A massacre of 14 Serb farmers may have been a "sinister" plot to shatter Kosovo's fragile peace, senior UN and Kfor officials said in Pristina yesterday.
But Serb civilians in towns near the killings - the worst violent incident since the UN-mandated Kosovo Force entered the province in mid-June - vowed they would not be driven out. The 14 villagers were shot late on Friday by unidentified gunmen as they harvested wheat near Gracko, a town in central Kosovo.
The Kfor commander, Lieut Gen Mike Jackson, told reporters that "a number of possibilities" were being examined for the motive for the attack, "from something like local revenge to something rather more sinister in terms of an organised way".
The massacre victims, he said, had been offered Kfor protection to bring their harvest in on Saturday, but "very sadly" they had decided to go out into the field a day earlier.
He and the head of the UN mission in Kosovo, Mr Bernard Kouchner, said the perpetrators must be brought to justice and said a full investigation was being carried out, with support from forensic experts from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
A senior Kfor officer, speaking anonymously, said it was not being ruled out that Serb paramilitaries were responsible.
Mr Kouchner and Lieut Gen Jackson admitted that the 35,000 Kfor troops and the few UN police in Kosovo cannot offer protection everywhere. Nevertheless, Lieut Gen Jackson said security was being stepped up, with tougher searches of cars and civilians. He ruled out increasing Kfor's eventual full strength of 40,000, which is expected to be reached next month.
Serbs in towns south of Pristina, near Gracko, said they would stay on despite the killings. Mr Zoran Nicolovic in Gracanica said:P "People were packing to leave. Now it's better, security with Kfor is stepped up."
President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia issued a statement on Saturday saying responsibility for the deaths lay with the UN mission in Kosovo and Kfor. Belgrade has called for an urgent session of the UN Security Council to demand "urgent and concrete measures" to protect Serbs and other non-Albanian communities in Kosovo, the state agency, Tanjug, reported yesterday.
The Serbian opposition leader, Mr Vuk Draskovic, on Saturday warned the armed forces not to interfere in the country's political affairs, as 25,000 people in Nis, Serbia's third-largest city, called on President Milosevic to step down.
"These days, generals warn that the army and the police will defend the regime with all their power," he told the protesters. "Generals have nothing to do in internal political discussions." His statement came after Gen Nebojsa Pavkovic, commander of Yugoslavia's Third Army, warned anti-Milosevic movements that the President had the "unreserved support" of the army which would prevent any attempt to overthrow his regime.
Mr Draskovic's words were greeted with long ovations from the protesters, mostly supporters of his Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO). During the rally, several dozen reservists protested at a nearby square, demanding back pay for time spent in Kosovo.
It was the second rally organised by Mr Draskovic's party, which has refused to join forces with the Alliance for Changes that launched anti-Milosevic rallies. The alliance held a rally of 5,000 people in the northern town of Sombor on Saturday, and hundreds of people continued to demonstrate in three Serbian towns, demanding Mr Milosevic's resignation, Beta news agency reported.