ad info




CNN.com
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
   africa
   americas
   asianow
   europe
   middle east
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
 NATURE
 ENTERTAINMENT
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 HEALTH
 STYLE
 IN-DEPTH

 custom news
 Headline News brief
 daily almanac
 CNN networks
 CNN programs
 on-air transcripts
 news quiz

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 TIME INC. SITES:
 MORE SERVICES:
 video on demand
 video archive
 audio on demand
 news email services
 free email accounts
 desktop headlines
 pointcast

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

 SITE GUIDES:
 help
 contents
 search

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 WEB SERVICES:

 

World - Europe

Serbs say Yugoslav water supplies endangered

Bombing damage in Urosevac

related videoRELATED VIDEO
Ethnic Albanian men who say they were prisoners of the Serbs entered a refugee camp at Kukes, Albania, recently. CNN's Martin Savidge spoke with them. (May 24)
Windows Media 28K 80K


       Windows Media Real

       28 K 80 K
InteractiveIMAGE GALLERY
A cracked window to a war

To the corners of the world: The flight of Kosovo's refugees
 ALSO:
Aid workers see possible 'final push' to move out ethnic Albanians

Given up for dead, hundreds of Kosovo men cross to safety

 THE DELUGE OF REFUGEES:
Where are they going?
 MESSAGE BOARD:
Crisis in Kosovo
 MAPS:
NATO officials describe the air campaign
 IN-DEPTH SPECIAL:
NATO at 50
Strike on Yugoslavia
 

May 24, 1999
Web posted at: 8:43 a.m. EDT (1243 GMT)


In this story:

Support for Milosevic strong in Belgrade

Call for larger peacekeeping force

RELATED STORIES, SITES icon



BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- NATO missiles have devastated Yugoslavia's power grid and seriously threatened water supplies, Serb media reported Monday.

Fifteen NATO bombs hit water pumps early Monday near the northwestern town of Sremska Mitrovica, while Belgrade's water reserves had been cut by 90 percent, reports said.

Other pumping stations have been shut down by power outages caused by NATO bombs.

"Every effort is being made in this difficult situation to restore power supply to priority users -- hospitals, the water company, bakeries -- in order to alleviate the humanitarian disaster being caused by NATO," Serbia's power company told the Tanjug news agency.

NATO began its bombing campaign on March 24 to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to comply with an international agreement to resolve the conflict in Kosovo between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, who seek independence or autonomy.

"Let the people of Yugoslavia be quite clear," said British Defense Secretary George Robertson on Monday. "The bombing can end at any time. It's in Milosevic's hands and he knows our conditions, which are reasonable and sensible, and nothing less than full compliance will do."

Support for Milosevic strong in Belgrade

But CNN's Walter Rodgers reported from Belgrade that NATO's relentless attacks appeared to have no adverse effect on the public's opinion of Milosevic. Instead, Rodgers said, Belgrade's citizenry appears increasingly angry at NATO.

The alliance, however, continued to report growing disaffection with Milosevic's policies, ranging from anti-war protests in Serbian towns to desertion of some Yugoslav troops.

Milosevic balked at a provision in the Kosovo peace plan calling for an international peacekeeping force in the province with NATO at its core. The Yugoslav president has said he would accept a lightly armed force controlled by the United Nations, but NATO insists that nothing less than a fully armed contingent can guarantee the safety of ethnic Albanian refugees returning to their homes.

Efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict continue, with Russian Balkans envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin, Finnish President Marrti Ahtisaari and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott scheduled to meet again Wednesday in Moscow.

Meanwhile, Isa Zymberi of the Kosovo Information Center said in Brussels that "Albanians in general and Kosovars in particular are 100 percent behind NATO." In fact, he said, Albanians "continue to ask for intensification" of NATO's attacks on Yugoslavia.

Call for larger peacekeeping force

On Tuesday, representatives of NATO countries will discuss a possible increase in the number of troops to be deployed as a peacekeeping force when the bombing campaign ends.

NATO now has about 13,000 troops, mostly British and French, in Macedonia as part of a future force, called KFOR. The Pentagon said 45,000 to 50,000 troops likely would be needed for that operation, up from an initial assessment of 28,000.

The call for an increase prompted protests from Yugoslavia's top diplomat at the United Nations, Vladislav Jovanovic, who called the possibility "a very dangerous new step in the wrong direction."

"This is a disguise for invasion, which is in preparation, and nobody can call it a liberation of Kosovo," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

But NATO denied the troops were preparing to invade Kosovo.

"Nobody is talking about putting in ground troops into a combat situation," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea. "Everybody agrees that the air campaign has to run its course until such time as those Serb forces are degraded, diminished, demoralized and on their way out."

ROBIN COOK
Cook  

"For some time, we have asked NATO to do assessments and updates of plans -- one for entry in a permissive environment and the other, nonpermissive," said U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on CBS' "Face The Nation" on Sunday. "We are now focusing very much on the entry into a permissive environment."

However, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the BBC that NATO must be ready to "deploy troops in a permissive or a nonpermissive environment" -- meaning with or without the Yugoslav government's consent.

Cook also said there are signals from Washington that the United States was no longer categorically rejecting early deployment of ground troops.

In an opinion piece published in Sunday's New York Times, U.S. President Bill Clinton reiterated NATO's oft-stated view that the air campaign was working, but said he did "not rule out other military options."

Also Sunday, sources told CNN that Clinton had authorized the CIA to conduct a covert operation to destabilize the Milosevic government.

Correspondents Walter Rodgers, Carl Rochelle and Matthew Chance contributed to this report.



RELATED STORIES:
Pentagon: No plans for Kosovo invasion
May 22, 1999
NATO unleashes heaviest strikes yet on Yugoslavia
May 22, 1999
NATO pounds fuel, ammunition facilities in Yugoslavia
May 21, 1999
NATO pounds Belgrade for second straight day
May 20, 1999

RELATED SITES:
Extensive list of Kosovo-related sites:
  • Kosovo

Yugoslavia:
  • Federal Republic of Yugoslavia official site
      • Kesovo and Metohija facts
  • Serbia Ministry of Information
  • Serbia Now! News

Kosovo:
  • Kosova Crisis Center
  • Kosova Liberation Peace Movement
  • Kosovo - from Albanian.com

Military:
  • F-117s arrive at Aviano to support possible NATO operations
  • NATO official site
  • BosniaLINK - U.S. Dept. of Defense
  • U.S. Navy images from Operation Allied Force
  • U.K. Ministry of Defence - Kosovo news
  • U.K. Royal Air Force - Kosovo news
  • Jane's Defence - Kosovo Crisis


Relief:
  • World Relief
  • USA for UNHCR
  • Doctors Without Borders
  • U.S. Agency for International Development (Kosovo aid)
  • Doctors of the World
  • The IOM Migration Web
  • InterAction
  • International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
  • International Committee of the Red Cross
  • Kosovo Humanitarian Disaster Forces Hundreds of Thousands from their Homes
  • Catholic Relief Services
  • Kosovo Relief
  • ReliefWeb: Home page
  • The Jewish Agency for Israel
  • Mercy International


Media:
  • Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
  • Independent Yugoslav radio stations B92
  • Institute for War and Peace Reporting
  • United States Information Agency - Kosovo Crisis


Other:
  • Expanded list of related sites on Kosovo
  • The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Tribune
  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs of P.R.China
  • 1997 view of Kosovo from space - Eurimage
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.

 LATEST HEADLINES:
SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help

Back to the top   © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.