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GNJILANE, Yugoslavia (October 3, 1999 2:57 p.m. EDT ) - In a rally guarded by American troops, Hashim Thaci and other leaders of the officially disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army vowed Sunday that Serbs will never again control Kosovo.
Thaci, accompanied by armed bodyguards of the new Kosovo Protection Corps, also said Kosovo Albanians had a "right" to help fellow ethnic Albanians allegedly suffering repression in villages across the boundary with the rest of Serbia.
The rally was held as Serbs and ethnic Albanians maintained barricades around the ethnically mixed town of Kosovo Polje, where tensions remain high after a grenade attack last week that killed three Serbs and injured about 40 others.
A crowd of fewer than 2,000 people cheered Thaci, the self-styled prime minister of the KLA-backed provisional government, as he declared that "Belgrade will never again make decisions about Kosovo," even though the province remains technically a province of Yugoslavia.
Thaci and his delegation visited this city of about 100,000 to raise their profile in an area where the rival Democratic League of Kosovo, led by Ibrahim Rugova, maintains considerable influence among the ethnic Albanian population.
Rugova has also laid claim to the mantle of Kosovo Albanian leadership, having twice been elected president of a Republic of Kosovo that the Yugoslav government never recognized.
Thaci spoke from the porch of the city theater near where a statue of the Serbian King Lazar, who was killed by the Turks in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo Polje, once stood. U.S. troops removed the statue to protect it against ethnic Albanian vandals seeking to remove symbols of Serb rule, which ended with the June 12 arrival of NATO-led peacekeepers.
On the pedestal were placards that said in Albanian: "Presevo is also part of Kosovo," and "Don't forget Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedza," referring to three ethnic Albanian communities across the border in southern Serbia.
Thaci spoke of an "explosive situation" in the three towns. Brig. Gen. Craig Peterson, commander of U.S. troops in Kosovo, said travelers from southern Serbia claim Serbian police are harassing ethnic Albanians there and demanding money.
"The arrest, imprisonment and torture (of ethnic Albanians) is something that must not be allowed," Thaci said. "Albanians of these areas have a right to remain there, and we have a right to help them. And we will help them."
Thaci told the crowd that the Kosovo Protection Corps would be headed by "the same structure" that once commanded the ethnic Albanian rebel army and would include more than 5,000 former KLA soldiers.
He also said the corps would soon open a military training academy to graduate "professionals who will guarantee the future of Kosovo" and produce a police force "who will never commit crimes against the nation, like some did against us."