Nato Troops Enter Kosovo

- `Substantial' Force Expected Within Hours

- Earlier Russian Push Creates Tension

June 12, 1999|By Colin McMahon, Tribune Foreign Correspondent. Tribune senior writer Charles M. Madigan wrote this account based on reporting from Tribune foreign correspondents Colin McMahon in Blace, Macedonia, Paul Salopek in Kukes, Albania, and Tribune news services.

BLACE, Macedonia — The first contingent of NATO peacekeeping troops swept into Kosovo at dawn Saturday to seize territory Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic swore he would never yield and to open the doorway for an occupying army intent on guaranteeing the safety of nearly a million ethnic Albanian refugees driven from the region by Serbian forces.

Earlier, a Russian armored column beat NATO forces into Pristina, the provincial capital, driving into the city early Saturday and then parking near Pristina's airport. Their arrival set off shouting and fireworks from a cheering crowd as thousands gathered to greet them.

An estimated 200 Russian troops traveled by road from Bosnia-Herzegovina, driving through Serbia and downtown Belgrade to Kosovo aboard trucks and troop transports.

But an hour after the troops' entry, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the troops had arrived "unfortunately" and had been ordered to leave Kosovo. In Washington, the White House said it was "pleased" with this statement.

The allied move into Kosovo signaled the start of a commitment for the United States and the 18 other NATO nations that could last for many years as ethnic Albanians and Serb nationals look for a way to live peacefully with one another after hundreds of years of strife.

The deployment of alliance troops also puts outsiders at the heart of one of the most explosive pieces of geography in the Balkans and exposes them to as much danger, if not more, than the pilots who spent 78 days in the skies over Yugoslavia in the bombing campaign that forced Milosevic to yield and withdraw some 40,000 Serbian troops, police and paramilitaries from Kosovo.

Kosovo is assumed to be littered with mines and Serbian booby traps. There is also the possibility that at least a small contingent of a Serbian paramilitary force that was never very well controlled will remain in the province to snipe at NATO troops and extract what revenge it can as the peacekeeping force carries out its role.

Alliance troops also intend to prevent, by force if necessary, any moves by ethnic Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army to attack retreating Serb troops or carry out acts of retribution against a frightened and vastly outnumbered Serb civilian population abandoned by its retreating army.

In Brussels, NATO officials said a "substantial" NATO force would be in place in Kosovo by Saturday afternoon. Those first units, British paratroopers and Gurkha riflemen, are to immediately shift to searching for booby traps and the thousands of mines Serbian troops planted since shortly after the war began on March 24.

In the first significant military mishap in the unfolding NATO campaign to occupy Kosovo, a British warplane crashed late Friday on the Albanian border, narrowly missing a crowded refugee camp.

The HC-130 cargo aircraft, which had landed in complete darkness on a dirt strip to unload military supplies for advancing German occupation forces, crashed on takeoff after smashing into a small warehouse. The 12-man crew managed to escape the wreckage before flames engulfed the crash scene. One of the crew members was injured seriously.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright talked to American troops in Macedonia who could be moving into Kosovo at some point over the next week.

"The country you will be freeing has gone through some dreadful times. I know this is not easy on you. We are deeply honored to have you do this. You are bringing in a new history," she said.

NATO has been landing troops near the Kosovo border since Thursday, when the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution that formalized the peace terms NATO dictated to Milosevic to end the war.

Ethnic Albanian refugees gave British soldiers heroes' welcomes as the troops poured into encampments along the Macedonian

border. The exodus of Serbian troops abandoning the province intensified Friday, cramming northbound highways with armored personnel carriers and military transports as well as civilian vehicles.

NATO officials said 19,500 troops, with 2,500 U.S. Marines on their way after landing in Greece, were poised to move in during the first phase of the peacekeeping assignment.

Earlier, there were some tense moments Friday when Russian military commanders announced that they had decided to send about 200 of their troops serving as peacekeepers in Bosnia into Yugoslavia and then to northern Kosovo.

The shift had not been approved by NATO, and the specific role the Russians will play in peacekeeping is still under negotiation in Moscow.

Russia has said it wants to send 10,000 troops into Kosovo but has noted it will not accept NATO command and, further, has no money to pay its soldiers.

The Russians want to play a peacekeeping role in their own sector of Kosovo, which already has been broken into regions covered by the British, the United States, France, Germany and Italy. Moscow wants its troops in northern Kosovo, close to the Serbian border, in territory earmarked for France.