EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Sunday, April 4, 1999-Easter Sunday-11:19CDT

CRISIS NEWS BRIEFS

BELGIUM (EmergencyNet News) - NATO said on Saturday it was prepared to send an international security force to Kosovo to help refugees return to their homes. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the alliance wanted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to pull his forces out of the province to allow refugees to be escorted back.

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO missiles pounded Belgrade for a second day early Sunday in their drive to cripple the Yugoslav armed forces and end a refugee exodus from Kosovo that Albania called a  "biblical deluge" of suffering people. A series of explosions was heard on the edge of the Yugoslav capital's central district. Serbian television reported a factory making had been hit in the suburb of Novi Beograd.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - The U.S. Department of State said on Saturday that NATO is seeking a peaceful, multi-ethnic and democratic Kosovo, to be achieved through the return of refugees and the deployment of an international security force. In a statement issued after conversations on Friday between Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Britain, said the countries were worried about the situation in Montenegro.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - Haris Silajdzic, co-chairman of Bosnia's central government, urged NATO on Saturday to augment its air strikes against Yugoslavia with ground troops, saying such a move could help save many lives. Silajdzic, who served as foreign minister and prime minister during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, applauded NATO's intervention to halt Yugoslavia's campaign of terror against ethnic Albanians but said he was worried about those left behind in Kosovo.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher wrote in Sunday's Washington Post that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic must be tried for war crimes for his "genocidal conduct" against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. In an essay titled "Whatever It Takes," Christopher argued that NATO and the United States should use whatever force is necessary to prevail in Kosovo. ERRI COMMENT: Highly unusual for Christopher who is not known as an advocate for the use of military force.

From the ERRI Watch Center

SERBIA (EmergencyNet News) - NATO missiles once again pounded Belgrade early Sunday. A series of explosions was heard on the edge of the Yugoslav capital's central district and Serbian television reported a factory had been hit in the suburb of Novi Beograd.

Earlier NATO missiles destroyed another bridge over the Danube river in Yugoslavia's second city, Novi Sad, over which civilian traffic was crossing. Seven people were reported injured. The city's Petrovaradinski bridge was destroyed on Thursday, cutting the Orient Express railway route between Vienna and Belgrade and blocking barge traffic on Europe's longest river, the Danube. A third bridge remains -- perhaps not for long.

Serbian news media also reported an attack on another Danube bridge further west at the Croatian border, saying it was damaged but not destroyed.

NATO said it was rethinking the role its troops might play in Kosovo when the time comes to escort refugees back to their homes. Britain's Sunday Times newspaper said the Western Powers were making plans for an invasion -- once Yugoslavia's armed forces were wiped out by air power. 

In Albania, aid officials said the number of Kosovo Albanian refugees entering Europe's poorest country had exceeded 200,000. Border-area queues were said to be stretching 12 miles in length, more than half of Saturday's refugee tide of 17,000 were stuck for lack of vehicles, and around 15,000 people lacked food or shelter, sitting exposed on a remote, cold mountainside.

On Saturday, the United States officially ordered the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and its attack jets into the Adriatic from the Mediterranean to join in NATO bombing and missile strikes against Yugoslavia. The carrier, also accompanied by four warships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, would arrive in the Adriatic on Monday.

The Pentagon announced that the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk would be moved from its base in Japan to replace the USS Independence in the Persian Gulf so that the Independence could return to the United States on schedule in May.

The arrival of the Roosevelt and the additional F-117s will bring to more than 270 the number of U.S. attack and support planes involved in the ongoing Kosovo operation Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said he expected an announcement from NATO shortly on the possible approval of a request by U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, the supreme allied commander of allied forces, to use U.S. "Apache" attack helicopters against Serb forces in Kosovo.

In Belgium, NATO said it now believes three U.S. soldiers who were taken captive and shown on Serbian television were kidnapped by Yugoslav special forces in Macedonia. A high ranking Western official said on Saturday: "Evidence increasingly points to the fact that his (Milosevic) special forces kidnapped the three Americans inside Macedonia and took them out."

In Bosnia, NATO SFOR troops came under fire while destroying a major railroad line through Bosnia-Herzegovina. SFOR said the operation rendered the tracks between two cities in the neighboring Federal Republic of Yugoslavia useless to Yugoslav troops. Two men in civilian clothes armed with AK 47 rifles fired on SFOR soldiers Saturday as they prepared to blow up the railway, which links Belgrade to Podgorica in the Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro. The railroad cuts through eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. SFOR soldiers were unharmed in the attack. The only other rail link between Belgrade and Montenegro is through the southern Yugoslav province of Kosovo.

By Jeremy Zakis, ERRI Asia and Pacific Desk

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - A new issue discussed at Saturday's Department of Defense press briefing was the amount of time that OPERATION ALLIED FORCE will take. Capt. Stephen Pietropaoli, USN, Special Assistant for Public Affairs explained that a time limit as such won't exist, the only way to stop the military action is by accomplishment of the objective or Milosevic embracing the principles of Rambouillet.

But to embrace the principals of Rambouillet, Milosevic must stop the Serb offensive, withdraw his troops from Kosovo, allow NATO peace-keeping forces into the region and enable the return of refugee's. When questioned whether it be enough that Milosevic simply pull his forces out of Kosovo, either by his own accord or because of their diminished strength, Ken Bacon told reporters, "I just listed five conditions, and those are the five conditions that are at the core of the agreement... They remain NATO's conditions."

However, analysts have predicted that it will only take 10-20 more days for the Serbian forces to reach their goal and cleanse Yugoslavia of ethnic Albanians. Capt. Pietropaoli dismissed those projected figures as placing any kind of pressure on NATO to speed up their campaign. "This isn't a race.This is about a sustained serious campaign," he told reporters.

Meanwhile Russia has given assurances that it will stay out of the Kosovo crisis, Bacon told reporters at Saturday's Department of Defense News Briefing in Washington. "The Russians have said that they plan to stay out of this conflict, and we take that commitment seriously", Bacon said.

News reports said that Russian ships have been seen heading for the region, but Bacon said their movements are probably to gather intelligence on U.S. forces. "They've been trailing our carrier battle groups for years and years. We know what their capabilities are," Bacon said.

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