Iván Kostov (L. Magán).

El primer ministro de Bulgaria, Iván Kostov, un doctor en Economía de 50 años que preside un Gobierno de centroderecha, se lamenta de la burocracia que impide a Bulgaria limpiar el Danubio con sus propias fuerzas en sólo 20 días. Kostov, que ha concluido una visita a España, recibió a EL PAÍS en su hotel de Madrid.

Según Kostov, la reciente cumbre europea de Niza "ha puesto fin al pesimismo y la desconfianza de Bulgaria al recibir una garantía de la Unión Europea". Para entrar en la UE, "el 2006 es el plazo que nos hemos fijado. Esto significa que, tras la primera tanda de países, podremos llevar adelante las negociaciones y aprovechar la experiencia de los que han entrado antes de nosotros".

Para Kostov, los problemas para Bulgaria ante la UE son "el bajo nivel de ingresos y la insuficiencia de las inversiones. Han empezado a entrar, pero estamos muy retrasados. También habrá problemas con el medio ambiente, control de las emisiones, transformación de residuos y depuración de aguas. Todo esto llevará tiempo".

No cree Kostov que la posibilidad de veto de España sobre los fondos estructurales de la UE plantee dificultades: "El año 2006 o 2007, cuando se apruebe el siguiente presupuesto, habrá algún cambio sobre los fondos estructurales. Tampoco he oído a otros ministros que se deba poner el acento en este tema. La gente en el poder en los países de Europa central y oriental son realistas, aunque quizá haya habido expectativas de que un ingreso más rápido habría permitido acceder más pronto a los fondos estructurales. La decisión de España no afecta a Bulgaria, porque el plazo que hemos fijado es el 2006 y estamos en ese plazo".

Bulgaria ha padecido las consecuencias de la guerra de Kosovo: "No hemos sufrido porque algunos misiles cayesen sobre territorio búlgaro, incluso uno cerca de Sofia, sino desde el punto de vista económico. El embargo cortó los lazos de Bulgaria con Europa. Teníamos que movernos por rutas secundarias y el Danubio quedó bloqueado. Las pérdidas hasta que dejamos de contar alcanzaron los 200 millones de dólares [casi 4.000 millones de pesetas]. Esto nos llevó a incumplir el programa de crecimiento económico. Esperábamos un 4% y lo corregimos dos veces hasta bajar a un 2,4%. Las pérdidas de la guerra de Kosovo son impresionantes".

Según Kostov, "la navegación por el Danubio es la columna vertebral del Pacto de Estabilidad [para los Balcanes]. Bulgaria participará con recursos financieros en el proceso de limpiar el Danubio, pero depende de la burocracia. Si no fuera la burocracia, nosotros, con nuestro propio esfuerzo, podríamos limpiarlo en 20 días". Se ríe a la pregunta de qué burocracia es peor, la del antiguo partido comunista o la de Bruselas: "La burocracia nunca es buena y siempre perjudica. La diferencia entre la burocracia comunista y la europea es que aquélla estaba en el poder y lo utilizaba para imponerse y alcanzar sus objetivos".

Kostov admite que existe una cierta nostalgia del pasado comunista en Bulgaria, "sobre todo en los más viejos. Una nostalgia de su juventud que coincidió con el comunismo y eso es natural. También existe una nostalgia de la seguridad que daba el comunismo. La gente no necesitaba asumir riesgos y decidir por sí misma. El sistema decidía por ellos".

No teme Kostov que la democratización de Serbia quite ayuda a Bulgaria: "Eso podría ocurrir, pero será muy positivo. Esperamos que el proceso democrático en Serbia resuelva los problemas de seguridad en la región". Para Kostov, lo peor es la guerra, porque "aleja a los inversores extranjeros y provoca grandes pérdidas y criminalidad en la sociedad. Las pérdidas son enormes".

Kostov asegura: "Prefiero que nos quiten ayudas y no sufrir las pérdidas que produce la guerra. Hace tiempo que no recibimos ayudas. Bulgaria hace tiempo que ayuda a Yugoslavia, porque es consciente de la gravedad de la situación".

The Yugoslav President, Vojislav Kostunica, has "cleansed" the ranks of his country's diplomats of cronies of Slobodan Milosevic, starting with the former president's brother, Borislav, the ambassador to Moscow. The ambassador to Britain, Rade Drobac, has also been sacked and is expected to be replaced by a Kostunica aide, Vladeta Jankovic.

A list of 17 diplomats recalled from their posts includes one of Serbia's top secret policemen and ambassadors to Macedonia, Israel, Jordan, Libya, China, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Although not all the diplomats have been called home for their role in the last regime – some are elderly – there is no doubt why Zoran Janackovic has been recalled from Skopje. As a senior intelligence officer from Belgrade, he was almost declared persona non grata by the Macedonian authorities during Nato's bombing of Serbia last year. The ambassador to China, Slobodan Unkovic, was a professor with links to Mr Milosevic's wife, Mira, whose enthusiasm for China was one of the wonders of Serbia. Much – if not most – of the Milosevic family millions is thought to be in Shanghai banks.

But the most prominent figure is Mr Milosevic's brother. Much of the Milosevic regime's money was channelled through Russia, where Borislav Milosevic was a spokesman for the regime during the Kosovo war. Other changes will affect the envoys to the US and France.

YUGOSLAVIA: The wife of toppled Yugoslav president Mr Slobodan Milosevic has branded the Hague tribunal the "gestapo" of the 20th century and blamed British Foreign Secretary Mr Robin Cook for an alleged NATO attempt to kill her daughter.

In a rare press appearance, Mrs Mirijana Markovic, the head of the Yugoslav Left party, which shared power with Milosevic's Socialists until the October uprising, said: "The Hague tribunal is the concentration camp and gas chamber of the 20th century."

She said she blamed herself for endangering her children with an open letter to British Foreign secretary Robin Cook after he alleged that they were out of the country during Nato bombing. Days after she had written that they were in Yugoslavia, a NATO missile struck the television station in Belgrade where her daughter Marija had been working.

Ms Markovic's rare appearance was a bid to rally support for her party, which has virtually disintegrated in the last two months, before crucial elections in Serbia next Saturday.

In a rambling interview lasting more than 90 minutes, she said the left coalition of the former regime had "won the elections, but lost power" in the federal poll because the Montenegrin socialists had defected to the anti-Milosevic coalition.

But she said she was optimistic about the future of left-wing forces. Asked about money and property that the family had allegedly hidden away, she said. "My family didn't get rich at all. In general we are a family that doesn't have a feeling for material values."

Her appearance followed a few days after the first television interview by Mr Milosevic, who was re-elected president of the Socialists at a November party conference.

The couple's public interviews come as the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) coalition, which won a landslide victory in September's election, continued to show massive leads in all opinion polls.

The Strategic Marketing group estimated that DOS will gain three-quarters of the seats in the new Serbian parliament. It is in fact so certain of victory that it has announced that Mr Zoran Djindjic, head of the Democratic Party, will be prime minister and he has already named his cabinet.

"The key issue in these elections is ending the era of Milosevic," said Mr Miljenko Dereta of the non-government group Civic Initiatives.

The new republic government will replace a temporary one formed after the October uprising in which each ministry has three ministers.

Mr Milosevic meanwhile is growing increasingly isolated and power is seeping from him. The Socialist party has fractured dramatically, with two rival groups already set up headed by former party officials.

Across Belgrade, posters of the youth resistance movement Otpor cover billboards. The slogan is "Overi" which means "finish the job".

Responding to an appeal by Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, Serbs lifted road blockades Friday they had erected to demand the government expel Albanian-separatist rebels from a buffer zone along the boundary with Serbia's occupied Kosovo province.

The move came despite efforts by allies of ousted president Slobodan Milosevic to continue the protest near the zone where Albanian militants captured several strategic points in an offensive last month.

People at the barricades, many of them Serbs unable to return home in NATO-controlled Kosovo because of the fighting, demanded authorities drive Albanian rebels from the area.

``I know how deep your hardships are...the extremists here terrorize both ethnic communities,'' Kostunica wrote in a letter. ``The trouble here is as much Serb as it is Albanian.''

Albanians, who make up the majority of the population in Kosovo, want full independence not only for Kosovo but also in the five-kilometre buffer zone between Kosovo and Serbia.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Dec 16 (AFP) - Kosovo's new UN administrator will take office next month in a province where deep-seated ethnic hatred still remains the biggest obstacle to a peace settlement, despite the progress of moderate politicians in both Belgrade and Pristina.

Vojislav Kostunica's democratic election as president of Yugoslavia and pacifist leader Ibrahim Rugova's success in Kosovo's first post war election gave some commentators grounds to hope that discussions might soon begin on the breakaway province's final status.

But the passions raised among their respective electorates by the sovereignty question leave neither leader with much room to manoeuvre, and both have restated hardline positions on the issue since their poll victories.

"It doesn't matter who is in power, it will change nothing," warns Balkan analyst Llazar Semini of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, "There is too much hate on both sides.

"You must not forget that the war ended just a year and a half ago. You don't forget ten years of discrimination in that time," he told AFP, remembering the decade-long repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority instituted by Kostunica's hated predecessor, Slobodan Milosevic.

"We might have to wait 20 or 30 years," Semini said.

As Kosovo reaches the end of its first full year as a UN protectorate all the signs are that the province's new de facto governor, former Danish defence minister Hans Haekkerup, will be faced with the same deep seated prejudices as those which plagued the reign of outgoing chief Bernard Kouchner.

Ethnic Albanian extremists continue to carry out attacks on Serb civilians living within Kosovo and send the arms and reinforcements which are fuelling a low-level guerrilla war between Albanian guerrillas and Serb forces in southern Serbia itself.

Some 200,000 non-Albanians have fled the province since the end of the war fearing reprisals, and the 100,000 Serbs who remain live for the most part in enclaves under the constant protection of the 43,000 strong NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force.

For its part the regime in Belgrade has made soothing noises about minority rights and finding a negotiated settlement, but on certain key issues has failed to address Albanian demands.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, some 700 Kosovo Albanian political prisoners are still languishing in Serb jails 17 months after the end of the conflict. And Milosevic himself remains at liberty in Belgrade, despite demands that he be handed over to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Until these issues are resolved there is no question of Kosovo Albanian representatives entering talks with Belgrade, Semini argues.

And even if such talks were to begin, there is little sign of any common ground which could form the basis of an agreement. Kostunica reaffirmed Belgrade's claim to sovereignty over Kosovo -- considered by many in Serbia as the "cradle of the nation" -- in his inaugural address.

Rugova, who has been haunted by the oft-reprinted photograph of him shaking hands with Milosevic during an ill-fated attempt to negotiate an end to hostilities during the war, made independence the central plank of his party's programme, as did all of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian parties.

While the ethnic Albanian rebels in southern Serbia are observing a NATO-brokered ceasefire, violence continues in Kosovo. In the past week one Serb has been killed in a landmine explosion and two Serb homes targeted by grenade throwers.

Last month the home of Belgrade's top representative in the province was partially demolished and his driver killed in a bomb attack branded a "ruthless act of terrorism" by the head of central Kosovo's British-led peacekeeping brigade.

Despite the fighting, however, international administrators are taking heart in a more open attitude from Kostunica's regime, believing that if he gives the lead Serbs within Kosovo will be more willing to co-operate with UN structures.

But progress will be slow, they warn, and the fighting is far from over.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Dec 16 (AFP) - Gunmen ambushed two cars belonging to Kosovo Serbs returning to the province through a disputed demilitarised zone, injuring one of the passengers, US peacekeepers said Saturday.

The two cars were fired upon about a mile (two kilometres) inside southern Serbia in an area claimed by ethnic Albanian separatist rebels who wish to unite the region with Kosovo, Major Jim Marshall of Kosovo's NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force said.

"Soldiers at a KFOR checkpoint inside Kosovo heard automatic gunfire nearby moments before the two cars with the Kosovar-Serb men drove up to the checkpoint," he said.

"Both cars had bullet holes and one man suffered two wounds on his arm. He was treated on site by US soldiers. There were no other injuries," he added.

The Serbs were approaching the boundary between Kosovo and Serbia proper at Mucibaba on the road leading up from the town of Presevo, one of three municipalities in the Presevo valley claimed by ethnic Albanian rebels.

The Liberation Army of Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac (UCPMB) operate in a three-mile wide (five-kilometre) demilitarized buffer zone that runs along the boundary from which both Yugoslav and KFOR troops are banned.

Last month the UCPMB launched an offensive seizing the town of Konculj and killing at least three Serb policemen before KFOR could broker a fragile ceasefire.

KFOR have tightened security on the frontier in an attempt to cut off the rebels' supply lines from Kosovo, where ethnic Albanian guerrillas launched a similar rebellion against Yugoslav rule in 1998.

Kosovo has been guarded by KFOR and run by the United Nations since June 1999.

The Belgrade authorities have repeatedly accused the international authorities of not doing enough to stop rebels and arms crossing into Serbia proper.

"We do not support armed elements that pursue conflict. We will continue to monitor this situation," Marshall said.

PRISTINA (Yugoslavia), Dec 15 (AFP) - A member of the moderate Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) was shot on Friday near the province's central town of Malisevo, a spokesman for peacekeeping forces in the area said.

Fetah Rudi was wounded when gunmen opened fire on the recently elected local councillor who was driving on the road between Malisevo and Pristina, the regional capital, KFOR spokesman Tim Pearce told journalists.

Rudi was taken to hospital in Pristina where he is said to be in a non-critical state. No-one has yet been arrested in connection with the attack.

The incident brings to five the number of people from the LDK attacked since local elections were held in October this year.

On November 23, Xhemajl Mustafa, political adviser to the democratic league's leader Ibrahim Rugova was shot dead in a building in Pristina. Two other elected officials and a third person were also wounded in the attack.

The LDK won a landslide victory in municipal elections on October 28, taking control of 21 of the province's 30 councils including Pristina and all its major towns.

The outcome provoked fears of a backlash from hardline elements in rival parties which sprung from the ethnic Albanian guerrilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Army.

In the October elections, Malisevo, which had previously been a stronghold of separatist Albanian guerrillas -- politically closest to the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) -- fell to the moderate LDK.

Since the end of November, KFOR troops and UN peacekeepers have been acting as bodyguards for several members of the LDK.

BRUSSELS, Dec 15 (AFP) - NATO and Russia took a symbolic but important step towards putting their relations back on track Friday, agreeing to reopen a NATO information office in Moscow that was closed at the start of last year's Kosovo conflict.

The step forward came as Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov met his NATO counterparts for the second time this year, and invited NATO Secretary General George Robertson to visit the Russian capital as soon as he practicably can.

"We see it as being our task to strive for dialogue with a view to creating a European architecture in which every country is guaranteed security," Ivanov told a press conference alongside Lord Robertson.

Robertson said "a lot of work remains to be done" to rebuild bridges with NATO's erstwhile Cold War foe.

"NATO and Russia don't agree on everything," he said, adding however that regular NATO-Russia meetings have established a means of dialogue "without using megaphones across a continent."

The information office that is to reopen in Moscow shortly was abruptly shut down when Russia expelled NATO's envoy a day after the start of NATO air strikes against Yugsolavia.

The 11-week campaign forced Belgrade to surrender Kosovo to UN administration and a NATO-led security force that includes a Russian military contingent.

In addition, Russia agreed Friday to participate in a joint search and rescue exercise with NATO in 2001, on the heels of the loss earlier this year of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk.

Ivanov last met his NATO colleagues in May in Florence, Italy where he made headlines by suggesting that the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was politicially biased.

The Hague-based court has indicted former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in connection with war crimes commited by Serbian forces against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Harking back to the fact that NATO intervened in Kosovo without an explicit UN mandate, Ivanov said productive NATO-Russian cooperation could only happen "if we strictly adhere to international law" including the UN Charter.

Ivanov was scheduled to have breakfast Saturday in Brussels with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as the Clinton administration prepares to pass the White House to President-elect George W. Bush.

Speaking inside the NATO-Russia meeting, Albright called the Balkans a "key testing ground" for relations, but warned that it was "not helpful" for Russia to press for a resolution of Kosovo's final status so long as Belgrade's new democratic government has other priorities.

"The ongoing conflict in Chechnya remains deeply troubling," she added. "It has long been plain that a political process is required to end the fighting and allow the Chechens to resume a normal life."

MOSCOW, Dec 16 (AFP) - Russia will increase its loan to Yugoslavia by 30 million dollars to finance deliveries of Russian products to the Balkan country, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov told the cabinet to prepare the signing of an appendix to the original 1997 accord between the two countries, amending the loan amount from 150 million dollars to 180 million.

Russia's finance and trade ministries will hold talks with Yugoslavia and sign the appendix on behalf of the Russian government once they reach an agreement.

Under the terms of the accord, which was signed on December 3, 1997, Russia grants Yugoslavia a loan that Belgrade would use to purchase Russian products, equipment and services, the news agency reported.

LUCANE, Yugoslavia, Dec 15 (AFP) - Ethnic Albanian separatists have increasingly infiltrated southern Serbia's Presevo valley, strengthening their presence in the region near Kosovo, a Serbian police officer told AFP here Friday.

"The longer we wait for a solution, the more (the guerrillas) will strengthen their positions and infiltrate" into the demilitarized zone along the borders of the UN-administrated province, said the policeman, who asked not to be a named.

Thus the rebels would be able to get even to the suburbs of nearby towns of Vranje and Bujanovac, said the policeman, a member of the Serb special police units deployed in the north of the Albanian-populated village Lucane.

Ethnic Albanian guerrillas, demanding the region with its large Albanian population be grafted on to breakaway Kosovo, have clashed frequently with Serbian police recently and control sections of the demilitarized border zone.

The self-proclaimed Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) has set up bases in the buffer zone on the Serbian side of the administrative boundary with Kosovo.

"The extremists now control the Sveti Elija mountain," the policeman said, and have "multiplied their incursions" into the territory.

He also noted that "enemy infiltrations have also been observed in the direction of Bujanovac," some six kilometers (four miles) east of Lucane.

North of Lucane, in the Albanian-populated village of Veliki Trnovac, local officials of the moderate political grouping, the Party for Democratic Action, also warned of the guerrillas.

"The guerrillas come here more (and more) often, we do not know what to do," one of them told AFP.

The Serbian police presence in numerous ethnic Albanian-owned houses in Lucane outraged one old man. "This is a shame," he told AFP before turning away.

Villagers did not welcome AFP to their community. "If you want to talk with the (Serb) police more, it is better for you to leave," said one ethnic Albanian standing in a group in front of a shop filled with Red Cross food packages.

"The police prevent us from moving around, from bringing in food and other goods, from going to work, this is unbearable," some men complained, insisting they had no contacts with the guerrillas.

Another man insisted: "When will both of them go, when will our life return to normal?"

Nearby, a bearded young man spoke of "our army," recalling the deployment of the rebels of the UCPMB in the nearby mountains.

Police have confirmed they have regularly observed guerrilla "raids" in Lucane, entering houses in the village.

"We are taking many risks," one of the policemen said. "The guerrillas are very well informed of everything we do, of our equipment."

He pointed to a spot where three of his colleagues just escaped sniper fire on Wednesday morning.

"We did not return fire, it is out of the question to respond to provocations, we still give diplomacy chance to resolve this conflict," he added.

But hundreds of Serbs, who on Friday gave up their three-day blockade of the main road here between southern Serbia and Macedonia, have turned a deaf ear towards such calls.

They have demanded the use of force to expel the UCPMB guerillas from the buffer zone and the territory of Serbia proper, and full police control of the road linking Bujanovac with Kosovo, through Lucane.

NICOSIA, Dec 15 (AFP) - The Cyprus Supreme Court dismissed an appeal Friday from a Yugoslav bank linked to former president Slobodan Milosevic that wants to resume operations on the island.

Cyprus' central bank in May revoked the license of Beogradska Bank, which had been the island's biggest offshore banking unit since 1988, saying it had failed to settle accounts.

But Western suspicion has focused on Beogradska as the main instrument of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's in his alleged laundering of funds into foreign bank accounts.

Supreme Court Judge Andreas Kramvis dismissed Beogradska's argument that the central bank made its decision to close down the bank because of international pressure.

"From the evidence, the central bank's decision was taken after studying auditors' reports, collecting facts and figures and then concluding the foreign bank was unable to meet its creditors," read Kramvis' decision.

He added: "There is no tangible evidence which supports the appellant's claim that the decision was the result of outside pressure."

On December 1, the Yugoslav National Bank announced that US Treasury officials had traced one billion dollars of Milosevic's money that went to secret accounts in Cyprus.

The Cypriot government and central bank have contested Yugoslav National Bank Governor Mladjan Dinkic's charges.

UN War Crimes Tribunal Prosecutor Carla del Ponte has since contacted the Cypriot authorities and asked them to investigate the latest accusations. The government is already carrying out a probe and has frozen a dozen companies' Yugoslav accounts as requested by del Ponte in October.

Beogradska struggled after international sanctions were slapped on Yugoslavia in 1992, with a freeze on all state assets and transactions.

During his presidency, Milosevic and his cohorts allegedly embezzled billions and amassed fortunes through contraband smuggling, gun running and drug trafficking.

At least 350 Yugoslav state-owned companies did business in Cyprus between 1988 and 1992.

LUCANE (Yougoslavie), 15 déc (AFP) - Les séparatistes albanais multiplient les infiltrations dans la vallée de Presevo et renforcent leur implantation dans cette partie du sud de la Serbie, s'inquiètent policiers et Albanais modérés dans la région.

"Plus la solution au problème de la présence des maquisards albanais dans la montagne jouxtant le Kosovo se fait attendre, mieux ces derniers s'installent et s'infiltrent au-delà de la zone qu'ils occupent", une portion de quelque 200 km2, le long de la province administrée par l'ONU, affirme à l'AFP un officier de police serbe.

Celui-ci, membre d'une section des unités spéciales stationnée dans la partie nord du village albanais de Lucane, adossé au massif montagneux que contrôlent les séparatistes, fait état d'infiltrations aux abords des villes de Vranje (80.000 habitants) et Bujanovac (16.000 habitants).

"Les extrémistes contrôlent désormais le Mont Sveti Elija (1274 m)", qui domine Vranje, assure l'officier, et "multiplient les incursions" sur le territoire de la municipalité.

"Des infiltrations ennemies sont aussi observées en direction de Bujanovac, située à six km à l'est de Lucane. Si elles se poursuivent, elles peuvent conduire à un encerclement de la position que nous tenons ici. Nous sommes prêts à y faire face", a encore déclaré l'officier.

Au nord de Lucane, dans la localité albanaise de Veliki Trnovac (8.000 habitants), des responsables locaux du Parti d'action démocratique (PPD), mouvement albanais modéré, lancent un cri d'alarme. "Les maquisards viennent ici de plus en plus souvent, nous ne savons plus quoi faire", affirme l'un d'entre eux à l'AFP.

A Lucane, dans la partie non contrôlée par la police serbe, la tension est vive. L'occupation de plusieurs maisons d'Albanais par les forces de sécurité indigne un vieil homme. "C'est une honte", lance-t-il à l'AFP, avant de presser le pas.

Le journaliste n'est visiblement plus le bienvenu dans le village. "On vous voit trop souvent parler aux policiers, il vaut mieux dégager", dit un groupe d'Albanais devant une boutique d'où certains retirent des sacs de vivres de la Croix rouge.

"Les policiers nous empêchent de nous déplacer, de nous approvisionner, de nous rendre à notre travail, ça devient insupportable", se plaignent ces hommes. Tous assurent n'avoir aucun contact avec les séparatistes.

"Que les uns et les autres s'en aillent, que la vie reprenne normalement", lâche l'un d'eux.

Pourtant, un jeune barbu parle de "notre armée" lorsqu'il évoque le déploiement dans la montagne des combattants de l'Armée de libération des villes de Presevo-Medvedja-Bujanovac (UCPMB) à forte population albanaise.

De leur côté, les policiers affirment observer régulièrement des "descentes" de maquisards dans Lucane et entrer dans des maisons.

Les propriétaires albanais des fermes dans lesquelles les forces de sécurité se sont installées vont et viennent. "Nous prenons beaucoup de risques", souligne un policier.

"Les maquisards sont parfaitement renseignés sur tout ce que nous faisons, nos équipements, la disposition de nos matériels et effectifs", ajoute-t-il.

Le policier montre l'endroit où trois de ses collègues ont essuyé les tirs, mercredi matin, d'un sniper. "Nous n'avons pas riposté, pas question de répondre aux provocations, laissons encore une chance à la diplomatie pour régler le conflit", poursuit le policier.

Mais les centaines de Serbes qui bloquent la nationale Nis-Skopje, à hauteur de Bujanovac, depuis mercredi, ne l'entendent pas de cette oreille.

Ils exigent, avant de lever le barrage --qui bloque une centaine de camions-- l'expulsion par la force de l'UCPMB et la reprise du contrôle par la police serbe de la route menant de Bujanovac au Kosovo, via Lucane.

PRISTINA (Yougoslavie), 15 déc (AFP) - Dans une ruelle de Pristina, la "capitale" du Kosovo, une soixantaine d'Albanais se bousculent devant le bureau de la représentation yougoslave gardé par l'OTAN. Ils viennent chercher leur passeport yougoslave, indispensable pour voyager, mais qui leur rappelle douloureusement leur appartenance à la Yougoslavie.

"J'ai honte de venir ici. Tellement de Serbes nous ont tués, et là je dois faire appel à eux pour avoir mon passeport", explique un Albanais dans la file d'attente, en chuchotant pour ne pas se faire remarquer.

Pour les Albanais, majoritaires au Kosovo, la province ne fait plus partie de la République fédérale de Yougoslavie (RFY) depuis l'arrivée de la communauté internationale en juin 1999.

La mise sous tutelle onusienne du Kosovo conduira inéluctablement à l'indépendance, selon eux. Ils oublient toutefois que l'ONU a pour mission de doter la province d'une "autonomie substantielle" au sein de la RFY.

Pour voyager, les Albanais sont donc condamnés à avoir un passeport yougoslave. "J'ai refusé pendant un an et demi de venir à la représentation yougoslave. Mais aujourd'hui, je n'ai pas d'autre solution. C'est une démarche difficile, car je ne reconnais pas la RFY comme mon pays", avoue un autre Albanais, un des rares à accepter de parler.

Comme tous ceux qui font la queue, il souhaite garder l'anonymat, par crainte de représailles de la part de ses compatriotes.

"Depuis juin 1999, je paie un Allemand qui m'approvisionne en céramique depuis l'Europe. Ca me coûte trop cher", explique ce commerçant, qui raconte s'être fait confisquer son précédent passeport par les Serbes pendant la guerre. Avec ses nouveaux papiers, il pourra se rendra lui-même en Europe.

Sourire aux lèvres et passeport en poche, un Albanais tout blond sort du bureau de la représentation yougoslave, qui est caché derrière un immense portail en fer où huit militaires de l'OTAN montent la garde jour et nuit.

"Je vais pouvoir rejoindre ma femme qui habite en Croatie, me faire naturaliser et me débarrasser de cet infâme document. C'est une nouvelle vie qui commence", lance le jeune homme.

Les Albanais ne franchissent le grand portail qu'au compte-gouttes. Les militaires les fouillent ensuite minutieusement. En août, une bombe a explosé dans l'immeuble qui abrite, en plus de la représentation yougoslave, les partis politiques du Kosovo. La cible visée n'a jamais été déterminée.

Pour les passeports, tout se joue au rez-de-chaussée du bâtiment, dans un cagibi sans fenêtre. Faute d'électricité, trois employés serbes travaillent porte ouverte, à la lumière du jour.

Depuis juin 1999, c'est le seul endroit légal au Kosovo où la population peut se procurer des passeports. En un an et demi, la représentation yougoslave en a délivré 51.500, dont 95% pour des Albanais, selon le responsable du bureau, qui a requis l'anonymat.

Le passeport est valable dix ans, il coûte 50 deutschmarks (23 dollars ou 26 euros) et il faut compter un mois pour l'obtenir.

Il y a plus rapide, mais aussi plus cher. Mimosa a payé 800 deutschmarks un Albanais qui "collabore avec les Serbes" pour obtenir son passeport en moins d'une semaine. "C'est le prix pour éviter l'humiliation" d'aller à la représentation yougoslave, explique-t-elle.

"Depuis un an et demi, je suis clouée au Kosovo. Jamais je n'aurais imaginé avoir de nouveau un passeport yougoslave, mais l'ONU n'a pas tenu ses promesses, alors j'y ai été obligée", raconte cette jeune femme de 22 ans, en mal de voyages.

Après un retard de près de six mois, l'ONU devrait délivrer d'ici la fin de l'année les premiers papiers d'identité. Ils permettront d'avoir accès à des documents de voyage, et non à un passeport, avec la mention "résident du Kosovo".

BELGRADE, Dec 15, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Ethnic Albanian guerrillas trying to unite a region of southern Serbia with the breakaway province of Kosovo are planning new attacks to coincide with Serbia's December 23 elections, an ally of Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica said Thursday.

Zoran Djindjic, tipped by Kostunica's Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) bloc to head the future government, said the guerrillas "are preparing a new offensive between December 20 and 30," Beta news agency reported.

"This is a serious threat ... to Serbia's position in the Balkans. The consequences will be bigger if we do nothing now," Djindjic said, without giving further details of the "offensive."

The self-proclaimed Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) has set up bases in the demilitarized zone on the Serbian side of the administrative boundary with Kosovo, making the most of a ban on any Serbian heavy forces entering the zone.

An indefinite ceasefire was agreed on by both sides after four days of clashes which left three Serbian police officers dead late last month, but both sides have since accused the other of breaking the accord.

Several hundred Serbs have been protesting since Wednesday at the junction of the main road near the buffer zone, demanding that the UCPMB "terrorists be expelled" from the area.

The road, the main link between Serbia and neighboring Macedonia and Greece, has been blocked since the start of the protests, with several hundred trucks prevented from further movement along the motorway.

The DOS, which has a clear lead ahead of the polls, has launched a "diplomatic initiative" to prevent further violence, Djindjic said, but insisted that "it is an imperative to react immediately, even with no compromises."

"The international community will not pull the chestnuts out of the fire for us," Djindjic said.

He added that "the maximum we should expect is an accord to do our job on our territory and as more time passes, we will have less chances to get that accord, and there will be more victims."

SYDNEY, Dec 16 (AFP) - Australia has started easing bilateral restrictions imposed on Yugoslavia in step with the wider international community, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Saturday.

The restrictions, put in place to penalise Yugoslavia's former president Slobodan Milosevic, were being lifted to support the democratic elements in the new Yugoslav administration.

"In doing so, we are moving in step with the broad international community," Downer said in a statement.

Australia, along with the United States, the European Union and other Western allies, imposed financial sanctions on dealings with the Milosevic regime.

Visa restrictions were also in place to prevent members of the former Yugoslav government from visiting Australia.

"Australia will now ease financial restrictions against Yugoslavia, consistent with its United Nations obligations and will also remove restrictions on the issue of visas to individual Yugoslav government officials," Downer said.

"We shall do so, however, in such a way as to avoid providing any benefit for known supporters of the former Milosevic regime, including possible indicted war criminals who may seek entry to Australia."

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) _ A local leader of a moderate Kosovo Albanian political party was shot and seriously wounded Friday, a U.N. spokeswoman announced.

Fetah Rudi, a member of the newly established municipal assembly of Malisevo from Ibrahim Rugova's party, was shot by an unknown assailant while sitting in his car, spokeswoman Susan Manuel said.

She said Rudi was rushed to a hospital in the Kosovo capital Pristina in serious condition. She said no suspects had been arrested so far.

Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo defeated leaders of the former rebel Kosovo Liberation Army in municipal elections in October. Malisevo was a key stronghold of the KLA during the Kosovo conflict.

However, moderates won the local elections in Malisevo by a slight margin.

International officials had expressed concern at the time that some of the losers in the election might not accept by the results.

Pristina (dpa) - A Kosovo Serb man was injured in a shooting incident on Friday in the buffer zone between Serbia and its southern province of Kosovo, the KFOR peacekeeping force said Saturday.

Soldiers at a KFOR border checkpoint near the town of Mucibaba, in East Kosovo, heard bursts of automatic gunfire about 5 p.m., a statement said. Shortly afterwards, two cars arrived at the checkpoint. Both contained bullet holes.

One of the two Kosovo Serb drivers had injuries to his arm, KFOR said.

No arrests have been made.

BRUSSELS December 16 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and NATO have mapped out several measures to promote their dialogue on European security. Summing up the results of the meeting of the Russia-NATO Permanent Joint Council, which was held in the Belgian capital, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who is also co-chairman of the Council, said that the discussion was positive and projected into the future. A plan was drawn up for the Council's work in 2001 and the sides have agreed to open a NATO Information Office in Moscow. NATO Secretary-General George Robertson will pay a visit to Russia at the invitation of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Addressing a press confrence here, Ivanov said that the sides were successfully cooperating in peace-making operations on the Balkans, including Kosovo. This region can be turned into a zone of stability only by implementing without fail Resolution 1244 of the U.N. Security Council, he noted.

The Russian Foreign Minister pinpointed also such accords with NATO as the agreement on cooperation during search and rescue operations at sea, the agreement to retrain Russian servicemen transfered to the reserve. The dialogue between the two sides will also include problems of armaments control, nonproliferation of mass destruction weapons and a whole line of other questions.

Robertson said that the Russo-Nato dialogue had returned to the normal rut after an interval and that the sides were striving to find common approaches to problems on which their stands still do not coincide today.

BELGRADE December 16 (Itar-Tass) - A joint visiting session of the governments of Yugoslavia and Serbia will be held on Saturday at Bujanovac, Southern Serbia, devoted to the situation in that explosive region of the country.

The disengagement line between the Serbian security forces and armed Albanian extremists, who had invaded the demilitarised zone around Kosovo, runs close to that Serbian town. The invaders have occupied within this zone six villages that are mostly inhabited by ethnic Albanians. Further provocations are possible, especially since parliamentary elections are to be held in Serbia on December 23.

The blockade of the railways and motor roads, running across Bujanovac and Presevo districts, was lifted on Friday after more than 200 heavy trucks, as well as thousands of passenger cars got stuck there. Thousands of Serbians from Kosovo and from the foregoing districts had blocked all the roads for two days in protest against the provocations of Albanian terrorists and against the inaction of KFOR, which had "not noticed" the Albanian detachments passing through the territory that is under the control of these international forces. The protesters called on the authorities of Yugoslavia and Serbia to take tough steps against the extremists upto and including the use of army units. They want President Voislav Kostunica and other leaders of Yugoslavia and Serbia to come to their districts.

It is not ruled out that the blockade was lifted in reply to President Kostunica's appeal to the protesting Serbs. He urged them to be patient, since "the use of force will not do any good". He again went on record for the settlement of the problem in Southern Serbia by diplomatic means, and this needs time. "There were quite a lot of rash and unfounded decisions in the past decade. We cannot repeat the old mistakes neither as a nation nor as a state," Kostunica stressed in his message to the blockaders.

PRISTINA, Dec 15, 2000 -- (Reuters) NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo said on Thursday they had detained five suspected members of an ethnic Albanian guerrilla group blamed for an upsurge in violence in Serbia last month.

Military police from the KFOR force detained the men on Wednesday when stopping a van outside the town of Gnjilane, located near the administrative boundary between the province and Serbia proper, the peacekeepers said in a statement.

Twelve Kosovo Albanians traveling in the vehicle were held pending further investigation, the KFOR statement said.

Five of them were suspected of being guerrillas fighting for the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac -- named after three municipalities in Serbia with a large ethnic Albanian population.

The armed group, based in a five km (three mile) wide buffer zone in Serbia bordering Kosovo, say they are fighting to protect local Albanians from harassment by Serbian police.

Belgrade insists they are separatists intent on joining Serbia's Presevo Valley to ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo.

KFOR, blaming the guerrillas for last month's violence, has stepped up monitoring and surveillance of the boundary to stop any support from Kosovo. It has detained several guerrilla suspects and seized weapons in recent weeks.

The clashes last month left four Serbian police dead, alarming both the new Belgrade government and Western capitals hoping for an era of Balkan stability after the downfall of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in October.

The situation has been generally calm since, but allies of new Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica warned this week that the "terrorists" were planning new attacks to coincide with December 23 Serbian parliamentary elections.

On the Serbian side of the boundary, Serbs demanding that the guerrillas be removed from the buffer zone area blocked key traffic links for a second day near the town of Bujanovac on Thursday, state news agency Tanjug reported.

The protesters blocked the main road linking southern Serbia with the Macedonian capital Skopje as well as a railway, Tanjug said, adding the action caused queues stretching several kilometers (miles).

Separately, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had distributed food supplies this week for almost 20,000 people in 13 villages in the wider Bujanovac area with Serb, Albanian or mixed populations.

The villages have faced difficulties in getting food supplies due to the tension in the area, it said in a statement.

BELGRADE, Dec 15 (Reuters) - The wife of ousted Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic on Friday denounced the U.N. court which indicted him on Kosovo war crimes charges as a late 20th century Gestapo with cells equivalent to a concentration camp.

Mirjana Markovic, herself a politician and widely seen as a key influence on her husband, also denied during a rare news conference allegations that her family had grown wealthy during the turbulent years Milosevic was in power.

Milosevic was indicted last year by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, based in The Hague, for atrocities committed in Kosovo.

``The Hague Tribunal is the Gestapo of the late 20th century and its cells are a concentration camp, gas chambers,'' said Markovic, who trembled visibly during the news conference.

``Just as those were designed for disobedient nations in the mid-1900s, half a century later another Gestapo, another inquisition is established for disobedient peoples,'' she said.

She was responding to a woman reporter's question on what her advice to Milosevic would be -- to go to The Hague and defend himself or try to avoid the tribunal by all means.

``Your question is unusually sadistic considering your profession and your sex,'' Markovic said.

Her comments followed the same line as recent remarks made by her husband in the run-up to Serbian elections later this month. Analysts and his opponents say he has no chance of returning to power.

``My family has not got rich. We are a family without a developed sense for material values. Simply, there are such families,'' Markovic added during her first formal news conference since Milosevic lost power in October.

``In the past, people have been accused of being villains even though they tried to do good for the nation. But history is an encyclopedia of injustices rather than justices,'' she said.

Milosevic was forced by a popular uprising to concede election defeat to Vojislav Kostunica in federal elections.

Markovic rejected the view that her Yugoslav Left party had been responsible for the election defeat of the governing coalition loyal to Milosevic in federal parliamentary elections.

She blamed an ``external factor'' for Serbs' misfortunes. ``We have suffered so many traumas over the past four-five years that some nations do not experience in a lifetime,'' she said.

She cited the violent breakup of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, refugees coming to Serbia, years of sanctions, NATO's bombing campaign in 1999, droughts, floods and earthquakes as among major external influences which had hampered the country.

BELGRADE, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Police on Friday detained a close ally of ousted president Slobodan Milosevic on suspicion of fraud involving millions of dollars, the Serbian interior ministry said.

It was the first arrest of a senior figure in the Milosevic administration, whose decade in power was marked by conflict, economic mismanagement, and sanctions which fuelled smuggling.

The ministry said Mihalj Kertes, former head of Yugoslav customs, was suspected of having deprived the Yugoslav government budget of four million German marks ($1.84 million) and of 40 million dinars ($597,000 at the current rate) through abuse of power.

``There is well-founded suspicion that Kertes had also charged and made illegal payments in the amount of 2,870,070 marks ($1.32 million) and 31,062,080 dinars ($462,000) for unlawful customs duties while he was the federal customs office director,'' the statement said, without elaborating.

Earlier this week police took Kertes in for questioning as part of efforts to unveil corruption and power abuses during the Milosevic era.

The new Belgrade leadership has promised they will break with the old system and bring all those involved in corruption before the courts.

Kertes was a senior member of the Socialist Party (SPS) of Milosevic, ousted from power in early October after a popular uprising forced him to concede defeat to Vojislav Kostunica in presidential elections on September 24.

He was forced to resign from the position as director of the Yugoslav customs office immediately after Milosevic's downfall.

He was quoted earlier this month saying his office had financed the Socialists.

``It is true that the federal cutsoms office financed the SPS through me. I believe that parties forming occasional coalitions with the SPS were financed from the same source through the SPS,'' he told the Nedeljni Telegraf weekly.

The interior ministry said police would continue to investigate the responsibility of other individuals whose work was directly or indirectly related to the federal customs office, its property and resources.