12 November 2003 Afternoon Edition

Kosovo News

· UN police arrest former rebel commander (Beta)
· Kosovo Albanians demand unification with Albania (Beta)
· Kosovo greatest security challenge for SCG, region - Tadic (Tanjug)

Regional News

· Elections on the cards (Beta)
· New Year, new government (Tanjug)
· Truth in the Balkans (Washington Post)

World News

· Twelve Italians die in Iraq bomb (BBC NEWS)
· Italy shocked and divided by terror attack in Iraq (dpa)

UN police arrest former rebel commander (Beta)

PRISTINA -- Wednesday - UN police in Kosovo have arrested a former rebel commander who helped lead an ethnic Albanian insurgency in southern Serbia in 2001.

Sami Azemi - also known as "Commander Hadzi" - was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and illegal possession of weapons, his lawyer was quoted as saying on Radio Kosovo.

Azemi was one of the founders of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac. The group, which operated in southern Serbia, was officially disbanded in 2001.

His lawyer, Masar Morina, said Azemi denied the charges. He said that the arrest was not linked to the trial another former rebel commander, Sefket Musliu.

Azemi was remanded in custody for 72 hours.

Kosovo Albanians demand unification with Albania (Beta)

PRISTINA -- Wednesday - Several thousand Kosovo Albanians gathered in downtown Pristina today to demand the UN-governed province be unified with Albania.

Protestors carried banners saying "Unite Kosovo and Albania" and "Release the fighters".

They also called on the United Nations mission to leave after what one of the organizers described as "four years of experimenting".

Faik Fazliu, who heads an association of Kosovo Albanian war veterans, complained of a "systematic assault on KLA values", in reference to the guerrilla group, the Kosovo Liberation Army.

The rally was organized by the two minor political parties, in cooperation with a number of associations of war veterans and invalids, and the Independent Union of Pristina University Students.

Kosovo greatest security challenge for SCG, region - Tadic

LONDON, Nov 12 (Tanjug) - Serbia-Montenegro (SCG) Defence Minister Boris Tadic, who has just ended his three-day official visit to Great Britain, has told the British BBC radio that Kosovo-Metohija represents the greatest challenge not only for SCG, but for the whole region as well.

In the long run, an unresolved status of the province hinders the reform of the army and aggravates the creation of a new, modern defence doctrine of the state union, Tadic said.

Elections on the cards (Beta)

BELGRADE -- Wednesday - Serbia's governing coalition should agree tonight on a date for parliamentary elections, Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic said today, adding that this could well be the last time the coalition leaders meet.

Covic, who will chair tonight's meeting in Belgrade, said that the "most logical" period for elections was late January. Media reports suggest December 28 is another possibility up for discussion.

The deputy PM confirmed that Vojvodina Coalition leader Dragan Veselinov had informed him he would not be attending.

New Year, new government (Tanjug)

BELGRADE -- Wednesday - A senior member of Serbia's governing coalition said today he expected parliamentary elections within six weeks.

"It's time to think about new elections - probably in a month, a month and a half", said Serbia-Montenegro Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic.

He said it was now certain that a new government would be formed, most probably after New Year.

Truth in the Balkans

By Sheri Fink - Washington Post

Keeping the peace that the United States and its allies brokered in Bosnia-Herzegovina eight years ago depends in large part on closing the gaps between what Bosnia's various ethnic populations believe happened in the brutal war there. The most gaping perceptual divide concerns the town of Srebrenica, where in 1995 Serb forces carried out Europe's largest massacre in a half-century under the noses of Dutch U.N. forces.

Despite considerable forensic, DNA and documentary evidence of the killing of more than 7,500 Srebrenicans, Bosnia's Serbs -- who represent more than a third of the country's population -- have been in denial about the Srebrenica massacre. Last year a Bosnian Serb governmental bureau reported that the only deaths in Srebrenica were of 2,000 Muslim soldiers who were killed, or killed one another, while fighting their way out of the enclave.

But denial is finally giving way to acknowledgment. This month Bosnian Serb television broadcast details of a leaked government report that is said to confirm the mass slaughter of Muslims at Srebrenica. It follows recent testimony of two senior Bosnian Serb officers involved in organizing the killings, brigade commander Dragan Obrenovic and intelligence chief Momir Nikolic. At the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague, they provided astounding details about the role of Bosnian Serb forces in planning and carrying out war crimes in Srebrenica.

Their testimony begins to lay bare the truth of what happened in Srebrenica to both Serbs and non-Serbs. The implications reach beyond the long-suffering people of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the success of the first post-Cold War experiment in nation building, which is doubtless being watched by the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq. Nearly eight years after the Dayton peace accords ended Bosnia's war, the country resembles an international protectorate, overseen by a foreign "high representative" whose decisions trump those of local politicians. Bosnia-Herzegovina is dependent on both an international stabilization force and financial assistance.

Significant obstacles are preventing the tribunal from realizing its full potential in helping cement the peace. Leaders of the former Yugoslavia -- particularly those in the Serb entity of Bosnia, as well as in Serbia and Croatia -- must turn over both the suspected criminals they've harbored and the documents long sought by the tribunal.

A burden also falls on the United States, which, as an initiator of the tribunal, needs to step up to its responsibilities to help uncover the truth and end impunity in the Balkans. International stabilization forces, including U.S. soldiers, should arrest the indictees still believed to be at large in Bosnia, chief among them Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb political leader.

Beyond that is a need to exercise flexibility in the phasing-out of the tribunal that has been ordered by the U.N. Security Council. Ending the tribunal's work too soon could bury the past prematurely, leaving agitated ghosts to haunt Bosnia's future, just as the ghosts of Yugoslavia's civil war of the 1940s helped set the stage for the 1990s genocide.
The Security Council's emphasis on attaching dates to a "completion strategy" has already dampened cooperation from governments in the Balkans, according to chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. Allowing the recent war's most notorious fugitives -- Karadzic and Ratko Mladic -- to evade justice "would be a joke," Del Ponte said recently in New York.

Most important, when it comes to cooperation, the United States must set a better example. U.S. officials involved in wartime Bosnia should be allowed to testify with maximum transparency about what they knew. The U.S. government needs to release crucial imagery and signals -- intelligence information it collected during the capture of Srebrenica and the several days afterward, during which Serb forces committed the massacre. Intelligence experts such as Cees Wiebes of the Netherlands, who spent years investigating the fall of Srebrenica for a Dutch government-sponsored report, believe that the United States has such information. If it is not forthcoming, Congress should order an investigation of what our country knew about the massacre and when. Failure to do so would suggest that the leaders of the world's only superpower in the 1990s fear being held accountable for failing to act to stop the genocide. Indeed, Srebrenica survivors this week announced plans for a lawsuit seeking compensation of nearly $850 million from the United Nations and the Netherlands, whose peacekeepers failed to protect the enclave the U.N. Security Council had declared a "safe area."

"States won't cooperate," Del Ponte said recently. "They don't want the real truth to come out. It's politically disturbing." What's more disturbing is the idea that the truth about Europe's modern genocide will remain hidden. Knowing the full truth will help not only Bosnians but also the rest of the world to prevent future genocides.

Sheri Fink, a physician, is the author of a book on the Srebrenica massacre: "War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival."

Twelve Italians die in Iraq bomb

Twelve Italians have been killed in a bomb attack on their base in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya.

BBC NEWS

Italy's defence ministry said nine police officers and three soldiers had died in the blast.
Local hospital officials quoted by Reuters news agency say eight Iraqis have also been killed.

The powerful explosion - said to have been detonated by a suicide car bomber - partially destroyed the building.

Italian paramilitary police - known as Carabinieri - are part of a deployment of more than 2,000 Italian troops in Iraq.
MAJOR POST-WAR ATTACKS
2 November: 16 US soldiers die as helicopter downed
27 Oct: Red Cross and other buildings in Baghdad, more than 30 killed
12 Oct: Baghdad Hotel, six dead
9 Oct: Police station in Sadr City, Baghdad - 10 killed
29 Aug: Mosque near Najaf, dozens dead - including Shia Islam's top cleric in Iraq
19 Aug: UN headquarters, Baghdad - 23 killed, including head of mission Vieira de Mello
7 Aug: Jordanian Embassy, 14 killed
They serve under British command in southern Iraq as part of the US-led coalition.
These are the first deaths to hostile action among the Italian force.

The blast rocked the police base at about 1045 local time (0745GMT).

Eyewitnesses said the bomber rammed his vehicle through the gate of the Italian compound and detonated his bomb in front of the Carabinieri building, setting it on fire and trapping people under rubble.

Vehicles parked outside the building exploded in flames, and secondary explosions from ammunition stored on the compound rocked the area moments after the main blast.

The BBC's David Willey, in Rome, says there is deep dismay in Italy.

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi has appeared on national television to express his condolences to the families of the dead and parliament has been adjourned as a sign of national mourning.

Mr Ciampi called the bombing a "terrorist act" while Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said it would not derail Italy's commitment to helping Iraq.

US soldier killed
Vehicle bombs have been used in attacks on numerous organizations in Iraq since the war ended, including the United Nations and the International Red Cross.

Nasiriya, a Shia Muslim city that saw heavy fighting during the war, had been relatively quite in recent months.

However, the BBC's Peter Biles says the bombing of a minibus in Basra on Tuesday and the killing of a Polish soldier near Karbala last week point to a possible upsurge of attacks in southern Iraq.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the US military says another of its soldiers has been killed in an explosion north of Baghdad.

He died when a bomb exploded under his vehicle during a patrol on Tuesday night.
More than 150 US troops have been killed in attacks by unknown groups since major combat operations in Iraq ended.

Italy shocked and divided by terror attack in Iraq

By Nicholas Rigillo

Rome (dpa) - Italians were appalled Wednesday by reports that at least 14 of their fellow countrymen had been killed in a suicide bombing attack on a military base in southern Iraq.

The attack on the Italian military base in Nasiriyah caused televised programmes to be interrupted as a teary-eyed anchorman updated viewers on the rising death toll.
Initial reports had spoken of several Italian soldiers being injured in the attack. But the full extent of the tragedy, which also claimed the lives of eight Iraqi civilians, had already become apparent by mid-morning.

Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi appeared visibly moved as he spoke of his ``deep grief'' for the victims during a televised address.

``These members of the military fell in the line of duty while they were helping the Iraqi people to rediscover peace, order and security,'' Ciampi said.

Pope John Paul II joined other European leaders in issuing a strong condemnation of the attack.

A special phone number set up for the relatives of the victims was overwhelmed by phone calls from anguished parents. Experienced Carabinieri military police generals in Rome could barely contain their grief during interviews broadcast on television.

Parliament observed a minute's silence while Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in a statement Italy would not be intimidated and would remain ``determined in its mission to help Iraq along the path towards peace and democracy''.

Despite widespread opposition among the public, the government had sided with the United States in the war on Iraq, but had only agreed to send troops after the conflict was over.

Last June, parliament voted in favour of sending nearly 2,800 soldiers to Iraq for ``humanitarian'' and reconstruction purposes.

Lawmakers were told Italian soldiers would be sent to Iraq to distribute food and water, build roads and help re-open schools.

And despite a number of recent warnings - including a message by Osama bin Laden saying Italians would be among the possible target of terrorist attacks in Iraq - few had been prepared for what was to happen on Wednesday.

The attack, the first to target Italian Carabinieri and soldiers posted in Iraq, was expected to have political repercussions on the Berlusconi-led centre-right government.

Several far-left politicians and a former head of state were Wednesday calling on the government to withdraw its forces from Iraq.

``The Italian mission is wrong. It is not a peace-keeping mission, it is part of the ongoing war in Iraq,'' Fausto Bertinotti, leader of the Refounded Communist Party, said before calling for the withdrawal of troops.

Oliviero Diliberto of the Italian Communist Party went as far as to suggest the government should resign.

Centre-right leaders, for their part, called on the opposition to refrain from exploiting Wednesday's tragedy for political reasons.