14 September 2002 Saturday Edition

Kosovo News

· Grenade blast injures five in Kosovo capital (AFP)
· Three injured in Pristina explosion (Beta)
· Dole bonus for unemployed and refugees from Kosovo (SRNA)

Regional News

· Gunman killed in shootout with Macedonia police (Reuters)
· Ethnic Albanian killed (AP)
· Border clash in Macedonia raises alarm amid elections (AFP)
· Stakes are high, swords are out in Macedonia's first postwar vote (AP)
· Croatian war crimes suspect re-arrested (AFP)

Grenade blast injures five in Kosovo capital

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Sept 13 (AFP) - An ethnic Albanian woman in the Kosovo capital Pristina injured herself and four other people Friday after a hand grenade she threw at a car bounced off and exploded, a UN official told AFP.
"The grenade was detonated by a female carrying it to use against another person with whom she had a property dispute," Derek Chappell, spokesman for the UN police in the province, said.
According to the UN police, the grenade exploded at the woman's feet after it bounced off the vehicle, seriously injuring her, while three people who were in the car and a bystander were lightly wounded.
"Once she recovers, she will face criminal charges for an attempted murder," Chappell said.
Kosovo has been under UN and NATO control since 1999 after Serb forces' crackdown on the ethnic Albanian majority was halted by the Atlantic Alliance's 78-day air war.

Three injured in Pristina explosion

PRISTINA (Beta) Three people were injured in a heavy explosion near the National Theatre in central Pristina Friday, Kosovo police report.

According to witnesses, one girl and two men were taken to hospital with injured.

The girl is believed to have detonated a hand grenade.

Both KFOR and UN police forces are investigating the explosion, which occurred at 1.20 p.m.

Photographers were denied access to the scene and police have made no statement.

Dole bonus for unemployed and refugees from Kosovo

BELGRADE, (SRNA)- The Serbian Government is to make a one-off payment of 15,660 dinars (about 260 euros) to former employees of socially owned firms in Kosovo who are now unemployed.

The lump sum payment will also be made to families of people missing or kidnapped who would fit the above criteria and who have been confirmed as missing by the Coordinating Centre for Kosovo.

Regional News
Gunman killed in shootout with Macedonia police

SKOPJE, Sept 14 (Reuters) - An ethnic Albanian gunman was killed early on Saturday in a shootout with Macedonian police, just a day ahead of crucial elections, police said.
Two other gunmen were injured in the shooting shortly after midnight in a village near the western town of Tetovo while two were arrested, a police spokesman told Reuters. He said the gunmen had attacked police, who were also ethnic Albanians.
The gun battle looked certain to further increase tension ahead of Sunday's parliamentary vote, which the West hopes will help strengthen peace following last year's conflict between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Macedonian security forces.
The spokesman said around six gunmen had attacked two policemen in the village of Celopek, near the site where an ethnic Albanian policeman was killed early on Thursday.
The gunmen withdrew after two of them were arrested, but then attacked again.
``There was a second attack on the same policemen, during which one of the attackers was killed and two others hurt,'' the spokesman said.
Another police source said the attackers belonged to a group which had operated in the area for some time and attempted to destabilise the region ahead of the vote.
On Thursday, a policeman was shot dead in the village of Bogovinje, also near Tetovo. Two other policemen were killed in the same area in late August.
The killings fuelled fears that extremists opposed to a Western-backed peace plan which eased the country back from the brink of civil war last year were bent on wrecking the ballot and fomenting fresh unrest.
The guerrilla force which battled the security forces agreed to lay down their arms in August last year in return for measures to improve the status of the large minority community.

Ethnic Albanian killed

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) _ An ethnic Albanian was killed and two
were injured in a clash with Macedonian police early Saturday as ethnic tensions soared on the eve of key elections in the troubled Balkan country, police said.

The firefight between an armed ethnic Albanian group and a Macedonian police foot patrol occurred shortly after midnight near the village of Celopek, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the capital of Skopje, said police spokesman Voislav Zafirovski.

He said that two ethnic Albanians from the same group were arrested, prompting the ``terrorists'' to open fire at the police. No other details were released.

In recent weeks, tensions have soared in Macedonia ahead of Sunday's parliamentary elections with a series of ethnically motivated murders and kidnappings. On Thursday, 10 gunmen attacked a remote police station in Macedonia's tense northwest, killing a police officer before fleeing, police said.

The vote, the first since a six-month ethnic Albanian rebellion last year in Macedonia, is considered crucial in defusing lingering ethnic tensions in the small Balkan country.

A Western-brokered peace deal that ended last year's conflict gave the ethnic Albanian minority, nearly one-third of the country's 2 million people, broader rights in return for the disarming of the rebels.

Despite gradual progress, the peace process remains under threat from hard-liners and radicals on both sides of the ethnic divide.

Border clash in Macedonia raises alarm amid elections

by Jasmina Mironski
SKOPJE, Sept 13 (AFP) - Tensions rose in Macedonia on Friday as extremists opened fire on an army patrol two days ahead of landmark elections seen as crucial to peace accords which ended an ethnic Albanian uprising last year, officials said.
The defence ministry said the patrol returned fire after it was attacked by three "uniformed and armed" gunmen who withdrew after the brief exchange, the latest in a spate of violent incidents which have fuelled concern that extremists may try to disrupt the polls.
"The patrol answered the attack after which the armed group withdrew toward Kosovo. There were no injuries among the Macedonian border patrol," it said.
Sunday's elections are the first under a peace deal struck in August last year between ethnic Albanian rebels and the government, ending a conflict which threatened to spark another Balkan war and destabilise the region.
But the government has accused the rebels of dishonouring pledges to disarm and has warned that certain groups are planning another uprising, despite new legislation to improve minority rights in Macedonia.
An ethnic Albanian policeman with an ethnically mixed reservist force was killed in a gunbattle early Thursday near the flashpoint northwestern town of Tetovo. Three weeks ago two ethnic Slav policemen were gunned down in the same area.
NATO and the EU, the main architects of the peace accords, condemned Thursday's attack near Tetovo while the US State Department said the murder appeared "intended to undermine" the elections.
NATO and European powers are at pains to ensure Sunday's polls put the finishing touches to the peace process rather than inflame simmering inter-ethnic hostilities in the former Yugoslav republic.
But the campaign period has reopened many old wounds, with all sides accusing their opponents of corruption and using violence for political ends.
Most attention has focused on the newest force in Macedonian politics, the Democratic Union of Integration (DUI) under former ethnic Albanian rebel leader Ali Ahmeti.
Ahmeti was the political chief of the National Liberation Army during the uprising and he has emerged as the leading ethnic Albanian candidate ahead of veteran politician Arben Xaferi, who is allied to the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party.
But in a dramatic pre-election move, Ahmeti cancelled a scheduled rally in the ethnic Macedonian dominated capital Skopje Friday, saying he did not want to give his opponents an excuse to provoke unrest.
"If something happened we would be blamed," he later told supporters at a rally near Tetovo, in the west of the country where most of the ethnic Albanian minority lives.
He added however that the DUI would "win a great majority" and form a coalition with any party representing ethnic Macedonians who account for more than 66 percent of the population.
The EU and NATO said they had asked Ahmeti to cancel the rally in Skopje to "avoid tensions and contribute towards a peaceful end to the election campaign".
"While we support the right of all political parties to campaign freely we are aware of the sensitivities of many citizens," they said in a joint statement.
President Boris Trajkovski, in a statement on national television, reminded Macedonians that the world would be watching and a successful election would ease the country's integration with Europe.
"We all should be determined that these elections are concluded in a way that will contribute to our integration into the EU and NATO," he said.

Stakes are high, swords are out in Macedonia's first postwar vote

By MISHA SAVIC

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) _ A giant, floodlit cross shines out in
the night from a hill above Skopje, its chilling pre-election message to minority ethnic Albanian Muslims: You are mere guests in the capital.

The recently erected Millennium Cross, the brainchild of ruling nationalist Macedonian party leaders, plays an important role in a fierce campaign ahead of Sunday's vote, the first since last year's ethnic Albanian rebellion.

``The cross is a symbol of our identity, it's a proof of our centuries-old existence on this land and of our firm resolve to defend our country against all enemies,'' Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said at the inauguration of the cross two weeks ago.
Installing the 249-feet-tall cross with 550 floodlights cost $1.4 million in tax money. The use of public funds for a symbol that excludes the country's 800,000 ethnic Albanians Muslims angered many here.

The cross, visible from almost 40 miles away, is an ``insult to non-Christians,'' said Fadil Aliti, a 44-year-old Skopje shop owner and one of Skopje's estimated 200,000 Muslims. The city is home to 700,000 people.

The controversy surrounding the cross _ which also features prominently in the ruling party's campaign material _ has fueled tensions ahead of Sunday's ballot.
Recent violence and ethnically motivated kidnappings have left several people dead, and the rhetoric at campaign rallies is vicious.

Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski, a leader of the ruling Macedonian VMRO party, pledged at a boisterous pre-election rally Thursday that if elected, he would arrest former ethnic Albanian rebel commander Ali Ahmeti who now heads the recently formed and increasingly popular Democratic Union for Integration party.

Authorities earlier this month issued a warrant for Ahmeti's arrest for crimes he allegedly committed while heading a six-month ethnic Albanian insurgency that ended in August 2001 with a Western-brokered peace pact. The deal included amnesty for Ahmeti and other rebel leaders, but the government claims the alleged crimes are not covered by the amnesty.

Fearing violence ahead of the elections, Ahmeti's party canceled its final rally, slated Friday in the capital. Polls give the party the highest ratings among ethnic Albanian voters.
The Social Democratic Alliance of Macedonia, which heads a 10-party opposition coalition leading in pre-election opinion polls, has accused the government of being corrupt.

``We have documents, incriminating evidence about corruption, kickbacks and misuse of state funds by the (ruling party),'' said Jani Makraduli, the alliance's leader. ``If we are elected, we will punish those responsible.''

The harsh language is raising fears of postelection violence, and Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski _ whose post is not contested in the vote _ on Friday urged eventual losers to recognize the defeat and ``shake the winner's hand.''
Adding to the tense atmosphere, Boskovski, the interior minister, recently said he would prosecute independent media that ``destroy the reputation of the current government.''

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has brought about 700 election observers to monitor the vote, the fourth since the tiny Balkan country split from Yugoslavia in 1991. NATO said its 1,000-strong peace force _ deployed here after the peace plan was signed last year _ was ready to help evacuate any of the foreign monitors in case of election violence.
About 30 parties and 3,300 candidates are competing for 120 parliamentary seats.

Croatian war crimes suspect re-arrested

ZAGREB, Sept 13 (APF) - A key defendant in a local war crimes trial of retired Croatian general Mirko Norac was re-arrested Friday, two days after his release on bail after the two-year legal limit for detention expired, the HINA news agency reported.
Ivica Rozic was detained in September 2000, one of five co-defendants accused of war crimes allegedly committed against ethnic Serb civilians at the outbreak of the 1991-95 Serbo-Croatian war.
The case, which opened in mid-2001, is being closely watched as a test of Zagreb's impartiality in trying Croatians charged with war crimes against ethnic Serbs.
Rozic was re-arrested under new charges. These include planting explosive devices in the homes of Serb returnees that killed six people in the area of the central town of Gospic from 1996 and 1998, and the murder of a woman in 1998, Hina said.
He was remanded into custody after a hearing at Gospic court, HINA added.
Two other of the five defendants in the trial, in the coastal town of Rijeka, are still out on bail after their two-year detention limit expired.
The defendants are charged with killing at least 42 ethnic Serb civilians in Gospic in October 1991.
The prime suspect Tihomir Oreskovic was released Thursday and Milan Canic was released in February, while the deadlines for Stjepan Grandic and Norac expire in December and February 2003 respectively.
Norac is the highest ranking Croatian officer facing war crimes charges before a local court in a case closely watched by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as a test for the country's judiciary.