[PEN-L:9712] KLA in charge

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From SLATE's "Today's Papers" column (Thursday, July 29, 1999) by Scott Shuger

>The New York Times lead is that despite the UN's nominal administrative
control, it's the Kosovo Liberation Army that's truly in charge of Kosovo....

>The NYT's veteran foreign correspondent Chris Hedges, filing from
Pristina, gets KLA leaders on record saying that they're running things now
and gets UN officials to admit they can't do much about it. The problem is
that of the 3,100 member UN police force planned for Kosovo only 156
officers are there yet, and the NATO troops in the area haven't been able
to close the gap. Indeed, the weapons turn-over program they are
administering is almost universally flouted by the KLA. Hedges says that
KLA shakedowns of merchants are the order of the day and he describes the
confiscation of one furniture merchant's car and the theft of $50,000 worth
of his inventory. Hedges spots some of it the next day at the office
building occupied by the KLA's self-appointed prime minister.<

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html