French peacekeepers yesterday scuffled with ethnic Albanians who spat and threw soda cans at them in frustration at being barred from storming into the Serb-dominated part of a major Kosovo town.
It was the second straight day of disturbances between French troops and ethnic Albanians on the south bank of a river marking an urban boundary of hatred between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovska Mitrovica, the province's third biggest city.
A French army spokesman said the crowd, which chanted belligerent nationalist slogans and burned and stamped on a Yugoslav flag, was clearly organised by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
But the gathering, numbering up to 200, was much smaller and the number of French troops far greater than on Saturday, when about 1,000 almost broke through a few stunned peacekeepers to the north side of Mitrovica's main bridge before more troops raced in to drive them back.
Yesterday's disturbances began when a woman at the front of the crowd standing nose-to-nose with French troops began cursing and punching a soldier, who shoved her back angrily.
Infuriated, the crowd surged forward and the French, in full battle dress, rushed in reinforcements. Peacekeepers and ethnic Albanians traded punches and kicks and one young man was dragged away and detained for assault.
Screaming "French are terrorists" and "UCK, UCK" (Albanian acronym for KLA), ethnic Albanians spat and threw crumpled soft drink cans at the French as they were being pushed back.
The melee lasted 10 minutes and there was sporadic jostling over the next 1 1/2 hours during which the crowd burned the Yugoslav flag while waving red-and-black Albanian ones and chanting "We shall liberate Mitrovica", among other things. French troops also sealed off the north end of the bridge as a precaution. A few dozen Serb men loitered nearby, primed to confront Albanians if they crossed, but most locals went about their business.
The Dolce Vita cafe at the bridge on the north side blared Serb nationalist folk music which drowned out the ethnic Albanian commotion on the other side.
At midday, the ethnic Albanian crowd suddenly fell back and regrouped to march around town.
They went to the French military police headquarters to demand the release of their detained comrade before dispersing at the request of a local KLA officer in uniform.
Overnight, a rifle grenade was fired from the south into the north side of Mitrovica but there were no injuries or serious damage, French army spokesman Lieut Meriadec Raffray said. The assailants escaped.
He said there were also bursts of sub-machinegun fire from the south bank and French troops fired back. A teen-age boy was arrested, Lieut Raffray said.
"The situation here is like Texas. Everyone has guns and they are almost impossible to control," he said.
"These mobs were certainly orchestrated by the KLA to crank up the pressure on us [to let them take over north Mitrovica]. But this would cause major violence and our job is to prevent that."
Demonstrators said they wanted only to regain free access to property which they said was seized by Serbs or was now too dangerous to visit because French troops did not protect ethnic Albanians when they tried to visit individually.
Many said they had been evicted from the north side during a vicious 16-month conflict with Serbian security forces and were now cut off from female relatives and children who had stayed behind and were vulnerable to Serb persecution.
They accused the French of collaborating with a Serb agenda to divide Mitrovica and keep the spoils of ethnic cleansing.
French officers denied this, saying they sought only to prevent renewed urban war and that reunification of Mitrovica must await a political agreement between the two sides.