YUGOSLAVIA/MACEDONIA: ETHNIC ALBANIAN GUERILLAS AND SERB FORCES ARE FACING EACH OTHER IN A VILLAGE SOME FOUR KILOMETERS OVER THE KOSOVO
Record ID:
566188
YUGOSLAVIA/MACEDONIA: ETHNIC ALBANIAN GUERILLAS AND SERB FORCES ARE FACING EACH OTHER IN A VILLAGE SOME FOUR KILOMETERS OVER THE KOSOVO
- Title: YUGOSLAVIA/MACEDONIA: ETHNIC ALBANIAN GUERILLAS AND SERB FORCES ARE FACING EACH OTHER IN A VILLAGE SOME FOUR KILOMETERS OVER THE KOSOVO
- Date: 11th March 2001
- Summary: TRNOVA, SERBIA, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 11 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. SV ETHNIC ALBANIAN GUERILLAS IN TRENCHES 0.06 2. LV OF TRENCHES 0.12 3. SV SERBIAN POSITIONS BEING MONITORED FROM NEARBY BUILDING (2 SHOTS) 0.25 4. LV SERBIAN TANK DUG IN ABOUT 200 METRES AWAY 0.29 5. CU ALBANIAN GUERILLAS SITTING AT MAKESHIFT CHECKPOINT WITH SANDBAGS (2 SHOTS) 0.39 6. MCU (Albanian) LOCAL ETHNIC ALBANIAN LIBERATION ARMY FOR PRESEVO, MEDVEDJA AND BUJANOVAC (UCPMB) COMMANDER, 'CAPTAIN LASHI' SAYING: "We are not in a good situation. But last week was relatively quiet. For the last couple of days, there was intense fighting. In the last two days the fighting made the negotiations very difficult. Because the fighting it was difficult to come to a political and diplomatic solution. Because of this situation, the negotiation will be delayed. We are negotiating with KFOR and the European Union and United Nations." 1.23 7. MCU/SLV UCPMB MILITARY POLICEMAN AT ROADBLOCK/CAR DRIVING AWAY (2 SHOTS) 1.41 8. CU/SLV CAR BEING CHECKED AT ROADBLOCK (2 SHOTS) 1.57 LOCATION IN HILLS NEAR BUJANOVAC, YUGOSLAVIA (MARCH 11, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 9. PAN FROM YUGOSLAV ARMY POSITIONS 2.07 10. CU OF SOLDIER WITH RIFLE AIMING AT VILLAGE 2.13 11. GV ETHNIC ALBANIAN VILLAGE BENEATH YUGOSLAV POSITIONS 2.17 12. LV YUGOSLAV FLAG IN ARMY CAMP 2.24 13. SLV YUGOSLAV TANKS MANOEUVERING 2.39 14. LV/SV SOLDIERS ON TANK/TANK BARREL POINTING AT SECURITY ZONE (4 SHOTS) 3.00 BRANA LIPJOVO, MACEDONIA (MARCH 11, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 15. SV ETHNIC ALBANIAN REFUGEES IN TRUCK DRIVING ALONG ROAD 3.07 16. SLV/SV REFUGEES ON BACK OF TRUCK AND IN TRUCK (3 SHOTS) 3.25 17. MCU (Albanian) REFUGEE: "We are leaving our village because we are afraid of our situation, for our children. They dont have anything to eat and are very frightened." 3.36 18. SV/LV TRUCK DRIVES ALONG MOUNTAIN ROAD (2 SHOTS) 4.00 19. SV/LV/GV ANOTHER TRUCK WITH HORSES IN THE BACK DRIVES ALONG MOUNTAIN ROAD (3 SHOTS) 4.18 20. SLV REFUGEES STANDING IN VILLAGE 4.23 21. SV/CU WOMEN WITH CHILDREN (4 SHOTS) 4.50 22. MCU (Albanian) REFUGEE: We left the village because we were scared for our children." 4.55 23. SLV/SV MORE OF REFUGEES (2 SHOTS) 5.05 24. LV/SV SECURITY FORCES IN STREET (5 SHOTS) 5.32 SKOPJE, MACEDONIA (MARCH 11, 2001) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 25. GV OF STADIUM 5.36 26. LV OF GAME 5.43 27. LV OF SUPPORTERS AT STADIUM 5.48 28. LV/SLV OF SUPPORTERS IN STREET (2 SHOTS) 5.59 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 26th March 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TRNOVA, SERBIA AND LOCATION IN HILLS NEAR BUJANOVAC, YUGOSLAVIA / BRANA LIPJOVO AND SKOPJE, MACEDONIA
- City:
- Country: Yugoslavia
- Reuters ID: LVA929PZ00WQT93W5HS6AZF5RIYB
- Story Text: Ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Serb forces are facing
each other in a village some four kilometres over the Kosovo
boundary inside Serbia.
Yugoslav soldiers are preparing to return to patrol part
of a buffer zone along the outside of U.N.-ruled Kosovo's
borders with the rest of Serbia.
In Macedonia, ethnic Albanians are continuing to flee
fighting near the country's border with Kosovo.
A palpable air of tension in the village of Trnova
inside Serbia on Sunday (March 11) marred what would otherwise
have been a peaceful afternoon.
From shallow trenches, ethnic Albanian guerrillas
belonging to the self-styled Liberation Army of Presevo,
Bujanovac and Medvedja (UCPMB) patrolled the fringe of the
exclusion zone that runs along the boundary of Kosovo.
Armed with light weapons and rocket propelled grenades,
the soldiers looked out on a Serbian tank, dug in near a group
of buildings. Its barrel pointed towards the ethnic Albanian
lines.
Local UCPMB commander, Captain Lashi said his fighters were
"not in a good situation".
He explained that ceasefire negotiations between ethnic
Albanian guerrillas and government security forces in Serbia's
Presevo Valley bordering Kosovo had been held up by fighting.
"In the last two days the fighting made the negotiations
very difficult. Because the fighting it was difficult to come
to a political and diplomatic solution. Because of this
situation, the negotiations will be delayed. We are
negotiating with KFOR and the European Union and United
Nations", the UCPMB commander said.
Some 10,000 people, exclusively ethnic Albanian, still
inhabit Trnova.
UCPMB rebels say they are fighting Serb repression of
ethnic Albanians in Serbia's Presevo Valley, an area with a
majority ethnic Albanian population.
Serbia's new reformist rulers say the guerrillas are
terrorists whose only aim is to join the Presevo Valley onto
ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo.
NATO's current involvement in ceasefire efforts between
ethnic Albanians and Serb forces reflects Western concern at
the violence on Kosovo's boundary, which has spread to the
frontier with Macedonia in recent weeks.
For the past year, ethnic Albanian guerrillas have based
themselves in the Ground Safety Zone, an exclusion zone set up
around Kosovo when peacekeepers entered Kosovo in June 1999.
The buffer zone has been off-limits to Serbian forces
since 1999 under a NATO-Belgrade agreement ending a
NATO-alliance bombing campaign that resulted in the pullout of
then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's forces from
Kosovo, where they had fought Albanian separatist guerrillas
and expelled many civilians.
Hoping to get help in curbing the current violence, NATO
decided last week to let Yugoslav forces into a sliver of the
five km (three mile) buffer zone.
But before doing so, the alliance wants the ethnic
Albanian guerrillas to sign up to a ceasefire deal which, on
paper at least, would guarantee the Yugoslav forces some
safety from attack.
Fears that the violence could destabilise Macedonia, which
has a fragile ethnic balance of a Macedonian majority and
Albanian minority, have heightened in recent weeks with the
emergence of another guerrilla group on Kosovo's borders.
The group, apparently called the National Liberation Army
(NLA), has clashed several times with Macedonian security
forces in the past week. Five people, four security force
members and a rebel, have been killed in the clashes.
Ethnic Albanian gunmen have been condemned by Macedonia's
ethnic Albanian politicians and appear not to enjoy much local
support among ethnic Albanians in Macedonia.
Trucks carrying ethnic Albanians and their belongings have
been leaving the village of Brana Lipjovo in an area of
Macedonia which has been infiltrated by suspected ethnic
Albanian extremists.
One refugee said: "We are leaving from our village
because we are afraid of our situation, out children, they
don't have anything to eat and are very scared".
The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)
refugee agency said in Pristina that in the last three weeks
890 mostly women and children came to Kosovo from Macedonia.
Another 265 moved from the border villages to other places
inside Macedonia.
Ethnic Albanians make up about a fourth of Macedonia's two
million people.
In the Macedonian capital, Skopje local ethnic Albanian
football team, Sloga Yugomagnat beat their Macedonian rivals
Sk. Vardar 2-0.
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