KOSOVO: SERB FORCES WITHDRAWAL SITUATION UPDATE

(26 Oct 1998) English/Nat

Yugoslav tanks and armored vehicles rumbled back to their barracks in Kosovo on Monday, just a day before a NATO deadline for Serbia to reduce its troops in the breakaway province or face airstrikes.

Also on Monday, in Brussels NATO ambassadors were being briefed by NATO military chief General Wesley Clark on his weekend talks in Belgrade.

There he pressed Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for further troop withdrawals from Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians are fighting for independence.

Serb tanks rumbled through the Kosovan capital Pristina on Monday, as Yugoslavia tried to convince the international community it was complying with an agreement brokered with American envoy Richard Holbrooke on October 12.

The tank withdrawals come just a day before a NATO deadline for Serbia to reduce its troops in Kosovo or face the renewed threat of airstrikes.

Initially, three military units returned to their barracks in the towns of Urosevac, Pristina and Kosovska Mitrovica.

Later, a convoy of more than two dozen Yugoslav tanks, trucks and other armored vehicles was seen rolling through the Komorane checkpoint toward Pristina.

Serb police removed the road signs ordering vehicles to halt at the checkpoint, 12 miles west of Pristina, but the policemen manning the small booth at the intersection remained on duty.

As the tanks and trucks rolled through, international monitors checked the vehicles.

The Yugoslav government says the withdrawals show it is complying with the agreement.

At another checkpoint in the Drenica region, Kosovo Liberation Army fighters were busy checking European Observer vehicles.

The K-L-A continues to guard its area and is scrutinising all vehicles passing into its territory.

The K-L-A has declared that NATO has lost its credibility, saying the North Atlantic organisation has failed not only Kosovo but Europe.

SOUNDBITE: (Albanian)
"Unfortunately, NATO and the international community are not following the path they set out. They are not using all the measures available to them to stop all these bad things that are happening to the Albanian people." Question: Has NATO lost its credibility? Answer: "Unfortunately, yes. NATO has failed in Kosovo and Europe."
SUPER CAPTION: Shaban Shala, Director of KLA's Ministry of Information

Central to the international effort is the return of ethnic Albanian civilians to their villages and homes.

So far, despite Milosevic's pledge to cooperate, only a trickle have returned.

Counting is complicated by the fact that many people, like these in Kisna Reka, go into the villages during the day, but leave again at night.

Hundreds of people have died since Milosevic launched his crackdown in February in the province, part of Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic.

Some 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million residents are ethnic Albanian, and most favour independence.

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