The New York Times

Friday, September 10, 1999

Kosovo Serbs Abandon Belgrade March

By The Associated Press

CACAK, Yugoslavia (AP) -- After a night huddled in tarp-covered trailers, trucks and cars under pouring rain, hundreds of Kosovo Serb refugees today gave up their plan to march on Belgrade to protest their treatment by the Yugoslav regime.

After negotiating with officials, the desperate, confused refugees gave into government demands to break into smaller groups and head to collective centers in the southwestern towns of Uzice and Pozega.

``They will go where there is accommodation,'' government negotiator Milovan Nenadovic told The Associated Press. ``They will not refuse because they need it. It's not in their interest to refuse anything.''

A convoy of four buses, about 30 cars and two dozen tractors packed with refugees set off for Pozega, 20 miles away.

``We have agreed. Now we'll go and we'll see what to do later,'' one elderly man said.

Up to 700 Kosovo Serb refugees had planned to take their grievances to Belgrade after local authorities evicted about 350 of them Wednesday from a school near the central town of Kraljevo, where they had been staying since fleeing their home province three months ago.

The refugees were told they could no longer stay in the school because classes had resumed Sept. 1. Instead, the refugees were offered a windowless, roofless ruin with no electricity or water.

Refusing that, the group set off for Belgrade to protest what they consider the government's indifference to their plight since nearly 200,000 of them fled Kosovo in June to escape attacks by ethnic Albanians. The attacks were in retaliation for atrocities committed by Serbs during Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's 18-month crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

That crackdown ended when Milosevic accepted a U.N.-sanctioned peace plan to end the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Many Serbs have complained of the reception they received elsewhere in Serbia, the dominant republic in the Yugoslav federation, after they fled the southern province.

Serbian police stopped the column Wednesday night at an overpass leading to the main highway to Belgrade, 80 miles to the north, and refused to allow them to proceed.

They were ordered to stay within the Kraljevo city limits. More people joined the ranks, swelling their number to about 700.

In heavy rain, the refugees set off again Thursday morning, ignoring police roadblocks. They covered only 20 miles before encountering new police barriers near the town of Cacak. There, the refugees were prevented from spending the rainy night in a nearby motel, and camped by the roadside.

Dragana Masic, 25, from a village near the town of Klina, her husband, Dragoslav, and their 5-year-old son, Marko, spent the night in a shelter near the local graveyard.

``This is pitiful what they (authorities) are doing with these people, and all this because of one person,'' she said as her son clung to her skirt. She refused to elaborate, but was clearly referring to Milosevic.

``No one wants to be forced back to Kosovo, but that's our only choice in the long run,'' she said through tears. ``We know that our homes, everything is destroyed there ... if only we could go back home.''