(3/25/99)
So far, at least 10 civilians have reportedly been killed in the bombings of Kosovo.
And, Yugoslavians living in the United States say the people of their homeland are not as bad as President Clinton has implied. The other side of the story, they say, needs to be told.
Central Utah Correspondent Robert Walz has the story from Orem.
Yesterday we heard President Clinton's view of the Serbian People.
Stories of mass executions and genocide.
But today native Yugoslavians are speaking out, claiming the president is not telling the truth about their people.
Ljiljana Maccabee says she is afraid for her family. She immigrated to the United States from Yugoslavia six years ago, after she joined the LDS church and married a returned missionary.
But her heart is now with her family as they brace for NATO bombing raids.
"They spent the whole day and the whole night in the basement of their building. No beds. The whole building, all the people who live in the building in that basement," she says.
Ljiljana says the civil war in her country is complex, and cannot be solved by force.
In her opinion the Serbian people have been given a choice to give up part of their homeland to the Albanians, or die.
Robert Maccabee lived in Yugoslavia for two years. He says the Serbians have always been willing to give their lives for their country.
"It's a sovereign independent country, and they're going to protect their borders just like we would," he predicts.
The Maccabees strongly disagree with President Clinton's assessment of the Serbians.
They admit every country has bad people, but say most of the Yugoslavians who are now hunkered in bomb shelters are good, honest men, women and children, who obey the law and don't want to hurt anyone.
"I don't want my country going down and I don't want to see people getting killed. My family is okay, but my heart goes out to people whose family were killed already. That's ten people and that is too many."
Ljiljana trys to talk with her family each day on the telephone.
She fears that many civilians will die before this conflict in her homeland is over.
