 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters 'Standing up to brutality'
Yugoslavia scattered its forces yesterday in a bid to protect them from NATO air strikes, after diplomats failed to reach a peaceful settlement in Kosovo.
Citing an imminent threat of war, Yugoslavia declared a state of emergency -- its first since World War II -- and mobilised troops and resources to keep its grip on Kosovo, the southern province where heavily armed government troops have been battling Albanian separatists for over a year.
The bombardment was expected soon. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "We are resolved to act now. It's plain that action will begin in the not too distant future. Now we are left with no other alternative than to take military action. We have to see it through all the way."
Amid a sense that a military strike was inevitable, foreign embassy personnel were evacuating Yugoslavia yesterday; all remaining UN workers in Kosovo were pulled out late Tuesday.
In Belgrade, long lines at petrol stations and huge banner headlines in state-run and independent newspapers told a stark story: "State of emergency. Milosevic says no to NATO."
But children went to school and employees to their offices as on any other weekday. Street life appeared normal, except for the army personnel carrier driving down a main street.
"All efforts to achieve a negotiated political solution to the Kosovo crisis having failed, no alternative is open but to take military action," NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said Tuesday night in Brussels, after the military alliance resolved to act.
US envoy Richard Holbrooke, who spent two days of talks attempting unsuccessfully to obtain Slobodan Milosevic's acceptance of a peace deal embraced by Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, said the Yugoslav leader understood the implications of his decision. "He has chosen a path whose consequences he fully understands by rejecting our reasonable, rational requests and suggestions," Holbrooke told CNN.
"If you don't stand up to brutality and the killing of innocent civilians, you invite them to do more," US President Bill Clinton said. "We have tried to do everything we could to solve this peacefully."
The North Atlantic Council, NATO's top policy-making body, went into an early session yesterday in Brussels to assess the situation after the failure of Holbrooke's final mission to Belgrade and Solana's instructions to NATO military authorities to begin air operations.
Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov cancelled his visit to Washington mid-flight, expressing his nation's displeasure with the determination to attack Yugoslavia.
Solana directed General Wesley Clark, supreme allied commander in Europe, to initiate action with the 400-odd allied aircraft and the half dozen missile-carrying ships on alert in the Adriatic Sea. Clark had said on Monday that targets had been selected and his forces were ready.
"It's estimated that the army and police targets would be hit first in NATO air strikes," Yugoslav Defence Minister Pavle Bulatovic said. "However insane the possible NATO action is, it's estimated that the civilian population will not be targeted in the strikes."
The French Foreign Ministry said Milosevic, having refused all political options, "bears the entire responsibility" for impending NATO strikes on his country.
The statement came after President Jacques Chirac ordered French forces to ready for action on Tuesday night, according to his spokeswoman, Catherine Colonna, who was in Berlin with the president for a European Union summit.
"The president, in accordance with the government, has decided on the participation of French forces in the military action which has become inevitable," said the foreign ministry statement.
Yugoslavia's neighbours were on the alert.
Albania received assurances of NATO protection in a letter from Solana. Macedonia, however, was worried about the possible consequences to its own fragile stability, especially with more than 10,000 NATO troops on its territory preparing for the mission in Kosovo.
Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, refused to join in the declaration of a state of emergency. Authorities, who have criticised Milosevic's tactics in Kosovo, announced last month that they would be neutral in any conflict with NATO.
Greece, meanwhile, boosted security along its northern borders with Albania and Macedonia, fearing a possible wave of refugees.
NATO had threatened bombardment if Milosevic rejected a US-brokered plan to provide interim self-rule to the ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 per cent of Kosovo's two million people.
Holbrooke said Milosevic would not even discuss two key points -- a cease-fire in Kosovo and Yugoslavia's acceptance of a NATO-led peacekeeping force of 28,000 members.
Serb forces, meanwhile, continued pursuing the armed rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army and suspected supporters.
Kosovo's capital, Pristina, was tense but quiet early yesterday. Several hundred frightened Albanians left Pristina on Tuesday, taking a few hastily packed possessions with them.
