| Wednesday April 7 9:49 PM ET U.S. Warns of Serb Prosecutions By DAVID BRISCOE Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Naming names, the U.S. government warned nine individual Serb commanders Wednesday they could face war crimes prosecution. The warning came along with a report citing ``indicators of genocide'' in Kosovo gathered by a special U.S. envoy. President Clinton again promised to ``persist until we prevail'' in Yugoslavia, while U.S. officials indicated NATO bombing of Belgrade would cease long enough Thursday to allow a Cypriot leader to fly in with the hope of bringing back the three U.S. soldiers held by Yugoslavia. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said ``it is essential'' Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic turn over the soldiers ``without any conditions.'' They were captured March 31 near the Macedonia-Yugoslav border while on a reconnaissance mission in Macedonia. ``I hate to give anybody false hopes, but I think it is useful that the acting president of Cyprus is going there,'' Albright said Wednesday night on CNN's ``Larry King Live.'' ``... I would like to see them home. They are very brave Americans.'' As the Kosovo refugee crisis intensified, U.S. military authorities acknowledged it could take one or two months to transfer all 20,000 of the Kosovar refugees who are to go to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo, Cuba. The Pentagon now estimates that as many as 1.3 million ethnic Albanians have been displaced, either inside the province or in neighboring countries - 430,000 of them since NATO bombing began March 24 to force Yugoslavia to allow freedom for the ethnic Albanian majority in the Serb province of Kosovo. Any Yugoslav army or Serb police commander who ``plans, instigates, orders or even aids or abets in a war crime, crimes against humanity, or genocide, is individually responsible for crimes committed in Kosovo,'' said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin. The dramatic warning listed the names of nine top Serb commanders in Kosovo. Rubin said the U.S. government had no specific evidence that the individuals ordered soldiers to commit crimes. But he said commanders could be prosecuted for allowing crimes to occur or for not prosecuting soldiers who commit them. ``We're not saying that these individuals, to our knowledge, are responsible for war crimes,'' he said. ``We're putting them on notice.'' A determination that they were acting under orders from Milosevic, who has also been targeted by U.S. officials for possible prosecution, would not leave them immune, Rubin said. Albright compared the situation to Nazi Germany's murder of Jews during World War II. ``I think it is over the top, as people would say, in terms of the horrors,'' Albright said on CNN, noting some refugees were shipped out of Kosovo in ``sealed trains.'' ``It has the reminiscence of the kinds of things that people saw during World War II where there really is a desire to exterminate a group of people or use them as pawns.'' The decision to name names came after David Scheffer, ambassador at large for war crimes issues, presented top officials the results of 15 hours of interviews at the Yugoslavia-Macedonia border. Scheffer, who talked to refugees without revealing his identity, presented a litany of horror reminiscent of the Holocaust, although his report said the crimes could not yet be individually verified. ``One refugee who sought to carry his mother was stopped, his mother shot dead, and then told by the Serb who shot the mother that, 'Look, I've made your hike easier,''' the report said. It relayed claims of mass killings, rapes, a forced march, execution victims left on streets, injured children, people stuffed in rail cars and beatings. Not all aggressors were soldiers, the report said. Some ethnic Albanians recognized the voices of Serb neighbors behind black masks. ``The widespread and systematic character of the criminal conduct of Serb military, paramilitary and police units in Kosovo is among many of the indicators of genocide that we are seeing,'' it said. Scheffer is setting up a reporting system for the refugees' stories, with other interviews continuing by U.S. officials working among them. At the Pentagon late Wednesday, defense officials said a U.S. Army unmanned Hunter spy aircraft had crashed, apparently shot down by Yugoslav forces. The only other aircraft lost by NATO in the air campaign was an Air Force F-117A stealth fighter-bomber. The pilot was rescued and the Pentagon has not confirmed reports it was shot down. Earlier, spokesman Michael Doubleday said NATO would not stop its current operations because of the effort by Cypriot parliament leader Spyros Kyprianou to gain the release of the three U.S. servicemen. But he said, ``We have total control of the operations and certainly if it's necessary to have an aircraft fly into an area or out of an area at any time, that could be arranged.'' Other officials said this meant bombing would have to stop. Clinton dismissed Milosevic's promise of a cease-fire as hollow, and U.S. officials said they could not verify that it was occurring. Clinton said NATO was ``determined to stay united and to persist until we prevail.'' ``It is not enough now for Mr. Milosevic to say that his forces will cease fire on a Kosovo denied its freedom and devoid of its people,'' Clinton said. ``He must withdraw his forces, let the refugees return, permit the deployment of an international security force.'' The Serb commanders on the State Department list being sent with other evidence to the special Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, are Col. Milos Mandic, Maj. Gen. Vladimir Lazarevic, Col. Mladen Cirkovic, Col. Dragan Zivanovic, Col. Krsman Jelic, Col. Bozidar Delic, Col.Radojko Stefanovic, Col. Milos Djosan and Maj. Zeljko Pekovic. |
Document compiled by Dr S D Stein