Albanians Greet Albright in Kosovo

By TOM RAUM Associated Press Writer

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, greeted by ethnic Albanians
as a liberator, pledged today that ``as long as you choose, Kosovo will remain your home.''

``You have been through a terrible ordeal this past year. ... Much has been lost and cannot be
regained,'' Albright, the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the Serbian province since the 78-day
NATO air war, told a cheering crowd.

``I hope that today we may pledge that here in Kosovo never again will people with guns come in
the night, never again will houses and villages be burned, and never again will there be massacres
and mass graves.''

About 2,000 Albanians, many chanting ``U.S.A.,'' turned out to greet Albright, whom they
affectionately call ``Nona,'' or Mother. American, Albanian and British flags waved in the crowd.

The secretary of state came to Pristina for a firsthand look at postwar reconstruction. The crowd
responded enthusiastically when she declared that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ``should
answer for his crimes.''

``She is the best woman in the world,'' said Lirie Hana, 54, ``She is the one who made it possible
to breathe free.''

Added Ibrahim Hallaci, 44: ``I'm here to await and thank her for everything she did for us. As a
simple citizen, I am very, very happy that I could come and chant her name in freedom for which
she worked so hard.''

In contrast, Albright got a hostile reception when she visited a Serbian Orthodox monastery in
Gracanica, just south of Pristina. About 150 people, mostly Serb men, chanted ``Serbia, Serbia''
and ``Slobo, Slobo,'' referring to Milosevic. Some shouted obscenities.

When Albright's spokesman, James Rubin, alighted from his car he was greeted with a
thumbs-down gesture and several shouted an obscenity.

Albright went first to the headquarters of the NATO peacekeeping force, known as KFOR, where
she met with the NATO commander, British Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson, and the chief U.N.
administrator in the province, Bernard Kouchner of France.

``Obviously there's a lot of work to be done, but there's also a tremendous amount of enthusiasm
and willingness to work,'' Albright said after the briefings. ``I am very encouraged by the
cooperation between KFOR and UNMIK,'' the U.N. Mission in Kosovo. ``They are working well
together.''

When asked about the Serbs and what she would say to local Serb leaders in a meeting later, she
said: ``I will tell them that the system is here to protect them. KFOR and UNMIK will cooperate
for everybody's future. But don't forget that some disgusting things happened here. But we want
them to stay if we want to build a multiethnic Kosovo.''

There was a tense moment earlier when a gunshot rang out as Hashim Thaci, head of the Kosovo
Liberation Army and de facto leader of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, pulled up to the U.N.
headquarters for a meeting with Albright. U.N. security agents rushed out of the building and
Thaci's guards surrounded his car. Many bystanders dropped to the ground.

British soldiers guarding the area said there was no indication where the shot came from or where it
might have been aimed. Albright was inside the building.

An American official who later briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity said consideration
was given to postponing her outdoor speech because of the gunshot, and because others in the
vicinity were known to be armed.

But she wanted to go ahead with it, the official said. However, as a concession, she was driven the
block and a half to the speech in a bulletproof vehicle instead of walking. And, once the speech
was over, she was whisked quickly away.

At her last stop in Kosovo, Albright took a helicopter to Camp Bondsteel, in the middle of the
American-controlled sector, and told U.S. troops: ``You have a difficult and dangerous job at a
very uncertain time.''

Before leaving Rome for Pristina on Wednesday, Albright, referring to the pace of reconstruction,
told reporters: ``Clearly one would wish that this were moving faster.'' But she decline to criticize
the U.N. operation attempting to resettle hundreds of thousands who were displaced from Kosovo
during the past year.

As for destruction from Serb assaults on Kosovo Albanians and from NATO bombing, she said
that, based on preliminary estimates, there ``has been less damage than initially feared.''

She said $500 million the United States has pledged to help feed and house refugees returning to
Kosovo was ``a good start,'' although she emphasized that Western allies will have to pick up the
brunt of reconstruction costs.

Altogether, more than 60 nations and dozens of international aid agencies have pledged $2 billion.

``The process of building up is proceeding more slowly than we had anticipated,'' Italian Foreign
Minister Lamberto Dini said at a news conference with Albright on Wednesday after the two had a
working lunch.

Albright was to meet with U.S. peacekeepers in Kosovo, plus officials of the Kosovo Liberation
Army and political influence groups. She also was expected to fly over some areas where there is
evidence of atrocities from the Serb offensive against the province, aides said.

Following the Kosovo visit, Albright will join President Clinton on Friday for a conference in
Sarajevo with other world leaders on Balkans reconstruction. Milosevic will not be there.