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YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT RECEIVES DELEGATION OF R.S. OFFICIALS
BELGRADE - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic received on Saturday Republika Srpska representative in Bosnia's three-man presidency Zivko Radisic, R.S. President Nikola Poplasen and R.S. parliament speaker Petar Djokic.
The talks dealt with cooperation between Yugoslavia and the Republika Srpska, especially with issues concerning the improvement of conditions vital for boosting economic ties between Yugoslav and R.S. partners and for successful cooperation between Yugoslav and R.S. cultural and other institutions.
Joint commitment was stressed to the consistent implementation of peace accords reached in Dayton in November 1995.
YUGOSLAV FOREIGN MINISTER RECEIVES UN HUMAN RIGHTS RAPPORTEUR
BELGRADE - Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic received Friday the UN Special Human Rights Rapporteur Jiri Dienstbier at the end of his several-day working visit to Yugoslavia.
They discussed the humanitarian situation following the 78-day NATO aggression on Yugoslavia last spring and the mass human rights violations and ethnic cleansing being perpetrated against Serbs and other non ethnic Albanians in Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province since the deployment of international KFOR peacekeepers and UN civilian mission UNMIK.
They pointed to the accountability of the UN mission for the continuing systematic violations of human rights in the province.
Some UN representatives in Kosovo-Metohija are through their unacceptable activities and decisions working against the Security Council resolution, encouraging separatism and terrorism and violating the principles of Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is contrary to the goals of peace and stability in the region, it was noted during the meeting.
Jovanovic and Dienstbier agreed that the respect of fundamental human rights was dependent on the lifting of anti-Yugoslav sanctions, and pointed to the need for consistent implementation of the Security Council Resolution 1244.
DIENSTBIER - WORLD COMMUNITY FAILS TO ENSURE SECURITY IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
BELGRADE - The U.N. Human Rigths Commission's special rapporteur Jiri Dienstbier said late Friday that the world community had failed to ensure the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 providing for security of all living in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's southern province.
Speaking in connection with a report he is soon to submit to the U.N. General Assembly, at a news conference held in Belgrade at the close of his seven-day visit to Yugoslavia, Dienstbier said that the international community was not yet capable of implementing the segment of the resolution providing for security of all living in the province.
He said that a new ethnic cleansing campaign in the province must be prevented at all costs.
If the international community fails to do so, then its mission will be unsuccessful, he said.
Asked to comment on whether he had met in Kosovo and Metohija with Serbs who were victims of the ethnic Albanians' reign of terror, Dienstbier said that he had visited the Serb community in Gnjilane that had had good relations with ethnic Albanians until the deployment of the U.N. peacekeeping force KFOR to the province but that was now in a difficult position.
When members of the ethnic Albanian terrorist organisation calling itself Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) arrived, there was no way of protecting the local Serbs because of which they are now living in one part of the town as if they were in a ghetto, he said.
He said that Serbs in Orahovac and a number of other localities also lived in such ghettos, saying that the international community was supposed to be protecting them.
Asked to comment on whether officials of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office and the International Committee of the Red Cross could visit Serbs held prisoner in the province by ethnic Albanians, Dienstbier said that the problem was that Serbs were not kept in prisons and that, consequently, international officials did not know where they were.
He said that not only Serbs but also other non-Albanians and all who did not speak Albanian were in a critical position.
He also said that Yugoslavia was a country with the highest number of refugees in Europe, saying that between 750,000 and 1 million refugees and displaced persons were sheltering in the country.
He called on the international community immediately to start speedy relief aid deliveries to Yugoslavia, urging the lifting of all sanctions against the country.
MINISTER MARKOVIC - AGGRESSION CONTINUES IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS SPHERE
BELGRADE - The aggression on Yugoslavia continues today in the telecommunications sphere through the jamming of Yugoslav electronic media programs, more powerful broadcasts of foreign programs and false reports carried by some local media, Yugoslav Minister of Telecommunications Ivan Markovic told a press conference Friday.
The aggression on Yugoslavia continues by different means, although the Security Council Resolution 1244 had confirmed the state sovereignty on Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province, Markovic said.
The international community is not the US and NATO member-states but the UN and its institutions, in which a majority of countries support Yugoslavia in its endeavors to preserve its sovereignty, Markovic said.
Markovic said that telecommunications ministry inspectors had determined on three occasions in September and on October 8 that programs of Yugoslav electronic media were being jammed from Belje (Croatia), Mts Majevica and Vlasic (Bosnia), Sofia, Vidin, Nikopol, Plovdiv and Vrac (Bulgaria), and from ships stationed in the Adriatic.
In addition, 18 foreign radio and TV programs are being broadcast on 21 frequencies from Croatia, Bosnia, Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia and from ships and aircraft in Serbian, English, German, Bulgarian and Albanian, as well as a special TV Network program sponsored by 12 EU member-states, the US and the Soros Fundation, Markovic said.
The jamming is contrary to the regulations of the International Telecommunications Union, a specialized UN agency, Markovic said.
MARJANOVIC PUTS INTO OPERATION ANOTHER OBRENOVAC PLANT TRANSMISSION LINE
OBRENOVAC - Serbian Premier Mirko Marjanovic on Saturday put into operation the third transmission line of the Nikola Tesla A thermal power plant in Obrenovac near Belgrade.
The re-activating of the transmission line has made possible the resumption of operation of the power distribution network between Obrenovac and Novi Sad, chief city of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's Vojvodina province, following NATO's March 24-June 10 bombing of the country.
Of the plant's five transmission lines that were destroyed during the bombing, two have been put into operation earlier, while the remaining two are to be put into operation by the end of the month.
Accompanied by his aides and top officials of the Serbian Power Industry, Marjanovic also visited the plant's transformer station that NATO aircraft had attacked twice with missiles and twice with short-circuiting graphite bombs.
The re-activating of the transformer station and the transmission line has made it possible to link the plant again with Belgrade's and Novi Sad's power distribution systems.
Dragan Jovanovic, the plant's director, said that the plant was being reconstructed exclusively with domestic digital equipment made at the Mihailo Pupin Institute.
Miodrag Milosevic, director of the Elektroistok company, said that Serbia's entire power distribution system would be restored to its condition before the NATO aggression by the end of the month.
MARJANOVIC - SERBIAN POWER INDUSTRY FULFILS ALL TASKS SET
OBRENOVAC - Serbian Premier Mirko Marjanovic said Saturday following the putting into operation of a transmission line of the Nikola Tesla thermal power plant in Obrenovac near Belgrade that the Serbian Power Industry and all its employees had demonstrated great vitality and readiness to fulfil all tasks set.
In talks with the Industry's management, Marjanovic said that the volume of power generation in Serbia would be the same as last year, saying that this was a major success by both the Industry as well as the country's entire economy following NATO's March 24-June 10 aggression.
Stressing that the Industry had greatly contributed to the country's reconstruction, Marjanovic said that the Serbian government had adopted a programme of reconstruction of this major system.
BRITISH JACKSON LEAVES AS KFOR CHIEF, MAKES WAY FOR GERMAN REINHARDT
PRISTINA - British General Michael Jackson left Kosovo-Metohija and his command of the international KFor force in that province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia on Friday, to make way for German General Klaus Reinhardt.
Gen. Jackson will probably be remembered for endearing himself to Kosovo-Metohija's Albanians and for a large number of Serbs getting not even a minimum of protection from his troops and being forced to leave their homes before ethnic Albanian terrorists.
Leaving Kosovo-Metohija, Gen. Jackson said he had seen little sign of tolerance, and admitted that no amount of troops or police can prevent anybody from killing anybody else, if they have a mind to it.
Gen. Reinhardt, in turn, who has spent the last 18 months as NATO land forces commander central Europe, has given indication of a different approach to ethnic Albanian terrorists, saying he is prepared to use force to bring peace to Kosovo-Metohija.
This might mean that KFor will finally have to come to grips with the ethnic Albanian terrorists, who are the biggest threat to peace and security in the troubled Serbian province.
Gen. Jackson, who has undisputed military qualities, has failed in this, and this will be remembered as one of the biggest failures of the U.N. mission to Kosovo-Metohija.
U.N. UNCONCERNED ABOUT FATE OF MISSING SERBS IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA
BELGRADE - The fate of about 500 Serbs abducted or listed as missing in Kosovo and Metohija, of whom over 300 have disappeared after the pullout of Yugoslav security forces and the deployment of the U.N. peacekeeping force KFOR and the U.N. civilian mission to the province (UNMIK) four months ago, is still not UNMIK's concern, let alone its priority.
The Yugoslav Red Cross service for tracking down missing persons came into posession as far back as late July of reports that more than 400 Serbs had been abducted or listed as missing in the province up to that point, of whom over 300 had disappeared after the end of NATO's March 24-June 10 aggression on the country.
All requests to track down missing persons and lists with their names have been submitted to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that has so far failed to make any kind of response.
The lists were there when UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner took up his office in the province, but they have also been submitted to KFOR and the ICRC.
The fact that Yugoslavia's border with Albania and Macedonia was left unprotected after the pullout has led to the uncontrolled return of ethnic Albanian refugees to and the arrival of a large number of Albanian gangs of robbers in Kosovo and Metohija, as well as to the terrorising of Serbs, Montenegrins, Romanies and other non-Albanians and, subsequently, their exodus from the province.
The ICRC has received more than 500 messages which displaced persons sheltering in other parts of Serbia and in Montenegro have tried to send to members of their families in Kosovo and Metohija but has done nothing about it.
In the first ten days since KFOR's arrival alone, dozens renowned Serbs in Pristina, Kosovo and Metohija's chief city, and Pec, in the west of the province, were abducted by ethnic Albanian terrorists who wanted in this way to intimidate Serbs and force them to flee their homes.
Dr Andrija Tomanovic, a renowned surgeon at Pristina's Clinical Centre, was among the first to be abducted.
U.N. envoy on Kosovo and Metohija Sergio Vieira de Mello, Kouchner and KFOR commander Gen. Michael Jackson have been informed about Tomanovic's abduction that occurred on June 24.
Kouchner and Jackson, who have shown what they can do if they want to, have even more clearly shown through their utter unconcern about the fate of the missing Serbs what they cannot do when they do not want to.
ETHNIC ALBANIAN LEADERS CARRIED OUT FORCED ASSIMILATION - KDI
BELGRADE - President of ethnic Albanian party Kosovo Democratic Initiative (KDI) Faik Jasari addressed Friday to the Kosovo-Metohija Interim Executive Council President Zoran Andjelkovic a letter recalling that ethnic Albanian extremists had for years been carrying out a forced assimilation of other ethnic groups.
Ethnic Albanian political leaders had until 1990 been registering Romanies, Muslims, Goranies, Turks and especially Egyptians as Albanians, using threats and blackmail to that end, Jasari writes.
Noting that the ethnic Albanian population of Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province had numbered 1,264,672 before the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia last spring, Jasari clearly proves wrong the arbitrary and exaggerated figures given by separatist leaders and carried by western media.
Underlining that the arrival of international peacekeepers in Kosovo-Metohija had caused unrest, Jasari said that many ethnic Albanians loyal to Yugoslavia and all other ethnic groups have been subjected to untold persecution and ethnic cleansing with KFOR's blessing.
SERBIAN ROMANIES REQUEST INDICTMENT FOR KOUCHNER, JACKSON
BELGRADE - President of the Federation of Serbian Romany Societies Jovan Damjanovic strongly condemned Friday the murder of a Romany couple in Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province by ethnic Albanian terrorists who continue persecuting Serbs and Romanies in the province.
The accountability for the crimes of ethnic Albanian terrorists of the self-styled KLA lies with the UN civilian mission UNMIK and its head Bernard Kouchner, and with General Michael Jackson, outgoing commander of international KFOR peacekeepers, who do not apply Yugoslav legislation in the province and have not disarmed ethnic Albanians, the federation said in a statement.
Damjanovic appealed to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to take Kouchner and Jackson to trial at The Hague Tribunal.
SERBIAN ACADEMICIANS CRITICISE BOOK ON KOSOVO BY NOEL MALCOLM
BELGRADE - Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts criticised in a debate on Friday the book titled Kosovo, Short History by Noel Malcolm, saying that it was nothing but an unsuccessful attempt to base conclusions prepared in advance on historical facts.
Slavenko Terzic, director of the Academy's Institute of History, said that the book had no value as a piece of scholarly work but only as a phenomenon that had been given wide coverage.
Terzic said that Malcolm, a warrior whose weapons were ink and paper, was in the service of the concept of a Greater Albania.
He also said that Malcolm was a fledgling historian who had 'won' a name for himself as an expert on the former Yugoslavia over the past four years during which he had first written a short history of Bosnia-Herzegovina and then of Kosovo.
He said that Malcolm's book resembled a political memorandum written for a conference on the creation of a Greater Albania.
"The author's intention has been to prove that Kosovo and Metohija is Albanian terroritory so that, despite 73 pages of footnotes on the historical material he has referred to, he has used only that corroborating a thesis prepared in advance," he said.
Milorad Ekmecic, another academician, said that the book was a typical product of war propaganda, saying that Malcolm was an intellectual in other people's pay.
Malcolm has tried haphazardly to turn upside down the picture created through serious scholarly research, he said adding that no rational polemic could be conducted with Malcolm because his thesis was based on no rational position.
"The contradiction is reflected also in the fact that the author has offered different explanations in the two books about the origins of some peoples and ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia," he said.
NATURAL HABITATS DAMAGED IN NATO'S AGGRESSION
BELGRADE - Serbian Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports Slavisa Mladenovic said Friday, opening the Balkan ecology conference on the subject ecological consequences of the war in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, that during NATO's aggression on the country were damaged natural habitats and mountains, as Fruska Gora, Divcibare and Zlatibor.
Mladenovic said that a lot of time will be needed to assess all the consequences of the ecological disaster.
President of Serbia's young investigators Branko Karapandza warned that the war devastation had had un unfavorable impact on the environment in the Balkans and in Europe.
The Balkan ecology conference, held in the Belgrade hotel Mladost, is attended by 133 participants from Balkan countries, and guests from ecological organizations from Hungary, Italy, Switzerland and Australia.
WAR IS THE WORST FORM OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE
BELGRADE - During the work of the Balkan Ecology Conference on the ecological effects of the recent war in Yugoslavia, currently held in Belgrade, Friday's speakers presented elements showing that war is one of the worst forms of consciously created ecological catastrophe.
The participants of the conference recalled that over 1,000 missiles had hit the summits of Mt. Fruska Gora in Vojvodina where radio and television relays were located, as well as the Brankovac hotel and numerous villages, with damages also recorded to the monasteries on this mountain - Sisatovac, Vrdnik, Staro and Novo Hopovo.
The constant bombardment of Mt. Ovcar, central Serbia, also damaged many monasteries, although the absolute recordholder is Mt. Grmija - a picnic ground near Pristina.
A total of 1,200 missiles were dropped on Mt. Kopaonik, which is a national park bordering Kosovo and Metohija and northern and central Serbia. The blasts razed the mausoleum to famous botanist Josif Pancic and the nearby hotels.
One of the first targets of the aggressors was Mt. Jastrebac, central Serbia, while mountains in the vicinity of Belgrade - Avala, Kosmaj and Rudnik, were repeatedly bombed, as were those further south - Gucevo, Tara, Jadovnik, Sara, Pastrik, Prokletije and Goles.
One of the lecturers, Zorka Vukmirovic, spoke about the uncontrolled emmission of dangerous, toxic and carcinogenic substances into the atmosphere and their effects on the environment. She said that the oil refinery in Pancevo, close to Belgrade, was bombed seven times.
The shelling of the Utva plant in Pancevo released the compounds of sodium-hydroxide, while the razed Pancevo refinery leaked chlorine which creates acid compounds and causes acid rain in Europe.
The most frequently bombed triangle, made up of Obrenovac, Pancevo and Batajnica (all in the vicinity of Belgrade), is inhabited by nearly two million people.
The Balkan Ecology Conference, which closes on Oct. 11, is attended by 133 participants from Balkan countries and guests from Hungary, Italy, Switzerland and Australia.
GERMAN TRAVEL AGENT - TRAIN TRAVEL THROUGH YUGOSLAVIA IS SAFE
BELGRADE - Travel by train through Yugoslavia is safe and passangers from Western Europe and other parts of the world can have a safe and comfortable trip towards the south, the director of the German travel agency Optima Tours, Renata Menoni-Schwerko, said here on Friday.
Speaking on the final day of the seventh International Conference of Agency Passanger Car Trains which opened in Belgrade on Oct. 5, Schwerko set out that her customers did not have any difficultues or conflicts while travelling through Yugoslavia - from Sid, on the border with Croatia, to Dimitrovgrad, on the border with Bulgaria.
Next year, Optima Tours trains will pass through Yugoslavia on their way to Greece and Turkey from May to October.
Last season, Optima Tours transferred 35,000 passangers and 13,000 cars through Yugoslavia.
The conference was attended by the representatives of rail companies from a dozen European countries, including Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Croatia and Slovenia.