Syndicate: Nato watches Kosovars strip village clean & other stories

[steve rhodes <srhodes@well.com>]

Another Independent story worth sending in
full.  Plus some other stories worth
reading.

Modern-day 'Schindlers' saved neighbors 
By Susan Milligan, Boston Globe  (6-20-99)
http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/171/nation/Modern_day_Schindlers_saved_neighbors+.shtml

In his dispatches from Kosovo, Times correspondent Paul Watson 
has reported the conflict from the ground up. From Day One 
he has been...A Witness to War   (6-20-99)
http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/REPORTS/YUGO/DAY/t000055520.html

One Witness Kept a Record of Horror 
By Peter Finn, Washington Post  (6-20-99)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/balkans/stories/djakovica062099.htm

Europe discovers its dark heart of horror 
Times of London  (6-20-99)
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/99/06/20/stifgnwfc02004.html?999

Nato watches Kosovars strip village clean

By Andrew Buncombe in Grece 
Independent   (6-21-99)
http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/B2106905.html

British and French troops stood and watched as looters pillaged and 
burned a Serb village yesterday, making a mockery of Nato's claim 
that it is providing security for both Serbs and Albanians. 

Serbs in the village of Grece, 10 miles north of the Kosovo capital 
Pristina, had apparently been warned on Saturday night by returning 
Albanians that they should leave immediately. Early yesterday 
morningdozens of tractors and trailers arrived in the tiny village 
and the Albanians set about taking anything they could find. 

As well as the obvious items such as televisions and washing 
machines, the Albanians loaded their vehicles with bricks, roof 
tiles, bags of cement and sacks of animal feed. The looters even 
ripped out door frames and doors - anything they could use to 
rebuild their own ravaged homes and farms. As soon as they had 
emptied each house of everything they wanted, they set it alight. 

A group of French troops in armoured vehicles sat and watched. 
At one point they even helped the looters - assisting them to 
back out the tractors piled high with booty to allow the next 
ones in. When asked why they were doing nothing, the soldiers 
said it was not their problem: this was a British-controlled sector. 

The British were no better. At the end of a track a few hundred 
yards from the village, soldiers - again in armoured vehicles - 
sat smoking cigarettes as the morning air turned acrid with smoke. 
Their excuse was equally poor - "We can do nothing - this is the 
French-controlled zone," said one. When it was pointed out that 
this was not true the soldiers claimed that with their "available 
resources" they could do little. 

Yesterday evening Grece was still smouldering, pigs were running 
loose in the carefully tended vegetable gardens and clothes and 
food packets were strewn around the courtyards. 

A Nato spokesman in Pristina said yesterday evening that the 
British commander on the ground had taken the decision not to 
intervene to stop the looting in order to avoid the threat to 
"life and limb". 







--------------------------------------------
Steve Rhodes
http://www.well.com/~srhodes

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