PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro - A leading human rights organization blamed NATO and U.N. police Monday for failing "catastrophically" to protect minorities in Kosovo during ethnic violence earlier this year.

Among other charges, the New York-based Human Rights Watch accused NATO-led peacekeepers of locking their gates and standing by as ethnic Albanians burned Serbian houses just outside their bases during the March riots that left 19 people dead and 900 injured.

"The NATO-led Kosovo Force and U.N. international police failed catastrophically to protect minorities during the widespread rioting," the group said in a 66-page report titled "Failure To Protect: Anti-Minority Violence in Kosovo, March 2004."

The report also accused the international community in Kosovo of being in "absolute denial about its own failures."

"While international actors have been universally and accurately critical of Kosovo Albanian leadership during and after the crisis, the dismal performance of the international community has escaped similar critical scrutiny," the report said.

A NATO spokesman in Kosovo said the report does not do justice to peacekeepers' attempts to normalize the situation.

Col. Horst Pieper of the NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo said the peacekeepers "quickly stabilized the situation within hours during the riots and prevented ... civil war."