MAIN PAGE  WORLD    africa    americas    asianow    europe    middle east  U.S.  LOCAL  POLITICS  WEATHER  BUSINESS  SPORTS  TECHNOLOGY  NATURE  ENTERTAINMENT  BOOKS  TRAVEL  FOOD  HEALTH  STYLE  IN-DEPTH  custom news  Headline News brief  daily almanac  CNN networks  CNN programs  on-air transcripts  news quiz   CNN WEB SITES:  TIME INC. SITES: Go To ... Time.com People Money Fortune EW  MORE SERVICES:  video on demand  video archive  audio on demand  news email services  free email accounts  desktop headlines  pointcast  DISCUSSION:  message boards  chat  feedback  SITE GUIDES:  help  contents  search  FASTER ACCESS:  europe  japan  WEB SERVICES: Keyword Title Author		Peace Plan Highlights | Photo Gallery | Strike Assessment | News Video Archive | Strike at a Glance | Who's Who | Roots of the Conflict | Story Archive | Links | Discussion Attacks on Serbs reported; anti-Milosevic protests planned  MILITARY PLAN: RELATED VIDEO CNN's Jim Clancy reports on opposition efforts in Belgrade. (June 22) Windows Media 28K 80K Use the arrow buttons below to select the latest streams on the Kosovo situation.        Windows Media Real        28 K 80 K  ALSO: Clinton leaves Balkans hailed a hero by Kosovar Albanians  MESSAGE BOARD: Rebuilding Kosovo  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: Focus on Kosovo

June 23, 1999
Web posted at: 12:53 a.m. EDT (0453 GMT)

In this story: Protesting Milosevic Peacekeepers killed clearing NATO bombs Heavy damage RELATED STORIES, SITES

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- One day after Kosovo rebels pledged not to take revenge against Serbs, reports surfaced Tuesday of violence against those who remain in the embattled province.

Above the divided city of Pec, smoke from burning houses rose into the mountains. A group of ethnic Albanians watched one Serb house burn; they claimed the Serbs had set the fire themselves. The residents were nowhere to be seen.

In Pristina, two men opened fire on a Serb civilian, wounding him in the chest, the independent Beta news agency reported. Beta, citing witnesses, said the gunmen walked away calmly after the shooting.

Also in Pristina, British peacekeepers defused a bomb only 100 feet from the Grand Hotel, the Kosovo capital's biggest hotel and a major gathering place for international journalists, the state-run Tanjug news agency said. It was unclear who placed the bomb.

U.S. President Bill Clinton, on a trip to the Balkans, urged ethnic Albanians not to seek retribution.

"(Retaliation) won't, in the end, satisfy anyone. It will only compound the horror," Clinton said Monday in Slovenia.

Clinton traveled to Macedonia on Tuesday to meet with Macedonian and Albanian leaders and to tour a refugee camp on the Macedonia-Kosovo border. He planned to deliver the same message to the refugees who remained in the camp.

Tens of thousands of Kosovar Serbs fled to Serbia ahead of the arrival of the NATO-led peacekeeping force, or KFOR. Later, officials appealed to the Serbs to return to their homes, but most have refused without guarantees of their safety.

Several hundred of the refugees demonstrated in Belgrade, demanding U.N. protection. Police sent to quell the demonstration appeared upset by the protest.

"I spent almost one year in Kosovo," said one, who gave only his nickname, Mica. "I retreated with these same people. I don't know what to think now. I am going crazy."

Protesting Milosevic

Opposition groups are calling for protests against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, some accusing him of abandoning Kosovo and his people, others calling for democratic change.

"We are demanding very brave, very democratic changes in the country," declared Vuk Draskovic, a former federal minister who occasionally cooperated with Milosevic but was sacked during the NATO air war for criticizing the government. "We are demanding democratic elections."

The Clintons spoke to refugees at a camp on the Macedonia-Kosovo border

A union of opposition parties has planned weekend demonstrations in their strongholds outside Belgrade, hoping to capitalize on the distrust and disillusionment of Serb refugees with Milosevic.

Zoran Djindjic, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, predicted Milosevic's ouster.

"I believe (he will be gone by) the winter months (or) the first months of next year," he said. "This situation will be very risky for him. But as opposition we must do something. It will not be automatic."

Serbia's Alliance for Change, an umbrella group containing opposition parties and nongovernment organizations, has called for protests against the president. Djindjic said that a democratic movement inside Yugoslavia could change the government.

"Dictators like violence," Djindjic said. "If you use violence against dictators they are happy. You must undermine them by supporting positive democratic forces, not by creating conflict. Milosevic is good in conflicts."

Western officials have made clear their disdain for Milosevic, and have said that no reconstruction aid will be available for Serbia as long as he remains in power. Humanitarian aid -- including money for rebuilding power plants and water facilities -- will be made available, however.

Peacekeepers killed clearing NATO bombs

NATO confirmed Tuesday that one of its own cluster bombs -- not a Yugoslav land mine or booby trap -- killed four people, including two NATO peacekeepers, Monday.

"These munitions were used by NATO in order to destroy Serb forces in the field in what was a Yugoslav army and paramilitary stronghold," said Lt. Col. Nick Clissitt, spokesman for the KFOR peacekeeping mission.

The deaths underscored what NATO and relief agencies repeatedly have been saying to ethnic Albanian refugees wanting to go home to Kosovo: the landscape is not yet safe.

The peacekeepers, British soldiers from a Gurkha engineering regiment, were removing the bombs Monday from a school at the village of Negrovce, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of Pristina, when the explosion occurred.

CNN's Richard Blystone reported that villagers had piled up the unexploded bombs at the schoolhouse and requested that NATO dispose of them. NATO peacekeepers removed the bombs to a nearby field for a controlled explosion, but two of three piles went off accidentally while they were being wired for the explosion.

The two soldiers -- Lt. Gareth Evans of Bristol and Sgt. Balaram Rai from Nepal -- were the first NATO fatalities since the peacekeepers entered Kosovo on June 12. A third civilian was wounded in the blast.

A British military spokesman said all three civilians were believed to be ex-Kosovo Liberation Army fighters helping the peacekeepers dispose of the munitions.

Blystone said that NATO bomb disposal units have dealt with about 10 of its own cluster bombs so far and about the same number of Serb mines. Although Monday's deaths were NATO's first, dozens of civilians have been killed in similar explosions since the peacekeeping mission began.

Heavy damage

Despite the potential danger, refugees are pouring back to their homes.

"We're getting very worried because people understandably are clamoring to come home, and we just don't feel the security situation warrants that," said Michael Barton of the International Organization for Migration.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said Tuesday that more than 170,000 Kosovo Albanians have left Albania and Macedonia in the last week to return to their homes -- which may or not still be there.

"There is some hope and encouraging signs in towns like Prizren and indeed Pristina, but many towns -- and Pec comes to mind -- are burnt-out shells with few people shifting gingerly through the debris or wandering around looking dazed," said Patrick McCormick, a spokesman for the U.N. Children's Fund who had just returned from a weeklong trip into the province.

The destruction -- and who will pay and how much -- has been the subject of much international discussion in recent days, as world leaders met in the wake of the end of NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia.

NATO's 78-day bombing campaign began March 24 and was aimed at forcing Yugoslav troops out of Kosovo. NATO peacekeepers entered the Serbian province as Yugoslav forces pulled out, intent on maintaining security.

One of KFOR's stiffer challenges has been dealing with KLA forces, some of whom have been fighting for independence for years. Early Monday, KLA and KFOR commanders approved a demilitarization agreement requiring the KLA to cease all hostilities, abandon its checkpoints and stockpile heavy weaponry.

But the agreement did not disband the KLA completely. The organization remains as a political force -- and perhaps later a defensive force along the lines of the U.S. National Guard, its leaders said.

"The agreement does not demand that we give up our arms," KLA commander Rrustem Mustafa, known as Commander Remi, told the rebels' Kosova Press news service. "The arms will be gathered at certain places, and the KLA will take care of them, while NATO has a right to observe them."

Mustafa also said he hoped the KLA would form a regular army. That wouldn't sit well with the government in Belgrade, especially because the peace plan calls for Kosovo to remain part of Serbia.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has pulled 200 civilian police advisers from its mission to Bosnia to go to Kosovo and help set up a new police force, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Tuesday.

About 42 international police crossed into Kosovo late on Tuesday with the remainder of the 200 expected to arrive within 10 days to set up five district headquarters and work in 29 police stations.

Under the Kosovo peace process, the United Nations is to organise civilian operations in the province, which includes sending police monitors as well as aiding the refugees.

Correspondents Jim Clancy, Richard Blystone and John King and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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