FLUFFY dogs, girl guerrillas, Kalashnikovs, flaking nail varnish, and blood on the spring onions. It's bizarre, it's ugly, and it's very confused, but there's little doubt that the war and mayhem in Serbia's southern province of Kosovo are spreading out of control.
While Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy, was shuttling yesterday between Pristina, the Kosovo capital, and Belgrade trying to get Serbs and ethnic Albanians talking, two senior commanders of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army dismissed his efforts as futile. ''Weapons speak a different language,'' one said.
His words were translated by a twentysomething girl in uniform, with flaking nail varnish, a Kalashnikov, and pistol. Her blue polo neck peeked out from under her fatigues. None of the three gave their names.
At 11 o'clock precisely their village, which must also remain nameless but is close to the small town of Glogovac, was rocked by the sound of a single artillery round. Whether it was incoming or outgoing was unclear and the guerrillas refused to say. Throughout the morning mourners came to pay their respects to the father of one of the commanders whose brother was killed fighting the Serbs on Saturday.
It is in the nature of the bizarre stage that this war is now going through that traffic, including buses, crosses the lines from territory still under Serb control to this rebel-held ''liberated zone'' without much difficulty.
On entering KLA territory rebels can be seen lounging in the sun, their anti-tank weapons ready by the side of the road.
One of the commanders was in full KLA uniform but he appeared to defer to the younger commander dressed in black. He carried a pistol and walkie-talkie. Referring to Albanian politicians in Pristina he said baldly: ''This is the army which is liberating people.''
Barely seven miles away on the main east-west road angry Serb police were turning vehicles around saying the road was
closed. Five miles further on, the KLA is believed to have set up its own checkpoint.
This is no longer the phoney war of a month ago but neither is it a war of tanks and infantry. It is a guerrilla war, but still a decidedly odd one. Announcing that our interview was over, the commanders and their girl guerrilla got back into their flashy red BMW, complete with fluffy cuddly toy dog in the back window, and escorted us out of ''liberated'' territory.
Back in Pristina Richard Holbrooke emerged after several hours of talks with Ibrahim Rugova, the Kosovo Albanian pacifist leader. All he would say was: ''We're trying to get a process going . . . without much progress.'' Dismissing questions from other journalists he then added his own note to the ever more bizarre atmosphere of this place. Pointing at The Herald correspondent, whom he knows to be writing a review of his book for an influential magazine, he said: ''I only came over because I wanted to suck up to him.''
Five minutes drive away, on the other side of Pristina, Jusuf Hajdari, aged 60, shot dead in his vegetable patch early yesterday morning, lay in his coffin while his family and friends sobbed quietly. A bullet hole was clearly visible under his ear. Exactly what happened at 17 and 17A Kacanik Street during the early hours of the morning was unclear.
Albanians who gathered outside the house said that Serbian police had raided a student house at 17A and, after throwing a couple of grenades, had taken them away. They said that Mr Hajdari, of number 17, had come out into his garden to see what was happening and had then been shot or executed. Blood was congealing on his spring onions; a bullet casing still lay on a lettuce leaf.
A police statement claimed that a group of ''terrorists'' had attacked the police and had then fled back to their house. There they had seized large amounts of ammunition but the ''terrorists'' had escaped. The statement added that one policeman had been wounded and that Mr Hajdari who had been shot ''had weapons and munitions''. His family said that he owned a legal pistol because he was a security guard.
Peasants are working in the fields and at night the cafes of Pristina are crowded.
No-one knows what is happening or what will become of them. Serbs know that their army and police have the firepower to reduce the whole of KLA territory to rubble and ash yet their police, who are being shot at in checkpoints, are barely reacting. One Serb government official, who asked not to be named, said, his voice trembling with anger: ''Our men are being set up like clay pigeons . . . and we cannot understand why.''
Albanians, likewise, are fearful and confused. They do not want war, yet many now see no alternative in their struggle to rid themselves of Serb rule. The hour is late but many would still settle for a compromise solution short of outright independence. But for the hard men - and women - who have already taken up arms the time for compromise has passed. ''Our job is to free the whole of Kosovo, and the Albanians of Macedonia and Montenegro too,'' said one of the KLA commanders.
It is a clarion call for war. The death in the lettuce patch is a clarion call, too. Until now this has been a war in the villages. Now it is coming to town. Asked when the KLA would ''liberate'' Pristina, the girl guerrilla translated her commander's answer, but with just a hint of a smile: ''Top secret.''
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