🚀 go-pugleaf

Interview by Dzaferi for Bulgarian daily "Demokracija" (in Bulgarian):

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======================

Aid workers allowed to bring supplies to remote mountain village
By Laura King, Associated Press, 04/22/99 15:16

TEKEPAT CESHMES MILITARY POST, Macedonia (AP) - After three days of
being rebuffed by Macedonian authorities, aid workers managed Thursday
to get food, water and blankets to refugees sheltering in ''medieval''
conditions in a snowy mountain village on the frontier.


Following hourlong negotiations at a Macedonian military post a mile
from the village of Malina, four aid trucks were allowed to continue
along the twisting, muddy road and deliver their supplies.


Macedonians had for days forbidden access, citing what they said was
Serb military activity in the area. A short section of the road passes
through Serb territory.


Even after aid workers were allowed through, journalists were halted at
the military post, which looks over a pair of steep ridges into southern
Kosovo. Throughout the day, warplanes roared overhead, sonic booms
sounding, and at one point a plume of smoke could be seen rising in the
distance on the Kosovo side of the border.


Malina had been packed at one point with up to 6,000 refugees, the U.N.
refugee agency said. But by the time aid got through, many had made
their way on foot or by truck to neighboring hamlets - helped and guided
by the villagers, who are fellow ethnic Albanians.


Perched on an exposed, windy hillside, Malina was sheltering up to 100
people per house, said Lindsey Davies of the World Food Program, who was
with the convoy that entered the hamlet.


Without this aid, she said, conditions were ''medieval,'' with people
forced to shelter in stables alongside animals, huddling close to them
for warmth. Thursday's shipment, and the reduction in numbers of
refugees, rendered conditions less desperate, but Malina still held
about 1,000 people, she said.


Refugees say Serb forces have been pushing thousands of ethnic Albanians
from southern Kosovo across the border at Malina, set amid terrain so
rugged the trip is difficult in anything but an all-terrain vehicles.
Snow fell earlier this week, and aid workers said an infant died of
exposure Tuesday.


Aid workers expressed relief at the Macedonian decision to finally let
supply convoys through and said they hoped it heralded improved
cooperation.


The episode marked the latest instance of tension between Macedonia and
international relief agencies. The government of the former Yugoslav
republic has expressed growing alarm about the refugee influx, saying
the huge numbers of new arrivals could lead to political instability and
an upsetting of the ethnic balance.


While the flow of refugees into Albania has slowed in recent days,
relief agencies in Macedonia are building and expanding refugee camps by
the day to deal with thousands streaming in.


More than 130,000 are now in the country; Albania has taken in more than
300,000.


At least 2,000 refugees walked through Macedonia's main border crossing,
Blace, on Thursday; there, too, more were said to be coming in behind
them.

========================================================================
=

UN reaches stranded Kosovo refugees in Macedonia
01:40 p.m Apr 22, 1999 Eastern
UNITED NATIONS, April 22 (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Thursday
it had been granted access to some 6,000 Kosovo refugees stranded for
days on a wind-swept ridge in Macedonia without food or water.

Macedonia border guards this week repeatedly turned back convoys bound
for the snowbound village of Malina because the route passed through
some 50 yards (meters) of Yugoslav territory. They said they could not
guarantee their safety.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said a team from the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) had reached Malina in the late afternoon. ``No
details of their condition or needs were immediately known.'' he said.

Aid workers have said their trucks laden with emergency supplies from
the U.N. World Food Programme were turned back by border police at the
bottom of the steep, narrow track that leads up to the village, although
they had permission from Macedonian authorities to reach them.

As many as 10,000 more refugees were feared to be on their way to the
town. One U.N. official said a child died in the snowbound hamlet.

Serb forces since Saturday have been pushing thousands of refugees from
southern Kosovo across the border at Malina.

Eckhard said a train carrying 2,000 people arrived in Blace, Macedonia,
early on Thursday, and only 200 to 300 people were allowed to disembark
by the Macedonians.

``The fate of the rest of the refugees was not immediately known,'' he
said.

UNHCR has asked NATO military forces to help get the refugees down the
steep roads and appealed to European nations to speed up airlifts.

Some 130,000 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo are in Macedonia and
some 300,000 have streamed into Albania.

========================================================================
===========

Poor Macedonian Albanians open homes to Kosovo kin
12:44 p.m. Apr 22, 1999 Eastern
By Mark Heinrich

TETOVO, Macedonia, April 22 (Reuters) - Mahi Mustafi struggles to
support his family on a monthly dole of 100 German marks and money from
a brother in Switzerland. But he didn't think twice when he heard ethnic
Albanians from Kosovo were in desperate need of shelter.

Mustafi ran down to a chaotic refugee collection centre in Tetovo, the
ancient bazaar town anchoring the ethnic Albanian-populated west of
Macedonia, and plucked six members of the Aliu family from the crowd.

The Alius are now living in a one-room guest cottage inside the
crumbling Mustafi family compound. It may be cramped, but the rose
garden in the courtyard, the surrounding walls and a doting host family
provide an oasis of comfort and calm inconceivable to unluckier fellow
Kosovars in refugee camps.

``We are very thankful for our Macedonian Albanian brethren. Even if we
have lost everything else, at least we feel free and human, a little bit
at home like this,'' Nazim Aliu, 24, said as he and his two brothers,
grandparents and a middle-aged woman cousin relaxed in garden chairs
with Mustafi, his mother, uncle and several cousins.

``It didn't matter how poor we were, as soon as I heard that refugees
from Kosovo were in town, I rushed to the dropoff point. I wept in
relief when I was able to take in the Alius,'' said Mahi Mustafi.

``If the situation was worse, we could take in 12, not just six,'' his
grizzled uncle, Beadin, chimed in.

The international media spotlight in Macedonia has focused on the 50,000
Kosovars crammed into half a dozen internationally-run refugee camps,
all but overlooking the roughly 80,000 who have found sanctuary in the
homes of ethnic Albanian relatives, friends or, just as often -- as the
Alius did -- with friendly strangers.

About a quarter of Macedonia's 2.3 million population are, like Mustafi,
ethnic Albanians. Unlike the pro-Serb Slav majority, they have welcomed
Kosovars into their humble homes.

``With the refugee influx subsiding, at least for the time being, our
main preoccupation is feeding the people staying with families since
half of these hosts are living only on social security,'' said Xhafer
Xhaferi, regional director of the ethnic Albanian humanitarian agency El
Hilal.

As a result, host families receive a monthly subsidy of one litre
vegetable oil per refugee, 12 kg of wheat flour per refugee, one kg each
of white beans and sugar, two blankets and two pieces of soap for every
refugee accommodated.

El Hilal is appealing for more international donations of medicines,
clothing and other items.

``Albanians in Macedonia feel huge solidarity with Kosovo Albanians.
Those with family or friends here found them without our help, but the
majority found shelter with people they did not know,'' Xhaferi told
Reuters.

``We feel ethnic Albanians in Macedonia could have sheltered every
single refugee now here. But the Macedonian authorities feared for the
country's ethnic balance, feared an escalation of tension, so had NATO
build those camps.

``They wanted to present the situation as a very big crisis to get more
financial aid from the West, because if you let all the refugees move in
with families, they become invisible to the cameras.''

Macedonian authorities say an unknown number of Kosovo Liberation Army
guerrillas have slipped into the country with the tide of refugees and,
citing discoveries of weapons caches, insists the influx is menacing
national security. They want the United Nations to speed up evacuations
of refugees abroad.

Ethnic Albanian political leaders deny any such threat. Critics of the
Skopje government's stance say the presence of NATO peace troops in
Macedonia would deter any outside attempt to destabilise the ex-Yugoslav
republic.

Most host families live within a few dozen km (miles) of the border with
Yugoslavia and some, sprinkled among the peasant villages just north of
Tetovo, are within earshot of the continuing violence in Kosovo. Serbian
artillery fire was crumping in the border mountains on Thursday.

But the Mustafi home seemed a world removed from the maelstrom the Alius
escaped.

Corncobs harvested from the family plot had been hung out to dry from
the eaves of the cottage. Chopped timber for the wood-burning stove was
stacked outside the shed on the other side of the garden.

The cottage consisted of a 12-foot-square room with two narrow beds for
decrepit, half-blind Luta Aliu, 75, and his wife Sabile, and thick
carpets on stone floor where brothers Nazim, Dren and Mentor Aliu, and
cousin Selvete sleep. A modern German-made portable radiator added
warmth. One bare lightbulb dangled from the ceiling.

``A real squeeze, sure, but at least we're with 'family', so to speak.
We're not forgotten like in a camp,'' said Mentor.

========================================================================
================

ANALYSIS-Stabilising Balkans will take decades
09:14 a.m. Apr 22, 1999 Eastern
By David Ljunggren

LONDON, April 22 (Reuters) - If the West tries to stabilise southeast
Europe with a Marshall Plan and membership of the European Union, it
will need to commit hundreds of billions of dollars and several decades
of unremitting effort, analysts predict.

With planners already looking past the Kosovo crisis to how to bring
lasting stability to the Balkans, the debate has started on how to
achieve what has eluded international policy- makers for centuries.

``There is no magical quick fix to all of this. Like it or not, this
region is going to dominate the major powers' agenda for the next 20 or
30 years,'' said an east European analyst at a major Western embassy.

The EU and the United States are increasingly convinced that they need a
long-term political, military and economic plan to prevent any
repetition of the Kosovo conflict.

Some even suggest giving immediate associate EU membership to Romania,
Bulgaria and other countries in the region and say they might be allowed
to use the single European currency while they negotiate full
membership.

But although this would be a powerful impetus towards integration, it
seems many years away, especially given that the EU is already
negotiating access for six other countries.

The U.S. Marshall aid plan after World War Two is credited with putting
the shattered nations of western Europe back on their feet and
safeguarding their democracies in the process, but some analysts believe
achieving the same result in the Balkans might be beyond even the West's
resources.

``The overall cost will be tremendous. It could be more than hundreds of
billions of dollars. I don't think the EU could afford it. It will be
very prolonged process,'' said Peter Botoucharov, head of East European
research at BankBoston.

The EU is holding accession talks with Poland -- saddled with a huge and
inefficient agricultural sector -- as it tries to push through
far-reaching farm reform to cut subsidies.

``If the European Union is having problems with Poland over agriculture,
you can imagine the difficulty it will have with countries like
Bulgaria,'' Botoucharov said.

Deputy Bosnia peace coordinator Jacques Klein said money alone would not
solve the problem, since the region's entire political culture also
needed to be changed.

``We're going to try to do here what we've done in central and eastern
Europe -- decentralise, (bring in a) market economy, transparent media,
civilian control of the military, independent judiciary, the things that
are really needed,'' he said.

``We never made the transition from the Marxist party structure to
democracy in this part of the world (southeast Europe) and that needs to
be done.''

Massive amounts of money will also have to be spent on maintaning a
significant military presence in the region to keep the peace and ensure
the stability of a future international protectorate in Kosovo.

``U.S. forces have been in Korea for 30 years. We can make long-term
commitments when we know there is a rational reason for doing so, when
there's a clear plan laid out,'' Klein said.

But some caution against rushing to impose Western political structures
on the region.

``Stupid as though this may sound, things weren't going so badly in
southeast Europe four weeks ago,'' said Dana Allin, a Balkans expert at
the International Institute for Strategic Studies think-tank in London.

``Most of the countries in the region, although they had immense
problems, were not at each others' throats. They were wisely trying to
work out their problems diplomatically.''

He said the most nationalist Slav and Albanian parties in Macedonia had
formed a coalition government, Greece was playing a more constructive
role in the region and Macedonia and Bulgaria had finally normalised
relations.

That said, he added, the international peace-keeping force in Bosnia
would have to be there for another 10 years.

``I think once you recognise a country will be run as protectorate, you
realise time can defuse some of these conflicts. To a certain extent the
concept of a protectorate is a long-term policy,'' he said.

Allin and others are also worried about Turkey's reaction to a major
Western effort to help southeast Europe, especially the accession of
Romania and Bulgaria to the EU.

``Turkey is a huge problem,'' he said. Turkey's relations with the
European Union cooled sharply in 1997 when the EU put Ankara's
membership on hold, citing its human rights record and disputes with
Greece.

========================================================================
=============

Refugees reach Macedonia only to endure hunger, cold on borders
By Ellen Knickmeyer, Associated Press, 04/22/99 05:39

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees were
stuck in a remote border village today, blocked by rugged mountains and
nervous Macedonian authorities. Aid workers said the overwhelmed hamlet
was desperately short of food and shelter.


Serb forces pushed an estimated 5,000-7,000 refugees over the border
from Tuesday to Wednesday, dumping them on mountain towns that had no
means to care for them and no room. Refugees already had been sleeping
100 to a house in the village of Malina, with some bunking down next to
cows in the hay to survive sub-freezing temperatures at night.


As many as 10,000 more refugees were on their way to Malina, the World
Food Program said.


The U.N. refugee agency talked of helicopter airlifts to get the
worst-off of the refugees out. On the ground, Macedonia security forces
blocked most aid deliveries, saying they could not guarantee the safety
of aid workers who would have to cross 50 yards of Yugoslav territory.


Relief convoys set out again today for at least the third day to try
again.


''We desperately need access to these people,'' said Lindsey Davies, a
WFP spokeswoman.


Aid workers believe the village is gravely short of food and many
refugees are being exposed to frigid weather. Snow is still falling in
the mountains, and one of the thousands of refugees who arrived over the
weekend said her newborn had died of exposure, according to the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees.


The U.N. refugee agency got some trucks in over the weekend. Macedonian
authorities stopped WFP trucks heading to the area Tuesday but after
negotiations allowed local people to load their cars with food, taking
in only enough for 1,500 people.


Macedonia came under sharp criticism from international aid agencies
earlier this month after it kept up to 80,000 Kosovo Albanian refugees
penned up for more than a week in a squalid, shelterless no-man's land
at Blace, a few miles from the capital, Skopje.


On Wednesday, Macedonian authorities emptied another desolate border squ
atter's field, hustling refugees into fleets of buses in the darkness.
The abrupt move ended what the newcomers described as a two-day ordeal
of rain, filth and captivity on the heels of their expulsions from homes
in Kosovo.


''Cold, such cold,'' said Rexhep Rexhepi, a stubble-faced 76-year-old in
a black skullcap, describing how he and his family of 12 slept on muddy
ground cushioned only with a bit of straw during their arduous journey
from Kosovo. ''It took all my strength away.''


Their difficulties come while neighboring countries and aid groups
struggled to cope with 600,000 ethnic Albanians pouring out of Kosovo.
Several hundred thousand more are believed trying to get out.


With border tensions rising, relief efforts will concentrate on moving
refugees to where they are welcome as quickly as possible, a top U.N.
refugee official said.


''We're obviously very concerned about the security of the people in the
border areas,'' Nicholas Morris, the U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees' special Balkan envoy, said in Kukes, Albania.


He said refugees faced shelling and other violence along the
Yugoslav-Albanian border. Macedonia's government also wanted guarantees,
he said, that new refugees will be moved out quickly to avoid upsetting
the country's delicate ethnic balance, estimated to be 25 percent ethnic
Albanian before the refugee exodus from Kosovo began.

========================================================================
===

Europe:Albania


Leading Kosovo Albanian Daily Relaunched Abroad


Reuters
22-APR-99

TETOVO, Macedonia, April 23 (Reuters) - Only weeks after the offices of
Kosovo's main Albanian-language newspaper were razed by Serbian police,
the daily Koha Ditore has been relaunched in a dingy back room in
neighbouring Macedonia.

Moved temporarily to Tetovo in Macedonia's heavily ethnic Albanian
northwest, Koha staff raced to make a Thursday deadline to revive the
paper as a two-month pilot project in six European countries on
Friday -- one month after its shutdown in Kosovo.

Editors dispatched text for the new edition by Internet to Frankfurt for
an initial print run of 25,000 and distribution in Germany, Switzerland,
Austria, Sweden, Britain and Italy, where many of the Kosovo Albanian
diaspora live.

From next week, free copies are to be circulated among the hundreds of
thousands of Kosovo Albanian refugees in camps in Macedonia and Albania.

Koha was revived with a reported 600,000 franc ($100,000) grant from
France for computer equipment, telephones and photocopiers. Paris will
also foot 60 percent of production costs, the French foreign ministry
said on Thursday.

Editor Baton Haxhiu said the paper aimed to reinstil dignity and hope
among refugees, help defuse ethnic tension in Macedonia, and encourage
debate on establishing democracy in Kosovo after NATO troops go in to
oust Serbian security forces, something he sees as inevitable.

"We want to keep the deportees (refugees) informed because it is very
easy otherwise for them to get frustrated and resort to violence," he
told Reuters.

"This is a human project to keep alive our people's sense of identity,"
Haxhiu, an energetic and gregarious 33-year-old former teacher, said at
a celebratory dinner with colleagues.

Most staff are back at work either at the makeshift "head office" in a
15-foot (five-metre) square bolthole tucked behind a driving school and
overlooking a garbage-strewn lot, or in its bureau in the Macedonian
capital Skopje, 30 km (18 miles) away.

Two Koha reporters have stayed behind in Kosovo mountain regions not
controlled by Serbian security forces, communicating with Tetovo by
satellite telephones. There are correspondents in Brussels, Bonn,
London, Washington, Vienna and Switzerland too.

Three eminent Koha members are missing. Publisher Vetan Surroi, who was
part of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at abortive peace talks with
Yugoslav authorities in France, as well as two editorial staff remain in
hiding in Kosovo.

"They're safe, that's all I can say," said Haxhiu.

Staff are working, as usual, without pay. Many survived, even when the
paper still published in the Kosovo capital Pristina, on part-time work
for foreign journalists.

Haxhiu dismissed Serbian accusations that Koha had agitated for the
breakup of federal Yugoslavia by campaigning for the separatist
guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the independence of Kosovo.

He also said Macedonia, whose pro-Serb Orthodox Slav majority suspects
KLA operatives are flowing in with the refugees and could breed
separatism among the country's sometimes restive minority Albanians, had
nothing to fear.

"The Macedonians should understand that Kosovars are coming here not to
change the ethnic balance but to flee Serbian genocide," he said.

"The KLA is under such pressure in Kosovo that it could hardly do
anything in Macedonia.

"The only winner must be NATO, who I believe will go in by the end of
May to drive all Serbian forces out of Kosovo, make the KLA disarm and
establish an international protectorate where Albanians may co-exist
with Serbs who have no blood on their hands," Haxhiu said.

NATO air strikes launched a month ago to disable Belgrade's war machine
have failed to forestall what the West calls mass expulsions by Serbian
security forces. Alliance commanders have now been authorised by their
political masters to update 1998 contingency plans for a ground
invasion.

Haxhiu hid in basements for 10 days after police demolished Koha's
offices at the outset of NATO bombings. NATO then reported that he had
been executed. Seeing his demise reported on satellite television,
Haxhiu decided to flee.

"It became too dangerous for me to stay. Not so much for my life, but my
(reputation). I feared that if the Serbs discovered me, they would
parade me on television and force me to say something humiliating," he
said.

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U.S. Still Seeking Military Base to House Kosovo Refugees


AP
22-APR-99


WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. officials are searching for a military base in
this country that can temporarily house up to 20,000 refugees from
Kosovo, Justice Department officials said Thursday.


Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder told a news conference that an
earlier decision not to bring any Kosovo refugees here was reversed
"because we need to relieve the situation in Macedonia." More than
130,000 refugees have streamed across the border into Macedonia during
the NATO air attacks on Serbian forces.


No timetable has been set for the refugees' arrival, Justice spokesman
Myron Marlin said.


Immigration and State Department officers first must travel to Macedonia
to screen people there to find those who meet the two requirements for
relocation to the United States: They must have relatives here and be
able to establish legal refugee status.


Under U.S. law, a refugee is someone who has been persecuted or has a
well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion,
nationality, membership in a social group or political opinions if they
were to return to their homeland.


Additionally, some people with medical needs that cannot be met in
refugee camps may be admitted to the United States.


The administration previously considered bringing some refugees to the
U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo, Cuba, where extensive barracks had been
built to house Cuban refugees who tried to float to Florida.


That plan was dropped because "permitting refugees to be with their
families is the most humanitarian way to handle this," Marlin said.


Guantanamo was considered when officials thought they might have to
admit a large group quickly without any advance screening, he said,
adding, "The situation is still urgent but now we have time to identify
those with family in the United States" before relocating them.

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=======================

Rebuilding Balkans to Cost $2B
By Harry Dunphy
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, April 22, 1999; 11:32 a.m. EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than $2 billion will be needed to help rebuild
Balkan countries affected by the fighting in Kosovo, World Bank
President James Wolfensohn said today.

He said the bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary
Fund, are closely examining what resources will be needed but much
depends on how long the fighting lasts and the extent of the damage.

Wolfensohn said the boards of the two organizations would discuss the
issue during their annual spring meeting, which is just getting under
way.

``This is going to require the attention of the international community
and, assuming a resolution of the conflict, it is not going to be
cheap,'' Wolfensohn said at a news conference.

He said the World Bank and the IMF would focus their attention on
helping Macedonia and Albania cope with the flood of refugees from
Kosovo and the disruption the fighting has caused their economies.

But Wolfensohn said the bank and the IMF would also examine how other
countries in the region -- Bosnia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania --
could be helped.

He said the bank already was providing $70 million in loans to Albania
and Macedonia and would re-examine these programs to see if any funds
could be shifted to humanitarian relief.

Wolfensohn said it was premature to talk about what would be needed for
rebuilding in Kosovo.

Turning to Russia, Wolfensohn said bank negotiators are ``very, very
close'' to an agreement with Russia that would release $1.8 billion in
stalled loans.

These loans -- and financial support from the IMF -- were suspended last
August after Moscow devalued the ruble and defaulted on its foreign
debt.

Wolfensohn said he returned from a visit to Moscow earlier this month
``''with a pretty constructive view of what the Primakov government is
trying to do'' to reform the economy.

He said he had meetings with several leading members of Russia's
parliament, the Duma, and that all, with the exception of nationalist
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, pledged support for Primakov.

Wolfensohn said he agreed with the assessment made Wednesday by IMF
Managing Director Michel Camdessus that last fall's global financial
crisis was bottoming out.

But he said the poor nations where the bank makes loans still are
suffering because of the decline in commodity prices.

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