The Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac has agreed to lay down its arms and end its rebellion.The West has struggled to contain the more dangerous insurgency in Macedonia, which is supplied from inside UN- administered Kosovo.Pressure from Nato and the European Union has so far restrained Macedonian forces from launching a perilous ground assault on villages occupied by the rebels where thousands of civilians are still sheltering heavy civilian casualties could push Macedonia over the brink.* The Hague war crimes tribunal yesterday said that it has 12 secret indictments against alleged perpetrators of Balkan atrocities. It revealed the information in order to quash speculation that "most of the Serbian population is under sealed indictment".. Several thousand Yugoslav soldiers and policemen fanned out Thursday into a stretch of a zone separating the Nato–controlled province of Kosovo with the rest of Yugoslavia in a final phase of quashing an ethnic Albanian insurgency. Several thousand Yugoslav soldiers and policemen fanned out Thursday into a stretch of a zone separating the NATO–controlled province of Kosovo with the rest of Yugoslavia in a final phase of quashing an ethnic Albanian insurgency. The Yugoslav army's de–mining units, infantry, police and light artillery spread out in the most volatile part of the five–kilometer–wide (three–mile–wide) buffer zone, which had been in ethnic Albanian rebel hands.There was no rebel resistance in the first hours of the deployment, codenamed Bravo 2001. The Serb–led troops plan to meet up with NATO troops on the border with Kosovo."Everything is going according to the plan," said Milisav Markovic, Yugoslavia's deputy police chief. "We are moving cautiously because we found stocks of ammunition, weapons and terrorist equipment in nearby forests."In a related crisis in neighboring Macedonia, government forces resumed heavy shelling Thursday of the northern villages of Vaksince and Slupcane, the strongholds of ethnic Albanian rebels fighting for more rights or even independence.The buffer zone in southern Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, was set up as part of a peace deal that ended NATO's 78–day air war against Yugoslavia in 1999. The alliance launched the air campaign to force former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end his crackdown on ethnic Albanian militants.NATO and the United Nations took over Kosovo when Milosevic's forces left, and the buffer zone was intended to put breathing space between peacekeepers and Yugoslav troops.
But ethnic Albanian militants seized much of the zone in November, killing several Serb policemen and soldiers.The rebels, known as the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, wanted the primarily ethnic Albanian villages in this part of southern Serbia to throw out Serb rule, as their ethnic kin did in Kosovo.With Milosevic's demise in October and a new, democratic government now in power in Belgrade, NATO has agreed to the phased return of Yugoslav troops in the area between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia, Yugoslavia's larger republic.Recent sporadic clashes in the region underlined the potential for more violence when Yugoslav forces occupy the remaining 20 percent of buffer zone.Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, speaking in Bujanovac located near Kosovo's eastern border, said between 4,000 and 5,000 army and police troops would move into the tensest part of the buffer zone over the next several days.He said the troops expect "some possible hostility" and would respond if attacked.Some villagers fled the zone Wednesday, some saying Serb security forces wearing masks had swept into their village, Muhovac.By late evening, at least 200 people – about a third of the population in two other nearby villages – had crossed into Kosovo, as two Apache helicopters hovered overhead to survey the situation.Authorities later said that a police de–mining team entered a small sector of the most contested part of the zone and defused as many as 15 land mines planted on a 100 meter (yard) stretch of road, hinting the whole area might be heavily mined. The unit pulled out again by nightfall.Mine–clearing operations could take days and may slow deployment.Asked to comment on obvious anxieties of ethnic Albanian villagers, Covic said they had "no reason to fear" but hastened to add that unlike in other parts of the zone deploying forces were now allowed to search houses for weapons and arrest people found holding them.Lightly armed police, however, always had the right to enter the zone, but generally avoided villages like Muhovac, which were previously in rebel hands.Rebels agreed earlier this week to demilitarize and hand over their weapons to NATO in Kosovo, a move that came in recognition of the Yugoslav army's superior strength and lack of international support for the insurgents' aims.The return of the Yugoslav forces was agreed on between the Belgrade government and NATO. Over the past two months, the Yugoslavs have already deployed in the other parts of the zone which was not so volatile.The Yugoslav Army chief–of–staff, Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic – who fought NATO during its 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia – praised the new cooperation with the alliance, saying that his troops Thursday were allowed much heavier weapons than during earlier deployments in the buffer zone.As part of the agreement with the rebels, both NATO and Belgrade authorities said rebels who turn over weapons by midnight Wednesday would be free to go after having their photographs taken.At the Mucibaba checkpoint, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Pristina, U.S Marine Cpl. Warrick Ready, warned, however, that would change as of Thursday, which he described as "D–Day.""We are going to adopt a hard policy and all ethnic Albanian combatants will be detained and sent to Camp Bondsteel," the main U.S base in Kosovo, he told Associated Press Television News..
An adventurer bidding to make the first unsupported solo walk to the North Pole was yesterday trapped on rapidly shifting pack-ice that threatens to maroon him 200 miles from his goal. An adventurer bidding to make the first unsupported solo walk to the North Pole was yesterday trapped on rapidly shifting pack-ice that threatens to maroon him 200 miles from his goal. Dave Mill, who has completed about two-thirds of his 500-mile trek from north Canada, has been confined to a makeshift camp for almost four days by fierce Arctic storms with winds of up to 60mph.Organisers of the expedition said the adventurer, from Kenmore, Perthshire, was surrounded by constantly moving floes that have separated him from stable ice on the final leg to the pole.With visibility down to just a few hundred metres, co- ordinators said that Mr Mill, 33, could find it impossible to navigate across the rapidly moving ravines and open channels that lie ahead of him.The expedition spokesman, Brendan Murphy, said: "He is in a difficult position because the weather has been absolutely atrocious he can't see far enough ahead to see the extent of the water around him."The terrain consists of rubble fields of ice that are intersected with shifting floes. Dave knows that he has to get through that for a clear run to the pole but his progress could be stopped by clear water."Staff at the expedition headquarters in Aberfeldy, near Perth, admitted they had not ruled out a rescue mission to pluck Mr Mill from the wilderness. Mr Murphy said: "It is not imminent at the moment but there is always a limit. If Dave decides he cannot go any further, then we have a contingency plan to get him out."The team, which is keeping in touch with the explorer via a satellite phone, said he had managed to walk 16km in storms on Tuesday, during which he fell through ice up to his knees while wearing skis.The treacherous nature of the Arctic conditions was underlined this weekend when a Japanese adventurer disappeared while attempting to trek from the North Pole to Japan. A sledge and possessions belonging to Hyoichi Kono, 43, were found by a spotter plane on Saturday, but there was no trace of the trekker, who is feared to have drowned.Mr Mill, who is attempting to become the first person to walk to the North Pole from Canada without supplies dropped by air, has fallen foul of the seasonal changes that make the Arctic ice pack unstable. Fluctuating temperatures plunging from minus 8C to as low as minus 18C have been compounded by storms crossing from Russia, forcing Mr Mill to use up precious food supplies as he waits for conditions to improve.Speaking before his 16km trek on Tuesday he said: "The weather has really held me up.
