Word: kosovo
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...week of violent clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo has galvanized the U.S. and the European Union to move swiftly to head off a new round of ethnic warfare in the former Yugoslavia. ?The EU knows from experience in the region that if you let these things go too far, they can spin violently and dangerously out of control,? says TIME?s London bureau chief Barry Hillenbrand. The ?Contact Group? on former Yugoslavia -- the major EU governments, the U.S. and Russia -- meets in London Monday, and Hillenbrand says it is likely they will adopt a carrot-and-stick...
...village lies 32 miles beyond the dusty downtown streets of Pristina, capital of the rebellious Serbian province of Kosovo, due west across the bleak Field of the Blackbirds. The Turks slaughtered Christian forces here in 1389 on their way to 500 years of rule in the Balkans. Even now, flocks of shrieking, cackling blackbirds fuel a local legend that they are reincarnated Serb warriors...
...rutted dirt road leads to Vojnik, a farming village of 200 houses and 2,000 ethnic Albanians. Devoutly Muslim and speaking a complex, ancient language derived from Illyrian, the people here are the most doggedly independent of the approximately 2 million Albanians who inhabit Kosovo. Their houses, resembling modest forts, are hidden behind high walls of brick if the owners are well off or crude fences of woven sticks if they are not. Out on an isolated bluff, behind a particularly high brick wall, sits the compound of the village hoxha (religious leader), Abdyl Krasniqi...
...Kosovo is the historical and cultural homeland of Serbs, and the estimated 100,000 who live there dominate the 2 million ethnic Albanians by force and repression. But that rule is crumbling. During the late-November fire fight that wounded Bahri Krasniqi, rebels drove Serb process servers and their police escorts out of the village. When heavily armed Serb reinforcements returned next day, angry rebels ambushed them outside town and drove them back. Serb authorities have not dared return since, and the shadowy Kosovo Liberation Army (K.L.A.) has rallied to the region and patrols its rural roads by night. Intentionally...
...more immediate danger is of a brutal bloodbath in Kosovo. Since 1991, when Milosevic cracked down in the province, some 200 ethnic Albanians have died. Now the Serb death toll is rising in step. On both sides, even the most devoted seekers of peace--and there are fewer and fewer of them--see little chance of avoiding a war. In Vojnik, where Bahri is home from the hospital and recovering from his leg wound, the villagers are already there. "The Serb authorities have lost control," says hoxha Abdyl Krasniqi. "But you can't say we are liberated...