The New York Times

Tuesday, October 19, 1999

Adversaries in Kosovo Join in Team Effort

By REUTERS

RISTINA, Kosovo -- A group of Kosovo Albanians and Serbs left on Monday for a monthlong trip to study a French system that the West hopes to make the model for a multiethnic Kosovo Protection Corps.

NATO officials acknowledged that persuading Serbs to join the group, to be commanded by a former leader of the separatist Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, Agim Ceku, would be difficult, but said they wanted Serbs to see it would not be a new army.

They hope the French Securit Civile, whose work on emergencies includes firefighting, first aid and removing mines, will provide a framework for the corps.

"We want to make sure that they get closer information, that they can go back to their people and tell them what this is all about and that the thing they will see in the Securit Civile is totally different from what people are used to in this province," said Maj. Gen. Klaus Olshausen, who is overseeing the transition.

Ten Albanians, 3 Serbs, 2 Bosnian Muslims and 1 Turk are in the group.

One Serbian delegate said the Serbs, who contend that former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army have practiced intimidation since NATO-led troops replaced Yugoslav security forces in the province in June, should set up a separate force alongside the Kosovo Protection Corps.

"We don't accept the K.P.C. for now," said the delegate, Miodrag Ralic. "We are traveling only as a Serbian delegation to see what we can do after this seminar for a Serbian corps to be formed in Kosovo, in the Serbian communities, and in future we'll see if those two corps can cooperate together."

The former Kosovo Liberation Army denies responsibility for revenge attacks on Serbs over atrocities by the Serbian police and paramilitaries before and during the NATO bombing, which paved the way for the NATO-led force.

One Albanian delegate in the group going to France saw himself as a member of a future Kosovo army. "I'm happy that it's the first time that Kosovo troops will visit another country," said the man, who came from Mitrovica.

The protection corps was announced last month after the the Kosovo Liberation Army was demilitarized in the effort to reintegrate the guerrillas, who fought the Serbian security forces for a year before the air strikes, into civilian life.

The corps will not be fully formed until next month. But former guerrilla members have started to wear what NATO calls transitional protection corps uniforms and undertake tasks like crowd control. About 70 percent of former guerrilla members are generally expected to apply for the corps, more than double originally envisaged 5,000-member force.

The registration of other applicants may begin soon, but it is not clear whether any Serbs will apply.

"The tensions are just too strong," Ralic said.