Thousands flee Kosovo into Albania
• ' • - ' , \- y( V .
■ Executions and refugees
mark a humanitarian disas
ter unprecedented since
WWn, NATO officials say.
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -
NATO bombs pounded Yugoslavia
for a sixth day as thousands of ethnic
Albanians fearing Serb paramilitary
forces streamed out of Kosovo on
Monday in what may be Europe’s
worst humanitarian disaster since
World Warn.
An ethnic Albanian leader, Fehmi
Agani, was executed Sunday, NATO
officials said. Agani, a close aide to
ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim
Rugova and one of the negotiators at
the failed Rambouillet peace talks,
had just attended the funeral of a
human rights lawyer.
Four other prominent ethnic
Albanians were also reported execut
ed, NATO officials said, in what it
called a “scorched earth policy” -
including Baton Haxhiu, editor in
chief of the Albanian-language news
paper in Kosovo’s capital Pristina,
Koha Ditore.
The newspaper’s publisher, Veton
Surroi, and Rugova both have gone
into hiding in fear of their lives, the
officials reported.
NATO spokesmen said refugees
were arriving at the Albanian border
I I
at the rate of 4,000 an -
hour today, straining
the already desperate resources of
one of Europe’s poorest countries.
“We are trying to stop this cata
strophe and stop this killing,” NATO
Secretary-General Javier Solana said
after a meeting with the European
Union’s outgoing commissioner for
humanitarian affairs.
The Albanian prime minister
appealed Monday to his countrymen
to take in the refugees, most of whom
were carrying their only possessions
by hand and some without even iden
tity documents - taken away, the
refugees said, by Serb authorities at
the border.
“It’s almost as if their identities
are being canceled out,” NATO
spokesman Jamie Shea said Monday
at a news briefing in Brussels,
Belgium.
Some 80,000-100,000 Kosovo
Albanian refugees have arrived in
northern Albania, more than double
the rate of a few days earlier, U.N.
relief workers said Monday.
Thousands more headed west to
Montenegro and southeast to
Macedonia.
Yugoslav officials remained defi
ant, saying NATO’s “shameful”
I attacks were only inflaming the crisis
in Kosovo, where ethnic Albanian
rebels have been fighting for
independence the past 13
months from Serbia, the main
Yugoslav republic.
Asked Monday whether the
NATO mission was succeeding, Shea
said: “Yes, we are being effective.
Yes, the mission is working.”
Rather than restraining the Serbs,
however, the attacks appeared only to
have intensified their anger at the eth
nic Albanians, who made up 90 per
cent of Kosovo’s 2 million people
inhabitants before the Serbian crack
down.
Shea said the situation was on the
brink of a major humanitarian disas
ter, unprecedented since World War
II. More than a half-million Kosovars
have been uprooted by the crisis,
NATO said - the biggest population
shift in Europe since 1945.
But Bratislava Morina, the Serb
refugee commissioner, called such
accusations propaganda.
“There is no humanitarian cata
strophe in Kosovo whatsoever,” she
said on state-run Serbian television.
Meanwhile, Russia’s prime min
ister, Yevgeny Primakov, announced
plans to go to Belgrade today in a new
bid to end the crisis. Russia, which
has cultural and historic ties to
Serbia, has strongly opposed NATO’s
air campaign against Yugoslavia.
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Clinton says airstrikes
didn't cause atrocities
WASHINGTON (AP) - As
President Clinton worked to maintain
allied support for the broadening air
offensive in the fight to stop atrocities
in Kosovo, die White House insisted
Monday that NATO airstrikes were
not responsible for inflaming ethnic
hatred there.
White House spokesman Joe
Lockhart said U.S. officials believed
Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic would aggressively repress
Kosovar Albanians, “based on his past
actions and what he was doing,”
regardless of whether NATO carried
out the bombings.
“If you look at what’s going on at
the borders, you have what appears to
be a textbook definition of ethnic
cleansing,” Lockhart said. “We knew
that he was going to do this. ...And we
faced a choice between doing some
thing and doing nothing ”
At Camp David, Md., Sunday
night, Clinton spoke by phone with the
pilot of an F-l 17A stealth fighter that
went down outside Belgrade over the
weekend, Lockhart said. The president
also spoke with a few of the pilot’s res
cuers.
Pentagon officials said the loss of
the stealth fighter would not affect the
aerial campaign, and NATO appeared
willing to risk the loss of other planes.
As daylight strikes got under way
today, an A-10 “Warthog” ground
attack plane was spotted taking off
from Aviano Air Base, Italy, along
with several F-16s. The A-10 is a low
and slow-flying tank-killer aircraft
that could be used to strike Serb
ground forces operating against ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo.
The A-10 can operate either by
day or night, but is visible to enemy
radar and vulnerable to ground fire.
The increasing use of tactical ground
attack planes was visible evidence of
what NATO calls the second phase of
its air campaign.
Lockhart said Clinton remains
opposed to using ground troops to
supplement the airstrikes, despite
growing calls for him to do so. “We
feel we can achieve our military objec
tives through the NATO air campaign,
and we have no intention of introduc
ing ground forces unless and until
there is a peaceful political settle
ment”
[ UTJMlIs I
■India
Severe earthquake kills 73
near Himalayan foothills
NEW DELHI (AP) - A severe
earthquake struck a seismic hot zone in
India’s Himalayan foothills Monday,
toppling houses, causing landslides and
killing at least 73 people, officials said.
The earthquake was the strongest
earthquake this century in the quake
prone mountains. Its magnitude of 6.8
lasted nearly 40 seconds, India’s seis
mological department said, according
to the Press Trust of India news agency.
■Great Britain
Top law enforcement official
to determine Pinochet’s fate
LONDON (AP) - Britain’s High
Court on Monday put the fate of former
Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet
back in the hands of Jack Straw, the gov
ernment’s top law enforcement official.
A three-judge panel gave Straw,
Britain’s Home Secretary, until April 15
to issue a ruling on whether to allow
Spain to seek Pinochet’s extradition,
following the House of Lords’ decision
last week to drastically reduce the
charges facing the 83-year-old general.
■Oklahoma
Terry Nichols now charged
with murder for bombing
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Terry
Nichols, serving a life sentence for his
federal conviction as a conspirator in
the Oklahoma City bombing, was
charged Monday with first-degree mur
der in state court and could face the
death penalty if convicted.
Nichols, 43, is in prison for the
deaths of eight law enforcement offi
cers. District Attorney Bob Macy had
long promised to file state charges in the
deaths of the 160 other people killed
when a truck bomb tore through the
nine-story office building.
■Washington, D.C.
Supreme Court will decide
what student fees can fund
The Associated Press - The
Supreme Court on Monday agreed to
decide whether state-run universities
can dedicate a portion of the activity
fees collected from all students to subsi
dize groups that pursue political and
ideological goals.
The justices said they will review
rulings that barred the University of
Wisconsin from using a portion of the
activity fees it collects from every stu
dent to finance such groups. Lower
court ruled that die subsidies unlawfully
force some students to subsidize views
they find objectionable.
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