Their withdrawal from his government will not immediately shake Mr Milosevic's regime as his Socialist party
Their withdrawal from his government will not immediately shake Mr Milosevic's regime, as his Socialist party can find other political allies and is not in danger of losing its majority in parliament. Mr Milosevic yesterday made a rare appearance in northern Serbia, launching a reconstruction programme after 11 weeks of Nato air strikes. "The hardest 11 weeks since the Second World War are behind us," he told a cheering crowd of some 5,000 in Novi Sad beside one of several of the city's bridges over the Danube destroyed during air strikes by alliance aircraft."Bridges connect people. Therefore it is both logical and justified to start rebuilding our country from here," Mr Milosevic said.. A HIGH-LEVEL delegation left Washington for Peking yesterday on a mission at once deeply humiliating to the United States and crucial to the future of US-Chinese relations. Thomas Pickering, the US Under-secretary of State, who leads the delegation, is entrusted with delivering Washington's formal apology and explanation for the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade last month, in which three Chinese died. Peking has so far rejected all US attempts to explain the bombing as an accident caused by outdated maps, favouring a variety of conspiracy theories that accuse the US of wanting to curb China's growing international influence.
No senior Chinese official has proclaimed any of the conspiracy theories outright, but none has tried to quash them either, leaving Chinese people to believe that Nato and the US deliberately targeted the Chinese embassy.Most bilateral contacts were frozen after the incident.According to an "insider" account of the war published at the weekend, desperate measures were taken to placate the Chinese. The Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, dashed to meet the Chinese ambassador in Washington on the night of the bombing and President Bill Clinton broadcast an apology.The Chinese declined to acknowledge the apology for two days and set out a list of four demands: a formal apology, a full investigation, publication of the results, and punishment of those responsible. The investigation is still in progress, but Mr Pickering is expected to give the Chinese a full account of the findings so far. The demand for punishment of those responsible is unlikely to be met.China may be disappointed with the rank of Washington's envoy.
Washington's reluctance to abase itself further than absolutely necessary over the incident, coupled with thereluctance of American officials to suffer the political indignity associated with the "grand kowtow", left the mission to Mr Pickering.. THE ROLLING, flower-filled fields of central Kosovo were deserted yesterday, save for Serbian soldiers and police, lounging around outside houses, sleeping under an armoured vehicle, sun-bathing atop a tank. Then the white UN aid cars pulled up in the apparently deserted town of Glogovac, in the Drenica region that spawned the Albanian uprising against Belgrade. It was only when these vehicles arrived that the first, few brave souls ventured out, painfully thin and nervous. Within minutes we were surrounded by hordes of women, children and a few old men laughing, crying, even clapping and cheering by the end.Staffan de Mistura, a UN official, said about 18,500 "internally displaced persons" (IDPs) were living in Glogovac - the biggest single group that had been found since Nato forces arrived in Kosovo. "We are surprised that we found this many, we thought they would be hiding in the bushes still, but they must have heard that Nato is coming," he said.The crowd hugged us and thanked us (for what?) and led us to the cramped and malodorous rooms they now call home.
