Serb leader stokes fires of war in Kosovo

IT IS the same pattern, all over again. One destroyed house, and more badly damaged. Four Albanian dead, and one Serb policeman. Both sides blame the other and expect things to get worse. Another Balkan war is on the way.

In Bonn, the six-member contact group on Yugoslavia - Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United States - met to decide what to do about the exploding violence in the Albanian majority Serbian province of Kosovo.

They decided, in effect, that the answer was: not very much. Theoretically, sanctions will be imposed in four weeks time if President Slobodan Milosevic fails to initiate peace talks with Kosovo's Albanians. That hesitant proposal suggests the West remains as confused as it always has been about how to deal with the Yugoslav leader.

In the village of Glodjane, where the latest killings in Kosovo took place, the fire has been well stoked. Brutality begets bitterness, and determination. As you turn off onto the road that leads to Glodjane, 50 miles west of the Kosovo capital, Pristina, Albanian men greet you with victory signs, as though their battle with the Serbs was already won.

For others, there is no reason to feel victorious. Tractors and carts were leaving Glodjane yesterday; villagers fear a renewal of Tuesday's violence. Idajet and her husband Janos sat with their four children on a tractor. All they had was a change of children's clothes. They do not know when they will return. "What future have we?" asked Idajet. "None."

The course of events on Tuesday remains unclear. According to the Serbs, they ran into an Albanian ambush. The Albanians insist there was an unprovoked assault by the Serbs. The Albanians deny a form of guerrilla resistance movement is growing. The Serbs deny they use unlimited brutality in an attempt to eradicate this Albanian intifada.

Glodjane and several neighbouring villages were deserted yesterday, except for roaming groups of visiting locals, who had come to inspect the damage for themselves. There was a curiously unsettled atmosphere as dozens of youths wandered through the empty villages and gazed at the damage done by the Serbs.

Some Albanians are keen to ensure the official Albanian version is all anybody hears. One remaining villager began describing Tuesday's events - including the hours of shooting and the Serb helicopters that landed outside his house. But a self-important man in a suit was eager to prevent him giving his eye-witness account. The man in the suit held a furtive conversation, accompanied by emphatic hand gestures. Speaking freely to a foreign journalist was clearly not a good idea.

Serb headlines talked yesterday of how the police had "liquidated terrorists": the front page headline in the Albanian-language Koha Ditore listed the villages that had been attacked, like a role call of death.

These clashes seem certain to be only a foretaste of what is yet to come. Mr Milosevic unleashed Serb nationalism in Kosovo as a way of strengthening his power. The Balkan wars that began in 1991 have helped to keep him in power. Now, it may be Kosovo's turn.

There is a general expectation here - much stronger than ever before - that Kosovo is on the edge of conflagration. "We want freedom - or we want war," said one man in the old town of Pecs just a few miles away from the latest violence, yesterday.

The Serbs fear what might happen to them. But the Albanians are still more traumatised. "We live like dead people. We have nothing," said one Albanian in the village of Dubrava, where Tuesday's ambush was said to have taken place. "How can this go on?"