NATO steps up raids, China protests

The air offensive was back in full throttle following a relative lull in the wake of NATO’s accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade that left three dead and infuriated China.

Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin wrapped up a brief visit to Beijing after failing to persuade China, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, to endorse the peace drive.

China insisted that NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia must cease before it would consider the peace initiative agreed by the Group of Eight (G8) last week.

“The Chinese side is clear that it is necessary to stop the bombing and then(start) peaceful negotiations,” Chernomyrdin said.

“The pre-condition (for negotiations) is an immediate halt to NATO air strikes, otherwise there’s nothing to be discussed,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said.

The G8 proposal, floated last week, called for an end to repression in the Serbian province of Kosovo, where hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians have fled their homes in the past weeks.

It also provided for a withdrawal of Yugoslav forces, deployment of a peacekeeping force and negotiations on autonomy for Kosovo, which up until the conflict had an ethnic Albanian majority.

In a move that coincided with NATO’s embarrassment at its attack on the Chinese mission, Belgrade on Monday announced the withdrawal of part of its armed forces from Kosovo, saying it had finished operations against the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

NATO derided the move as falling way short of its demands for a pullout of all Serb forces, especially militias and irregulars blamed foratrocities in the province.

“We want all of them to turn around, in other words they should see Kosovo in their rear-view mirrors,” NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said in Brussels.After a two-night lull, NATO warplanes were back in action overnight, bombing transport, communications and industrial infrastructure.

Three people, including a four-year-old girl, were killed and four people injured in a NATO raid on a village near the town of Lipljan, south of Pristina.

The alliance followed up its night operations with a noon time raid on an industrial zone in Nis, Yugoslavia’s third largest city, the Belgrade radio Studio B reported. A man was killed and five people were injured. Another woman was killed in a village near Nis which was hit at the same time as the industrial zone, shortly before noon, Tanjug said.

In a village near Kraljevo, South of Belgrade, five people were injured when three missiles landed on an empty military barracks shortly after noon, Tanjug said. NATO planes also bombed Cacak, 160km (100 miles) South of Belgrade, Tanjug said. The town’s southern industrial zone was targeted in a 20-minute attack shortly after noon, during which six blasts were heard.Three people were injured when a missile landed close to a medical centre in the nearby village of Mrcajevci, according to Beta news agency.

Tanjug said the town of Valjevo, southwest of Belgrade, was again targeted, with planes hitting the Krusik factory, which manufactures heavy equipment.In southern Kosovo, the town of Prizren and the region around Djakovica were targeted in raids in the early morning as was the northern town of Podujevo, Tanjug said.

In Montenegro, the state radio said a bridge at Murino, linking the north of the country with Kosovo, was destroyed by four missiles.

Meanwhile, the refugee flow from Kosovo continued unabated on Tuesday. More than 3,000 refugees crossed into Albania overnight, UNHCR said.

Yeltsin warns NATO

BELGRADE: Russian President Boris Yeltsin today stirred the Kosovo diplomatic potwith a warning that Russsia would quit peace efforts if NATO did not heed its proposals. Just after he had shocked the world by sacking Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, Yeltsin said Russia would "withdraw from cooperation in negotiations if its proposals and mediation efforts for the Kosovo conflict are ignored," a Kremlin spokesman told Reuters. A Kremlin spokeswoman separately quoted Yeltsin as saying after a meeting of his advisory security council: "Our calls, our repeated suggestions, clearly are not reaching somebody."