U.S., allies weigh oil blockade

NATO reports 43 new mass burial sites in Kosovo.

HAVEMANN

WASHINGTON -- As NATO announced evidence Sunday of 43 new mass burial sites in the Serbian province of Kosovo, the United States and its allies moved toward ratcheting up their pressure on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic by imposing an oil blockade. "We are talking with our NATO allies about taking stricter action in order to limit the amount of oil that goes in," said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. The oil blockade, she said, would be part of a campaign "to tighten the screws on (Milosevic) economically." Earlier this decade, Yugoslavia's economy was strangled by an oil blockade and other international sanctions imposed to punish Milosevic for his role in fomenting war in Croatia and Bosnia- Herzegovina. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said allied bombs had cost Yugoslavia 70 percent of its oil supplies and the country no longer has the capacity to refine crude oil. What oil the country receives, Shea said, is in the form of refined products unloaded at its ports in Montenegro, which along with Serbia is one of Yugoslavia's two republics. "The question is, do we continue air operations like they're going on now, or really hit Milosevic where it hurts?" a senior diplomatic official in Brussels, Belgium, said, referring to the prospect of an oil embargo. "We have to make sure that Mr. Milosevic wakes up every morning with something new to worry about." NATO officials in Brussels said their aerial attack, aimed at stopping the Yugoslav government's campaign of "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, had been particularly effective during the past 24 hours. Shea said NATO bombs hit 13 armored vehicles and a variety of other targets and that Yugoslavia's air defense system has been reduced to a few uncoordinated anti-aircraft batteries. NATO on Sunday reiterated that it has no current plans for a ground invasion to follow its aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia, which entered its 26th day Sunday. But NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said in Brussels that he didn't rule out the eventual use of ground forces. And one NATO source said that while no planning for a ground attack is under way at alliance headquarters, officials in some capitals -- notably Washington and London -- are determined to "smash Milosevic." Italian Air Force Brig. Gen. Giuseppe Marani, NATO's military spokesman, said the alliance had reconnaissance photographs that showed 43 mass burial sites in Kosovo. Most of the sites, Marani said, were made up of neat rows of individual graves pointing southeast in the direction of Mecca, the Muslim holy city. Despite the "gruesome task," Marani said, "the Albanians are clearly trying to bury the victims of Milosevic with respect." The State Department's chief war crimes investigator, David Scheffer, said Sunday that tens of thousands of young ethnic Albanian men may have been killed.

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