Yugo: Post-bombing Destabilization Program Underway Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ............................................................... Kosovo Serbs Rally Amid Call For Elections By Deborah Charles BELGRADE (Reuters) - Police in Belgrade broke up protests by angry Kosovo Serbs Monday as Serbia's umbrella opposition group demanded early elections and democratic change. British Prime Minister Tony Blair challenged the population of Serbia to oust President Slobodan Milosevic, saying they could no longer turn a blind eye to their country's alleged atrocities in Kosovo. NATO, fresh from clinching a deal to disarm ethnic Albanian guerrillas, vowed to stamp out ethnic violence in Kosovo and urged Serb refugees to return. Two Nepalese Gurkha soldiers of the British army and two civilians were killed by a mine during an operation to clear explosives from a school, the BBC said. As Western nations contemplated the huge task of rebuilding the Balkans, President Clinton said Yugoslavia could be given help with emergency power supplies to stop people freezing this winter. But he ruled out repairing shattered infrastructure such as bombed bridges. NATO and U.N. officials, anxious to stem the flow of Kosovo refugees risking a return home under their own steam, unveiled plans for organized repatriations in the next week or so. NATO said it would start taking refugees home from Albania from July 1 onwards while the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said organized journeys from Macedonia could begin sooner. NATO said 2,000 Serbs had come back to Kosovo in the past 48 hours, days after fleeing to escape feared reprisals by returning ethnic Albanian refugees. Others are refusing to return. Police broke up a second day of protests in central Belgrade by about 200 Kosovo Serbs and detained their leader, witnesses said. ``We're here to protest against the whole situation,'' said a Serb man from the Kosovo town of Prizren. ``The government has manipulated us and left us without anything. They made us leave Kosovo and we don't have any assistance here -- they just keep pushing us from one site to another. ``It's a madhouse down there right now. We would be killed or slaughtered if we go there. There's no security without the army, without police. You can't face them (ethnic Albanians) with your bare hands.'' The government is pushing to get some 50,000 Serbs who fled Kosovo over the past week back into the region, promising police escorts, food, water and fuel for the journey home. Under an agreement signed with NATO in the early hours of Monday, the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) pledged to partly disarm and to refrain from carrying out reprisals against ethnic Serbs. The accord says the KLA must follow a strict 90-day timetable for placing heavy weapons in storage depots, taking down roadblocks and stopping its fighters from appearing in public in military uniform. A relieved Clinton telephoned KLA commander Hashim Thaqi from Germany to thank him for signing the deal, which he described as an important step forward. Thaqi, speaking on his return to Pristina, held out an olive branch to his main ethnic Albanian rival, moderate leader Ibrahim Rugova. ``There is room enough in Kosovo for him and he can help a lot in the political process here,'' Thaqi told a news conference. For the first time, Clinton suggested that emergency aid to Yugoslavia could include help in restoring power supplies, for example to keep hospitals running. But he ruled out rebuilding bridges that NATO destroyed during its 11-week bombing campaign to force an end to what the West called Serbian repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. ``I don't buy that. That's part of their economic reconstruction and I don't think we should pay it, not a bit, not a penny,'' he said after meeting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and European Commission President Jacques Santer. Schroeder said an international summit for the reconstruction of the Balkans would take place in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo in July. ``It will be a real and visible sign that we do not just want to talk about this but that we want to help and we will help,'' he said. Reporting to parliament on the weekend Group of Eight summit in Cologne, Blair said Serbia could not regain a place among civilized nations while it was led by an indicted war criminal. ``And I say this to the Serb people: the world cannot help you rebuild your country while Milosevic is at its head. And nor will the world understand, as the full extent of these atrocities is revealed, if you just turn a blind eye to the truth and pretend it is nothing to do with you. ``This is your country. This evil was carried out by your soldiers and by your leaders,'' Blair declared. Serbia's opposition umbrella group, the Alliance for Change, announced it would start organizing demonstrations across the republic calling for early elections and democratic change. ``This is the last minute to reverse the present political course in Serbia and to demand the responsibility of those who have had unlimited power in the decision-making process over the last 10 years,'' said Alliance official Milan Protic. In Kosovo's capital Pristina, NATO's British commander Lieutenant-General Sir Mike Jackson promised stepped-up security to protect returning Serbs from attacks by ethnic Albanians. Jackson apologized for a number of attacks on Serb homes Sunday, the day when the last Yugoslav troops withdrew from Kosovo. ``It should not have happened. We fell short of what we wanted,'' the general said. European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, said they were ``alarmed by the exodus of the Serb population from Kosovo and urged all Serb residents of Kosovo to return to their homes.'' Officials in Belgrade have been appealing to the Serbs' sense of identity with Kosovo, home of their church and site of a 14th century battle that shaped Serbian history. If Serbs do not return, they say, there will be no Kosovo. ================================================================= 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-06.23.99-17:48:01-23303