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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Special Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Striking harder
NATO began the fifth week of its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia yesterday by striking at the headquarters of President Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party in Belgrade.The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said NATO had also damaged the last remaining bridge over the Danube at Novi Sad, Serbia's second city, stopping all road and rail traffic and cutting off water supplies to some 40,000 people.
Tanjug also said that at least 10 people were killed and 16 injured when NATO missiles hit a Croatian Serb refugee camp in Kosovo. The settlement in Djakovica houses several hundred refugees from the war earlier this decade in Croatia.
Yugoslav media reported more NATO attacks on a television transmitter and an oil refinery near Novi Sad, an airport in central Serbia and the Kruzik factory in Valjevo.
The United States rushed more troops and equipment to Albania as border clashes raised fears of an expanding Balkan war. A dozen Apache anti-tank helicopters intended to bolster NATO's ability to assault Yugoslav ground forces in Kosovo left their Italian base yesterday for Albania, with another dozen expected to follow within a day. The Apache helicopters will be used to attack the Yugoslav tanks and armoured vehicles that have been used in Milosevic's campaign to drive ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. In Washington, US Defence Secretary William Cohen said 11 additional Apache helicopter crews were being dispatched. The total number of Apache-related soldiers deployed in Albania will reach about 3,300.
Witnesses said at least one missile out of three fired at Milosevic's party headquarters had hit its target, starting a huge fire in the 22-storey building, which also houses two television stations.
Six mouths, one bowl: Albanian refugees from Kosovo at a camp near Kukes. The tragedy has produced many such images, but, behind the television cameras and the soundbites, the suffering continues. A total of 630,000 refugees have been forced to leave Kosovo so far. For the Arabs, beyond the immediate horror, the war is also a painful reminder of the Palestinian exodus of 50 years ago (photo: AFP)
Pictures from Serbian television showed the four lowest floors and some upper floors totally gutted in the skyscraper block. Belgrade's civil defence chief, Dragan Covic, said he was certain the attack had caused casualties, claiming there were people inside the building. But there were no immediate reports of any dead or injured.
The range and intensity of the attacks strengthened expectations that NATO leaders meeting in Washington this weekend will turn up the pressure on Milosevic.
But tension has risen on Yugoslavia's western borders, where Yugoslav and Albanian units exchanged fire, while Croatia accused Yugoslav troops of entering a demilitarised zone. The conflict in Kosovo between government forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas has also spilled into Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in the Yugoslav federation.
Although NATO planes and missiles have pounded Montenegro as well as Serbia, the smaller republic is at odds with Milosevic's federal government, and Western leaders have expressed fears that Belgrade might crack down on Podgorica.
Amid concern that the conflict could spread, the president of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, was reported yesterday to have rejected Yugoslav army demands to put his republic's police force under Belgrade's control. In nearby Macedonia, meanwhile, President Kiro Gligorov warned that the influx of 130,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees and the presence of thousands of NATO troops was destabilising his country.
NATO presidents and prime ministers will mark the alliance's 50th birthday tomorrow -- day 31 of its first war against a sovereign state. They seem bound at least to discuss the nagging doubt that hangs over their strategy: Can air power really be enough to bring Milosevic to heel? Their public stance is that it can, and that no NATO ground troops will go into Kosovo until Yugoslavia agrees to turn over control of the southern province. Defence Secretary Cohen said the United States planned to use the three-day NATO summit to press allies for agreement on an oil embargo and other economic sanctions against Yugoslavia. "We think it's important that all sources of resupply of fuel and energy be eliminated," Cohen said.
US National Security Adviser Sandy Berger has told reporters that Washington wants a clear affirmation of NATO's aims -- to remove Serb forces from Kosovo and send in an international force to monitor the return of some 600,000 ethnic Albanians who have been expelled or have fled to neighbouring states. Clinton, he said, will seek a strong signal "that the military, economic and political pressure on Belgrade will intensify until those goals are met".
Berger did not rule out the possibility of sending ground troops to fight their way into Kosovo -- a change of tactics that would have seemed unthinkable a month ago, when most Western experts were predicting that Belgrade's defiance would quickly crumble. A cross-party group of lawmakers asked the US Senate on Tuesday to grant Clinton the authority to use "all necessary means" in Kosovo. Calls for a ground war have mounted in the West as reports multiplied of atrocities being committed in Kosovo.
In Cairo, Foreign Minister Amr Moussa yesterday said that Egypt supported UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's initiative for a political resolution of the crisis, reports Nevine Khalil.
"We consider the most serious issue in this affair to be the ethnic cleansing of the Kosovars. This has to stop, and the refugees have to return. These are the two keys for any solution of the Kosovo problem," Moussa said.
International
Democracy against hegemony
