Finally, NATO Begins to Disarm KLA Thugs


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit


[Days after planting stories of "torture chambers" supposedly left behind by
Serb authorities, the NATO forces discovered a real torture chamber, and its
victims, in a KLA dungeon prison. Kidnappings, hostage- seizures, rapes,
murders and looting have occurred since the KLA fighters began to take over
from the Serb authorities and Yugslav Army. Finally, perhaps to avoid
further embarrassment, NATO's forces are becoming somewhat less blase about
their erstwhile allies. And reporters are beginning to write that "neither
side" has a monopoly on barbarity and cruelty.--NY Transfer]


http://news.bbc.co.uk/

BBC World: Europe
Saturday, June 19, 1999 

Eyewitness: Disarming the KLA 


KLA fighters are detained by German KFor troops in Prizren 
By Ben Brown in Kosovo 

As Serb refugees pour out of Kosovo fearing reprisals from the Kosovo
Liberation Army, it is Nato's task to contain and disarm the KLA rebel
fighters.

When the rebels come down from the hills, they are shocked to be met by Nato
troops, their allies in the war, demanding the immediate surrender of their
weapons.

It is not the hero's welcome they had expected.

A meeting between Nato and top KLA commanders this weekend is almost certain
to agree to a surrender of the KLA arsenal.

But this will be a painful process for the fighters. Smuggling the weapons
into the province was an expensive business and the rebels are loathe to
give them up.

Lirac Celaj, a KLA spokesman, said: "It was very hard to bring these weapons
through the Albanian border and other countries. Many friends of ours died
trying to bring over these weapons. This is one of the reasons why Nato
should not disarm us."

Some KLA fighters may hide their weapons rather than hand them in. Getting
them to surrender their arms is not going to be easy for Nato troops.

'Only a fraction' confiscated

British troops in Kosovo believe that they have confiscated only a fraction
of the KLA arsenal, thought to total some 20,000 guns.

What they seize they take to a remote field and blow up. The KLA have asked
them to keep them and lock them up but Nato does not consider that an
option.

Major Ian Seraph of the British Army, said: "Now is the time for them to
come out of the hills and hand over their weapons so that we can start to
move forward the process of reconstruction and regeneration."

In the town of Prizren on Friday, KLA rebels were forced to leave a police
station they had been occupying.

They were found by German troops who discovered that the fighters had turned
it into a torture chamber in which suspected collaborators had been
imprisoned and beaten. The body of a 70-year-old man was found handcuffed to
a chair.

The prisoners who were freed are lucky to be alive.

There has been barbarism on both sides: neither has a monopoly on cruelty.
 
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nyteeu-06.19.99-15:39:42-7683