Word: albanian
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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BELGRADE: It's not exactly an exchange of ambassadors, but it's a start -- Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebels were jubilant Thursday over a prisoner exchange with the Serb authorities. The reason? "By agreeing to exchange prisoners with the rebel KLA, the Serbs are effectively recognizing them as a legitimate warring faction," says TIME Yugoslavia reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. "Until now the Serbs had dismissed the KLA as terrorists and treated KLA prisoners as criminals...
Kosovo?s warriors may not wait out the winter. The capture of eight Serb soldiers by ethnic Albanian fighters is threatening to end the cease-fire that stopped U.S. air strikes against the Serbs last year: Even as Serb forces gathered for an attack and Western observers scrambled to mediate Monday, guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) said they would release the soldiers only as part of a prisoner exchange. ?An exchange would legitimize the KLA as a political fighting force,? says TIME Central Europe reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. ?For the same reason, the Serbs can?t make a deal...
...with Afghanistan. Back at Langley, CIA and Army special-operations officers drafted contingency plans for commandos to fight their way into Afghanistan for a snatch. CIA director George Tenet nixed the operation, fearing too many U.S. casualties. But in June the agency scored a win. CIA officers working with Albanian police grabbed four members of a bin Laden-affiliated group, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, who planned to bomb the U.S. embassy in Tirana...
...also knows the human cost of all this violence. One night two weeks ago, Holbrooke and Christopher Hill, U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, arrived in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, to brief ethnic Albanian leaders on the talks. Holbrooke was exhausted, and emotion percolated into his tired brain as he considered the consequences of a failed negotiation. "We may not see you again before the bombing starts," Holbrooke soberly told Albanian dissident leader Ibrahim Rugova. A quiet settled over the group. Hill said under his breath, "We may never see you again...
...Albanian rebels-who constitute almost 90 percent of Kosovo-are allowed to secede, it would set a dangerous double standard, said Maria N. Todorova, a visiting professor of history from the University of Florida who will teach History 1519: "The Modern Balkans" this spring...