Bracing for a second day of NATO attacks, Yugoslav authorities said today that 10 people had been killed and 38 wounded in yesterday’s waves of strikes intended to force a peace pact with rebels in Kosovo. Air raid sirens blared today and the state news agency reported more fighting in Kosovo.

The air strikes are NATO’s first attack on a sovereign country in the 50 years since the Western alliance was formed. Western officials promised further strikes, saying the campaign would continue until the Yugoslav military has been crippled, or when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic capitulates and agrees to the peace deal already accepted by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians. NATO Secretary General Javier Solana said this first phase of the bombings would most likely continue “for several days.”

Independent and state-run papers in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade reported that the NATO bombing had killed an undetermined number of women and children, including family members of Yugoslav Army officers living in military buildings.

Serb government officials today ordered the immediate expulsion of all reporters from countries involved in the NATO strikes. A government statement accused the foreign media of misinformation.

Guests:

• Lepa Mladjenovic, from Women in Black, a feminist peace group that has protested weekly on the streets of Belgrade.
• Michael Ratner, from the Center for Constitutional Rights.
• Jasminka Yudoviki, co-author of the book ??Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia.

Related link:

• Pacifica Network News 3/24/99–NATO Strikes against Kosovo