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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 April 1999 Issue No. 423 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 April 1999 Issue No. 423
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Interview Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters No end to exodus
NATO moved yesterday to escalate its air bombardment of Yugoslavia as the assault reached the one-week mark with the failure of a Russian peace mission.The decision by NATO's North Atlantic Council early yesterday signals a widening of the target area, which could bring bombs to the centre of Belgrade for the first time in the campaign. The first week has concentrated on military bases and air defence sites, including some outside the Yugoslav capital.
Cloudy weather slowed the mission. British pilots complained they had to abort missions overnight for the second time this week due to the weather. They said American pilots had to launch anti-radar missiles to protect themselves from ground fire, indicating Yugoslavia's air defences were still a threat.
Western officials expressed new resolve to try to cripple a Yugoslav military machine they say is responsible for atrocities aimed at the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo Albanians, who continued to stream out of the devastated province yesterday. "We are now widening the range of military targets," British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook confirmed on BBC radio.
British Defence Secretary George Robertson said NATO will stop air strikes if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic meets three conditions: stop attacking Albanians in Kosovo, withdraw his forces from the province and allow refugees to return under the protection of an international military force. In the meantime, Robertson told a news conference, NATO forces will intensify their attacks, widening the list of targets to include Serb tank and troop concentrations. "Nowhere [in Yugoslavia] is immune to these attacks," Robertson said.
US defence officials acknowledged the assault was far from reaching its goals. According to NATO spokesman Kenneth Bacon, the allies are still looking for a "knockout punch".
Ethnic Albanians and neighbouring countries have urged NATO to do something to halt the huge exodus from violence-wracked Kosovo. An estimated 118,000 people have fled to Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro since NATO strikes began on 24 March. The UN Refugee Works Agency said yesterday that 85,000 refugees have poured into Albania. At the Macedonian border yesterday, refugees told of a line of cars across the border believed to stretch more than five kilometres, and said that Serb security forces were searching passengers.
The UN-sponsored World Food Programme warned that "the food crisis in Kosovo is expected to worsen. Without international relief assistance, starvation is expected within 10 days or two weeks."
French President Jacques Chirac called yesterday for a European Union ministerial meeting to organise a major emergency aid programme for Kosovo refugees. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer suggested an international peace conference to set up a new order in the Balkans on the basis of a draft worked out at the Rambouillet conference.
Poised to target Serb military forces in Kosovo, five US B-1 long-range bombers were preparing to fly to Europe to join B-52 bombers that have been launching cruise missiles at Yugoslavia.
Missile and bomb explosions were reported at a number of locations yesterday in the Belgrade area and elsewhere. Shrill hisses, identified by the independent Beta news agency as NATO planes, were heard before dawn in the centre of the Yugoslav capital. But there was no evidence the allied forces had begun bombing strategic targets in the centre of the city, which reportedly could include the Yugoslav defence and interior ministries.
Missiles hit military-industrial targets outside Belgrade near Avala and Pancevo, the state-run Tanjug news agency reported. Several missiles hit southeast of the Kosovo capital, Pristina, and other impacts were reported around the province, Tanjug said.
Brief hopes for a political breakthrough were dashed Tuesday when Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov failed to budge Milosevic from his insistence that NATO attacks stop before he resumes peace talks. Milosevic, who said he would pull back some of his troops in Kosovo if NATO halts its raids, declared his forces ready to fight "to the very end".
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana yesterday described the peace mission as a failure. "With the current situation on the ground, it is absolutely impossible to engage in political negotiations," Solana said on French radio.
But the Russian Interfax news agency quoted Primakov as saying that Russia would forge ahead with efforts to stop NATO's air campaign.
Milosevic's forces are accused of continuing a terror campaign against majority ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the southern Serbian province that has been wracked by war since Milosevic launched a campaign against separatists in February 1998.
Hashim Thaci, a leader of ethnic Albanians fighting for autonomy in Kosovo, told Germany's ZDF television that the Serbs had created three concentration camps, including one in a Pristina stadium that he said was holding 100,000 people.
In an interview with France's RTL radio, Thaci confirmed reports that Serbs had executed Fehmi Agani, a close aide to ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugovo.
US President Bill Clinton warned that atrocities against ethnic Albanians would weaken Serbia's claim to the separatist province and increase NATO's determination to destroy Milosevic's army.
With international monitors gone and virtually all foreign journalists expelled from Kosovo, the reported atrocities are impossible to verify.
Albanian Foreign Minister Paskal Milo urged Kosovo Albanians to remain at home and "resist" what he called the Serb genocide. "This is a war for existence. If this massive fleeing continues, Belgrade will win," he said.
see also: A difference of destiny
Primacy of NATO over the UN?
A long and muddy battle
