President Clinton yesterday urged former refugees from the Kosovo conflict to forgive the Serbs who expelled them, saying "the time for fighting is past".
Paying his first visit to Kosovo since an 11-week NATO air campaign forced Serb troops to withdraw five months ago, Mr Clinton had a powerful message for about 2,000 ethnic Albanians who gathered in a sports stadium in Urosevac to hear him.
"The time for fighting is past . . . the international community will stand by you but you must take the lead," Mr Clinton told the crowd, many of them schoolchildren waving US flags.
Since the conflict, 50,000 to 100,000 Serbs have left the province to avoid violent reprisals by ethnic Albanians, and roughly the same number remain.
In most cases the crowd cheered loudly when his words were translated into Albanian, but the noise was noticeably less when he asked forgiveness for the Serbs.
In a final appeal, the president said: "I beg you who are parents to teach your children that life is more than the terrible things that are gone. It is how you react to them. Do not let the children's spirits be broken . . . give them the tomorrow they deserve."
Earlier, Mr Clinton held meetings in the Kosovo capital, Pristina, with Gen Klaus Reinhardt, commander of the UN peacekeeping forces, and Mr Bernard Kouchner, the UN administrator of the province.
Mr Clinton then met Serb and Albanian members of a UN-run transitional council including Mr Hashim Thaqi, prime minister in Kosovo's provisional government; Mr Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's unofficially elected moderate president, and Serb leaders.