The New York Times

Tuesday, June 29, 1999

Kosovo Rebels Appear to Obey Deadline on Turning in Weapons

By IAN FISHER

SUVA REKA, Kosovo, June 28 -- Soldiers with the Kosovo Liberation Army appear to be obeying a major deadline in their agreement with NATO and have started handing over weapons and gathering in specified areas, military officials in Kosovo said Monday.

The rebel leaders everything they discussed with NATO leaders, said Lt. Col. Dietmar Jeserich, a spokesman for the German sector in the south. "It is working well."

After midnight Monday, the Kosovo Albanian rebel fighters were required to gather in specified areas that one rebel commander described as informal barracks in places like "goat barns."

The group also has to establish sites to store weapons that NATO will be allowed to inspect. In three months, all the weapons, apart from rifles in the gathering areas and the pistols of commanders' bodyguards, have to be placed in those sites.

The deadline Monday was important because it was the first major step in the agreement, signed a week ago between NATO and the guerrillas for their demilitarization. Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO commander, called Monday a "key day" and said he thought that the agreement was secure.

"We think we are getting good cooperation at the top of the KLA," Clark said, referring to the Kosovo Liberation Army, in an interview with the BBC.

But with so many revenge attacks on Serbs by Kosovo Albanians, he said, "the issue is how the individual members do."

"There is terrible anger here, terrible things have been done to Kosovar Albanians," he added.

In the British-controlled section, in the center of Kosovo, officials said the rebels appeared to be complying with the accord. Here in the south, in the German sector, Jeserich said rebel soldiers had started to move into the gathering areas and were putting weapons into three official storage areas.

On the streets, there were no reports that rebel soldiers were seen Monday carrying weapons, and fewer and fewer were seen wearing their uniforms, which is not longer permitted outside the gathering areas.

"They told me tonight is the last night for uniforms," one rebel soldier said Monday night as he walked in fatigues in downtown Prizren. He said he intended to comply.

Despite the rigid language and deadlines in the agreement, military officials acknowledged that it had many shortcomings that were almost impossible to overcome. One big issues is whether the rebel group will hand over every weapon that it has.

"We hope so," Jeserich said. "I think that most of the weapons we will get. But there are so many weapons in this country. I think every man has a weapon in his bed."