kirsten neilsen wrote:
> [from today's wsj interactive. this stuff just seems to slip right
> through. unexploded cluster bombs. plural. in a school. note the
> sentence "Dozens of civilians, however, have died in explosions of land
> mines and booby-traps since the peacekeeping force began to take control
> of the southern Serb province." which seems meant to temper the pr
> damage nato cluster bombs in schoolhouses killing nato troops might
> cause. we learn further down that at least some of the minefields were
> planted by the kla. before you are tempted to accuse me of supporting
> milo, just stop. i'm concerned w/media's role in nato's pr program. no
> doubt milo's state media apparatus performs a similar function. --kjn.]
>
> NATO Bomb Kills Two Peacekeepers;
> Clinton Thanks Macedonians for Help
>
> Associated Press
>
> The British military said Tuesday that a bomb blast killed two
> peacekeeping soldiers and two civilians as the troops cleared
> explosives from a schoolhouse.
>
> They said the accident came not from a Serb booby-trap, but
> from a NATO cluster bomb that accidentally went off.
>
> The deaths Monday of Lt. Gareth Evans and Sgt. Balaram Rai --
> Nepalese soldiers attached to the British army -- were the first
> allied fatalities since NATO peacekeepers entered Kosovo on June
> 12. Dozens of civilians, however, have died in explosions of land
> mines and booby-traps since the peacekeeping force began to take
> control of the southern Serb province.
>
> The explosion
> occurred in a school
> in Negrovce, a village
> 20 miles west of
> Pristina, Kosovo's
> capital.
>
> The soldiers, from the
> 69th Gurkha Field
> Squadron, had been
> called in by villagers
> who found
> unexploded cluster
> bombs at the school,
> according to Lt. Col.
> Nick Clissitt, a
> spokesman for the
> British military in Pristina.
>
> The soldiers were moving the bombs into piles to be detonated
> and "it was during the wiring of the charges that two piles
> detonated prematurely with tragic results," Lt. Col. Clissitt said.
>
> Venturing as close to the Kosovo border as security would allow,
> U.S. President Clinton thanked Macedonians Tuesday for
> supporting NATO forces and sheltering Kosovo refugees. He
> pledged millions of dollars to help build a better future in the
> Balkans.
>
> "NATO could not have achieved its mission without you," he
> said, addressing Macedonian leaders at their parliament. "The
> people of Kosovo would not be going home to security and
> autonomy without you. I came here as much as anything else to
> say thank you."
>
> Although unexploded bombs, uncleared minefields and
> booby-traps pose substantial hazards in Kosovo, tens of
> thousands of refugees are disregarding international agencies' calls
> for them to stay put in the Albanian and Macedonian tent camps
> over the Kosovo border until the danger can be reduced.
>
> "We're getting very worried because people understandably are
> clamoring to come home and we just don't feel the security
> situation warrants that," Michael Barton of the International
> Organization for Migration said.
>
> The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said more than
> 170,000 of the 860,000 or so refugees expelled from Kosovo
> have returned in little more than a week, 33,000 on Monday
> alone. Another 600,000 are in camps or with host families in
> neighboring countries and 88,000 more have been evacuated to
> other countries, including some 7,000 to the U.S.
>
> Peace in Kosovo appeared increasingly strong in the wake of
> Albanian rebels pledging in a pact with NATO to lay down their
> arms. The deal came Monday, just hours after the last of the
> 40,000 Serb troops left Kosovo.
>
> The 20,000 or so NATO-led KFOR troops now in Kosovo said
> they were moving beyond initial attempts to quell the violence and
> were beginning to look ahead by establishing security and laying
> the groundwork for democratic elections.
>
> "Very soon, KFOR will be the only military security presence
> here. That is how it should be," said British peacekeeping chief
> Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson.
>
> Late Sunday, Lt. Gen. Jackson received both confirmation that
> the Yugoslav military had withdrawn its forces from Kosovo and
> a pledge from the Kosovo Liberation Army to disband, put down
> its weapons and join efforts to establish peace in Kosovo.
>
> With the Serb forces' retreat confirmed, NATO officially ended its
> 78-day air campaign. And on Monday, the Belgrade government
> took a reciprocal step, asking parliament to end the state of war
> declared the day NATO launched its airstrikes, the state Tanjug
> news agency reported.
>
> Since March 24, the state of war has banned men of military age
> from leaving the country, let the army take over key institutions
> and subjected the news media to censorship.
>
> Still, reports of a media crackdown persisted. An umbrella group
> for Yugoslavia's fledging independent radio and television
> broadcasters said the government was forcing stations replace
> their newscasts with those of the state-controlled networks.
>
> For its part, the KLA agreed to a broad demilitarization that will
> require them to leave their checkpoints and halt any military
> activity unless the peacekeepers approve it first.
>
> Although they can keep their handguns, they agreed not to use
> explosives, to put remaining weapons in storage sites verified by
> NATO and to clear minefields and booby-traps within seven days.
>
> A hard-line Kosovo Albanian rebel, however, said Tuesday that
> the demilitarization agreement with NATO does not require the
> guerrillas to surrender their weapons and those who expect the
> KLA to disappear have "miscalculated."
>
> "The agreement does not demand that we give up our arms,"
> Rrustem Mustafa told the KLA's Kosova Press news service.
> "The arms will be gathered at certain places and the KLA will take
> care of them while NATO has a right to observe them."
>
> But already many in the rank and file seemed to be complying
> with the demilitarization pact.
>
> "We received an order to return home and start a normal life with
> our families," said KLA fighter Faik Reci, a teacher waiting for a
> ride home with his brother in Prizren, Kosovo's second-largest
> city.
>
> The KLA regional commander there, known by his code name
> "Drini," gave German officers maps of minefields -- most near the
> Albanian border -- as required.
>
> Mr. Clinton was making a personal plea to the war-scarred
> refugees he was meeting in the muddy tent encampments less
> than 10 miles from the Kosovo border: reconciliation and
> rebuilding -- not revenge.
>
> He announced the disbursement of $12 million in food
> commodities to assist Macedonia, in addition to $72 million in
> relief that the U.S. has sent to the nation since last year.
>
> Macedonia, an impoverished state of two million residents,
> housed up to 140,000 refugees as NATO airstrikes sought to drive
> the forces of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic from
> Kosovo.
>
> The Macedonians also provided space for NATO to launch its
> peacekeeping mission once the 78-day air war ended just two
> weeks ago.
>
> In a brief meeting with Mr. Clinton, Macedonian President Kiro
> Gligorov said he accepted "the essential need for the presence of
> the United States of America in Southeastern Europe. The war in
> Bosnia and now in Kosovo have confirmed this."
>
> Afterward, Mr. Clinton held another meeting with Mr. Gligorov,
> Albanian President Rexhep Meidani and the prime ministers of
> both countries. They discussed the need to diffuse the region's
> long-held ethnic tensions, and Mr. Meidani pledged to urge ethnic
> Albanians in Kosovo to "build a spirit of tolerance," according to a
> senior administration official who briefed reporters afterward.
>
> Mr. Clinton was making his first trip to the front lines of the battle
> he and his NATO allies won against what he called the
> "murderous rule" of Mr. Milosevic. The journey wraps up a
> weeklong trip that won commitment from the European Union to
> help in the costly reconstruction of Kosovo.
>
> "We must build a Europe with no front-line states, a Europe
> undivided, democratic and at peace for the first time in history,"
> he declared in Slovenia, before going to Skopje.
>
> Macedonia and Albania are to be included in the longer-term
> stability package of aid to Southeastern Europe agreed upon by
> the world's industrial powers at their weekend summit in
> Germany.
>
> En route back to Washington, Mr. Clinton and his family stop in
> Aviano, Italy, to greet U.S. forces who took part in the NATO
> campaign.