Ethnic Albanians Fire at Peacekeepers Aiding Serbs

Ethnic Albanians opened fire Thursday on international peacekeepers trying to prevent another revenge attack on Serbs, while hundreds of Albanians elsewhere in Kosovo protested the presence of Russian troops who they say sympathize with Serbs.

In the town of Velika Krusa, meanwhile, several hundred mourners wept as 75 coffins were lowered into two rows of fresh graves. It was the largest reburial so far of ethnic Albanians killed by Serbian forces in Belgrade’s yearlong crackdown on the majority Albanian province.

Human rights investigators believe that about 10,000 ethnic Albanians died in the crackdown. Now, however, Serbian-instigated violence is increasingly being replaced by acts of revenge committed by ethnic Albanians against Serbs remaining in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic.

International officials have condemned the ethnic Albanians’ recent violent retaliations, calling them a repetition of Serbian brutality that ended in June after an 11-week North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign.

On Thursday, British troops detained seven men after a car chase and a shootout with ethnic Albanians in a Serbian area just north of Pristina, the provincial capital.

Meanwhile, about 2,000 ethnic Albanians in Kosovska Kamenica demonstrated to demand that Russian peacekeepers be sent home.

Ethnic Albanians also have repeatedly clashed with French troops in the divided northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica.

French Defense Minister Alain Richard said Thursday that, while the ethnic Albanians involved in the clashes are a “minority,” further violence will be difficult to prevent because of the ethnic hatred dividing Kosovo’s Serbs and Albanians.

At the reburial in Velika Krusa, however, none of the mourners called for revenge.

Arranged side by side in a line more than 100 yards long, most coffins had the name and year of birth of the victim. But 25 were simply marked “Unidentified.”