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Kosovo village mourns 14 slain Serbs

The wife of one of the slain farmers is comforted by relatives at the funeral VIDEO Emotions and tensions were high at the funeral, as CNN's Nic Robertson reports Windows Media 28K 80K  MESSAGE BOARD: Rebuilding Kosovo  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: Focus on Kosovo

July 28, 1999
Web posted at: 9:55 p.m. EDT (0155 GMT)

In this story: More violence reported Serbs 'not satisfied' with KFOR protection RELATED STORIES, SITES

PRISTINA, Kosovo -- A Kosovo village mourned 14 slain Serb farmers at a funeral heavily guarded by NATO troops Wednesday, and peacekeepers said they had detained four men for questioning in the killings.

The slayings last Friday -- the worst atrocity since NATO peacekeepers entered the Serbian province last month -- severely shook Serb confidence in NATO's pledge to protect all ethnic groups in Kosovo.

Black-clad villagers moved among the coffins, laid out in a line in the middle of a sports field in Gracko, a farming village of whitewashed houses about 25 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of Pristina, the provincial capital.

"Suddenly they depart this world, but their only consolation is they didn't depart this world like criminals, like the ones who took their fields and are burning our houses," said Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

"They are criminals," wailed one woman, cursing the killers who mowed down the 14 men with automatic weapons fire in a wheat field near Gracko.

British soldiers checked all cars entering the village during the ceremony. Troops and armored personnel carriers were stationed around the sports field, and a helicopter circled overhead.

Mourners wept as they placed flowers, wreaths and prayer cards onto the oak coffins, and several women fainted in the midsummer heat. After the ceremony, the coffins were loaded onto carts and towed by tractors to the local cemetery.

"If 1,000 years pass by, we could forget what happened. But what we must try to do is find our way forward, like our ancestors, so we can continue to live together here," Pavle told the congregation.

Among the 350 mourners was Bernard Kouchner of France, the new U.N. administrator in Kosovo, who has pledged not to let the killings undermine the Kosovo peace mission.

"We must find the truth, and justice must pass," he said.

One local Serb, Stefan Lalic, who spoke after Pavle, urged Serbs to stay in the village. "We must stay so that our church doesn't become Muslim," he said, referring to the predominant religion among Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians.

More violence reported

The four men detained early Wednesday were being held for questioning but had not been charged, said Maj. Jan Joosten of Denmark, a spokesman for the NATO peacekeeping mission.

He did not disclose the ethnicity of the men or provide other details.

Joosten also confirmed Yugoslav media reports that a NATO patrol, investigating the sound of gunshots Tuesday, found two dead Kosovo Serbs in a car in the northern Kosovo town of Vucitrn. "It appeared to be a car ambush," he said.

He added that military police found the bodies of three ethnic Albanians and one Bosnian Muslim on Tuesday in an apartment in the northwestern Kosovo city of Pec. There were no other immediate details on those deaths.

The violence underscored the enormous difficulties still confronting the United Nations and the NATO peacekeeping mission, known as the Kosovo protection force, or KFOR.

Serbs 'not satisfied' with KFOR protection

Leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church traveled to Kosovo on Tuesday to prepare for the ceremony and show solidarity with the minority Serbs in the province.

"Its a demonstration of sorrow for the dead and a protest" for the living, said Father Milorad of Pristina. Serbs, he said "are not satisfied with the protection from KFOR."

Violence in Kosovo since KFOR entered the province June 12 has included almost 200 killings, hundreds of house burnings and other unrest, mostly in revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians on the Serb minority.

Serb and Yugoslav forces killed an estimated 10,000 people, and more than 860,000 ethnic Albanians fled or were expelled from Kosovo before and during the NATO air campaign on Yugoslavia, which began March 24.

Since Yugoslav and Serbian forces pulled out and NATO moved in, more than 100,000 Serbs are believed to have fled the province out of fear for their safety.

As Serbs have left Kosovo, more than 720,000 ethnic Albanian refugees have returned to homes they fled during the year- long crackdown by Serb security forces in the province.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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