs speak about their neighbors with fear and indignation, while the Albanians refuse to have any contact with Serbs, beyond strictly necessary contact for business. All Albanian stores close at dusk, as if on command, and Albanians withdraw to their homes at that point. The town is full of people in uniforms of every color. At every larger intersection there is a police vehicle and somewhere even an armored vehicle. This is all that was needed on top of the poverty and destitution which chronically infringe upon the human rights of all residents of this part of Serbia.

Still, as far as can be seen in a brief visit to the area, the police is now behaving correctly toward local Albanians. Traffic on the infamous road Bujanovac-Gnjilane was unfolding regularly until the latest incidents. Since recently there is Yugoslav customs officer located at the last Yugoslav police checkpoint, with the line of separation being crossed by truck, eighteen wheelers and cars heading in both directions. The border between the security zone and Serbia proper passes through the middle of the Village of Lucani. From the south to the north it passes along the Binacka Morava River, with the village spreading across both sides of its banks. At the bridge, the security zone includes a part of the are on the other side. There, at the intersection of the highway and the street leading to the bridge is the last Yugoslav Police checkpoint. Local Albanians freely pass through the parts of the village which are and are not under the control of Yugoslav authorities. Policemen check their ID's, verify whether their name appears on any list, probably of known members of the UCPBM; sometimes they peek under the seats of their automobiles, and that is all. Policemen say that it is quite possible that the people who cross the bridge on a daily basis might be holding guard at checkpoints held by extremists on the other side, whether they do it voluntarily or under pressure. "It is hard for me to understand that someone who has a house like this wants war," an older policeman tells us, pointing to a white, three story building across the Yugoslav Police checkpoint which is ornamented with satellite antennas on all sides. This policemen tells us that the majority of armed Albanians here are probably not from here at all, but came from Kosovo.

The Yugoslav Police checkpoint is housed in a large, unfinished building. The window openings looking onto the security zone are closed off with bricks, with opening for guns remaining. They invite us to look through one of them, a shred of glass stuck in it. Some 200 feet across we see a bunker with white plastic bags filled with sand. Around it there are seven to eight children running. "No one else passes there," the policeman tells us, "they only let their children there. When they call in the children, we know that something is up."

On both sides of the separation, white plastic sandbags are used for cover, and on the Albanian side, even rocks and stones are used for reinforcement. Both sides are reinforcing their positions constantly. There are tens of white bunkers on the hill above Lucane in the security zone. Occasionally a human form is visible, running across the hill. Captain Vlada Ristic, Deputy Chief of Police for Belgrade's suburb of Vozdovac which is here as part of a unit of instructors of Special Police Units, takes as on a tour of fortified police bunkers on the hill of Taslak. It is a quiet day and there is not much to see. Three hills across is Kosovo, and there the KFOR and the American hold ground. Earlier the Yugoslav Police had positions deeper into the security zone, but it was impossible to hold them without heavier weapons (the Police are prohibited from taking weapons with calibers larger than 12.7 mm to the security zone). Armed Albanians occasionally take a shot at the police bunkers, however they rarely manage to hit anything. He tells us that the KFOR regularly inspects the area. The heaviest piece of equipment we saw on Taslak was a machinegun. Beyond Taslak there are no other hills toward Serbia proper. Beyond is flatland, while Bujanovac, which is several kilometers distant, is clearly visible. The Belgrade-Skoplje Highway is close by. "The Army is immediately behind us, we are part of the same crew," Captain Ristic tells us. And truly, going from Bujanovac to Lucane we saw Army equipment dug into the ground.

"TELL THEM TO SEND US HOME"

Policemen in Lucani are located in Albanian houses, we are told abandoned houses. On Taslak, the Yugoslav Police are living in dugouts. The narrow, shallow dugouts were made by the Army. In some of the dugouts there is a stove. There are boards on the earthen floor, with thin mats on the floor, and bedding on top of them. Everywhere there are burnt out candles. "We only have water in bottles," Captain Ristic tells us. He says that it is impossible to take a shower, even though people are here for as long as a week. A little further, a youth is washing his feet from a plastic bottle, underneath a tree. "Sometimes you sleep in your boots. We are not the army. They have showers, cisterns with water and kitchens. We only eat dry food." Soon a black jeep arrives with soft drinks and candy bars. Later, in one of the houses in the valley we saw an older policeman serving his colleagues with stuffed peppers, well cooked but made with evident lack of skill.

One of the first things Captain Ristic told us is that "everything is o.k. - we just need to become craftsmen." Ristic tells us that a craftsman's daily wages now are 70 German marks, and that presently the police gets 20 German marks per day. "We don't even come close to the unskilled hands, they get 25," one of Ristic's colleagues tells. "We are not doing this for money - who would be willing to risk his life for 20 German marks per day?" Ristic asks. One of the policemen who gathered around tells us that they already know by name the Albanians whose radio communications they listen in on. "Both they and we fought in Kosovo." On our way back, one youth shots to us: "Tell Them To Send Us Home."