-Caveat Lector- Kosovo Blast Caused by NATO Bomb By DONNA BRYSON .c The Associated Press PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) - A NATO cluster bomb that exploded as troops cleared munitions from a school killed two peacekeeping soldiers and two villagers - not a Serb booby-trap, the British military said today. The deaths Monday of Lt. Gareth Evans and Sgt. Balaram Rai were the first allied fatalities since NATO entered Kosovo. Dozens of civilians, however, have died in explosions of land mines and booby-traps since peacekeeping troops moved into the southern Serb province on June 12. The explosion occurred at a schoolhouse in Negrovce, a village 20 miles west of Pristina, Kosovo's capital. The soldiers, from the British army's 69th Gurkha Field Squadron that is mostly made up of Nepalese troops, had been called in by villagers who found unexploded cluster bombs at the school, said Lt. Col. Nick Clissitt, a spokesman for the British military in Pristina. ``These were munitions used in order to destroy Serb forces in the field in what was a Serb army and paramilitary police stronghold,'' he explained. Clissitt said the villagers had piled the munitions up next to the schoolhouse before calling peacekeepers to remove it. When the troops showed up, they suggested exploding the pile. But he said the villagers worried the blast would damage their school, and agreed to help the peacekeepers move the bombs into three smaller piles a short distance away, to create smaller explosions. ``It was during the wiring of the charges that two piles detonated prematurely with tragic results,'' Clissitt said. In a related development, British peacekeepers today defused a bomb only 100 feet from the Grand Hotel, the Kosovo capital's biggest hotel and a major gathering place for foreign visitors, the state-run Tanjug news agency said. It was unclear who placed the bomb. Although unexploded bombs, uncleared minefields and booby-traps pose substantial hazards in Kosovo, tens of thousands of refugees are disregarding calls for them to stay put in the Albanian and Macedonian tent camps until the danger can be reduced. The peacekeepers' spokesman, Lt. Col. Robin Clifford, said land mines killed one civilian Monday and a child on Sunday. ``I would repeat the call to refugees ... to exercise caution and restraint when moving around Kosovo, because it is not yet safe,'' he said. U.N. spokesman Kevin Kennedy said mine clearers still don't even know how many mines are scattered around the province. President Clinton arrived in Macedonia today and told a cheering crowd at the Stenkovec refugee camp to seek reconciliation in Kosovo - not revenge. The United States remains committed to keeping an autonomous Kosovo within Yugoslavia instead of promoting independence for the largely Albanian province, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said today. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said more than 170,000 of the 860,000 or so refugees expelled from Kosovo have returned in little more than a week. Another 600,000 are in camps or with host families in neighboring countries and 88,000 more have been evacuated to other countries, including 7,500 to the United States. Peace in Kosovo appeared increasingly strong in the wake of Albanian rebels pledging in a pact with NATO to lay down their arms. The deal came Monday, just hours after the last of the 40,000 Serb troops left Kosovo. The 20,000 or so NATO-led KFOR troops now in Kosovo said they were moving beyond initial attempts to quell the violence and were beginning to look ahead by establishing security and laying the groundwork for democratic elections. With the Serb forces' retreat confirmed late Sunday, NATO officially ended its 78-day air campaign. Today, the Belgrade government asked parliament to meet Thursday to end the state of war declared the day NATO launched its airstrikes. Since March 24, the state of war has banned men of military age from leaving the country, let the army take over key institutions and subjected the news media to censorship. Still, reports of a media crackdown persisted. An umbrella group for Yugoslavia's fledging independent radio and television broadcasters said the government was forcing stations to replace their newscasts with those of the state-controlled networks. For its part, the KLA agreed to a broad demilitarization that will require them to leave their checkpoints and halt any military activity unless the peacekeepers approve it first. Although they can keep their handguns, they agreed not to use explosives, to put remaining weapons in storage sites verified by NATO and to clear minefields and booby-traps within seven days. A hard-line Kosovo Albanian rebel, however, said today that the demilitarization agreement with NATO does not require the guerrillas to surrender their weapons and those who expect the KLA to disappear have ``miscalculated.'' ``The agreement does not demand that we give up our arms,'' Rrustem Mustafa told the KLA's Kosova Press news service. ``The arms will be gathered at certain places and the KLA will take care of them while NATO has a right to observe them.'' Mustafa, known by his codename ``Commander Remi,'' was considered among the most hard-line KLA leaders. He commanded a sector in northwestern Kosovo and spoke out against the Western-drafted peace plan submitted by the United States and its partners at Rambouillet, France, in February. Eventually, the KLA signed the document but the Serbs refused, triggering NATO's bombing campaign. Mustafa also said the KLA hopes to transform itself into a regular army - a step likely to be opposed not only by Yugoslavia but its Russian supporters as well. The peace plan that NATO is enforcing calls for sweeping autonomy for Kosovo but within Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic. ``The priority will be the transformation of the KLA, which is not an easy problem to solve,'' he said. ``I hope that we are going to form very soon a regular army.' DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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