Kosovo Clashes Continue on Eve of More Peace Talks

Sporadic violence continued Sunday in Kosovo as Serbian and ethnic Albanian delegates gathered in France to prepare for a second round of talks today aimed at ending the war in this Serbian province.

The death toll from three bomb attacks Saturday rose to seven after one man died overnight, and doctors across Kosovo continued to treat severely injured victims, including a number of women and children who lost limbs in the marketplace attacks in the northern Kosovo towns of Podujevo and Kosovska Mitrovica.

All seven of those killed and most of the 58 injured were ethnic Albanians, officials said Sunday.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Ethnic Albanians feared rogue Serbian civilians were attempting to scuttle the peace talks while Serbian officials said ethnic Albanian “terrorists” were attempting to generate outrage to provoke NATO attacks on Serbia, the main republic in Yugoslavia.

In the village of Majalic, northwest of Pristina, the Kosovo capital, farmhouses were smoking ruins Sunday, remnants of the latest Serbian attacks on positions held by ethnic Albanian secessionists.

South of Pristina, near Stimlje, ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army rebels ambushed a Yugoslav army patrol, wounding one soldier, according to Western monitors. Government forces reported they found two bodies near Prizren.

The six-nation Contact Group sponsoring the peace talks suspended them Feb. 23 after they deadlocked. The negotiations aim to end fighting that broke out a year ago in Kosovo, in southern Serbia, and has killed 2,000 people.

The peace accord calls for a 28,000-strong NATO-led force to guarantee its provisions. However, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has said that having foreign troops in Kosovo would be intolerable. Western political leaders have threatened NATO airstrikes if Yugoslavia fails to compromise.

As the Serbian delegation left Belgrade on Sunday, the city zoo released 1,001 doves. “We wanted to send a message to convince the world that we are basically a peaceful people,” said zoo director Vuk Bojovic. “Of course, if this proves not to be enough, next time we can try the same thing with tigers.”