Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Serbs Renew Crackdown on Albanian Villages in Kosovo

See the article in its original context from
March 25, 1998, Section A, Page 3Buy Reprints
TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.

The Serbian police, ignoring calls by Washington to end a crackdown against armed Albanian separatists in Kosovo province that has left more than 80 dead, renewed counterinsurgency action today against villages near the Albanian border.

Heavily armed police and paramilitary units, backed by helicopters, armored personnel carriers and heavy antiaircraft guns, surrounded four villages in western Kosovo. In a familiar tactic, the troops apparently opened fire on the villages this morning, sending streams of frightened families fleeing before setting homes alight. There were reports from witnesses that small units from the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army returned fire with assault rifles.

The Serbian authorities said the counterattack began when a policeman was killed and another seriously wounded in an ambush by separatist guerrillas in the Decani region, near Rznic village, 12 miles from the border with Albania.

The six nations that oversee the fragile peace in the former Yugoslavia prepared today to hold a meeting of foreign ministers in Bonn to discuss the violence in Kosovo. The meeting was called earlier this month after Serbian forces attacked several villages in central Kosovo and killed over 80 people, at least half of them women and children. Many of the dead bore signs of torture and mutilation.

But the United States, which has called for sanctions to be reimposed on Belgrade unless the attacks end, has failed to muster support for harsher measures from Russia, Italy, France and Germany. These nations, together with Britain, make up the ''Contact Group'' overseeing Yugoslavia.

Kosovo, Serbia's southernmost province, has a population that is 90 percent Albanian. President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia revoked the province's autonomy in 1989 when he was president of Serbia and installed police rule, a move that deeply alienated the Albanians.

The Serbian Interior Ministry said of today's action: ''A terrorist assault was launched at a police patrol driving in an official vehicle on regular duty in the village of Dubrava, the Kosovo municipality of Decani, at 10:45 A.M. today. Countering the terrorist attack, [Interior Ministry] officers acted determinedly and seized a terrorist, who later told the police that the terrorist gang that launched the assault had illegally arrived from Albania.''

There have been numerous reports of volunteers coming to Albania from Switzerland and Germany, where some 600,000 Albanians live. Western diplomats have so far been unable to determine how many of these volunteers, if any, have crossed the border to fight in Kosovo.

Leaders of the Albanian community in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, said at least four Albanians died in the attacks today, and they fear the toll is higher. The figure could not be confirmed because reporters and aid workers have been blocked by the police from entering the area.

Albanians from the area said they were attacked by police units from Pec, north of Glamocel, Dubrava, Glodjane and Babaloc.

''The villages were sealed off and later the sound of heavy Serb weapons and artillery was heard,'' the Albanian-run Kosovo Information Center said. ''Several houses in Glodjane were set on fire and people abandoned their homes.''

Washington has been pressing President Milosevic to open talks with the Albanian leadership in Kosovo and restore autonomy to the province.

Ibrahim Rugova, leader of Kosovo's Albanians, has formed a negotiating team to meet the Serbian authorities. He is demanding the presence of an international mediator, a demand Belgrade has rejected.

Instead, Belgrade today invited the ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seslj to join a coalition Government. Mr. Seslj, who ran some of the most notorious paramilitary units in Bosnia and Croatia during the war, has issued bellicose statements that call for the deportation of all ethnic Albanians who are not loyal to the Serbian state.

''The Government will suppress with all legitimate means any attempts at separatism, secession and terrorism,'' Prime Minister Mirko Mirjanovic told parliament today.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 3 of the National edition with the headline: Serbs Renew Crackdown on Albanian Villages in Kosovo. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT