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Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac

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File:Ucpmb logo.jpg
UCPMB inisgnia

The Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac (Albanian: Ushtria Çlirimtare e Preshevës, Medvegjës dhe Bujanocit, UCPMB) was a separatist militant group fighting for independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for the three municipalities: Preševo, Bujanovac, and Medveđa, home to most of the ethnic Albanians of Central Serbia, adjacent to Kosovo.

UCPMB's uniforms, procedures and tactics mirrored those of the then freshly disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The 1500-strong[1] (including minors[2]) UCPMB operated from 1999 to 2001, with the goal to secede these "Eastern Kosova" municipalities from Yugoslavia and join them to a future independent Kosovo.

History

After the end of the Kosovo war in 1999, a three-mile "Ground Safety Zone" (GSZ) was established between Kosovo (governed by United Nations) and inner Serbia and Montenegro. Military of Serbia and Montenegro (VJ) units were not permitted there, and only the lightly armed Serb Ministry of Internal Affairs forces were left in the area.[3] The exclusion zone included the predominantly Albanian village of Dobrosin, but not Preševo.

Former KLA members quickly established bases in the demilitarized zone, and Serbian police had to stop patrolling the area to avoid being ambushed. Attacks were also made on ethnic Albanian politicians opposed to the KLA, including the assassination of Zemail Mustafi, the Albanian vice-president of the Bujanovac branch of Slobodan Milošević's Socialist Party of Serbia. Between June 21, 1999 and November 12, 2000, 294 attacks were recorded, most of them (246) in Bujanovac, 44 in Medveđa and six in Preševo. These attacks resulted in 14 people killed (of which six were civilians and eight were policemen), 37 people wounded (two UN observers, three civilians and 34 policemen) and five civilians kidnapped. In their attacks, UCPMB used mostly assault rifles, machine guns, mortars and sniper rifles, but occasionally also RPGs, hand grenades, and anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.[4]

Seeing that the situation was getting out of control, NATO allowed the VJ to reclaim the demilitarized zone on May 24, 2001, and at the same time giving the UCPMB the opportunity to turn themselves over to Kosovo Force (KFOR), which promised to just take their weapons and note their names before releasing them. More than 450 UCPMB members took advantage of KFOR's "screen and release" policy, among them Shefket Musliu, the commander of the UCPMB, who turned himself over to KFOR at a checkpoint along the GSZ just after midnight of May 26, 2001.

See also

References

  1. ^ Nigel Thomas, K. Mikulan, Darko Pavlović, The Yugoslav Wars, p.51
  2. ^ Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 - Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, UNHCR, 2001
  3. ^ http://www.ce-review.org/00/43/kosovonews43.html
  4. ^ Krstic, Ninoslav. "Извођење операције решавања кризе на југу Србије изазване деловањем наоружаних албанских екстремиста (терориста)". Vojno delo. p. 180. ISSN 0042-8426. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
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