CONTENTS

ANNAN PROPOSES SERBIA - MONTENEGRO - KOSOVO CONFEDERACY
UNMIK: PROFESSIONALS ORGANIZE ACTIONS IN NORTHERN KOSOVO
SURROI: ONE DAY AFTER SERBIAN ELECTIONS
ÇELAJ: CONFEDERACY? BETWEEN WHOM?

ANNAN PROPOSES CONFEDERACY SERBIA - MONTENEGRO - KOSOVO

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that the issue of FRY must be seriously considered next year and that he is engaged in turning FRY into a confederacy including Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, reported Koha Ditore on page two.

Following the meeting of UN Security Council in New York, Annan offered his point of view in solving the problem, which in many aspects is similar to the point of view of Swedish diplomat Carl Bildt: a Balkans mini- confederacy. "According to my assessment it would be ideal to compile a plan for a new type of confederacy which includes these three territories," said Annan by alluding on Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.

Annan pointed out that with entering the New Year, UN must begin to look at the existing problems in that region and in the light of the "constitutional problems that surround Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo". "In order to reduce the tensions in the region we must think about making 'a package arrangement' for the entire region," said Annan, adding that as far as Kosovo is concerned, they have achieved improvement although there are serious problems in Kosovo. He noted that this organization has achieved "considerable success in the Balkans", however "there is a long road ahead of us".

"In Bosnia after the previous elections, we continue to cooperate with its government and people, in order to further stabilize the situation, the reconstruction of the economy and the return of refugees," said Annan, adding that he hopes more refugees will return to their homes in Bosnia and Herzegovina next year.

"I believe we are capable of creating an attractive environment for several more foreign investors," stated Annan by admitting that they have not been the best in that aspect, "however they must continue creating a positive environment and atmosphere," concluded UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

UNMIK: PROFESSIONALS ORGANIZE ACTIONS IN NORTHERN KOSOVO 

Citing UNMIK officials, Koha Ditore on page one reported that a bomb has partly destroyed UNMIK police station and the municipal building of Zubin Potok late Tuesday night. There were no wounded during the bombing.

The attack with the bomb that occurred at around 2230 hours was reportedly followed with shooting towards the join building of police and UNMIK's civil administration.

After throwing a bomb at the police station, the attackers also riddled with bullets four UNMIK vehicles. At the same time, an UNMIK jeep was also blown away.

Commenting on the incident, Susan Manuel spokeswoman for UNMIK, was quoted as saying, "police has reported that the attackers shot around 15-20 rounds of ammunition".

According to UNMIK Police in Zubin Potok, the bomb was thrown inside the buildings through its windows and it is said that the explosion demolished the ground floor.

During the press briefing, Manuel said she has no knowledge on the motive of the attack carried out in an area inhabited mostly by Serb population. "We do not know the motive of the attack, but the police is investigating the incident," she said.

According to Manuel there is a general scheme of action in northern Mitrovica where during the recent days KFOR peacekeeping forces and UNMIK Police have been targeted.

Manuel also informed that the house of a Serbian KPS officer in Gracanica was demolished Tuesday night. However, UNMIK officials had no other information regarding the incident.
According to journalists, Oliver Ivanovic, the leader of Serbs living in northern Kosovo, told "Glas Javnosti" that he had already has send his men to see what had happened in Leposavic. Regarding the issue, journalists asked Manuel who is actually investigating the incident, Ivanovic's men or the international administration. "We really do not know what Ivanovic is doing. We have police and KFOR forces investigating the Leposavic case, including the murder of the Serb man," Manuel replied.

After initially withdrawing from Leposavic, UNMIK Police and KFOR forces have been redeployed in the town, whereas the Kosovo Police Service has suspended its patrolling in Leposavic until Serbian elections are over, which is a compromise achieved between internationals and local Serbs following the turmoil.

Gay Sens, UNMIK Administrator in Zubin Potok, said that the person who carried out last night's attack was very well trained and that his intention was to ruin peace. According to Sens, a part of the responsibility falls upon the international police officers are in a way to blame for the incident because the inspection of the site was done with a 40-minute delay, despite the fact that the police officers were in the building when the attack occurred. "The incident proves that they do not carry out their obligation properly. We are very fortunate that no one was passing by at the time of the attack," Sens added.

Slavisa Ristic, chairman of the Executive Council of the Serb National Council, excluded any possibility that the Albanians from the nearby village could have been involved in the attack at Zubin Potok. "This was done by people who do not think good for security and whose intention is to disturb the citizens of Zubin Potok. The possibility is not excluded that this attack was carried out by forces which lost during the last elections in Serbia".

SURROI: ONE DAY AFTER SERBIAN ELECTIONS

Koha Ditore on page three carried a commentary by its publisher Veton Surroi, in which he wrote:

"1. There will be no drama one day after Serbian elections. The electorate in Serbia will vote for the winner, as it has done during the last decade. In the beginning of this decade, most of the electorate supported Milosevic, and one year ago Kostunica was as famous in Serbia as the LBD is in Kosovo.

Times have changed, and seventy percent of the electorate now votes (according to polls) for the current Serbian opposition.

The winner, however, has a different nature. He is acceptable to the international community: for two months he has joined the same international organizations as the former republics of Yugoslavia. For the time being, he also has a informative and political advantage, thanks to his intellectual capacity, thanks to the lack of his opponents' political sense, for example in Presevo Valley.

2. Churchill allegedly said that the Balkans produces more history that it can consume. This would be completed with: it produces more paradoxes than it can solve.

For example: Kostunica is a democrat accepted by the west, but two of his supporting men in the security aspect are General Pavkovic, the Army Chief appointed by Milosevic, and Markovic, the Chief of Serb State Security.

For example: "The Red Berets", a notorious unit responsible of murders in all the wars in former Yugoslavia, are deployed in Presevo Valley, but in the international media Albanian guerillas have more negative visibility.

For example: in Presevo Valley, there is an involvement of Kosovar citizens, be it military or political, thus shaking Serbia's territorial integrity, because it is in the interest of Kosovar citizens to stop the artificial division of northern Kosovo. 

For example: The new chief of Belgrade's representative at UNMIK, will be the leader of a political organization of Kosovo Serbs, even though it is in the interest of Kosovo Serbs to represent themselves as locals and not as people coming from Serbia.

For example: Some representatives of Kosovo Serbs request the holding of Serbian elections in Kosovo, which should elect deputies to a parliament that has no competencies in Kosovo according to UN Security Council Resolution 1244.

3. During this century, the last days of which we are going through (according to the mathematical and not commercial counting), the regime in Belgrade had two choices: they will either be heading Serbia, or Yugoslavia. Sometimes during this century, and Milosevic proved this the best, the border between a Great Serbia and the small Yugoslavia completely disappeared.

As from next week, the new authorities in Belgrade can choose between two historical roads: the Milosevician deceit that they are living in a Yugoslavia, or the in-creating reality that they are living in a building country called Serbia.

Both cases require using the term nationalism. But in the first case, we face cruelty of the expansionism of a Great Serbia, while in the second one we are dealing with the internal analysis of the Serb body.

Serb leaders are in front of solving a paradox. During the entire decade, the nationalists of former Yugoslavia were engaged in their national states. Only Serb nationalists were engaged for the Serbia called Yugoslavia. Now for the first time, they have to call their state Serbia, in accordance with the name of nationalism.

4. A fresh joke from Belgrade.

After a long time spent indoors, Milosevic and his wife decide to take a walk.

Still fearing, they decide to mask themselves: Milosevic puts on fake moustaches and a wig, while his wife colors her hair blonde and puts on a scarf.

While walking the streets they run into two nuns.

"Hi, Mr. President, hi Mira," says one of the nuns.

Milosevic and his wife are surprised by the fact that they have been recognized.

"Do not worry," says the other nun. "We are the Karic brothers".

5. One day after the results of elections will be known and when for the first time there will be an anti-totalitarian declared government in Serbia, it will confront with a state that has fought wars against people for ten years in a row.

While looking in the mirror, no artifact masking will help the new Serb government. Neither wigs, nor moustaches, scarves nor nun clothes."      

Annex: Transcript of a column by Zenun Çelaj, Zëri, p.1

CONFEDERACY! BETWEEN WHOM?

Once upon a time, many years ago, when the Albanians' slight autonomy they had in the Yugoslav Federation was threatened, as a sign of protest the Albanians organized protest marches, hunger strikes, wrote appeals and demonstrated. Then the changes occurred, years of suffering under the state's terror began, which ended with the war that took so many victims and shocked the world.

"We have waited five hundred years for this day, especially during the last decade we have lost our patience," Albanians said after the biblical sufferings when they returned to the Kosovo burnt down to ashes, after the 12th August 1999. Even the ones who used to think that the past could be forgotten would affirm "here ends every illusion of living together with the ones who brought us to this very day'. The taste of living in freedom has revived the mind and strengthened the conviction that there is no going back to the past. Kosovo's independence has turned into vital nutrition to the soul of every Kosovar.

It is not a coincidence that the idea from East River and the first man of the United Nations to rearrange the part of the Balkans that still calls itself Yugoslavia, and create a confederacy which include Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, an idea that was refused in Kosovo with all the advanced point of views for Kosovo's future status. Regardless of the present situation, the future status depends on the Kosovars. However, we have to wait for the results of general elections, which have been pre-announced for next year. The elected representatives will have the final word, which will hopefully be the will and the opinion of the people.

It would be difficult for the disagreeing parties to live together. Apart from the shed blood, the Albanians and Serbs have differences in their language, culture and mentality.