Clinton Urges Kosovo Reconciliation

 By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer

 UROSEVAC, Yugoslavia (AP) - Five months after NATO
 bombs broke Serbia's grip on Kosovo, President Clinton urged
 Kosovo's schoolchildren to forgive oppression and told U.S.
 peacekeeping soldiers their example can help overcome the
 sectarian violence that still grips the province.

 Addressing several hundred American troops in a tent, Clinton
 called ethnic hatred ``the most important issue in the whole world
 today.''

 To the Kosovar children and their parents, he appealed for
 tolerance.

 ``You can never forget the injustice that was done to you,''
 Clinton told them. ``No one can force you to forgive what was
 done to you. But you must try.''

 Speaking in a chilly school gymnasium, Clinton drew round after
 round of cheers as he recounted the leading role the United
 States played in the 78-day air war against Yugoslav government
 troops.

 ``You cheered for us when we came in because when you were
 being oppressed we stood by you,'' Clinton said. The crowd was
 more subdued as Clinton continued: ``We won the war, but listen:
 only you can win the peace. The time for fighting is passed.''

 An 8th-grader, Ramadan Ilazi, introduced Clinton, making his
 first visit to Kosovo since the war ended in June.

 ``You promised that you will bring us to our homes safe. You
 kept your promise,'' the boy said.

 In spite of the warm reception the Kosovars offered the
 president, most seemed unenthusiastic about his call for
 reconciliation. But Pranvera Pajaziti of a village called Spring
 recognized the importance of resisting vengeance.

 ``I lost my father,'' she said. ``I have to forgive and to forget
 because I like to live in peace, not war.''

 Later, Clinton toured a huge encampment for U.S. soldiers sent in
 to help keep order and supervise the return of ethnic Albanians
 driven from their homes last spring.

 Now some of those former refugees have turned the tables on the
 Serb minority they blame for their troubles, burning homes and
 forcing Serbs to flee the Yugoslav province. Many have gone
 north into Serbia proper, where Serbs are the ethnic majority.

 Clinton noted the mix of races and backgrounds among the U.S.
 troops, and said their simple presence and cooperation serve as
 powerful symbols to children already familiar with ethnic fears
 and hatred.

 ``The power of your example will show them that they do not
 have to be trapped in the pattern of slaughter,'' Clinton said.

 ``You are a rebuke to the biggest problem in the world.''

 After his speech, he ate a pre-Thanksgiving turkey dinner with the
 soldiers.

 One of the soldiers in Clinton's audience, Pvt. William Price, 22,
 of San Diego, Calif., said Clinton ``gave us some honest to God
 reasons to be here. It's one thing to say peace, goodwill,
 especially during the holidays. It's another thing to put on your
 gear and drive off into a village and make it happen...We're
 proving that a group of people with many different cultures can be
 a great superpower. We're trying to help people (here) see that
 too.''

 Clinton was warmly received but his daughter, Chelsea got an
 even better reception. Everywhere she went she was mobbed by
 soldiers who wanted to get their picture taken with her.

 A leader of Kosovo's dwindling Serb minority, Orthodox
 Christian Bishop Artemije, took advantage of Clinton's presence
 to appeal to him to protect Kosovo's Serbs and other ethnic
 minorities against harassment and attacks by ethnic Albanians.

 ``We want to believe that the current tragedy in Kosovo is not
 what the people of the United States had in mind when they
 supported your intervention to protect the ethnic Albanians,''
 Bishop Artemije said in an open letter to Clinton carried by
 Belgrade's Fonet news agency.

 Earlier today, American and United Nations military chiefs gave
 Clinton an overview of the chaotic process of rebuilding Kosovo,
 which was ransacked by Serb forces before it was ravaged by
 NATO bombs.

 Clinton, on the last leg of a 10-day trip to southeastern Europe,
 flew by military helicopter to an airfield in the provincial capital.
 Snowflakes drifted in the freezing air as Clinton and members of
 his national security team met with ethnic Albanian leader Hashim
 Thaci, wartime head of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, a
 local Serb leader and others.

 With U.S. warplanes taking the lead, NATO launched an air war
 against Yugoslavia in March in response to a campaign by
 Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to rid Kosovo of its
 ethnic Albanian population. Kosovo is a province within Serbia,
 which in turn is the dominant partner in Milosevic's Yugoslav
 federation.

 Expulsions and killings of ethnic Albanians by Serb forces
 accelerated after the bombing began, and hundreds of thousands
 fled, returning only after Milosevic surrendered day-to-day
 control of Kosovo.

 Even though NATO peacekeeping troops have sought to protect
 both sides, attacks on Serbs are still almost a daily occurrence.
 Of an original Serb population in Kosovo of about 200,000,
 roughly half have fled.

 Kosovo is the final stop on Clinton's trip, which began in Turkey.
 A major theme has been finding a solution to instability in the
 Balkans. In Sofia on Monday, Clinton said he could see no way
 to ``put this all back together again'' unless Serbia got rid of Milosevic.