The New York Times

Wednesday, June 23, 1999

European Ministers Visit Kosovo

By The Associated Press

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Western European foreign and defense ministers recoiled at evidence of alleged atrocities in Kosovo today and implored the troubled region's people against taking revenge for the horrors. U.S. Marines killed two people after coming under fire at a checkpoint.

The ministers from Britain, France, Italy and Germany, the highest-ranking Western officials to enter Kosovo since the NATO-led peacekeeping mission began on June 12, inspected alleged atrocity sites, toured tense cities, and assessed the progress of the mission, which has grown to 19,000 troops.

British Foreign Minister Robin Cook put on white protective clothing and a mask as he gingerly walked through farm buildings in Velika Krusa where several dozen ethnic Albanian men reportedly were shot before the structures were set afire.

``This is appalling,'' Cook said. ``They must have known what was coming.''

``We understand fully the emotions, the distress that such a massacre and such an atrocity must cause to all those who lost relatives in such an event and who have survived it,'' Cook said at a later news conference with his counterparts in Pristina.

But ``we ask those who have survived such atrocities to leave it to the judicial authorities and to the police to pursue the task of doing justice to those who died and let us here in Kosovo break the cycle of violence and build a peaceful, nonviolent future for the future of the children of all communities of Kosovo,'' he said.

The cycle of vengeance continued at points throughout Kosovo on Wednesday, such as Novake, a Serb settlement of about 50 houses that ethnic Albanians set on fire -- after looting them a day earlier.

``They burn our houses, we burn theirs,'' said Shpetim Shijaku, a 10-year-old Albanian from a neighboring village who came to grab what the Serbs had left behind when they fled.

U.S. Marines manning a checkpoint in southeastern Kosovo near the village of Zegra came under fire Wednesday by unidentified assailants. The Marines returned fire, killing at least two people, Army Brig. Gen. John Craddock said in a telephone interview from his Kosovo headquarters.

The Marines called in attack helicopters, and the assailants, armed with AK-47s, surrendered. It was not immediately known if they were Serbs or ethnic Albanians.

The farming village of Zegra is also where Marines had a standoff with about 100 armed KLA members last week, which ended with the rebels being forcibly disarmed.

In the northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica, where French peacekeepers have been trying to keep a lid on tensions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, French Defense Minister Alain Richard defended the actions of his soldiers.

Ethnic Albanians there have complained that the French were giving preferential treatment to the Serbs. French peacekeepers looked on Tuesday as Serbs menaced some people wanting to cross a bridge to a side of town with the main hospital, many ethnic Albanian homes and almost the only open food shops.

The French soldiers were simply trying to permit all Kosovo residents ``to live in safety,'' Richard said.

The Velika Krusa buildings that Cook toured comprise one of the alleged massacre sites named in the international war tribunal's indictment of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Cook vowed ``we are not going to give up'' on seeking Milosevic's arrest.

The 78-day NATO air war against Yugoslavia, the peace deal under which Yugoslav troops withdrew from Kosovo and the flight of Serbs fearing Albanian revenge attacks have put Milosevic under pressure in Belgrade.

Also Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said Russian peacekeepers could join NATO forces in Kosovo as early as Friday.

Sergeyev said the troops would be ready to deploy in three hours once Russia's upper house of parliament approves a peacekeeping plan. The body will start considering the plan Friday, which calls for 3,600 Russian troops.

Meanwhile, ethnic Albanian refugees were ignoring warnings about land mines and flooding back into the province at an alarming rate -- 207,000 in the past eight days alone, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

``This is a phenomenal rate -- absolutely staggering,'' said Rupert Colville, a UNHCR spokesman in Prizren, Kosovo's second-largest city.

UNHCR spokeswoman Paula Ghedini said in Pristina that supplying tents and plastic sheeting for temporary repairs was becoming a priority for aid convoys, especially those going to the western Kosovo towns of Pec and Djakovica.

The United Nations estimates that about 860,000 ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo or were expelled by Serb forces after NATO launched the bombing campaign March 24 to force Yugoslavia to accept a peace plan for the province.

Refugees began to trickle back from camps in neighboring Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro after NATO peacekeepers started deploying June 12 and Serb forces began pulling out under the peace deal. That quickly turned into a flood, and dozens of civilians have died or been injured by land mines or unexploded bombs.

Ethnic Albanians returning Wednesday to Djakovica found an outbuilding at a former military barracks strewn with women's underwear and ropes, along with the documents of an ethnic Albanian woman. Refugees fleeing the city had reported systematic rapes in the city.

Meanwhile, a top U.S. aid official said Wednesday that the United States will let Europe take the lead in rebuilding the region.

``This is Europe, it's an appropriate response,'' said Harriet Babbitt, deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Babbitt could not estimate how much the rebuilding effort would cost, or what the U.S. share would be. President Clinton on Tuesday announced a $5.2 million initial allotment for food, purification chemicals for Pristina's water system and other items.