Stratfor's Kosovo News for 6/19 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Stratfor 's Kosovo News for 6/19/99 Current as of 00:05 a.m. 06/20/99 EDT 990620 - According to London's Sunday Telegraph newspaper, NATO troops have discovered some 60,000 Kosovar Albanians in five northern Kosovo villages that had been turned into concentration camps by Serbian forces. The detainees claimed that the Serbian forces had planned to use them as human shields had a ground war broken out. Telegraph journalists claimed to have found 12,000 detainees in the village prison camp at Saykovac, while other camps reportedly existed at Dumoc, Sekiraca, Surkic, and Svecel. 990620 - The Serbian government has adopted a resolution calling on its ministers to accompany convoys of Serbian refugees returning to Kosovo. A few convoys reportedly began the trek back to Kosovo on June 19. 990620 - Russian special envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin has confirmed that his next position will be outside of government, as a member of the board of directors of the gas company Gazprom. However, Chernomyrdin said June 19 that he was ready to run in Russia's next elections, either as an independent or on the Our Home is Russia ticket. 990620 - Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini speculated on June 19 that NATO could reach a dela on disarming the KLA within 48 hours. 990619 - Due to objections from the Russian delegation, the official statement at the closing of the G-8 summit will not explicitly rule out providing reconstruction aid to Yugoslavia if President Slobodan Milosevic remains in office. Russia had opposed such a stipulation, for which NATO leaders had pressed. Despite the compromise statement, NATO leaders still argue that they will not provide substantial reconstruction aid to a Milosevic-led Yugoslavia. 990619 - European Commission officials are reportedly ready to offer an aid package to Yugoslavia, regardless of whether or not Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic remains in office. The package involves 150 million euros in 1999 and 500 million euros per year for the following three years. 990619 - The KLA-affiliated Kosovapress web site reports that Serbian forces have continued to engage KLA forces in combat in the city of Peja and in Strezovc of Kamenica. 990619 - The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said on June 19 the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and Britain's Scotland Yard have started examining alleged war crimes sites in Kosovo. The ICTY said the number of suspected sites was larger than expected. The sites' locations or number of FBI and Scotland Yard personnel conducting the investigations was not specified. 990619 - Gennady Seleznev, speaker of the Duma's lower house of parliament, said on June 19 that the Russia-U.S. accord on Moscow's role in the Kosovo peacekeeping mission was "reasonable." Seleznev said the accord "should allow us to avoid a situation which recalls the partition of Germany." He said that the Russian troops would report directly to the Russian defense ministry. 990619 - EU Commission Political Director Gunter Burghardt said at a press conference in Cologne on June 19 that the EU would give 500 million euros a year over the next three years for humanitarian and reconstruction aid in Kosovo. Burghardt said the EU would distribute the aid to non-governmental organizations and local authorities through the European Agency for Reconstruction. Burghardt also said a meeting of donor nations to determine assistance to Kosovo would be held by the end of June. 990619 - Milovan Bojic, Serbian deputy premier and commander of the republic's civilian protection headquarters, urged Kosovo Serbs in a radio address on June 19 to return to Kosovo in convoys, promising to secure aid to them. "The Serbian state will ensure for you complete logistics for the return, the food, medical aid and fuel," Bojic said. "You should use this moment to return to Kosovo in next 48 hours. Otherwise... the return will be more difficult," he warned. 990619 - Russian forces reportedly barred three British armored vehicles from Pristina airport on June 19. Witnesses said that the British, who told the Russians they had come to provide security, turned back without incident. Under a U.S.-Russian accord reached in Helsinki on June 18, Russian forces were to retain command of Pristina airport. 990619 - Spokesman of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo, Louis Garneaum, said on June 19 that the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, planned to be completed by midnight June 20, was proceeding on schedule. Garneaum said the forces already left zones one and two. The withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from the final zone, in the north, could be completed before midnight June 20, Garneaum said. 990619 - French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine called a meeting of foreign ministers from France, the United States, Britain, Germany, and Italy in Paris on June 19 to discuss urgent issues involving Kosovo. Vedrine, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and their German and Italian counterparts, Joschka Fischer and Lamberto Dini, began a working lunch at 1100 GMT. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook is represented by the British Ambassador to Paris. 990619 - Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin said on June 19 in Cologne that Russian President Boris Yeltsin has approved the accord signed June 18 in Helsinki on Russia's role in Kosovo's peacekeeping force. 990619 - Belgrade expressed its satisfaction June 18 at the U.S.-Russia accord over the KFOR peacekeeping force. "The basis of the accord is that it comes in the mandate of the UN Security council and military-technical agreement between Yugoslavia and KFOR, signed on June 9," the state agency Tanjug said. Yugoslav authorities were describing the peacekeeping force as an "international force under the auspices of the United Nations." In the Kosovo capital Pristina, however, the accord was characterized by the Serbs as a compromise made by Moscow under pressure from NATO. "It is aimed to prevent an eventual partition of the province, which would be undoubtedly done if the Russians were given an independent operational sector," a source close to the Serbian authorities was quoted as saying. 990619 - Lirak Qela, KLA commander of the northern part of Kosovo said on June 19 the rebels were not happy with the U.S.-Russia accord on Russia's role in the Kosovo peacekeeping force but would accept it. Qela said the KLA would accept the deal "because NATO did this agreement and we believe in the NATO forces that they are going to keep them (the Russians) under their control and their command." 990619 - The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) said on June 19 that it would no longer carry weapons in Kosovo's towns and cities. Lirak Qela, a KLA commander in charge of the northern region said the KLA wanted "to make (the NATO-led peacekeepers') work much easier so we decided to not go into the city in uniform and carrying weapons." A spokesperson with KFOR said: "The KLA, of its own initiative, said it will not carry arms in the streets of populated areas." A demilitarization agreement between NATO and the KLA is currently being negotiated by KLA leaders and KFOR commander British Lieutenant-General Mike Jackson. A NATO officer said a draft version of the agreement had already been sent to Brussels. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-06.20.99-11:53:00-29715