Another Blockade Erected in Kosovo

KOSOVO POLJE, Yugoslavia — After U.N. officials failed to persuade Serbs to open a main road, ethnic Albanians set up barricades of their own Saturday, blocking access to the commercial center of this Serbian stronghold southwest of Pristina.

The new blockades have set back United Nations efforts to ease tensions that escalated after a grenade attack Tuesday killed three Serbs and injured about 40 others. Serbs responded to the attack by blocking the highway from Pristina, to the western city of Pec.

“If the Serbians remove their barricade, we are gone in 30 seconds,” one ethnic Albanian man said.

Kosovo Polje is an important location for Serbs because it is the site of their 1389 defeat by Ottoman Turks, which paved the way for 500 years of Turkish domination of Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.

In Belgrade, a Serbian opposition party accused peacekeepers of “doing nothing” to prevent violence against Serbs in Kosovo.

Yugoslavia’s Tanjug news agency said several grenades have been thrown at Serbian homes in Gnjilane over the past two days. There were no injuries, Tanjug said.