GNJILANE, Yugoslavia -- Stressing that justice is different from revenge, a senior U.S. envoy Tuesday urged people in Kosovo to be patient and not seek redress for wartime grievances.
James P. Rubin, the U.S. State Department spokesman, told reporters at an early morning briefing in Pristina, the Kosovo capital, that Kosovo residents must wait for judicial systems to be put into place and that violence against Serbs is not the answer."This is not an excuse to take justice into their own hands," he said. "It's a legitimate point to want justice. But the wheel of justice turns slowly. It's not going to happen overnight."
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's spokesman has been hammering the point at every stop in Kosovo: Ethnic Albanian leaders must end the violence -- or else. But Monday he also sought to reassure Kosovo's Serbs that Washington is pushing for a multi-ethnic Kosovo in which they will have a share.
Rubin's constant drumbeat has only underlined Washington's anxiety over the continuing attacks on Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo -- a morass in the making that is threatening the international support that ended Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's systematic campaign of repression last year.
Rubin was traveling to the southeastern town of Gnjilane to meet with the local U.N. administrator for the region and be briefed on the tense situation along Kosovo's administrative boundary with Serbia. He planned to meet with Brig. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military official in Kosovo.
Also visiting Kosovo Tuesday was Javier Solana, the European Union's high representative for foreign and security policy. Solana was trying to push the united front between Europe and the United States to press ethnic Albanian leaders to take charge in stopping the violence.
Speaking Monday in Gracanica in western Kosovo, Rubin told an Albanian crowd, "You are now free of the oppression from Belgrade. But with that freedom comes responsibility to ensure that coexistence can exist in Kosovo."
The crackdown against the province's majority ethnic Albanians ended when Yugoslav troops withdrew following a 78-day NATO air campaign. Ethnic Albanians then began revenge attacks against Serbs.
Despite Washington's considerable leverage with the ethnic Albanians, it was unclear whether the province's factious leadership understood the message.
Hashim Thaci, the political leader of Kosovo's rebels during the war, called Rubin "a friend of Kosovo" and said "we accepted his statements as advice from a friend."
There was, however, no unequivocal pledge to stop the violence, much of which is believed carried out by former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters who were Thaci's allies in the war against the Serbs. Many ethnic Albanians feel the struggle with the Serbs will not end until all Serbs have been forced out and Kosovo becomes an independent Albanian state -- something no other nation supports.
At the United Nations, Russia's foreign minister has urged his counterparts in the seven major industrialized nations to help prevent Kosovo's tensions from spilling over into southern Serbia.
In a letter to the foreign ministers, Igor Ivanov expressed Moscow's concern that "the very critical situation" in southern Serbia could ignite a new war, Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov said at a news conference Monday.
The formation of a new, Kosovo-inspired ethnic Albanian guerrilla group in Serbia's southern Presevo Valley has worsened fears of yet another war in Yugoslavia.
Milosevic greeted Yugoslav army commanders Monday, and praised the army in its war against NATO. He pledged to defend Yugoslavia's national interests "by all means," the Politika daily reported today.
Amid fears that Milosevic could use force against Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in the Yugoslav federation, Montenegro's President Milo Djukanovic called on the army to remain neutral and stop being Milosevic's "personal guard," independent Studio B TV said today.
Montenegro has threatened to secede if Milosevic fails to implement democratic reforms or continues to crackdown against pro-Western leadership.
On the Net: Kosovo Peacekeepers, www.kforonline.com
Serbian Orthodox Church Web site, www.kosovo.com
Kosova Crisis Center, www.alb-net.com/misc-pages/links.htm.