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YUGOSLAVIA'S MILOSEVIC RECEIVES NEW SOUTH AFRICAN AMBASSADOR
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic received on Monday the credentials of South Africa's new ambassador David Jacobs.
Ambassador Jacobs conveyed South African President Mbeki's cordial greetings to President Milosevic and stressed that bilateral relations are characterised by mutual efforts to develop meaningful cooperation.
President Milosevic, for his part, said that Yugoslavia and South Africa are linked by friendly relations and a mutual interest in strengthening bilateral cooperation.
He wished Jacobs success at his new duties, expressing the conviction that he would have full support from the Yugoslav government.
The ensuing talk was attended by Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic.
INTER-PARTY TALKS OPEN IN BELGRADE
Talks between delegations of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS) on the functioning of the Yugoslav federation opened in Belgrade Tuesday.
The SPS delegation is made up of party Secretary-General Gorica Gajevic, President of the federal parliament's Chamber of Citizens Milomir Minic, Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic, and Radoman Bozovic.
The DPS is represented by Montenegro Assembly President Svetozar Marovic, head of the DPS grouping in the federal parliament Zeljko Sturanovic, and Milica Pejanovic-Djurisic.
DPS, SRS DELEGATIONS MEET
Delegations of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) of Montenegro and of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) expressed Monday after discussing future relations in the Yugoslav federation their optimism as regards the future of the joint state and the removal of present tensions and misunderstandings.
The DPS delegation comprised Filip Vujanovic, Vice-President, Miodrag Vukovic, Executive Committee President, and Dragan Djurovic, party club President, and the SRS delegation Tomislav Nikolic, Vice-President, Dragan Todorovic, Executive Committee President, and Dusko Sekulic, Executive Committee Vice-President.
Vujanovic told the press that the dialogue was very frank and demonstrated the interest of the Serbian and Montenegrin peoples in living in a mutually beneficial community.
The DPS sees the talks as a follow-up to its endeavours for defining the future relations between Serbia and Montenegro in a new future community that would secure the statehood and equality of the member-states and citizens and prevent any abuses resulting from a bad concept of the constitutional system, Vujanovic said.
The Monday meeting also demonstrated the readiness of the DPS to talk even with parties with totally different views.
Frank talks can help overcome all differences in the interest of the peoples of Serbia and Montenegro, Vujanovic said.
Some differences have been noted, but talks will be useful to both republics. Frank talks should be pursued as they can help remove all misunderstandings that could have led to tensions of unnecessary conflicts, Vujanovic said.
Asked by the press whether Yugoslavia should be preserved at any cost, Vujanovic said maximum endeavours should be exerted to that end. If the endeavours fail, it will be up to the Montenegrin parliament to take steps it deems necessary, he said.
Nikolic said the SRS had welcomed the DPS proposal to discuss the functioning of the federal state as it is obviously not now functioning in line with the Constitution and with the desire of the Serbian and Montenegrin peoples.
The talks were frank, proposals and suggestions were made, and endeavours in this regard will be pursued, Nikolic said.
The talks have also helped in improving mutual understanding and the relations between the two parties will no longer be influenced by the media that often misinterpret party statements. The common goal is to preserve the joint state. Different views exist in this regard, Nikolic noted, but added he was nevertheless optimistic.
330,000 NON-ALBANIANS HAVE BEEN DRIVEN OUT OF KOSMET
Head of the Kosovo and Metohija provisional government Zoran Andjelkovic late Monday said that 330,000 non-Albanians have been driven out of Serbia's southern province in the past three months, of whom 250,000 Serbs.
The Serbian population has been driven out of all towns, except the northern section of Kosovska Mitrovica, Andjelkovic said on a program of the Nis RTS Studio.
Despite the large-scale ethnic-Albanian terrorism and banditry, which have escalated since the deployment of the KFOR, 118,000 Serbs have remained in the province, Andjelkovic specified.
In addition to insuring security for the return of the temporarily displaced persons, it is also extremely important to insure regular transportation and communications between the Serbian enclaves and the security of the movement of people, Andjelkovic underscored and said that new bus lines were about to be introduced in the province.
Andjelkovic said that the situation in the Serbian enclaves was being stabilized, there were no greater problems in their supply, and efforts would be made to organize and stabilize also the health services and the media.
These Serbian oases constitute a foundation for the return of the expelled Serbs. It is extremely important to have as many of these oases as possible, especially in the Metohija municipalities of Istok and Klina, and to have them grow stronger and expand through the return of those who have left, Andjelkovic stressed and said that the Serbian physical and spiritual space in Kosovo and Metohija must be preserved.
He said he doubted that the UN civil mission would be able to organize a census and elections in the province as quickly as it had said it would.
Elections will most likely not be possible before next autumn. As for the census, it will disappoint many, because it will quite surely show that there are far less ethnic Albanians and far more Serbs than according to the figures which have been used for various manipulations, which is why ethnic-Albanians have boycotted every attempt at determining their actual number, head of the Kosovo and Metohija provisional government Andjelkovic set out.
ANDJELKOVIC VISITS WOUNDED IN HOSPITAL
Deputy chief of General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, Gen. Ljubomir Andjelkovic with aides, visited the wounded and injured members of the Yugoslav Army who are recovering in the military medical center in Karaburma in Belgrade.
Gen. Andjelkovic informed himself in detail about the state of health of Yugoslav Army members who were wounded and injured in fighting ethnic Albanian terrorists and in defending the country from NATO's aggression, and gave credit to the doctors and medical staff of the military medical center.
Talking with the wounded fighters, Gen. Andjelkovic wanted to learn about their condition and problems and also gave them appropriate gifts, said the information service of the Yugoslav Army General Staff.
TWO MORE SERBS ARRESTED IN ORAHOVAC
The military police of the German contingent of KFOR called on Sunday two Serbs from Orahovac, Dejan Micic and Mijo Djinovic, to the police station and immediately arrested them, the Center for Peace and Tolerance in Pristina has learnt.
Without being charged, or any interrogations, they were transferred to the prison in Prizren.
Mijo's wife, Sonja Djinovic, was told in the prison that she cannot see her husband and that for all information she should see the prosecutor and the lawyer. She could not find them, but has learned that they are both ethnic Albanians.
Since the arrival of "peacekeepers" in Orahovac, 11 Serbs have been arrested. Although a large number of them have been in prison for over two months, they have not yet been officially charged.
KFOR BLOCKADES KOSOVO-METOHIJA SCHOOL, SERBS, ROMANIES RETALIATE
International KFOR force troops blockaded a school in U.N.-secured Kosovo-Metohija's village of Plemetina early on Monday, prompting a retaliatory blockade of the school yard by local Serbs and Romanies.
About 1,500 Serbs and 500 Romanies insist the barricades will remain in place until the UN civilian mission (UNMIK) and its chief Bernard Kouchner rescind the decision that ethnic Albanian children attend classes together with the Serb children.
It had originally been proposed that a building near the ethnic Albanian part of Plemetina, near Obilic, be adapted for the dozen or so ethnic Albanian children, and nobody objected to the idea, local residents have told TANJUG.
However, KFOR troops stormed the school early on Monday without warning, fenced it in with barbed wire and prevented Serb children from attending classes.
The school works in two shifts - as a primary school in one shift, and as secondary schools of medicine and economics, in the other.
KOSOVO-METOHIJA ALBANIAN LEADER QUSA MEETS WITH OSCE SPOKESMAN
Sokol Qusa, leader of Kosovo-Metohija's ethnic Albanian Democratic Reform Party, met on Monday with a spokesman for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kosovo-Metohija's city of Pristina. Qusa warned the OSCE spokesman that the UN mission to this province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia is in jeopardy.
After the meeting, Qusa told TANJUG he had reminded the OSCE official of NATO Secretary General George Robertson's statement that terrorism against innocent civilians must stop, but that it was nevertheless continuing.
A large number of former members of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), armed with state-of-the-art light armament, are daily murdering innocent civilians in U.N.-secured Kosovo- Metohija, Qusa said.
The terrorists hit especially on Serbs and those ethnic Albanians who have embraced the message of the international community that Kosovo-Metohija must be multi-ethnic, he added.
The bandit gangs have lately begun targeting the native ethnic Albanian population, after the UN civilian mission (UNMIK) has allowed power to pass into the hands of Albanians who have come in from neighbouring Albania.
Instead of protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia, UNMIK Chief Bernard Kouchner is tracing the outlines of a new independent state in the Balkans, Qusa said.
RETURN OF FRENCH POLICE SQUADRON FROM KOSOVO-METOHIJA
A company of 125 French gendarmes who in the French sector of KFOR in north Kosovo-Metohija were in charge of securing public order, has returned to France Monday evening.
Citing official sources, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that the French policemen were welcomed at the airport by Defense Minister Alain Richard.
The gendarmes stayed in Kosovo-Metohija four months and have now been replaced by another unit in the French sector based in Kosovska Mitrovica.
Divided Kosovska Mitrovica is the scene of frequent incidents provoked by Albanian demonstrators, in their attempt to cross by force the bridge on the river Ibar and penetrate into the northern, Serbian part of town.
In the recent clashes have been wounded 27 gendarmes.
EVERYTHING SERB BEING SYSTEMATICALLY DESTROYED IN UROSEVAC
Chaos, lawlessness, looting by bands from Albania continue in Urosevac, but also by bands of ethnic Albanians, who are attacking not only their former neighbours Serbs, but even other non-Albanians in that part of Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province.
The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) Municipal Board of Urosevac has organized a visit to the town by temporarily displaced citizens of Urosevac, through the engagement of Kosovo and Metohija Temporary Executive Council President Zoran Andjelkovic. The visit took place following a four-month rampage by ethnic Albanian terrorist bands in this municipality.
With an escort of the international force KFOR, the displaced Urosevac Serbs first visited the village of Srpski Babus, where all Serb houses have been looted and torched. They then visited Urosevac itself, where all factories are sealed off with barbed wire and not working. Graves and tombstones and monuments at the Serb cemetary have been desecrated, and bodies of Serbs killed in the bandit attacks are lying in open graves.
A large number of Serb houses have been looted and torched in Urosevac. KFOR stands by and watches as ethnic Albanians dismantle Serb houses and take away construction material.
The Urosevac Serbs have asked KFOR commander, Gen. Klaus Reinhardt that the KFOR immediately stop the further destruction and looting of property from Serb, Montenegrin and Romany houses, and to create conditions for the return of over 30,000 displaced persons from the municipality of Urosevac.
JOINT FRONT OF RESISTANCE TO UNITED STATES
Head of the delegation of the ruling Iraqi Baath party, Harith Al-Khashali, and Serbian Information Minister Aleksandar Vucic urged, on Monday, the creation of a joint resistance front of freedom-loving countries to the United States and its West European allies on all political levels. "That resistance front must be launched world-wide," Vucic said in talks with the Iraqi delegation, on a several-day visit to Yugoslavia.
Assessing that the visit will help closer relations between the two countries, their ruling parties and state leaderships, Vucic said he believed that a stronger political basis would be created for resistance to the Americans and their West European lackeys.
Pointing out that many countries in the world are against the U.S. policy, Vucic said that the resistance front to the U.S. imperialist ideology will expand just as the anti-fascist front expanded during WW II, because the free world must oppose the new evil, dangerous for the future of all peoples.
The head of the Iraqi delegation, Iraqi Baath party committee chairman for international relations Al-Kashali said that Iraq and Yugoslavia are linked by the common wish to defend and preserve their integrity, sovereignty, right to independent development and non-submission to blackmail and pressures.
"We are not alone," he said, indicating that the peoples of the world are aware that the U.S. aggression and lies, by which they are trying to justify it, are aimed at establishing control over the natural wealth of other countries.
Al-Kashali called for the joint efforts of freedom-loving countries in their resistance to America, and for the cooperation of countries defending their freedom, integrity and independence.
MEDIA PRESSURE ON YUGOSLAVIA ABATING
Yugoslav Information Secretary Goran Matic said in an interview to the Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti on Monday that media pressure on Yugoslavia from abroad was abating and that western media comments about the situation in Yugoslavia, and the recent brutal NATO aggression, were increasingly objective.
Matic said "the most influential papers such as New York Times, Washington Post, or CNN television, report much more rationally, objectively and responsibly about the situation in Yugoslavia" than certain domestic papers.
Matic underscored that foreign media today speak very clearly and critically about the real situation in Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province, the lack of implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, and the persecution of Serbs from the province.
This more objective stand is based on the fact that most foreign reporters, and there were as many as 1,500 of them during the NATO aggression, had seen that the air strikes on Yugoslavia had been criminal, Matic said.
According to Matic, the second reason for this are the expected changes in the U.S. policy, as well as the stepped up shifting of reporters from the team of U.S. President Bill Clinton to that of his rival George Bush, Jr.
Matic said there was a very clear division in Yugoslavia into Yugoslav media which defend the honour and dignity of Yugoslavia and inform citizens critically and objectively, and anti-Yugoslav media which are financed from abroad and whose intention is to dismember Yugoslavia.
BULGARIA CATEGORICALLY AGAINST INDEPENDENT KOSOVO
Bulgarian Prime Minister Ivan Kostov in talks Monday with Albanian Prime Minister Pandelji Maiko was categorical in his position that Kosovo cannot "at any price" become independent but only acquire autonomy within FR Yugoslavia.
The Sofia daily Sega quoted Kostov as saying that Bulgaria was against an ethnically cleansed Kosovo and Metohija.
"An ethnically cleansed Kosovo can only lead to new conflicts and the destabilization of all of Southeastern Europe," he said.
The talks of Prime Minister Kostov with the Albanian prime minister also touched on the case of the Bulgarian national Valentin Krumov, member of the UN Civilian Mission in Kosovo, who was killed by Albanian extremists, and Maiko, the daily Sega reported, referring to the situation in the region, underlined that Albania was for the stabilization of circumstances in Macedonia.
RUSSIA, ITALY ENDORSE YUGOSLAVIA'S SOVEREIGNTY ON KOSOVO-METOHIJA
Russia and Italy will jointly advocate the full implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 which stipulates Yugoslavia's sovereignty over Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province, Foreign Ministers Igor Ivanov and Lamberto Dini agreed Monday in Rome.
Dini especially underlined that the situation in the province remained a cause for concern.
The two ministers also had nearly identical views on other issues they discussed, such as world security, nuclear disarmament and bilateral relations.
Ivanov also met Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema and Pope John Paul II.
D'Alema especially pointed to Russia's constructive role in the Kosovo-Metohija crisis and the Balkans in general, and to the need for international community endeavours for securing the stability of the entire region, a statement on the talks says.
PRIME MINISTER KOSTOV SAYS EUROPE MAKES EMPTY PROMISES
Europe owes a great deal to Bulgaria, the to the government close Sofia newspapers Tuesday quoted Bulgarian Prime Minister Ivan Kostov as saying in an interview to the BBC.
Prime Minister Kostov underscored that the great economic difficulties in Bulgaria were a consequence of the "Kosovo crisis" and his country was losing on all fronts because of Serbia's southern province. Bulgaria, whose parliament, as opposed to the public, had without much deliberation approved air corridors for NATO aircraft engaged in aggression on neighbouring Yugoslavia, now accuses the international community of having failed to take a single concrete action for the reconstruction of the Balkans and limiting itself to political declarations of the kind the Stability Pact is.
"Regrettably, all these are just plans and promises," Prime Minister Kostov set out.
KUBIS SAYS OSCE PULLOUT FROM KOSMET SIGNALS BEGINNING OF NATO AGGRESSION
OSCE Secretary-General Jan Kubis of Slovakia has allowed the possibility that things might have taken a different turn in the case of Kosovo and NATO aggression on Yugoslavia if the chairman-country of the OSCE had not been a NATO member at the time.
In a statement to the newspaper SME, Kubis explained that, although the OSCE worked on the basis of consensus, the chairman-country was able to influence its activities.
The Norwegians, whose country chairs the OSCE this year, were in fact the ones who took the decision in March to pull out the OSCE observer mission from Kosovo and Metohija, which was actually a signal for the start of NATO operations, Kubis said.
When the SME observed that the OSCE activities were predominantly centered in eastern Europe and asked why the organization was not present in Northern Ireland, for instance, Kubis said that it was not the best recommendation for the OSCE if it was active only in eastern Europe, but set out that the biggest problems where there.
Asked whether funds had anything to do with this, Kubis replied that the OSCE had never had problems with the budget. "If political will exists, the organization can be extremely capable of action and funds are found," he stressed.
OBERG - INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FAILED IN KOSOVO-METOHIJA
Director of the Sweden-based Transitional Foundation for Research on Future and Peace Jan Oberg strongly criticised the international community for its actions regarding the crisis in Serbia's Kosovo-Metohija province.
The international community comprises about 15 persons who claim that they represent the entire world and that the world agrees with them, Oberg said Monday at the international conference Justice and War in Paris.
Oberg, who had taken part in some 35 reconciliation missions in Kosovo-Metohija before the war and who is an expert in Balkan affairs, accused international KFOR peacekeepers and UN civilian mission of failing to establish peace and safety for all in the province, and especially criticized UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner, wondering whether no one could be found who knew Kosovo-Metohija better than Kouchner.
Oberg especially spoke of the Rambouillet ultimatum that had led to the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia, and of the lost opportunities for avoiding the NATO war against Yugoslavia. Anti-Yugoslav sanctions could have been avoided, he said and added that Europe had earlier failed to provide economic aid to Kosovo-Metohija, one of poorest areas in Europe.
YUGOSLAV FILM DIRECTOR KUSTURICA CONDEMNS NATO AGGRESSION
Renowned Yugoslav film director Emir Kusturica condemned NATO aggression on Yugoslavia in a talk with the press in the Romanian capital Monday and said he would "never believe in the order that is being created through pointed pistols and bombs."
Kusturica said that Western intellectuals had disappointed him with their attitude towards the NATO bombardments of Yugoslavia, i.e., the fact that they were absolutely unable to understand what was actually taking place.
"They acted like an industry of humanism and not as true humanists," Kusturica set out and singled as a positive example author Peter Handke, who he said was with the Serbs through the aggression.
The Yugoslav film director told the press that he was proud to be a Balkan, because he said "spirituality, love, hatred and all emotional nuances of the spirit are still alive in the Balkans, while they are no longer to be found in Western Europe and the USA."
Kusturica distanced himself from the film industry, which he said had become a "prolonged arm of the media," whose immense influence and manipulations he termed as extremely harmful.
Kusturica is the guest of honour of the DAKINO international film festival in Bucharest, which opened late Monday with the Yugoslav directors' "White Cat, Black Cat."
Kusturica met in Bucharest with the "King" of the Romanian Romanies Florin Coba, who suggested to him a script about the deportation of Romanian Romanies to Germany during World War II. Kustrica showed interest in the project.
NATO CONFIRMS ARREST OF BOSNIAN SERB
NATO confirmed Monday in Brussels that SFOR had arrested a Serb, Damir Dosen, indicted by The Hague Tribunal for alleged war crimes during the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Dosen, whose name was on the Tribunal's public list, was arrested Monday in north-western Bosnia, the office of NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said without further details. He was subsequently taken to Tuzla, from where he will be flown to The Hague.
Dosen was indicted for crimes he allegedly committed in 1992 in the Prijedor area.