Rebels Meet, but Fail to Sign Kosovo Deal

Ethnic Albanian rebel commanders met Sunday to consider the peace plan for Kosovo, but--contrary to Clinton administration declarations--it appeared that the deal would not be signed before later in the week.

As promised, leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army gathered in the hills of the Drenica region, the nerve center of the rebel movement, to vote on a plan for broad autonomy but not the independence they have fought for in a year of bitter ethnic war.

Representatives of William Walker, who heads the peace monitoring team in Kosovo, attended the rebel meeting held at an undisclosed location, said an anonymous American source.

There were conflicting reports about when the deal might be signed. The source said the rebels were expected to approve the deal and that they and ethnic Albanian politicians would probably sign around Friday.

Former Sen. Bob Dole, who visited the region at President Clinton’s request, declared in London on Saturday that the ethnic Albanians “promised” to sign the deal Sunday, but Reuters news service reported that the rebel leaders postponed the decision until today.

Dole and U.S. diplomats have heightened pressure on the ethnic Albanians to sign quickly as a first step toward ending a year of fighting between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian rebels that has killed 2,000 people and driven 300,000 from their homes.

Ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs nine to one in Kosovo, a poor southern province in Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia.

A signing by the Albanians would step up pressure on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to accept the 82-page peace agreement.

The ethnic Albanian rebels are wary of the deal because it requires them to disarm and falls short of full independence. Albanians also want a referendum on independence after three years, but Western powers oppose that.

In an example of rising tensions in Kosovo, an ethnic Albanian civilian shot and killed two Serbian policemen Sunday in a Pristina suburb. The officers were seeking his son on robbery charges.

Serbian police forces responded by searching houses for the father and son and beating the occupants. An official with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said 15 ethnic Albanian civilians suffered heavy bruises and broken bones.