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Alternative News on Kosovo

Our picks of insightful news and analysis of the Kosovo crisis. Updated weekly.

Aug. 10, 1999

NATO Turns Up Heat on KLA to Lukewarm
In their analysis of the current situation in Kosovo, STRATFOR does a good job of describing the corner NATO has backed itself into in Kosovo. Tensions between NATO and the KLA are rising. The KLA is conducting a campaign to cleanse the last of the Serbs from Kosovo, and the KFOR peacekeepers are, in theory, supposed to stop them. In the town of Mitrovica, French peacekeepers have divided the town along ethnic lines, and will not allow ethnic Albanian men to enter the Serb sector without an escort. Angry protests have resulted.

Other disturbing, but hardly surprising, news is that peacekeepers have found illegal caches of weapons, as well as KLA uniforms and identity cards which read, "KLA Interior Ministry Police." General Jackson has blamed "hardliners" for the violence against Serbs, but STRATFOR points out that there is no one more hard line than KLA leader Hashim Thaci. The problem, according to STRATFOR, is that after legitimizing the KLA during the war, NATO cannot turn on them now. This leaves NATO with very few options in dealing with the KLA's ethnic cleansing campaign, which they have thus far been either unwilling or unable to halt.

Rising Violence in Kosovo
THE GUARDIAN UK reports on a weekend of violence in Kosovo. More than 50 people were arrested throughout the province. A young girl was injured in a grenade attack in downtown Pristina; two Serbian women were shot in their homes; a Serbian man was found stabbed; and the body of man who had been beaten to death was discovered on the roof of a building. In clashes between French peacekeepers and angry Albanian demonstrators in the town of Mitrovice, a rock thrown by a demonstrator fractured the skull of a French soldier.

This report is almost entirely based on information provided at the KFOR press briefing on Monday. A transcript of the briefing is available at http://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/1999/k990809a.htm.

Among the information in the briefing not included in the GUARDIAN piece, "Saturday night in Zintinje, Multinational Brigade (East) reported that between 30 and 40 house were burnt." There were no casualties.

All past KFOR press briefings are available at http://www.nato.int/kosovo/jnt-grdn.htm.