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SERBIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER: SERBIA BIGGEST CONSTRUCTION SITE IN EUROPE
Serbian parliament president Dragan Tomic said on Wednesday that the citizens of Vojvodina, the other parts of Serbia and Yugoslavia would persist in building bridges among themselves and towards others.
In the name of building rather than demolishing, linking rather than separation, Tomic declared open to traffic the bridge over barges spanning the Danube River and linking Novi Sad and Petrovaradin, as well as the start of work on the reconstruction of the Zezelj Bridge - one of the symbols of the capital of multinational Vojvodina.
Although the pressures continue, the entire country is realizing great tasks in the rebuilding of what was destroyed. Every day ruins are being transformed into construction sites, and work is underway on the reconstruction of bridges, oil refineries, factories and apartment houses, Tomic said adding that today Serbia is one of the biggest construction sites in Europe.
Recalling that NATO bombed Novi Sad on a daily basis believing that the bombs and destroyed bridges would create a rift between the people and nations of Vojvodina, Tomic set out that this shameful political goal had not been achieved.
Preserved have been good and stable inter-ethnic relations and the citizens of Vojvodina have, regardless of their religion and nation, joined up first in the defence of the country and then in its reconstruction, Tomic stated.
ATTACKS ON SERBS CONTINUE
In the past 24 hours KOFR has conducted a detailed sweeping action searching for hidden weapons and ammunition during which siezed were guns, ammunition and explosives, the KFOR press centre in Pristina said on Wednesday.
KFOR spokesman Major Ole Juergens said that five Serbs were wounded at 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday when a grenade was thrown into the Serb cafe Lider in the village of Caglavici, south of Pristina.
A Serb was seriously wounded and taken to the Kosovo Polje hospital, KFOR said adding that the remaining Serbs suffered minor injuries.
In Djakovica, the body of a 35-year-old Romany was found shot dead near the local hospital.
SERBS IN KOSOVO AND METOHIJA STILL WITHOUT PROTECTION
Practice has shown that the daily efforts of KFOR and UNMIK for the return of refugees to their homes, do not include the Serbs, a fact best illustrated by the attack on a convoy of Serbs returning to the province near the village of Ranilug on Sunday.
KFOR announced that "unknown attackers" opened fire on the convoy killing one person and wounding two. The KFOR military police are conducting the investigation.
Over the past few days dozens of Serbs have been beaten and robbed in Pristina and its vicinity.
Attacks, looting and torching of Serb property are a daily occurrence, while attacks on returning refugees are still taking place before the eyes of KFOR.
DOCTORS ON CALL BRING ALSO FOOD
Doctors of the Center for Peace and Tolerance bring Serbs and Montenegrins stranded in their apartments in Pristina food in addition to medicines, Dr. Milica Lukovic told Tanjug on Wednesday.
"We find people who are bed-ridden and who have had nothing to eat for days, they live in horrendous conditions, their movement is limited, thus also their ability to secure anything - from medicines to food," she said.
Serbs and Montenegrins in Pristina are hiding from ethnic Albanian terrorists.
During the day, several families stay together in one apartment, and at night, one family member sleeps in each apartment. They are people who have been born here, whose roots are here, who cannot imagine leaving, they would rather die. They are suffering grave psychological trauma, she said.
The medical center of the Center for Peace and Tolerance daily performs 25-30 examinations. It was opened 45 days ago and there are three doctors and one nurse on duty round the clock, Lukovic said.
Patients include all age groups, from children to the much more numerous group of elderly persons.
"Dominant ailments are psychoses and those caused by these troubles, such as high blood pressure, stroke, stomach ulcers, diabetes, and others. We make house calls with a KFOR escort, and hospitalize difficult cases at the Red Cross medical center in Kosovo Polje, where the Russian hospital is nearby for cases which require surgery," she said.
There are difficulties in securing medicines, primarily sedatives, also those for high blood pressure, diabetes, analgetics, antirheumatics, she said.
The KFOR is trying to help, but it mostly ends with empty promises, and medicines arrive from other parts of Serbia, Dr. Lukovic concluded.
ST.COSMO AND DAMIAN CHURCH DESTROYED IN MINE BLAST IN KOSOVO
Ethnic Albanian terrorists have mined and completely razed the church of St. Cosmo and Damian in the village of Zociste near Orahovac, western Kosovo and Metohija, hieromonk Sava Janjic confirmed to reporters on Wednesday.
The church was blown up on Sept 13.
The ruins of the church were visited yesterday by clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church, escorted by the Kosovo international force KFOR. They saw the completely destroyed church.
Crosses over the graves of Orthodox priests have been broken, Janic said.
It had been the duty of members of the KFOR Danish contingent to guard this church.
Janic said ethnic Albanian extremists had torched all Serb houses in Zociste, from where about 200 Serbs had fled following KFOR's arrival three months ago.
IVANOV CONFERS WITH KOUCHNER
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov conferred in Moscow on Wednesday with U.N. civilian mission in Kosovo and Metohija head Bernard Kouchner, but no statements were given after the meeting.
The Russian Foreign Ministry released a brief statement saying both sides had declared support to continued due and unconditional respect of the articles of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244.
This primarily pertains to the disarming and demilitarisation of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and stopping violence against civilians in the province, the ministry said.
The participants in the meeting expressed confidence that, regardless of the extremely complex nature of the situation in resolving Kosovo problems, there are possibilities for realizing a political solution.
The sides agreed that the soonest possible deployment of the UN mission, and the full execution of their mandate, would contribute to the speediest possible normalization of the situation in that Serbian province, the ministry statement said.
MORE LIES ABOUT SERBS
The spokesman of the Serbian National council in Kosovska Mitrovica, Nikola Kabasic, commented the increasingly frequent claims by NATO and KFOR in Pristina about the alleged existence of Serb paramilitary formations in Kosovska Mitrovica, saying that such lies are spread by those who are trying to hide the failure and defeat of the U.N. mission in Kosovo and Metohija and by those who openly support the ethnic Albanian terrorists and the terrorist organization KLA.
There are no Serb paramilitary or para-police formations in Kosovska Mitrovica, Kabasic set out.
The defence of the bridge and the apartments and houses in the northern, Serb part of the city, is being conducted by ordinary citizens and unarmed Serb youths. Proof of this is lenghty footage by dozens of foreign TV crews and photographers from all over the world, and can be confirmed by KFOR units in the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica, Kabasic said.
KOSOVO'S ECONOMY IN DIFFICULT SITUATION
Business activities and production in the economy of Kosovo and Metohija ceased following the withdrawal of Yugoslav military and security forces and the arrival of the international forces KFOR, it was heard on Wednesday at a meeting in the Chamber of Commerce of this Serbian province.
It was concluded at the meeting of the Board of Managers and a delegation of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce that the ensuing security vacuum had enabled the persecution of non-Albanians, including employees in companies and institutions who had accounted for about 50 percent of the provincial labor force.
Serbian Minister Slobodan Tomovic said he would ask the KFOR and U.N. civilian mission UNMIK over the next 10 days to enable Serb businessmen to visit their companies in the province and see the situation in the field.
There are indications that ethnic Albanian bands have moved entire factory works to Albania, or are in the process of doing so, Tomovic said.
Kosovo and Metohija Temporary Executive Council member Zivorad Igic said 70 percent of the real estate in Kosovo is owned by Serbs and Montenegrins. He said the KFOR should guard factories, and not interfere in their business organization and work.
Yugoslav Chamber of Commerce Vice-President Drago Sofranc said it was incomprehensible that the UN Security Council was silent on the very grave situation in this southern Serbian province.
The Yugoslav economy is suffering heavy damages because of the situation in the province, he said, and it is necessary to create security conditions for workers who have remained in the province and also for those who wish to return.
Serbian Chamber of Commerce Vice-President Milivoje Miletic said a large part of the production resources had been usurped since the arrival of the KFOR, so that a great majority of the non-Albanian population have lost the right to work.
The Serbian government adopted a series of concrete measures to reconstruct the destroyed economy, but violations of the relevant U.N. Security Council resolution have left a major part of the province out of this renewal process, Miletic said.
Miletic also spoke about the processes of forming ethnically pure companies in Kosovo and Metohija, which he said was a direct violation of Resolution 1244 on this Serbian province.
Board of Managers President and Trepca Director Novak Bjelic said Serbia and Yugoslavia's state sovereignty was jeopardised because the KFOR and UNMIK are respecting neither the resolution nor the military-technical agreement of Kumanovo.
Bjelic pointed out that certain works of Trepca, one of the biggest zinc and lead complexes in Europe, have been taken over by ethnic Albanian gangs, but also through a fault of the UNMIK, and said it can be proven with arguments that Trepca is the property of shareholders.
SERBS WILL REMAIN IN THEIR ANCESTRAL LANDS
The General Secretariat of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) considered the current political and security situation in Kosovo and Metohija on Wednesday and concluded that the remaining Serb population was exposed to daily humiliation and suffering caused by the "U.S. forces of occupation and their ethnic Albanian assistants," a party statement said.
"Anarchy and lawlessness reign in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, the borders are completely unprotected, which enables unhindered passage to various criminal bands from Albania, which commit the most heinous crimes against the Serb people," the SRS said.
Radicals are convinced that the "criminal plan of the Americans and their western European satellites aimed against the survival of the Serb people in their ancestral lands will not be realized in full, as Serbs will not accept at any costs the status given in the United States to the indigenous peoples of the American continent, the Indians."
The SRS said the "Serb people, regardless of the grave situation, must persevere in their struggle until the final liberation of their country."
"It is not easy to achieve this holy and exalted goal, but the Serbs' option to defend freedom must overcome the fascistic intentions of the NATO criminals and their helpers," said the statement.
DUMA ADOPTS DOCUMENT ON FIGHTING TERRORISM
The Russian Duma on Wednesday adopted a resolution on the situation in Dagestan and measures for ensuring national security in Russia in the struggle against terrorism.
The document was adopted yesterday in principle following a debate in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also took part. It said that conquest objectives of certain forces in the world are becoming ever clearer, forces which hide behind militant Islamism and use its followers to try and forcibly seize from Russia the Caspian region.
The resolution underscored that the Duma supports measures being taken in Dagestan for destroying illegal armed formations and preventing an escalation of the conflict.
Similar formulations could be found in another document adopted after today's session of the standing commission for matters of defense and security of the Inter-parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States in St. Petersburg.
The CIS document also said acts of aggression by international terrorist organizations had been committed in certain parts of the CIS. The organizations are said to have modern weaponry, combat training and combat experience.
Neither the Duma nor the CIS commission said in concrete terms which international terrorist organizations were in question, nor did they mention their sponsors or financiers.
EARTHQUAKE IN ATHENS KILLS 137
The death toll of the devastating earthquake which shook Athens eight days ago has risen to 137, the Greek Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
According to the Ministry, another ten persons are listed as missing.
Unofficial reports say that the quake caused 630-million-dollars-worth of material damage.
YUGOSLAV AMBASSADOR SIGNS BOOK OF CONDOLENCES
Yugoslav Ambassador to Greece Dragomir Vucicevic on Wednesday conveyed a message with expressions of condolences from Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic to his Greek counterpart Yorgos Papandreau on the occasion of the death of Yannos Kranidiotis, deputy foreign minister of that friendly country.
Ambassador Vucicevic wrote in the book of condolences opened at the Greek foreign ministry today that Kranidiotis's death in a plane crash near Bucharest on Tuesday was a great loss to the Greek government and Greek people.
He wrote that he would always remember Kranidiotis as a great diplomat and marvellous orator, with whom he had had the chance to co-operate successfully on developing friendly relations between Greece and Yugoslavia.
The bodies of Kranidiotis and five other killed passengers were brought to Athens with top state honours at about 3 p.m. today.
A special Boeing 737 with the remains and a team of experts investigating the accident, headed by Greek Traffic Minister Tassos Mandelis, was welcomed at the airport by Prime Minister Costas Simitis and government members, the Pasok leadership, and family members of the deceased.
Kranidiotis will be buried with top state honours on Thursday.