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NATO finds more horrors; Yugoslav troops push to meet deadline
June 15, 1999 MALA KRUSA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO peacekeepers reported Tuesday finding at least 20 burned bodies in the ruins of a house near the Albanian border. Meanwhile Yugoslavian forces seemed on schedule to meet a midnight deadline (2200 GMT/6 p.m. EST) to withdraw from Pristina and the southern third of Kosovo, according to the alliance. German soldiers with the NATO-led KFOR mission cordoned off the gruesome scene in Mala Krusa, called Krushe Emadi by Albanians. The town in the Serb province of Kosovo is located near where some of the heaviest fighting took place between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Serb forces. The deserted area is marked by signs of the recent war -- burned houses, bombed factories and dead animals. The KLA said Serbian paramilitary forces had gathered 50 to 60 people in the house and set it ablaze. Those who tried to jump from windows to escape were shot, a KLA officer said. The KLA said the massacre occurred on March 26, shortly after NATO began bombing Yugoslavia. Eyewitnesses reported similar accounts as they crossed days later into Kukes, Albania. Near the Macedonia border, residents in Stari Kacanik took CNN reporters to the site of possibly 16 graves not far from a site where a suspected mass grave was found Monday in Kacanik. The residents said about 150 people were killed by Serb forces and buried at Kacanik and Stari Kacanik. U.S. troops are guarding the graves at Kacanik. KFOR said forensic investigators were being sent to examine the sites.
Meanwhile in Belgrade, Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday received rare, but blistering, public criticism for the Kosovo situation. The Serbian Orthodox Church demanded that Milosevic and his Cabinet resign. "The isolation of our country on the international scene cannot be solved or overcome with this kind of leadership," church leaders said in statement. "Faced with the tragic situation in our nation and our country, convinced that the final justice is with our Lord and not in the hands of an instrumentalized court in The Hague, we demand that the current president of the country and his government resign in the interest of the people and its salvation," the statement said. Also, the ultranationalist Radical Party attempted to resign from the Yugoslav government. But Serbian President Milan Milutinovic said it couldn't, because the country was still in a state of emergency. Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj said his party was leaving the government because Milosevic was "betraying" Kosovo. In a public speech in central Serbia Tuesday, Milosevic dodged the criticism and urged Yugoslavs to look to the future. "By reconstructing our country, we will renew ties with the whole world ... by correcting an image which for the whole decade had been created by those who were dissatisfied with our resistance to colonization of the Balkans," he said in the town of Aleksinac.
A contingent of about 15 vehicles carrying 30 Russian troops was going through Yugoslavia on Tuesday to provide relief supplies to about 200 Russian troops occupying the Pristina airfield. British Rear Adm. Simon Moore told a briefing in London that the relief mission would be allowed through the British-controlled zone around Pristina. Moore described talks between British Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson and Gen. Viktor Zavarin, commander of the Russian forces at the airport, as "amicable and constructive." But he said a number of issues remain to be resolved. On Saturday, about 200 Russian troops from the Bosnia peacekeeping mission unexpectedly arrived ahead of NATO forces in Pristina. They have since occupied the airport, where the 19-member military alliance had planned to set up a provisional headquarters. In Moscow, Russian officials said Tuesday they feared the troops at the airport may be attacked by KLA fighters operating in the area. Military and political leaders from the United States and Russia have engaged in a diplomatic flurry to try to break the impasse.
NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said in Brussels, Belgium, it appeared that Yugoslav forces would meet the first deadline to withdraw from "Zone One" of Kosovo. "It's obvious they are trying their best to meet the deadline," Shea said on Tuesday. More than one third of the Yugoslav force had already left Kosovo, he said. The region stretches across the southern border of the province, but juts to the north to include the provincial capital. The zone includes parts of sectors to be monitored separately by U.S., British, German and Italian units. Long columns of civilian and military vehicles carrying Serb troops and paramilitary forces could be seen on the roads leading north out of Pristina. But Shea warned equipment problems may force the Yugoslav forces to miss the deadline for complete withdrawal. The Serbs are facing logistical and maintenance problems, he said. Yugoslav forces have until June 20 to leave the province completely.
Yugoslavia signed a peace accord last week to halt more than two months of NATO bombing. The alliance began the air campaign March 24 when Belgrade refused to sign an agreement designed to end fighting between Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo.
The alliance conducted the air campaign when Belgrade refused to sign an agreement designed to end fighting between Yugoslav forces and Kosovar rebels. In other developments: British troops said they arrested five suspected ethnic Albanian guerrillas who fired on them. No one was reported hurt. The British suspected the five killed a Serb man earlier in the day. Paul Risely of the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, which has indicted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and others, said the tribunal is coordinating with KFOR to investigate sites of reported atrocities. KFOR spokesman Lt. Col. Robin Clifford said he had no information on reports of the launch of a rocket grenade near the Pristina airport, other than no NATO personnel were involved. On the Macedonia border, between 1,500 and 2,000 refugees - - ignoring warnings that it may not be safe for them to return home -- went across the border into Kosovo. Three people hit land mines, a U.N. spokesman said. Two were killed, and the third was seriously injured. Correspondents Jim Clancy, Mike Boettcher, Christiane Amanpour, Matthew Chance and Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: NATO monitors Yugoslav withdrawal from southern zone as deadline nears RELATED SITES: Yugoslavia:
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