KOSOVO: SERBIAN POLICE CLAIM KLA ATTACKED VILLAGE OF MOVLJANE

(5 Jul 1998) Natural Sound

Serbian police have claimed that Ethnic Albanian fighters, the KLA, attacked the Serb village of Movljane, on Saturday 4 July, home to some 20 Serb families.

According to Serbian reports the attackers fired at the police, but subsequently fled, leaving behind a large quantity of weapons.

APTV met Richard Holbrooke, U-S mediator was leaving Belgrade for Pristina for discussions.

Serb police have claimed that ethnic Albanian fighters, the KLA, stormed the village of Movljane on Saturday, home to a small Serbian population.

Serb police said that they were on their way to protect the village when the KLA, also called the UCK, the Kosovo Liberation Army, fired machine guns and mortars at the Serb police unit.

They claimed that the attack, which took place at 1300 local time, was an attempt by the KLA to extend control into Kosovo territory.

The Serbian police unit said they were going in to defend the village when the KLA fired machine guns and mortars at the police unit.

Police fired back but the Serbians said their attackers fled, leaving behind a substantial booty of weapons, including machine guns, rifles and grenades.

The Serbians also claimed that the Albanians had left behind some official documents, including passports.

Holbrooke, speaking to APTV in Belgrade, before he left for another round of talks in Pristina for discussions about how the Albanians can form a more solid platform from which to negotiate.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Well we had a good long round of talks with President Milosevic. We have a rule that we don't discuss what goes on in these meetings and it's worked for three years and we'll just keep at it. But we'll be back again here tonight, third straight dinner and meanwhile we're going back to Kosovo to work with the Albanians to forge a more broadly-base political negotiating team.''
Well we're really doing two different things. In Kosovo we're working with the Albanians to strengten their cohesiveness for the negotiations. They're having a little bit of trouble getting their political act together.We re supporting Dr Rugova, the main Kosovo leader but there's a lot of fairly public bickering down there and we are going to focus on that.
That's their problem but we want to see if we can help. Here in Belgrade we're talking about a whole range of issues and last night we focused on Bosnia where the Daten agreement is being implemented. It's moving forward but we're coming up against a criticla election. Ambassador Gerlbart will be in Bosnia tomorrow to work on that problem."
SUPER-CAPTION: Richard Holbrooke, U-S Mediator

The U-S and Russian diplomats will today join forces in Kosovo to organise the splintered factions into a unified front in their effort to diffuse conflict in the Yugoslavian province.

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