GIs Must Lay Down the Law

UROSEVAC, Yugoslavia — The cavalry is taking charge in the “wild, wild west” of southern Kosovo, with the U.S. Army and Marines securing the area and keeping the peace as devastated villages slowly come back to life.

While their Humvees are piled with dozens of red and pink roses--spontaneous gifts from Kosovo Albanian villagers overjoyed that the troops have arrived--the job is hardly all roses.

Army Sgt. Alonzo Smith of Fayetteville, N.C., started his day Wednesday dodging a hail of bullets five to 10 yards overhead. His unit got eight requests to check out suspected booby traps and mines. They disarmed a departing convoy of Serbian villagers, taking a silver pistol from a mustachioed man on a tractor. They were taunted by a Serbian woman who said they had no business in the area. “I take that as communicating a verbal threat,” Smith said, only half-joking.

His unit also encountered three members of the Kosovo Liberation Army who were guarding 50 wounded men they’d brought to a local hospital for treatment. The KLA rebels didn’t surrender their arms until the following morning.

The U.S. soldiers have become the de facto police in these lawless towns between the Macedonian border post and Pristina, capital of the Serbian province of Kosovo. They sometimes play a role closer to that of a parent disciplining bickering children--except that these “children” often are armed.

“He looted me before and is taking my stuff,” a Kosovo Albanian screamed at Smith as the convoy of departing Serbs--including children, the elderly and trailers packed with worldly possessions--rumbled out of town in fear of reprisals by the ethnic Albanians.

Smith called his superiors for instructions, but since it wasn’t clear who was telling the truth, the sergeant was told to let the accused man proceed. Much of the operation is seat-of-the-pants, as the guidelines for the troops’ mission don’t get into gritty details.

The about 3,800 U.S. soldiers and Marines on the ground in Kosovo have set up camp on a huge open field near this town, about 20 miles south of Pristina. They have been steadily securing surrounding towns and villages, where most buildings have been looted or destroyed.

Refugees keep streaming in, but there is no food or water and little electricity. No one has any gasoline. Stranded motorists try to flag down passersby to bum a few liters of the precious substance. In Pristina, the going price for fuel--if you can get it--is $150 a tankful.

The U.S. forces search vehicles at several checkpoints along the main two-lane thoroughfare that wends its way through steep mountains and fields full of wildflowers, confiscating any weapons they find. The other day, the troops stripped at least 116 guns from members of the KLA, according to Lt. Col. Robin Clifford, spokesman for KFOR, as the peacekeeping mission is known.

“We own the region from here to Pristina,” said a soldier at the border post, where a U.S. flag flies, replacing the Serbian flag that refugees burned soon after the multinational peacekeeping force troops rolled in last weekend.

KFOR has carved Kosovo into five zones, with the British in the central part, including Pristina, the French in the north, the Germans in the southwest, the Italians in the west and the Americans in the southeast.

Sgt. Smith had a brush with sniper fire early Wednesday morning. A couple came by to tell him there was looting going on. While on his way to the site, he and his wingman heard gunfire and dropped to the ground. Perhaps it was a setup, he thought, since the couple didn’t flinch.

About 6 p.m., he received another report of looting in the same place. He radioed for a crew of a dozen elite Army Rangers who rushed to a house that was described by ethnic Albanians as a Serbian terrorist nest.

The Rangers found nothing. But a radio report said they did disarm two KLA members roaming the streets nearby.

For the troops, the days are tiring, but they do have their psychological rewards. Staff Sgt. William Malachi of Sacramento received so many roses--piled high next to the 50-caliber machine gun mounted on his Humvee--that he began piling them inside the vehicle at his feet.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

One of the groupies hanging around his post was Hajrullah Hajrullahu, 11, his huge brown eyes peeking out from under a Swiss Hornet Team FA-1 baseball cap. The boy’s family, forced from his home village by the Serbs, hid in Urosevac for a month inside a relative’s house packed with 30 people. He didn’t see daylight for four weeks. Was he scared? “You can bet on it,” he said.

What does he think now that he sees the soldiers? “Freedom,” he replied. “I can go wherever I like. NATO’s everywhere. It’s great.”