- UCPMB
The Liberation Army of Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac (Albanian: "Ushtria Çlirimtare e Preshevës, Medvegjës dhe Bujanocit", UCPMB) was a guerrilla group fighting for independence from
Serbia (thenYugoslavia ) for the three municipalities:Preševo ,Bujanovac , andMedveđa , home to most of the Albanians ofCentral Serbia , adjacent toKosovo . UCPMBs uniforms, procedures and tactics mirrored those of the disbanded KLA. The UCPMB operated from1999 to2001 . The goal of the UCPMB was to secede these municipalities from Yugoslavia and join them to a future independent Kosovo.After the end of the
Kosovo war in1999 , a three-mile "Ground Safety Zone" (GSZ) was established between Kosovo governed byUnited Nations ) - and innerSerbia and Montenegro . Yugoslav army units were not permitted to patrol the area, only lightly-armedpolice forces. [ [http://www.ce-review.org/00/43/kosovonews43.html CER | A calm Kosovo moves towards a tense future ] ] 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 Albanian politicians opposed to the KLA, including the murder ofZemail Mustafi , the Albanian vice-president of the Bujanovac branch ofSlobodan Milošević 's Socialist Party.Between
June 21 1999 andNovember 12 2000 , 294 attacks were recorded, most of them (246) in Bujanovac, 44 in Medveđa and six in Preševo. The attacks resulted in fourteen 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 the attacks, UCPMB used mostlyassault rifle s,machinegun s, mortars andsniper s, but also RPGs,handgrenade s, anti-tank andanti-personnel mine s.cite news| first=Ninoslav| last=Krstic| coauthors=Dragan Zivkovic| title=Извођење операције решавања кризе на југу Србије изазване деловањем наоружаних албанских екстремиста (терориста)| work=Vojno delo | id=ISSN 0042-8426| page=180 ]Seeing that the situation was getting out of control, NATO allowed the Yugoslav army to reclaim the demilitarized zone on
May 24 th2001 , and at the same time giving the UCPMB the opportunity to turn themselves over to KFOR. KFOR 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 midnightMay 26 2001 .See also
*
Preševo Valley conflict External links
* [http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/other/kumanovo.pdf www.UN.org - Map of the area]
* [http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/nueva/guerrilla/reta/Serbia/elpepiint/20010103elpepiint_10/Tes] 1/3/2001, El Pais, "Una nueva guerrilla reta a Serbia." In Spanish.References
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