(27 Aug 1999) Albanian/Nat
A senior Kosovo Liberation Army commander has demanded that Russia publicly apologise for supporting Serbs in the Kosovo conflict.
But even that, he said, would not be enough for the ethnic Albanians to lift the blockade against Russian troops entering the town of Orahovac.
Albanians have blocked roads into the town since Monday to prevent Russian KFOR troops from taking over for Dutch NATO troops who have been positioned there.
Dutch, German and Russian officers have been meeting again with local ethnic Albanian leaders in a bid to get the blockade lifted.
The blockade against Russian troops in Orahovac entered its fifth day on Friday with little sign the standoff would end.
Albanians have set up stones calling on the international community not to allow "a second Srebrenica," referring to the Bosnian town where a United Nations safe haven was turned into a bloodbath by Bosnian Serb artillery in the Bosnian conflict.
The villagers have also set up pieces of spent artillery they say are evidence that Russian soldiers fought alongside Serbs troops in the war in Kosovo.
As German, Dutch and Russian KFOR officials met again with local Albanian leaders on Friday, a German general said there were few signs the standoff would end quickly.
General Wolfgang Sauer said the next meeting would be held on Monday and added he expected the blockade to continue through the weekend.
He admitted it would be difficult to persuade the townspeople that the Russian troops helping to keep the peace in Kosovo were not the same ones who may have earlier assisted the Serbs.
The standoff underscores the depth of ethnic hatred in Kosovo following an 18-month war, which ended after NATO bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days.
During the Serb crackdown, more than 800-thousand people were driven from their homes and an estimated 10-thousand civilians were killed.
A K-L-A commander also turned up at Friday's meeting, saying he had been sent by his commanders.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We will never agree that Russians go into Orahovac because we fought against them during this war and know them perfectly well (what they did). They haven't even stopped nowadays. That's why there are anti-Russian protests."
SUPER CAPTION: Sadik Halitjaha, Local KLA Commander
Dutch troops are continuing to patrol Orahovac until a solution to the standoff can be found.
Kosovo has seen a wave of revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians - who form 90 per cent of the province's 2-point-1 (m) million population - against Serbs, Gypsies and other non-Albanian groups which NATO has been unable to stop.
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