World

Saving The Peace In Kosovo

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 14, 1998 / 11:36 AM EST / CBS

U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke arrived in Serbia Tuesday to try to revive stalled peace efforts in Kosovo, a day after the worst clashes in months left at least 37 people dead in the secessionist province.

The death toll rose after two more people wounded Monday in a "terrorist attack" on a bar in Pec, a city in western Kosovo, died overnight, according to Serb sources in Kosovo.

Reports of the latest deaths came as Holbrooke arrived in the Yugoslav capital and headed immediately for Kosovo. He was returning later Tuesday to Belgrade to meet Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and "emphasize the need to move ahead expeditiously" on a peace plan, the State Department said Monday.

Holbrooke brokered the Oct. 12 agreement to end the fighting in Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia's main republic of Serbia. The deal averted threatened NATO airstrikes and bought time for diplomats to work out an agreement on the future of the province, where ethnic Albanian rebels are fighting for independence.

U.S.-led diplomatic efforts appear stalled, however, raising fears that Kosovo could explode again into bloody fighting.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sent a team to the site of a Monday gun battle between the Yugoslav army and Albanian separatists, said that 31 people had been killed, including one woman. Nine others were taken prisoner.

The clash took place near the border with Albania, which the guerrillas use as a sanctuary and a conduit for supplies.

In other violence, the OSCE sources said assailants opened fire Monday in a Serb-run bar in Pec, killing four Serbs and wounding five others. Two of the five died later, Serbian sources said Tuesday.

The Serb government's Tanjug news agency said two "masked terrorists," a term authorities use for the ethnic Albanian rebels, entered the bar and fired automatic weapons.

The rebel Kosovo Liberation Army smuggles weapons and ammunition from Albania. The KLA has been reportedly rearming and regrouping since the October agreement ended Serb offensives.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned all-out war could break out in Kosovo next year, saying "we have every reason to fear the worst in 1999."

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana also condemned the violence and said he was concerned for the safety of hundreds of international "verifiers" in Kosovo, who are unarmed.

Dozens of people on both sides have been killed since the agreement, which sought to end the violence sparked after Milosevic launched a crackdown on separatist rebels in February, leaving hundreds dead and an estimated 300,000 homeless.

Both the ethnic Albanians and the Serbs have rejected proposals for a political settlement made by U.S. envoy Christopher Hill, who also planned to travel to Belgrade Tuesday for talks with Serbian authorities.

The Serb government and a majority of ethic Albanians seem firmly dug in in their positions over the province's future, with ethnic Albanians insisting on virtual independence for Kosovo and Serbia intent on keeping its grip on the province.