STANDING beside the Serb patriarch in the Pec monastery that is the historic Kosovan seat of Serb culture and religion, Crown Prince Alexander called yesterday on the Serb minority to remain in their homes and not to abandon their historic homeland. 
His appeal was too late. Pec was burning yesterday, Serb homes set alight by vengeful KLA fighters while the tiny remaining group of elderly Serb women cowered inside the monastery walls for protection. Most had been beaten, all had been driven from their homes and one, Marta Miric, had on Monday seen her daughter raped and then had her throat slit. One old woman, her eye gouged out by a knife, was comforted by the Prince. 
Prince Alexander publicly blamed President Milosevic for the disaster that has overtaken this blighted land. "Milosevic must go, for the sake of Yugoslavia, the Montenegran people and all peoples regardless of race and ethnic origin." 
He said that this "madness" must stop, and there must be no more vengeance killings with an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth. "Ethnic cleansing" was disgusting. "Our people do not deserve this pain and everyone has the right to live where he was born." 
Patriarch Pavle, who was escorted to the monastery by Italian Kfor troops and a Norwegian bodyguard, also repeated his outspoken criticisms of Mr Milosevic. Praying in the gloom of the 1330 monastery amid monks and a small crowd of those seeking refuge he spoke of the need for every human being not to remain passive in the face of evil. "We should be the sheep of Christ among wolves," he said. His message, after the earlier criticism in Belgrade and coming on the day of demonstrations across Yugoslavia, was clear to everyone. 
Prince Alexander, insisting that he was not seeking the throne, said: "Democracy must be crowned." 
There was little sign of this in Pec. Italian troops, in helmets adorned with feathers, stood guard at the crossroads but looting of shops, especially by Albanian gangs crossing from Albania, was still going on, and Serb houses were in flames beside the long blackened ruins of Albanian homes set ablaze by the retreating Serb troops two weeks ago.