Fresh fighting breaks out between Serbs and Albanians

Fresh fighting breaks out between Serbs and Albanians

PRISTINA, Serbia (AP): Serb forces backed by tanks battled
ethnic Albanian rebels northwest of here Monday, while U.S.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright pushed belligerents to
accept a settlement to keep the Kosovo peace talks in France from
collapsing.

International peace verifiers also reported that Serb police
were separating men from women and children in two ethnic
Albanian villages near the fighting in what spokesman Sandy Blyth
called "obviously a bad sign."

Television crews reported police were blocking access to the
area.

Fighting erupted at approximately 9.45 a.m. (3.45 p.m. Jakarta
time) when about 10 Serb military vehicles came under fire near
the town of Vucitrn about 25 kilometers northwest of Pristina,
according to Walter Ebenberger, spokesman for the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Ebenberger said Serb forces called in reinforcements,
including two tanks and an armored personnel carrier, which
returned fire.

He said the fighting ebbed about two hours later, and there
was no word on casualties. The ethnic Albanian-run Kosovo
Information Center said the fighting started when government
troops attacked three villages in the Vucitrn area.

The latest fighting added urgency to diplomatic efforts to
save the Kosovo peace talks in Rambouillet, France, which
appeared near the brink of collapse. Albright returned to the
conference site Monday to push the belligerents hard to make a
deal, with just one day left before the latest deadline of 3 p.m.
(9 p.m. Jakarta time) on Tuesday.

The ethnic Albanian center also said the body of one 50-year-
old ethnic Albanian man and his son were found on Monday near
Kacane, about 50 kilometers south of Pristina near the Macedonian
border.

In another sign of rising tensions, two unarmed peace
monitors, from Lithuania and Luxembourg, were assaulted by two
angry Serbian policemen in Kosovo but were not seriously hurt,
the OSCE said Monday.

OSCE spokesman Jorgen Grunnet said the verifiers were on a
routine patrol late Sunday about 30 kilometers north of Pristina
when they were confronted by two policemen. After a brief
argument, the observers were "roughed up," Grunnet said.

The OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission considers this
"aggressive behavior on the part of the police ... a serious case
of indiscipline" and a strong protest was sent to the
authorities, he added.

Grunnet said OSCE verifiers had noted an increase in movement
by Yugoslav army troops over the last days, apparently "a general
show of alertness." The army has been under threat of NATO
strikes if the Serbs are deemed responsible for any breakdown in
the talks.

Grunnet said the police also harassed an unspecified number of
other OSCE personnel, when they were entering the country from
neighboring Macedonia on Sunday.

The Yugoslav border authorities insisted on searching their
vehicles which, Grunnet said, was against an international
convention on treatment of the peace officials.

Early Monday, the police checked the identities of a number of
locally hired OSCE employees, apparently ethnic Albanians, who
were aboard an OSCE bus taking them to work in the mission's
headquarters in Pristina. Grunnet said this was also against the
rules.

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