Two Serbs Die After Kosovo Melee

The Associated Press
Sunday, Dec. 17, 2000; 11:55 a.m. EST

LEPOSAVIC, Yugoslavia -- Kosovo Serbs set fire to a police station,
stoned vehicles and briefly took seven Belgian soldiers hostage in a melee
that left two Serbs dead and one wounded, NATO and U.N. officials said
Sunday.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's political party Sunday accused
Belgian peacekeepers of "irresponsibly" firing on the protesters - who
were angered by the arrest of a Serb motorist - and said the incident was
another sign of the failure of the international peacekeeping mission.

More than 40 U.N. policemen were evacuated Sunday from this
Serb-populated town 40 miles northwest of Pristina following the
violence, according to U.N. police spokesman Dmitry Kaportsev.

The trouble began Saturday when Serb police working for the U.N.-run
Kosovo police force arrested a Serb, Vladimir Tomovic, for speeding and
possession of unspecified illegal communications equipment, NATO
spokesman Maj. Steven Shappell said.

After the arrest, about 200 Serbs gathered in a protest outside the police
station - next to the Belgian army barracks - and stoned a car, Shappell
said. Protesters seized seven Belgian soldiers but released them later.

Shortly before midnight Saturday, a crowd of nearly 1,000 demonstrators
converged on the police station, set fire to the building and destroyed
three vehicles, NATO said.

Belgian soldiers fired tear gas and shots into the air - not at the
demonstrators, NATO said.

Two protesters were wounded. Milan Jokovic, 20, died in a hospital in
the nearby city of Kosovska Mitrovica, and another Serb, Mladen
Obradovic, was wounded in the chest, but his life was not in danger, the
NATO statement said. Trifun Milenkovic, 42, died of a heart attack.
Shappell said an investigation was launched to determine who shot the
protesters.

Kaportsev first said "KFOR shot the Serbs," referring to the acronym for
the NATO-led Kosovo Force. Later, he said an investigation must
determine who fired the fatal shot.

Belgian peacekeepers remained in the town after the U.N. police pulled
out, he said.

In Brussels, Belgium's defense minister, Andre Flahaut, refused to say
who fired the fatal shot pending the end of the U.N. investigation. Flahaut
met with the Belgian military general staff for two hours Sunday morning to
discuss the situation.

Flahaut told VRT television that French troops would reinforce the
Belgians in Leposavic to prevent more violence.

In Belgrade, Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia said the
peacekeepers "irresponsibly fired at Serbs in Leposavic."

"KFOR and the U.N. have not succeeded to achieve what they came
here for," the party said in a statement.

The United Nations and NATO took control of Kosovo after a 78-day
bombing campaign last year to stop former Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic's repression of ethnic Albanians.

Ethnic Albanians comprise about 90 percent of the Kosovo population,
but the Leposavic area is almost exclusively Serb.

© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press