Serbs Leave One Kosovo Village
By TOM COHEN Associated Press Writer

ZITINJE, Yugoslavia (AP) - A bombing at an Orthodox church in the heart of Kosovo's capital combined with constant taunts, threats and attacks have convinced many Serbs that NATO cannot safeguard them, prompting the residents of one village to ask for U.S. troops to escort them out of the Yugoslav province.

Two columns of farm tractors laden with meager possessions rumbled toward Kosovo's provincial border Sunday, hauling scores of Serbs. Traveling in convoys led by U.S. troops, the Serbs endured repeated humiliation on the 35 mile trip that took several hours on a hot afternoon.

Small children along the road flashed two-finger victory signs of the ethnic Albanian rebels, shouting out the initials of the Kosovo Liberation Army. In one village, a young ethnic Albanian man on a bicycle rode past, shouting ``Ha, ha, ha!'' in their faces.

``At first we didn't want to go, but then they started to kill us,'' said Miodrag Vrosevic, 33, a schoolteacher, along the roadside a few miles from the provincial border. ``At the moment, we do not think we're coming back because we have no security. ... We lost everything there. We have only one thing left - our lives.''

As he spoke, Dusan Stajic, 76, waved his arms in disgust, muttering, ``I was born there.''

Sunday's scene has been repeated frequently across the province in the seven weeks since NATO's bombing campaign forced Serb-led Yugoslav forces to end their crackdown in the province and let peacekeepers move in - followed by more than 700,000 ethnic Albanian refugees, many of them set on revenge.

More than 100,000 Serbs have since fled and more are leaving daily, steadily undermining the West's stated goal of a peaceful, multi-ethnic Kosovo.

Ethnic Albanian villagers welcomed the departures. They said Serb paramilitaries who committed atrocities during the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia were hiding in the village, and that when they left Sunday, the villagers also fled.

``Security will be better,'' said Ruzhdi Emini, 47, a member of the new village leadership appointed by KFOR and the ethnic Albanian rebels. ``For us, and for KFOR forces too.''

The villagers of Zetinje complained that NATO peacekeepers in the U.S-sector failed to protect them from ethnic Albanians. They said four people had been killed in the past 10 days, but their appeals went unanswered.

``They don't have enough troops,'' said Ilija Savic, 27, a farmer. ``All we see is KFOR cooperating with Albanians.''

For U.S. soldiers patrolling the hills of southeastern Kosovo, the task has proved difficult.

``We're trying to protect both sides, but the hatred is so deep,'' said Maj. Kevin Farrell, operations officer of Task Force 177, who organized the convoys.

He described cleaning up after two Serbs were killed in Zitinje last week, only to have ethnic Albanian children come out and flash victory signs.

``That's tough to deal with,'' Farrell said. He estimated that half of the 150 villagers from Zitinje were leaving Kosovo, and the rest would try to settle in other Serb villages.

The Serbs said they didn't know exactly who was attacking them. When they went to the ethnic Albanian elders of Zitinje to complain, they were told gangs of young people from other areas were responsible.

At the U.S. Army base in Gnjilane, about six miles northeast of Zitinje, Capt. Larry Kaminski acknowledged that the patrolling troops were unable to stop all the violence. He cited house burnings, looting, gunfire and occasional mortar rounds as persistent problems. He said a Serb farmer picking plums was killed Saturday.

``We have this quite frequently. One guy's out alone, and someone sneaks up, and that's it,'' Kaminski said.

In Zitinje, U.S. soldiers imposed an overnight curfew and collected furniture and other belongings from the Serb houses while rounding up cows, goats, pigs and chickens left behind by the fleeing farmers. Several tanks stood guard around the cluster of abandoned Serb houses, and some ethnic Albanian villagers helped soldiers load trucks with the Serb possessions.

The idea, said Sgt. 1st Class Robert Swindells, was to protect the property from looters and ethnic Albanians wanting to burn the houses. Asked how long the soldiers would remain in the village, he shrugged his shoulders.