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Kosovo Update Released by the Bureau of European Affairs, Office of South Central European Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC, March 5, 1999

(Editor's Note: With the progressive changeover of responsibility from KDOM to OSCE/KVM, the KDOM Daily Report has been replaced by this Update, which is published as material becomes available.)

Compiled by EUR/SCE (202-647-5624) from daily reports of the U.S. element
of the Kosovo Diplomatic Observers Mission and other sources

March 5, 1999

While tensions remain acute in many parts of Kosovo today, no major fighting is reported. The repositioning of VJ and police units continues as F.R.Y. and KLA forces prepare for a return of their negotiators to France on March 15.

The fighting monitored yesterday by the KVM in the Mijalic area near Vucitrn reportedly resulted in the death of two Serbs, and a third VJ soldier is reported missing. Police report that one policeman was killed in a KLA attack on a patrol in Podujevo on the evening of March 3.

Bujar Bukoshi, the "Prime Minister" in the Kosovar Albanian shadow government, said yesterday that his side has "accepted" the terms of the Rambouillet agreement. He added that, while the agreement does recognize the F.R.Y.'s territorial claim to Kosovo, it represents the best assurance the Albanians have of generating a NATO presence in Kosovo.

According to Paris media reports, Serbian authorities have issued an arrest warrant for KLA Political Director Hashim Thaqi. The warrant calls for Thaqi to serve a sentence handed down in 1997.

Prior to the intensification of fighting late in December 1998, the UNHCR reports there had been a major return to homes by IDP's created in earlier fighting. The report says, however, that since Christmas there have been 60,000 new IDPs generated in Kosovo. The number of Serbs who have fled their homes has increased dramatically over the period, with estimates running to as high as 30,000. They have left 90 previously ethnically mixed villages and most have resettled in central Serbia. Official Belgrade statistics indicate that 50,000 of the 200,000 Kosovo Serbs have left the province since the fighting started a year ago.

Reports this week from the Macedonian side of the border indicate now that some 5,000 villagers from north and west of Djeneral Jankovic fled their homes during recent fighting. Of those, some 1,200 crossed into Macedonia.

[End of Document]

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