Word: albanians
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...withdrawal. Annan's proposal is sound; it makes clear that the aim of the NATO intervention is not to punish Yugoslavian civilians but to protect the civilians violently uprooted in Kosovo. Without the return of refugees and the removal of Yugoslav Army units, those who wish to see an Albanian-free Kosovo will have triumphed...
Simple as it may seem to carve Kosovo up, doing so could tilt the balance of power in the Balkans. A British diplomat was worried last week that a "rump Albanian Kosovo" would be just the kind of undernourished state that would unify Albanians in countries such as Macedonia, Greece and Montenegro. That could trigger a push for a Greater Albanian state that would include parts of several nations--a one-way ticket to chaos...
...Spyros Kyprianou, who flew to Belgrade to win the G.I.s' release, came home empty handed. In a classic example of wartime double-talk, Yugoslav government officials declared that "peace has been restored in Kosovo." Milosevic claimed to be "negotiating" for the Kosovars' safe return to their homes with ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova--a man who State Department officials believe is under house arrest...
...rebel army is already preparing for its next offensive, tapping support from a widely dispersed Albanian diaspora that reaches as far as New Jersey, where last week K.L.A. representatives held an event. And in the regions around Kosovo, the K.L.A. is sharpening its rudimentary training and logistics network. The key element of that web is a recruiting operation that may have pulled in thousands of battle-age men. In Albania, near the town of Durres, unarmed ethnic Albanian volunteers from Western Europe (countries like Switzerland and Germany are a particular source) head toward the border with supplies...
...clear message to the West, troops last week began laying mines along Kosovo's borders within sight of Western television cameras. The mining operation is probably also designed to help stop such incidents as the spasm of fighting that broke out late last week between Serbian forces and Albanian-based K.L.A. forces. The Yugoslav military issued a furious statement decrying the "aggression"--and reportedly lobbed some artillery shells into Albania for good measure. The image of a well-trained and well-financed K.L.A. using bases in Macedonia and Albania to fight the Serbs clearly haunts Belgrade...