In Kosovo, A Village Divided

Any who doubt the urgency of halting Kosovo's slide into chaos need look no further than the village of Recani, reports CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey.

About 130 ethnic Albanian and 30 Serb families live in the village.

When the Serb counteroffensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army began last fall, villagers made a pact not to attack each others' homes.

But that didn't stop Serb police, who tore centuries of peaceful coexistence apart.

"I loved them before," Sahid Husseini says of his Serb neighbors, "But not anymore. Now I could kill them. They burned my house."

No Serb homes were touched, but Serb families have been.

Vassily Stankovic is a Serb who speaks fluent Albanian and proudly shows a photo of Serb and ethnic Albanian friends together in his home. But the good times are faded memory.

"My old friend doesn't greet me anymore," Stankovic says. "We meet in the street and he just passes me by."

A few yards away is the 14th century Serb Orthodox church where Stankovic's his parents are buried. And where there is a Serb church or grave, Stankovic states, is Serb land. He will not give it up. However, he thinks things can be worked out, without foreign help.

Whatever the outcome of the peace talks, the Albanians in this village say they can never be really secure unless foreign troops are on the ground here. They want the Americans to come in particular because, they say, the Americans are the most serious.

Ethnic Albanian men complain they are no longer safe on their own streets. Their fear was evident as soon as the police arrived: only the children stayed.

Reported By Allen Pizzey