Ethnically re-engineering Kosovo

Serb forces are executing, looting and burning their way through Kosovo in a devastating offensive designed to ethnically re-engineer''...

Serb forces are executing, looting and burning their way through Kosovo in a devastating offensive designed to 8220;ethnically re-engineer8221; the make-up of the province, NATO officials said.

One of those executed by the Serbs in an orgy of violence this weekend was Fehmi Agani, the principal advisor to moderate Kosovan leader Ibrahim Rugova at the peace talks near Paris.

Rugova himself is reported to be in hiding, his house burned down. Another ethnic Albanian figure executed over the weekend was Baton Haxhiu, editor-in-chief of the leading Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore, who was killed along with four others. Scores of Albanians have been killed in towns across the province or ordered to flee their homes to avoid being slaughtered,8217; NATO officials said.

In some cases, men are being rounded up and taken to unknown destinations, the officials told a press conference. Faced with such a devastating offensive, NATO said it was now turning the 8220;major weight8221; of its attacks on the 8220;paramilitary, militaryand MUP special police forces in Kosovo.8221;

Air Commodore David Wilby said the fifth night of NATO attacks overnight had hit one Yugoslav MiG-21, one other plane and several helicopters on the ground. NATO did not lose any planes.

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said there was obviously a campaign under way 8220;to ethnically re-engineer the make-up of Kosovo,8221; with which Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic hoped 8220;to achieve a negotiated solution more favourable to Belgrade8221;. The provincial capital Pristina was being emptied of its ethnic Albanian inhabitants and shops and homes were being set ablaze. Nine villages between it and Malisevo to the west had been razed. In Pec, regarded as the cradle of the Serbian Orthodox faith, Serb police ordered ethnic Albanians to leave the western town by Monday or face being slaughtered,8217; British Air Commodore David Wilby said. Shea said the systematic operation was being planned and carried out even as Yugoslav delegates were at the Rambouillet peace talks, outsideParis. Aid agency figures show ethnic Albanians are fleeing to next-door Albania at a rate of 4,000 an hour, while around 280,000 displaced people were on the move in the province itself. Shea said the refugees were reporting having to pay 1,000 German marks to Serb Border guards before they were allowed out, and were being stripped of their passports, identity cards and papers.

8220;It8217;s almost as if their identities are being cancelled out, as if they8217;re being declared non-persons,8221; he added.