Serbs attack, massacre ethnic Albanians
■ Men, women and
children were found with
bullet holes through the
backs of their heads in a
makeshift camp.
OBRUA, Yugoslavia (AP) - They
lay scattered on the floor of a pine
forest: 15 men, women and children,
or what remained of them. Some were
carved up with knives, limbs hacked
off. All had been shot in the back of
the head.
Ethnic Albanians say the victims
were slaughtered Sunday after a Serb
attack against the Kosovo Liberation
Army, which is fighting for indepen
dence for this majority Albanian
province. Most were killed in a
makeshift camp in the woods where
they were hiding after Serb troops
overran their communities.
The killers slit the throat of a 10
year-old boy, blew out his mother’s
brains, cut open the stomach of
another female relative and shot a
pregnant woman in the head. Two
days later, the victims remained
unburied, sprawled in the forest
where they died.
“Serb police executed every
body,” said one trembling elderly
man, who identified himself only as
Fazli.
As he spoke, the occasional
crackle of rifle fire rang through the
valley about 25 miles west of Pristina,
the provincial capital. The thud of two
mortar rounds echoed as a Serb
police armored personnel carrier
escorted out about a dozen ethnic
Albanian women and children on the
back of a trailer drawn by a tractor.
Serb police had no comment on
the killings. The day before, KLA
fighters killed seven Serb policeman
in the area.
The bodies were seen Monday
by diplomats from the United States
and other countries who are mem
bers of a permanent international
observer mission to Kosovo. They
refused to discuss what they saw
before reporting to their govern
ments.
But Jack Zetkulic, deputy chief
of mission at the U.S. Embassy in
Belgrade, said Tuesday he and oth
ers touring refugee sites in Kosovo
were shown “some harrowing pho
tographs” and a report on the
alleged massacre from the observer
group.
An estimated 275,000 people
have been driven from their houses by
the fighting.
Each side has accused the other of
killing civilians since President
Slobodan Milosevic launched a
crackdown on Albanian secessionists
seven months ago. Serbs say at least
39 Serbs were tortured, mutilated and
killed near Glodjane earlier this
month after they were kidnapped by
“terrorists.”
The U.N. Security Council has
demanded an immediate cease-fire,
and NATO has threatened airstrikes if
the government ignores the order.
According to friends and relatives
of the victims, masked Serbs in green
and blue uniforms descended on this
town, which the Serbs call Obrinje,
on the weekend, capturing a man in
his 60s.
Wielding a knife from the man’s
own kitchen, the attackers forced him
to take them to where refugees were
hiding. The man’s body was found at
the edge of the camp. The back of his
head was blown off, his throat was slit
and the butcher knife carefully placed
on his chest.
In the camp, the attackers shot a
man and a woman, both 65 years old,
while they lay in a makeshift tent that
had sheltered them since they fled
their home days earlier.
Their bodies were spread on the
blankets, surrounded by their blood
spattered clothing, pots and pans. The
woman’s right foot was partially cut
off, and her mouth was gaping open.
According to villagers, six
women tried to escape with four chil
dren. But the attackers caught up with
them in a shallow ditch. Their bodies
were lying in the ditch.
The attackers shot women and
children in the back of the head at
point-blank range. The body of an 18
month-old boy, whom survivors
called Valmir, lay half-hidden under
that of his 38-year-old mother, who
received a bullet in the back of the
head.
Valmir’s right hand was raised
and stiffened in a defensive posture.
His pacifier was still dangling from
the dried blood on his chin.
In a house leading to the refugee
camp lay the charred body of an
elderly man, burned with his house
and the rest of his belongings.
Two brothers, one 40 years old
and the other 55, lay sprawled in the
tracks of a tank that plowed through
the woods near the refugee camp.
Attackers shot both of them in the
back of the head.
Plan would push down
college student loan rates
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
interest rate on college student
loans would be lowered for all bor
rowers, and the maximum student
aid grant would be raised under a
bill passed by the Senate on
Tuesday. The bipartisan measure
goes to President Clinton for his
likely signature.
The 96-0 vote followed voice
vote House approval Monday of
the compromise bill.
The measure also includes
incentives for people to become
teachers by offering to forgive part
of their student loans if they teach in
urban or rural districts with large
numbers of poor children. It also
includes a grant program for states
to improve teacher preparation.
Teacher-preparation colleges
would have to provide information
to would-be students about what
percentage of graduates pass
teacher examinations.
The measure is one of the few
education bills to find bipartisan
support this election year.
A key provision would change
the way interest rates are deter
mined for student loans.
The new formula, based on
Treasury bill interest rates and
added points, would hold down
what students pay by giving a sub
sidy to lenders. The rate for stu
dents would be 7.46 percent for
new loans - the lowest rate in 17
years - down from 8.23 percent
last year, sponsors say.
The measure also would raise
the maximum authorized amount
for Pell Grants to $4,500 a year in
1999-2000, up from $3,000. The
amount would gradually rise to
$5,800 in 2003-2004.
An added provision would
require the Department of
Education to gather and publish
information on college costs,
including yearly increases in
tuition and fees.
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Palestine accepts offer
of West Bank pullback
■ Yasser Arafat has
accepted Israel’s
withdrawal plans and said
he will work to prevent
further terrorist attacks.
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
accepted Israel’s formula for turn
ing over more land on the West
Bank on Tuesday and voiced hope
that an agreement could be con
cluded at a White House summit in
mid-October.
“Peace is a Palestinian need,
Israeli need, Arab need, interna
tional need,” Arafat said after an
hourlong meeting with President
Clinton.
The Palestinian leader assured
Clinton that he would try to
counter terrorism against Israel.
“He will exert every possible
effort,” Palestinian negotiator
Saeb Erekat said.
The pullback would cover 13
percent of the West Bank, on top of
the 27 percent Israel promised ear
lier to hand over to Arafat’s
Palestinian Authority.
It was proposed by the Clinton
administration last winter to prod
Israel to give up more of the West
Bank. Arafat, who had claimed vir
tually all of the territory, agreed to
settle for the 13 percent.
Israel, meanwhile, proposed
what its diplomats called “refine
ments.”
These included setting aside 3
percent of the land for a nature pre
serve, with Israel having a hand in
maintaining security over the
undeveloped area.
“We agreed to it to facilitate the
negotiations” for an overall West
Bank settlement, Arafat told
reporters in the White House dri
veway after his meeting with
Clinton.
Asked if an accord would be
signed at the summit Clinton plans
u
Peace is a
Palestinian need’
Israeli need, ylrnft
weed, international
need”
Yasser Arafat
Palestinian leader
to hold here in mid-October, the
Palestinian leader said, “We hope
so.”
Clinton proposed the summit
meeting and negotiating schedule
during a three-way session with
Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.
The schedule will send
Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright to the Middle East next
week.
With the territorial issue basi
cally resolved, the focus of U.S.
mediation has shifted to whether
Arafat can satisfy Netanyahu’s
demands to disrupt terrorist cells
on Palestinian-held land, confis
cate weapons from militant groups
and have the Palestine Liberation
Organization strike all anti-Israeli
references from its covenant.
White House spokesman Mike
McCurry said before the meeting
that Israel’s concern for security
was “justified” and that “the presi
dent is determined to see an agree
ment arise.”
On the contested West Bank,
meanwhile, a car rigged with
explosives blew up Tuesday in an
industrial area, killing an activist
in the Hamas organization and
wounding two other supporters of
the Islamic militant group that
claims responsibility for bloody
attacks in Israel, Palestinian police
said.
Federal Reserve reduces
short-term interest rates
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal
Reserve policy-makers Tuesday cut
short-term interest rates by a quarter
percentage point, the first reduction
in nearly three years, in hope of cush
ioning die U.S. economy from global
financial turmoil.
The central bank’s monetary pol
icy panel voted to move the bench
mark federal funds rate, which banks
charge each other on overnight loans,
to 5.25 percent from 5.5 percent
The Fed left its discount rate
unchanged at 5 percent
Many traders had been hoping
for a half-point rather than quarter
point rate reduction. Monday, in
anticipation of lower rates, the Dow
rose 80 points on top of last week’s
133-point gain.
The federal funds rate reduction,
the first since January 1996, should
be reflected within days in most
banks’ prime rate for their best busi
ness customers. As a result, rates on a
wide range of consumer and busi
ness loans, from credit cards to auto
loans to home-equity lines, should
move down as well.
Lott: ‘Bad conduct’ worth
impeachment process
WASHINGTON (AP) - “Bad
conduct” that brings the presidency
into disrepute is enough for
impeachment, Senate Majority
Leader Trent Lott said Tuesday. He
refused to say whether President
Clinton’s affair with a former intern
meets that standard
“I don’t want to pass judgment
on that or answer that question,” Lott
replied, saying the decision would
depend on additional facts. But, he
allowed, “It may be.”
The Senate Republican leader
said that peijury and obstruction of
justice - two of the principal allega
tions against Clinton by Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr - would be
grounds for impeachment
Democrats say defining
impeachable offenses before the
House launches an inquiry into
Clinton’s conduct is vital to fair pro
ceedings.
Republicans on the House
Judiciary Committee are aiming for
a show of good will with Democrats
in advance of next week’s vote on an
impeachment inquiry.
Presidential supporters
planning ad campaign
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Causing concern among
Democrats, Clinton’s supporters
are trying to raise as muchas $5
million for an election-season TV
ad campaign that attacks
Republicans handling of impeach
ment proceedings.
Some Democratic operatives
fear the money will come from
donors who would otherwise help
cash-strapped candidates in Nov. 3
election campaigns. They suspect the
effort is to help the president, not his
party.
“If this is true, it is disappointing
that the president has put his own
well-being ahead of Democrats fac
ing difficult elections in
November,” said Dan Sallick,
spokesman for the Democratic
National Campaign Committee.