Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 20:46:12 +0200
Reply-To: Wolfgang Plarre <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Albanian News & Information Network
<[log in to unmask]>
From: Wolfgang Plarre <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: NEWS:radio21 on 17 April 2003
adio21
http://www.radio21.net/english/index.htm
Steiner declares Albanian National Army a terrorist organization
PRISHTINA, April 17 - Today UNMIK Chief Michael Steiner declared the
Albanian National Army (AKSH) a terrorist organization. Steiner released
an administrative direction, declaring AKSH - which has claimed
responsibility for the act for blowing up the railway bridge in Zvecan
on April 12th - an outlaw organization.
"Noting further that AKSH publications and other propaganda materials,
including the AKSH web-site, clearly manifest that it seeks to achieve
its objectives by violence and use of force, Armata Kombetare Shpiptare
(AKSH) / Albanian National Army (ANA) is a terrorist organization as
defined under section 1 (f) of UNMIK Regulation No. 2001/12", reads
Steiner's administrative direction.
The ruling by German diplomat Michael Steiner means that members of the
Albanian National Army (ANA) can be jailed for up to 40 years. The move
suggests that Western officials are starting to take ANA, which has been
dismissed by some diplomats as little more than a band of criminals,
more seriously.
ANA says it wants to unite Albanian lands in the Balkans. It said this
week on its website that it was behind the bomb attack designed to cut
the railway connecting "occupied" parts of Kosova with Belgrade. Two
suspected bombers were killed.
Steiner said the bombing was aimed at killing "a large number of
innocent civilians and damaging public property." The decision to
declare ANA a terrorist organization was the first such move by the
U.N.'s Kosova administration.
U.N. police spokesman Barry Fletcher said the remains of two people were
found by a bridge, damaged in Saturday night's explosion near the town
of Zveçan, northern Kosova. “We believe they were the people who were
setting the explosive device,” UN Police spokesman told.
He said three people were detained in connection with the incident,
adding they were from an Albanian-populated area near the divided
flashpoint town of Mitrovica.
Also Kosova Assembly, Government, the President Ibrahim Rugova, the
leader of the Democratic Party of Kosova, Hashim Thaci and the one of
the Alliance for the Future of Kosova, Ramush Haradinaj strongly
condemned the terrorist act of the bombing of the railway bridge near
Zvecan.
"This is an act against stability and overall progress in Kosova. We
expect the authorities which implement the law to investigate the case
and bring the culprits to justice", Government, Rugova, Thaci and
Haradinaj said among others.
Assembly endorses laws on Property, Archives and Agriculture Cooperatives
PRISHTINA, April 17 - The Assembly of Kosova endorsed today the Law on
Immobile Property Tax and the Law on Archives and the Archival
Materials. The Assembly endorsed also the Law on the Agriculture
Cooperatives in principle.
The difficult situation in the power supply was experienced today also
in the Assembly for a few minutes. After the daily agenda was approved,
the MP and leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosova, Ramush
Haradinaj expressed his dissatisfaction with the lack of electricity.
The MPs didn't give any solution and it's not clear when they'd deal
with this issue, because the electrical energy is part of SRSG Steiner's
reserved competences.
Poll: Unemployment has caused difficulties to the families
PRISHTINA, April 17 - The high rate of unemployment, consequence of our
fragile economy, has caused a very difficult situation to the citizens.
In the poll carried out today by Radio Television 21, most of the
citizens in Prishtina declared that their families experienced economic
crisis as a consequence of unemployment and too low salaries.
Most of the Kosovar families don't have any members employed. Based on
the reports of well-known international organizations, 70 per cent of
the population in Kosova lives in extreme poverty, whereas the few
families who have members employed at the public enterprises say that it
is very difficult to make a living out of it.
The citizens blame the government for the social-economic crisis and
unemployment, which according to them hasn't done enough. However the
citizens hope that economy and their life will be improved.
____________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0304c&L=albanews&D=0&P=2178
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 20:45:52 +0200
Reply-To: Wolfgang Plarre <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Albanian News & Information Network
<[log in to unmask]>
From: Wolfgang Plarre <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: NEWS: More than 4,000 still missing four years after Kosovo
conflict (Deutsche Presse Agentur, 17 April 2003)
Source: Deutsche Presse Agentur
Date: 16 Apr 2003
More than 4,000 still missing four years after Kosovo conflict
Belgrade (dpa) - The United Nations administration in Kosovo (UNMIK)
said Wednesday that so far 145 out of 4,000 bodies exhumed in the
province since the end of the war have been identified, the private Beta
news agency reported.
A total of 4,300 people have been reported missing since 1999, most
of them ethnic Albanians, said chief of the UNMIK department for missing
persons, Jose Pablo Baraibar.
The list was not yet fully "consolidated" and UNMIK has been
working on it with Belgrade, he said.
According to available data, 909 of the missing were non-Albanians,
but the figure was expected to rise, as Serbs recently added another 350
names to it.
Barabair said no mass graves have been found in Kosovo, the site of
a bloody conflict between Belgrade's security forces and ethnic Albanian
guerrillas in 1998 and 1999, but that more individual burial sites were
expected to be found.
The fighting was accompanied by a wave of terror by the security
forces and outright expulsions of civilians which led to an exodus of
refugees to Albania and Macedonia.
The conflict was ended after NATO bombed Slobodan Milosevic's
regime into accepting an international peacekeeping presence in June 1999
