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Page 6

Enter the Kosovo Liberation Army

By the mid-1990s, the ethnic Albanian population in

Kosovo had grown to between 85 and 90 percent, and the

human rights conditions in the province continued to dete-

riorate.17   As Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights

organization, reported,

Since the revocation of Kosovo's autonomy, the

human rights abuses against ethnic Albanians by

the Serbian and Yugoslav governments have been

constant.  The names of the victims change, but

the frequency and the manner of beatings, harass-

ment, and political trials remain the same.  It

is a status quo of repression. . . . The brutal-

ity of the police continues against the popula-

tion.  Random harassment and beatings are a

daily reality for ethnic Albanians in Kosovo,

especially those in villages and smaller towns.18

In 1996, a shadowy separatist organization called the

Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) surfaced for the first time,

claiming responsibility for a series of bombings in south-

ern Yugoslavia.  By its own admission, the KLA killed more

than 50 government officials and ethnic Albanian "collabo-

rators" over the next two years.  The KLA's intention: To

trigger the secession of Kosovo from the Yugoslav state.

Pursuing a textbook strategy, the KLA carried out attacks

on police and civilians aimed at provoking a government

crackdown that would radicalize the ethnic Albanian popula-

tion in Kosovo.  In February 1998, the KLA intensified its

attacks against Yugoslav authorities and Serb civilians.

Armed KLA guerrillas attacked Serb houses in the villages

of Klina, Decani, and Djakovica, and a Serb refugee camp

in Babaloc.  KLA guerrillas also ambushed and killed two

Serb policemen patrolling on the road between Glogovac and

Srbica.

A government crackdown on the KLA immediately fol-

lowed, and the world soon learned that nearly 80 Kosovar

Albanians, including many women and children, were killed

by Serbian internal security forces in Kosovo's central

Drenica region.  The Yugoslav Interior Ministry claimed

that the action was directed against Adem Jashari, whose

clan allegedly constituted the core of the KLA organiza-

tion.  On a closely supervised trip to the village of

Prekaz, foreign reporters were told that government securi-

ty forces had killed Jashari and destroyed the power base

of the KLA organization.  "We have struck at their heart

and we have dealt terrorists a lethal blow," a police

spokesman said.19   The spokesman was wrong.  Government