En visite aujourd'hui à Paris, le nouveau président serbe Vojislav Kostunica rencontrera Jacques Chirac, Lionel Jospin et Hubert Védrine, pour discuter notamment de l'avenir

du Kosovo et de la tension dans le sud de la Serbie.

Seuls quelques vieux, silhouettes furtives sous la pluie froide, traversent les ruelles du village à première vue déserté de son gros millier d'habitants albanais. Il y a quinze jours, ils sont tous partis avec vaches et tracteurs vers le Kosovo, de l'autre côté de la ligne de crête. Les maisons et les deux épiceries sont encore intactes, mais Lucane, petit bourg de la commune de Bujanovac, dans le sud de la Serbie, est désormais une ligne de front de part et d'autre d'un petit pont à balustrade verte. «Ici, c'est comme à Mitrovica au Kosovo», ironise Fazil. Il n'a pas d'arme et assure être un paysan du village voisin. Mais il porte rangers et treillis. Sur la rive gauche de la rivière Morava, les forces spéciales serbes sont retranchées dans les maisons et les chars en position dans les champs. Sur la rive droite, juste après la mosquée, commence le territoire contrôlé par les combattants de l'UCPMB (Armée de libération de Presevo, Medvedje et Bujanovac). Ces trois communes comptent 120000 habitants, en majorité des Albanais de souche, qui rêvent d'être rattachés à un Kosovo qu'ils imaginent bientôt indépendant, ou du moins doté d'une large autonomie. La guérilla, dont les premières lignes sont désormais à un ou deux kilomètres à vol d'oiseau des trois chefs-lieux, tient sous son feu une partie des deux grandes routes vers le Kosovo, interdisant tout passage aux civils serbes.

Zone tampon. Une demi-douzaine d'hommes sont à couvert derrière un mur d'une ferme de Lucane. «Les Serbes nous traitent de terroristes mais l'UCPMB ne fait que défendre les gens contre leurs exactions», assurent-ils. L'UCPMB est pour eux ce qu'était l'UCK pour les Kosovars. Cette guérilla s'inspire des méthodes de l'ex-Armée de libération du Kosovo où nombre de ses cadres ont fait leur classe. Les maquisards tiennent de fait tous les villages de la «zone tampon», instaurée le long de la frontière depuis le déploiement de la Kfor au Kosovo, en juin 1999. Cette bande de 5 kilomètres de large est interdite à l'armée serbe et les policiers ne peuvent y pénétrer qu'avec des armes légères. A Lucane, la ligne passe au milieu du village.

«Nous n'allons plus de l'autre côté pour éviter les provocations et les pertes», explique, écœuré, un officier de la police spéciale. Il y a quinze jours, il a dû évacuer le dernier de ses postes pilonné pendant deux jours par des mortiers de l'UCPMB. Les armes continuent d'arriver du Kosovo. Les soldats américains de la Kfor n'arrivent pas à contrôler vraiment les sentiers de montagne. Les combats ont fait une quinzaine de morts en un an et plus de 20000 réfugiés. Les 1 200 kilomètres carrés de cette région sont un enjeu stratégique: la vallée de Presevo est le principal accès de la Serbie vers la Macédoine et la Grèce.

Diplomatie. Ce conflit potentiellement explosif est devenu la priorité du nouveau président yougoslave, Vojislav Kostunica. Une bonne partie de l'opinion publique presse pour la force. Le crédit international reconquis par Belgrade l'incite à parier sur la diplomatie. Kostunica demande à la Kfor de sécuriser la frontière avec le Kosovo. Sur le terrain se multiplient les initiatives pour rassurer la population. Samedi, les gouvernements de la Fédération et de la République de Serbie ont siégé ensemble dans la mairie de Bujanovac, pour montrer que Belgrade comptait bien défendre «l'intégrité et la sécurité du territoire contre le terrorisme».

«Les Serbes ont encore plus peur que pendant les bombardements» de l'Otan, souligne Caslav Angelkovic, conseiller municipal de Presevo. Mais la population albanaise s'inquiète, elle, du déploiement toujours plus massif de l'armée et de la police, aux abords de la zone tampon. A Bujanovac et Presevo, elles contrôlent les principaux carrefours. En ces nuits de ramadan, cafés et échoppes débordent d'une foule animée. «Les policiers sont un peu plus corrects qu'avant», reconnaît Kemal, ingénieur en bâtiment, qui, comme les autres Albanais de Presevo, a longtemps vécu dans la peur, cloîtré chez lui avec toute sa famille dès la nuit tombée. La situation a basculé avec la fin de la guerre du Kosovo, et le repli des forces spéciales serbes. «Ils ont importé une psychose de guerre qui n'existait pas ici, malgré tous les autres problèmes», souligne Shaip Kamberi, responsable du Comité des droits de l'homme de Bujanovac. Des civils ont été battus. Quelques-uns abattus de sang-froid; d'autres enlevés. Treize morts et disparus qui ont d'autant plus terrorisé la communauté albanaise qu'elle avait un sort plus enviable que ses frères du Kosovo, disposant d'écoles en albanais (bien qu'avec les programmes serbes) ou du droit d'élire leurs maires et leurs députés.

Cause commune. «Cela fait dix ans que nous essayons d'ouvrir le débat avec Belgrade, mais nous ne sentons une écoute que maintenant», dit Behlul Nasufi, deux fois député du Parti d'action démocratique, la plus importante formation albanaise de la région. Il y a cinq jours, il a rencontré les dirigeants de l'UCPMB dans la montagne. «Ils ne veulent ni la guerre avec la Serbie, ni la sécession», assure-t-il. La guérilla et les partis albanais font désormais bloc autour de revendications communes: démilitarisation du territoire des trois communes avec déploiement d'une force internationale et octroi d'une large autonomie. Belgrade refuse, craignant, avec de bonnes raisons, le début d'une sécession de fait. En 1992, les Albanais de ces communes avaient massivement voté pour un rattachement au Kosovo lors d'un référendum clandestin. Les autorités ont fait un premier geste symbolique en autorisant la création d'une télévision locale en albanais. C'est peu, d'autant que les plus radicaux du Kosovo, comme les quelques nostalgiques de Milosevic en Serbie, s'activent pour attiser ce nouveau foyer de crise.

YOUGOSLAVIE. Le Kosovo libéré de la tutelle serbe depuis dix mois, c'est au tour des albanophones du sud de la Serbie de revendiquer une autonomie ou un rattachement à la province libérée par l'OTAN. L'Armée de libération de Presevo, Bujanovac et Medvedja contrôle 200 km2 de la zone de sécurité interdite à l'armée yougoslave. Résultat: 20 000 civils ont fui vers le Kosovo. Reportage

La terreur est probablement la dernière chose qui réunisse encore les Serbes et les Albanais de trois communes misérables de l'extrême sud de la Serbie, bloquées entre les frontières de la Macédoine et du Kosovo. Les maquisards séparatistes albanais de l'Armée de libération de Presevo, Bujanovac et Medvedja (UCPBM) contrôlent quelque 200 km2 de zones montagneuses, correspondant pour l'essentiel à la zone de sécurité interdite aux forces yougoslaves, qui s'étend sur une largeur de 5 km le long de la frontière du Kosovo. La population majoritairement albanaise des bourgades restées sous contrôle de Belgrade est pour sa part terrorisée par l'imposant déploiement de la police et de l'armée.

Il suffit de franchir le point de contrôle de la police serbe établi à 800 mètres du centre de Bujanovac pour gagner le territoire contrôlé par la guérilla albanaise. Dans le gros village de Ternovac, les combattants en treillis déambulent parmi une foule de civils venus chercher un peu d'aide humanitaire ou bénéficier d'une consultation médicale. Par contre, les villages de la montagne sont tous désespérément vides depuis les combats de l'automne. L'UCPBM a établi une première base à l'emplacement d'un ancien check-point serbe, sur la petite route asphaltée qui mène au Kosovo. La frontière, contrôlée par les guérilleros séparatistes, n'est qu'à une dizaine de kilomètres.

Le commandant Leshi, un Albanais de Bujanovac qui arbore l'imposante barbe qu'affectionnaient souvent les combattants du Kosovo, dirige la «première brigade» de l'UCPBM. «Nous ne nous battons que pour obtenir ce qui nous appartient. L'UCPBM n'est présente que dans des zones qui ont toujours été peuplées d'Albanais.» Dans les rues du village fantôme, une escouade défile au pas cadencé. Les combattants, en uniforme flambant neuf, munis d'armes légères en parfait état, sont des jeunes gens de la région, mais certains viennent aussi du Kosovo. Driton, 19 ans, est déjà un ancien combattant doté d'une longue expérience. Il a rejoint l'UÇK (Armée de libération du Kosovo, dissoute) dès les premiers affrontements dans son village de Drenica, dans la province albanaise. «Je préfère me battre ici que d'être au chômage dans mon village», explique-t-il.

Provocations

A défaut d'une véritable stratégie militaire, l'UCPBM a multiplié les provocations pour pousser les forces serbes à réagir, dans l'espoir de capter l'intérêt et la sympathie de l'opinion internationale. Pour l'instant, cette stratégie n'a guère été payante: 20 000 civils ont fui vers le Kosovo, mais la situation politique reste bloquée. Le commandant Leshi se dit favorable à l'ouverture de négociations à trois, avec les autorités yougoslaves et des représentants internationaux. Le maire albanais de la commune de Presevo, Rizah Halimi, se prononce aussi en faveur d'un processus politique, en expliquant que «probablement l'armée yougoslave pourrait réduire la guérilla à néant en quelques jours, mais que rien ne serait réglé».

Belgrade a également essayé d'obtenir un engagement international sur la question. Samedi dernier, le gouvernement yougoslave s'était réuni en séance exceptionnelle à Bujanovac, en demandant à l'ONU et aux troupes internationales de la KFOR de boucler la frontière du Kosovo, par laquelle passent les armes destinées aux combattants de l'UCPBM. Mercredi, le général italien Carlo Cabigiosu, commandant de la KFOR au Kosovo, a rencontré, toujours à Bujanovac, le délégué spécial du gouvernement yougoslave, Nebojsa Covic. Belgrade attend pourtant des gestes concrets, en demandant au Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU que la largeur de la zone d'exclusion soit réduite à un kilomètre seulement. Le président Kostunica craint en fait d'être accusé de passivité par son propre camp, à quelques jours des élections législatives prévues samedi en Serbie et alors que le Parti socialiste de l'ancien président Milosevic exploite le mécontentement des Serbes de la région.

A Bujanovac, des blindés sont stationnés dans toutes les rues, mais, pour Svetlana, une Serbe d'une cinquantaine d'années, «depuis quelques jours, les Serbes ont commencé, eux aussi, à fuir la région. La meilleure chose qui puisse nous arriver serait de vendre nos maisons et de partir avant d'être chassés.» Caslav Andjelkovic, un adjoint serbe du maire albanais de Presevo, ne veut pas partager ce pessimisme: «Serbes et Albanais ont toujours vécu ensemble. Il faudrait d'abord s'occuper du développement économique.» Il avoue pourtant que la terreur a saisi toute la population de la région: «Nous avons peur des terroristes et les Albanais, eux, ont peur à la fois de la police et des terroristes, qui veulent les forcer à combattre.» Son ami Rexhep, un Albanais d'une soixantaine d'années, confirme ces propos: «J'ai toujours eu des amis serbes, mais, désormais, je ne leur parle pas dans la rue, de crainte d'être dénoncé comme un traître par les miens.»

Las elecciones de este sábado al Parlamento de Serbia se caracterizan por su limpieza y transparencia. Los sondeos pronostican un resultado que supondría la puntilla para el régimen despótico del ex presidente Slobodan Milosevic, quien todavía conserva un reducto de poder en la mayor de las repúblicas de Yugoslavia. Cuando el sábado acudan a votar los más de 6,5 millones de serbios llamados a las urnas habrán pasado sólo tres meses desde las elecciones federales del 24 de septiembre.

En aquella ocasión, Milosevic intentó ganar, gracias al fraude, y acabó derrotado en las urnas y después en las calles de Belgrado por una rebelión popular. El 5 de octubre las masas tomaron el Parlamento Federal y la Radio Televisión Serbia (RTS), instrumento de agitación y propaganda del régimen. En un Belgrado invernal apenas se palpa que en tres días se celebran unas elecciones, decisivas para desmantelar el régimen de Milosevic. La elección de Vojislav Kostunica supuso un hito decisivo que desencadenó estas elecciones en Serbia. El Parlamento serbio, controlado por diputados afines al régimen despótico, aceptó hacerse el haraquiri, se disolvió y se convocaron elecciones anticipadas.

Desde entonces, en las últimas semanas, gobierna Serbia una extraña gran coalición formada por la Oposición Democrática de Serbia (DOS), que cobija a los 18 grupos que apoyaron a Kostunica; el Partido Socialista de Serbia (SPS) de Milosevic y el Movimiento de Renovación Serbio (SPO), del voluble y errático Vuk Draskovic, que tan pronto estaba contra Milosevic como con él. En la oposición sólo ha quedado el ultranacionalista Partido Radical Serbio (SRS) del fascistoide Vojislav Seselj.

La popularidad de Kostunica no ha cesado de aumentar en un país acostumbrado a la figura de un caudillo. Las encuestas registran que un 91% de los serbios tienen una opinión positiva de Kostunica. Algunos analistas comparan la popularidad de Kostunica con la que tenía el dictador Tito. Ese grado de aceptación no lo alcanzó Milosevic ni en sus mejores tiempos. Del liderazgo indiscutido de Kostunica se beneficia la DOS, que todavía lleva el nombre de oposición, aunque ya se encuentra en el Gobierno. En las listas para votar aparece la Oposición Democrática de Serbia (DOS) unida por un guión al nombre de Vojislav Kostunica. El elector sabe así que votar DOS para el Parlamento de Serbia equivale a dar su apoyo al popular presidente de Yugoslavia.

Kostunica ha puesto precio a prestar su nombre a la DOS y ha reclamado para su Partido Demócrata de Serbia (DSS) el mismo trato que el Partido Demócrata (DS) de Zoran Djindjic en el reparto en las listas de los puestos seguros que garantizan escaños en el futuro Parlamento. El resto de los puestos más o menos seguros se reparten entre los restantes grupos y grupúsculos de la sopa de letras que se cobija bajo las siglas DOS. Hasta ahora la DOS ha conseguido superar las antiguas querellas y rencillas entre la egolatría de sus jefes y jefecillos. Haber mantenido la unidad parece contar con el beneplácito del electorado. Los sondeos atribuyen a la DOS una intención de voto de hasta un 71%.

Los socialistas del SPS de Milosevic serán sin duda los grandes perdedores de la elección de este sábado. Según las encuestas, sólo un 13% tiene la intención de votar por el partido de Milosevic. Esta vez el SPS se presenta sin el lastre de la Izquierda Yugoslava (JUL), el partido marxista de su esposa Mira Markovic. La JUL acude a las urnas en solitario y probablemente desaparecerá del Parlamento de Serbia.

El otro partido que parece entrará en el Parlamento son los radicales de Seselj, que cuenta con una intención de voto del 7%. Seselj trata de capitalizar el descontento de estos meses. El SPO de Draskovic se mueve por el filo de la navaja del 5% y podría quedarse fuera del Parlamento.

Votaciones limpias

Al caluroso y soleado verano le ha sucedido un crudo y oscuro invierno en Serbia. Lo contrario ha ocurrido con las elecciones. Las de septiembre, con Slobodan Milosevic en el poder, se celebraron con observadores tan probos en cuestiones de democracia como el ministro del Interior de Irak. La Embajada de Yugoslavia en Madrid tuvo dificultades para conseguir que viniera, con todos los gastos pagados, una observadora.

Nadie quería pringarse con semejante trabajo sucio como dar la bendición a un fraude electoral. Los periodistas sólo consiguieron entrar a base de trucos o de la benevolencia del régimen y sufrieron toda clase de sevicias de las autoridades policiales y del ministerio de Información. La televisión era un instrumento de agitación y propaganda de Milosevic y contra la oposición.

Las elecciones del sábado se celebran con urnas transparentes y tinta indeleble, para que no se pueda votar dos veces. Todos los partidos tienen acceso a los medios audiovisuales. La Organización para la Seguridad y Cooperación en Europa (OSCE) ya ha inundado hoteles de Belgrado con jóvenes de todos los países, encargados de velar por la pureza del voto. Organizaciones no gubernamentales de Serbia podrán actuar y moverse con libertad por todos los colegios electorales del país.

La única sombra sobre las elecciones la constituye la herida abierta de Kosovo, que, al menos según la ley, es una provincia de Serbia. Cuando faltan tres días para la elección, todavía no se sabe en qué condiciones podrán votar los pocos serbios que quedan en Kosovo. Se trata de que sólo se vote en aquellos lugares donde no corran peligro.

Southern Serbia was tense but quiet on Wednesday after the UN Security Council condemned violence by ethnic Albanian extremists in the area and called for an immediate cessation of violence.

The Security Council, meeting at the request of Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, late on Tuesday asked the guerrilla groups, which have infiltrated a 5km demilitarised buffer zone on the Serbian side of the Kosovo border, to disband and leave.

As the UN issued its statement, British soldiers of the Nato-led peacekeeping force detained 13 ethnic Albanians trying to smuggle arms into the area, known as Ground Safety Zone, from Kosovo. They confiscated rocket-propelled grenades, grenade launchers, hand grenades, anti-tank mines, rifles and communications equipment stashed in four cars.

Over the past 10 months Kosovar Albanian separatists have infiltrated a region known as the Presevo valley and early this month stepped up their attacks, killing four policemen and capturing four villages.

Mr Kostunica says Nato-led peacekeepers in Kosovo have failed to prevent the guerrillas from crossing the border and has suggested that the security zone be narrowed to give the Yugoslav police and army greater freedom to clear the area and keep fighting as far away as possible from larger towns and main roads leading to Macedonia.

Only lightly armed Serb forces are now allowed to enter the border zone.

As political parties prepare for Serbian elections on Saturday, leaders of Serbia's democratic alliance are keen not to be seen to be soft on terrorism.

They are under domestic pressure to respond to the violence and are concerned members of the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, the former leader, could use unrest in the south to regain political advantage and destabilise democratic change.

Speaking after the Security Council meeting, Goran Svilanovic, the foreign minister, said Yugoslavia was committed to pursuing a solution through negotiation, but a worsening of the situation could "lead of unforeseeable consequences" and "jeopardise the democratic process in Yugoslavia and the stability of the region as a whole".

Kosovo's international administrators are against any change in the security zone. They claim the violence can be contained and say the only way forward is through negotiation.

Yugoslavia's democratic alliance also admits any action angering the international community would be counter-productive. "We cannot solve this problem immediately," said Slobodan Samardzic, one of Mr Kostunica's advisers.

Del Ponte rejects Milosevic deal

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serb leader, must face trial at the international war crimes court in The Hague, Carla del Ponte, the court's chief prosecutor, said yesterday, rejecting calls for proceedings to be held in Belgrade, Stefan Wagstyl reports.

Ms del Ponte was responding to a demand this week by Vojislav Kostunica, the new Yugoslav president, that trials arising from the Yugoslav wars should be conducted in the region.

She said that Mr Kostunica might be able to prosecute Mr Milosevic for financial crimes (as many Serbs have demanded).

"But Yugoslavia is not and - for many years - will not be in a position to hold a fair trial of Milosevic for the charges brought, and to be brought, by this tribunal."

The raison d'etre of international justice was to tackle those difficult, painful cases for which domestic courts were ill-equipped, she said.

Ms del Ponte is planning to press new charges against Me Milosevic, once investigations are completed into his involvement in crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Southern Serbia was tense but quiet yesterday after the UN Security Council condemned violence by ethnic Albanian extremists in the area and called for an immediate cessation of violence.

The Security Council, meeting at the request of Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, late on Tuesday asked the guerrilla groups, which have infiltrated a 5km demilitarised buffer zone on the Serbian side of the Kosovo border, to leave.

Meanwhile, British soldiers of the Nato-led peacekeeping force detained 13 ethnic Albanians trying to smuggle arms into the area, known as Ground Safety Zone, from Kosovo. They confiscated rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, anti-tank mines, automatic rifles and radio equipment stashed in four cars.

Over the past 10 months Kosovar Albanian separatists have infiltrated a region known as the Presevo valley and early this month stepped up their attacks, killing four policemen and capturing four villages.

Mr Kostunica says Nato-led peacekeepers in Kosovo have failed to prevent the guerrillas from crossing the border and has suggested that the security zone be narrowed to give the Yugoslav police and army greater freedom to clear the area and keep fighting as far away as possible from larger towns and main roads leading to Macedonia.

Today, only lightly-armed Serb forces are allowed to enter the border zone.

As political parties prepare for Serbian elections on December 23, leaders of Serbia's democratic alliance are keen not to be seen to be soft on terrorism. They are under domestic pressure to respond to the violence and are concerned members of the Milosevic regime could use unrest in the south to regain political advantage and destabilise democratic change.

The commander of K-For, the Nato-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, held high-level talks in Serbia yesterday aimed at calming tensions on the boundary with the province.

Lieutenant General Carlo Cabigiosu met the Serbian deputy prime minister, Nebojsa Covic, in Bujanovac, close to where ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Yugoslav security forces have clashed over the last month.

The meeting came hours after British troops arrested 13 ethnic Albanians found carrying a large number of heavy weapons. They had been travelling towards Serbia. Around the same time a UN police station in Serb-dominated northern Kosovo came under attack from machine-gun fire and a rocket-propelled grenade. No one was hurt.

The talks in Serbia followed calls from the Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, for a renegotiation of a peace agreement which prevents Yugoslav troops entering a three-mile exclusion zone along the boundary with Kosovo.

The area has been used by ethnic Albanian rebels to attack Serbian troops with virtual impunity. Calls for a change to the agreement have been repeated by Serb politicians in the run-up to Serbian parliamentary elections due this Saturday.

But a K-For spokesman, Major Steve Shappell, denied that the accord, signed by Nato and Yugoslavia at the end of war in Kosovo, was up for discussion. "There will be no change to the military technical agreement," he said.

He added that the meeting was part of an "ongoing dialogue to look for a peace solution to the situation".

The arrest of the armed men took place early yesterday near the village of Draghibac Mahala. A K-For spokesmen said the group offered no resistance, when stopped by the patrol. The soldiers had been deployed in the area the day before, specifically to prevent the flow of weapons and men across to Serbia.

The weapons seized included 30 rocket-propelled grenades, 50 hand grenades, rocket launchers, anti-tank mines and heavy machineguns.

The group was taken to the main American army base in the region, Camp Bondsteel, for questioning.

While K-For has been concentrating its attention on the border with Serbia, the UN administration in Kosovo has been struggling to cope with a wave of violence in the north of the province.

A UN spokeswomen, Susan Manuel, condemned the attack on the police station, which also houses the local council headquarters, as "another act of mindless violence".

Four police cars were raked with automatic gunfire and another blown up by a grenade late on Tuesday night. A rocket-propelled grenade was fired through a window.

Police were out on patrol at the time.

The attack follows a weekend of violence in which one Serb was shot dead by K-For soldiers and seven Belgian troops were taken hostage for three hours in the town of Leposavic.

Following the violence, the UN ordered its international and locally recruited police service and all UN personnel to withdraw from the town.

"We definitely think there is some kind of pattern going on. We don't know where it's coming from and where it going, though," Ms Manuel said.

The UN has yet to return its police and staff to Leposavic, where the role of law enforcement appears to have been taken on by the local community. It is unclear if they will return before the ballot for the Serbian parliament gets under way at the weekend.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia--Using loaded words reminiscent of the Slobodan Milosevic era, Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica threatened Tuesday to "cleanse" the border zone between Serbia proper and Kosovo of "terrorists."

Ethnic Albanian fighters from separatist Kosovo, still technically a province of Serbia, have stepped up attacks on Serbian police during the past several weeks. They also targeted U.S. troops in a brief shootout Sunday as the peacekeepers tried to close an infiltration route into Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic.

Kostunica criticized the NATO-led peacekeeping force, known as KFOR, for failing to stop the guerrillas from invading a buffer zone after Serbian forces withdrew from the southern province in June 1999. The Serbian pullout came after 11 weeks of North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrikes.

Recent talks with unnamed foreign officials have made clear that "in the quest for a solution, we have to cleanse this zone of terrorists," Kostunica said in the first of what he promised will be monthly news conferences in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital.

"I deliberately use that term 'cleanse,' because the prevalent opinion was that it cannot be achieved by the one-sided presence, or intervention, by international forces and KFOR."

Although Kostunica promised more negotiations, and insisted that civilians don't need to fear Serbian forces, his rhetoric harked back to that used by Milosevic, whose regime was marked by campaigns of "ethnic cleansing" of non-Serbs, including Kosovo Albanians.

Kostunica's words left no doubt that Milosevic's sudden fall from power in October wasn't enough to resolve the region's complex, and potentially explosive, antagonisms.

Saying he expects to face many problems as president, Kostunica acknowledged that some have proved more complex than he anticipated, such as the campaigns for independence in Kosovo and Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in the Yugoslav federation.

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic appears more determined than ever to hold a referendum on independence, despite the deep divisions over the matter among his republic's more than 600,000 people, and the threat of a new civil war if Djukanovic presses the issue.

Djukanovic, once a Milosevic protege, claims that Serbian repression is forcing Montenegro toward independence, an argument that now rings hollow, Kostunica insisted.

"In Montenegro, they cannot prove that there is any kind of repression from Belgrade," he said, "so politically it would be very difficult to justify unilateral steps such as a referendum."

Recent polls give Kostunica an approval rating of about 90% as his 19-party alliance heads into elections Saturday in Serbia.

Milosevic, who has been indicted on war crimes charges, still heads the Socialist Party, which blames Kostunica and his allies for deteriorating border security, as well as runaway inflation, increasing crime and other problems. Kostunica insists that they are legacies of Milosevic's misrule, a decade of foreign sanctions and NATO's airstrikes.

The ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the buffer zone are estimated to number from several hundred to a few thousand fighters. They call themselves the Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac Liberation Army, after the three main towns in a region of southern Serbia that they say belongs to Kosovo.

The rebels include veterans from the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought a vicious, yearlong civil war with Serbian forces before NATO's intervention. Serbian authorities say the current border conflict began in November 1999, five months after peacekeepers took control of Kosovo.

U.S. troops are on the front line of the most dangerous flash point in the eastern part of the buffer zone, which extends three miles into southern Serbia proper along the provincial border.

Under terms of the Military Technical Agreement that ended NATO's air war against Milosevic, only Serbian police with side arms are allowed in the buffer zone, Kostunica said.

Ethnic Albanian guerrillas have attacked with machine guns and mortar bombs, and authorities in Belgrade say the rebels killed four Serbian police officers in a single assault last month.

The peacekeepers negotiated a rebel cease-fire and sent more troops to the border area, but Serbian police say they still come under attack.

Instead of plugging the many holes in the hilly and forested area of Kosovo that borders the rest of Serbia, the peacekeepers have "made it very porous," Kostunica charged.

"We have, in a way, too many international forces in Kosovo," he added. "And yet, we still have terrorist activities, murders and other acts of violence. So we have to try to find a different solution."

That could include amendments to the Military Technical Agreement to clarify "its interpretation," because rewriting the whole deal could bring more instability, Kostunica said.

He suggested shrinking the depth of the buffer zone by more than half so that Serbian police could patrol closer to Kosovo's boundary.

On Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council condemned the violence by ethnic Albanian extremists in southern Serbia and called for such groups to be dissolved and their members to leave the area. The session had been called at Kostunica's request.

Kostunica said earlier this week that he has evidence that ethnic Albanian fighters continue to receive money and weapons from private backers in the United States. At Tuesday's news conference, the Yugoslav leader said that nongovernmental groups, which he didn't name, are indirectly supporting the campaign for Kosovo's independence.

Foreign analyses normally refer to the ethnic Albanian guerrillas as "rebels," Kostunica said, arguing that such a neutral term only encourages what he and most other Serbs consider terrorists.

"I think we need to call a spade a spade," Kostunica told reporters.

BELGRADE, Serbia, — After a short and relatively uneventful political campaign, Serbs are preparing to vote on Saturday for a new government that should remove the last of Slobodan Milosevic's followers from executive power.

The broad 18-party coalition that supported the new Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, has managed to hold together and could win two-thirds of the seats in the Serbian Parliament, making it easier to change the Milosevic Constitution.

And Zoran Djindjic, the 48-year- old leader of the Democratic Party, the largest in the coalition still known as the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, is expected to become Serbia's prime minister.

Then, of course, the real problems must be faced: unemployment, poverty, lack of investment, state debt, bankrupt banks, degraded state media and a bloated security apparatus, including 80,000 police officers in a republic of just 8.1 million people.

Mr. Djindjic, who has been putting together a presumptive government of political leaders and technocrats, promises quick action to attack corruption and organized crime, to bring Mr. Milosevic and others in the old government to justice and to revive the economy.

"These elections in Serbia are the second half of the game, and the more important half," President Kostunica said in an interview. "The first half was psychologically more important, but substantially, the Serbian elections matter more."

Despite Mr. Kostunica's victory in the nationwide elections on Sept. 23, defeating Mr. Milosevic, real power lies in Serbia, which has 90 percent of Yugoslavia's population, not with the federal government. The Democratic Opposition coalition pressed Mr. Milosevic and his allies into early elections for Serbia's Parliament, to consolidate its federal victory.

But assumptions of a coalition victory on Saturday are so widespread that some voters may stay home, making turnout hard to predict, cautioned one pollster, Srdjan Bogosavljevic. If turnout is low, he said, Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party could end up with as many as 50 seats in the 250-seat Parliament, making it the largest opposition party and still relatively influential, especially if the Democratic Opposition coalition splits, as is widely expected.

But Mr. Milosevic has barely campaigned, except for one television interview, and opinion polls show that he is dragging down support for his party, which has fractured.

Mr. Bogosavljevic also worries that some voters will be confused by a Saturday election — Serbs normally vote on Sunday — and the chance of bad weather. But he has no doubt about a clear coalition victory — 62 percent of the vote in his latest polls, and as much as 71 percent in the latest poll of the similarly respected Institute for Social Sciences.

The latter poll also shows that 91 percent are unhappy with the economy and 86 percent with their living standards, up from 87 and 82 percent in November. "It shows the readiness of the majority of people to sacrifice to give a chance to the new authorities to get us out of the crisis," said the institute's polling director, Ljiljana Bacevic. That view is supported by street interviews. Zorica Zivkovic, a shop worker, said, "They've got their chance now, and they're supposed to be experts, so let's give them a chance."

Mr. Djindjic is considered to have about 100 days of grace before inevitable political conflicts within the broad coalition will strain the government. In particular, relations with Montenegro, Serbia's tiny but restive sister republic, need to be resolved. If they are not, and the Yugoslav Federation splits again, then Mr. Kostunica might be tempted to run for the presidency of Serbia in the spring.

But both he and Mr. Djindjic believe that Montenegrin independence would create further pressure for independence in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Mr. Djindjic believes a deal can be arranged with Montenegro's president, Milo Djukanovic, and Mr. Djindjic is said to prefer that the popular Mr. Kostunica remain in the relatively weak federal post.

But tensions between Mr. Kostunica and Mr. Djindjic have been suppressed for the campaign.

Mr. Kostunica said both men and their parties "are becoming aware of our shared responsibility."

Yugoslavs Convict 3 in War Crime

BELGRADE, Dec. 20 (Reuters) — Three Serbian soldiers have been convicted of killing an Albanian couple, the first time the Yugoslav Army has officially acknowledged that its men committed atrocities during the Kosovo conflict.

A military court sentenced an officer and two reservists today to more than four years each for the slayings in March of last year, the Beta news agency reported.

BRITISH troops seized weapons from 13 Albanian guerrillas yesterday.

Members of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment intercepted the guerrillas as they headed from south-eastern Kosovo into Serbia. They found a haul of machineguns, rocket launchers, anti-tank mines and hand grenades.

The 150 British troops were deployed with their Warrior armoured fighting vehicles this week in an attempt to block ethnic Albanian incursions into the Presevo Valley. They moved in after US and Russian Kfor units were fired on by men of the Liberation Army for Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac.

Yesterday's seizure came hours before Nato's commander in Kosovo, General Carlo Cabagiosu of Italy, met Nebojsu Covic, Serbia's deputy Prime Minister, in the Serbian town of Bujanovac to discuss a threatened guerrilla offensive. With the first snow touching the hills outside the drab regional capital, Pristina, senior Nato officers are hoping the winter sets in quickly to lessen the chance of action by the Albanian rebels.

Serbian military intelligence reports say that a campaign involving "thousands of rebels" is scheduled to begin on Saturday to coincide with Serb parliamentary elections and to try to provoke a response from the Yugoslav army.

The reports say the rebels hope Nato will then be provoked to enter the agreed security buffer zone running between Serbia and Kosovo, and go to their aid.

BRITISH troops sent to quell tensions near the Serbian-Kosovo border seized 13 armed Albanian guerrillas and an arms cache near the village of Draghibac Mahala.

"It is an unprecedented and extremely successful operation," Major Tim Pearse, spokesman for the Multinational Brigade Centre, said.

The suspects were observed moving in four vehicles and two tractors in and out of the "ground safety zone", a three-mile wide buffer zone between Serbia and Kosovo. They were detained inside Kosovo, about 35 miles southeast of the capital, Pristina.

The British troops, from the 1st Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, were deployed into the American-controlled Kfor sector in southeastern Kosovo on Tuesday following a skirmish between American and Russian troops and Albanian rebels, believed to be part of an armed group known as UCPMB (Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedaj and Bujanovac). The group claims to represent the 70,000 ethnic Albanians living in southern Serbia, near the Kosovo border.

The British troops, who have set up a temporary base at Camp Sobroan, seized a cache of weapons, including two light machineguns; seven long-barrelled weapons; five AK47 rifles; 30 rocket-propelled grenade warheads; two rocket launchers; 50 hand grenades; eight anti-tank mines; two pistols; two 12.7mm machineguns; three .50 calibre machineguns; one box of explosives; four rocket launchers with warheads; as well as ammunition and military uniforms.

The successful British operation will embarrass the Americans who claim joint victory. It is widely agreed that the British troops were sent to the Presevo region this week because the Americans have been largely unsuccesful at curbing the Albanian guerrillas.

There are reports of tension between the Americans and their Russian counterparts, who are under US command. "The Americans are not used to working in this kind of environment, and we have been doing it for a long time," explained one Briton who refused to be identified. Reporters working in the region have criticised the heavy-handed approach of the Americans and their lack of confidence in dealing with civilians.

The Britons, under Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Kilpatrick, were deployed from their base in Podujevo on Monday. The 150 men have been monitoring thousands of paths and trails leading into the buffer zone between Serbia and Kosovo, setting up observation posts and patrolling the region. The success of the British operation in so short a time is a testament to its skill at adjusting to unfamiliar and remote terrain, as well as its confidence and ability.

The Presevo Valley, largely inhabited by Albanians, has become a flashpoint in the past few months as the UCPMB and other Albanian rebel groups have been building up arms. The area lies within the boundaries of Serbia, but sovereignty has been contested since the 1999 United Nations Security Council resolution declared it a buffer zone and out of bounds to Yugoslav forces.

Lieutenant-Colonel Kilpatrick, speaking to The Times on Tuesday, said that the British troops were confident of weeding out the rebels. He said: "We’ve already stopped them getting arms and food.

"It’s nothing dramatic, but it’s a sensible approach. British forces bring a fresh approach to these problems and have different skills."

Major Pearse said: "Soldiering at a personal level is one of their strengths. It’s a balance of technology and individual skills. The British are recognised as having those personal skills."

The suspects arrested by the British are being detained and interrogated by the Americans at Camp Bondsteel, the American base.

SETTING up his M-Star directional radar 5,000ft up on a freezing Kosovan hillside, overlooking southern Serbia’s Presevo valley, Capt Andrew Davis from Britain’s 3rd Royal Horse Artillery is not looking for Serbs: he is hunting Albanian rebels.

Down on the oak-wooded slopes of the disputed Serbian valley lies territory controlled by ethnic Albanian rebel fighters, and it is the movements of these men that Capt Davis, along with the 150 men of Y Coy from Britain’s 1st Battalion, the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, is trying to control.

On Wednesday morning at half-past-midnight, Y Coy hit the jackpot: a fighting group of 13 Albanian men in four vehicles and on two tractors were caught heading out of Kosovo into Serbia, taking with them a small arsenal of weapons headed for the self-styled Liberation Army for Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac.

In the sub-zero fog of first light, at the nearby US army base at Camp Bastard - rather unfortunately named after a US military hero - the count began of the weapons, which included two 12.7mm heavy machine-guns, RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launchers,15 automatic weapons, anti-tank mines and a large quantity of hand-grenades and ammunition.

Meanwhile NATO’s senior commander in Kosovo, the Italian General Carlo Cabagiosu, was headed for a meeting with the Serb deputy prime minister, Nebojsu Covic, in the Serb town of Bujanovac, ten miles north-east from Capt Davis’s position.

The town, occupied predominantly by ethnic Albanians, lies just outside the Ground Safety Zone, or GSZ, a three mile-wide internationally agreed security buffer strip running along Serbia’s boundary with Kosovo.

Gen Cabagiosu’s mission was tricky: to try to reach agreement with the Serbs about how to deal with the Albanian UCPMB rebels who have been operating inside the GSZ for at least a year, and who have clashed frequently with Serb police and soldiers since November, when four Serb policemen were killed.

Winter temperatures are dropping by the day in Kosovo, and the first snows are touching the hills outside the drab regional capital, Pristina, where senior NATO officers only hope the weather draws in quickly, to lessen the chances of an Albanian rebel offensive in the Presevo valley.

Serb military intelligence reports say that there will an offensive launched this Saturday by "thousands of rebels", to co-incide with Serb parliamentary elections and to try to provoke a Yugoslav army response, which in turn, hope the rebels, will provoke NATO to enter the Ground Safety Zone and come to their assistance.

"NATO has three options on the question," says one senior NATO official, a day after the Serb foreign minister, Goran Svilanovic, told the UN Security Council in New York that Albanian rebels should pull out of the GSZ.

"Let the Serbs, atrocity-prone as they are, into the area to get rid of the rebels for us, and you risk a large-scale humanitarian crisis and lots of dead Albanians, and subsequent Albanian attacks on NATO in Kosovo," the official said.

A second option, says NATO, is to buy diplomatic time with the Serbs, strengthen boundary controls and crack down on weapon supplies to the rebels’ units.

"Or," says another senior British officer, "NATO could go into the Presevo valley at night with armoured vehicles, surround five or six villages, arrest a couple of hundred of the rebels, confiscate all their weapons, and let the Serbs back in under strict supervision."

Across the tiny, former Serb province, home to 44,000 NATO peacekeepers, in the north-western Kosovo Serb town of Zubin Potok, problems continued for KFOR and the UN’s mission. "A municipal building housing the UN police station was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade on Tuesday night," said the UN spokeswoman, Susan Manuel, "while one UN vehicle was blown up by a hand-grenade, and four UN vehicles hit by machine-gun fire."

Nobody was hurt in the attack, which came three days after two Serbs died and six Belgian soldiers were held hostage for more than six hours and stripped of their weapons after a Serb mob went on the rampage in the nearby Serb town of Leposavic.

ROME, - A Yugoslav military court today ordered three soldiers jailed for more than four years each for the murder of an elderly ethnic Albanian couple in their home in Kosovo. The verdict marked the first official confirmation by the Yugoslav army of its soldiers' involvement in an atrocity during the 1999 war in Kosovo.

The panel rendered its verdict after hearing evidence that two of the accused had carried out an order by the third to execute the couple, Feriz and Rukija Krasniqi, after they refused to evacuate a Kosovo farming village, Susica. Feriz had told the soldiers he could not follow the order because his wife was paralyzed and he would not leave without her, according to the Yugoslav army prosecutor.

The verdict comes as a growing number of Yugoslav courts are demonstrating their independence from the policies of the government of former president Slobodan Milosevic, who waged the Kosovo war, lost an election in September and was ousted from power by Serbian demonstrators in October.

In recent weeks, some Yugoslav civilian courts have overturned the convictions of some ethnic Albanians from Kosovo on terrorism charges, finding that the evidence was too flimsy, for example.

The army panel, comprised of two senior army officers, two military court judges and one civilian, concluded that Tomica Jovic and Nenad Stamenkovic had shot the couple and rejected their claim that they had been coerced into making false confessions by a dogged army investigator, Col. Ljubisa Micic.

The panel also convicted the officer said to have given the order, Maj. Dragisa Petrovic.

Col. Radenko Miladinovic, the presiding judge, told the three men that they deserved a stiffer sentence, but he said the panel had chosen to be lenient because the soldiers were clearly frightened and suffering from a "war psychosis" at the time of the crime. He said they should be eligible to rejoin their families pending expected appeals.

None of the three men registered any emotion upon hearing the verdict, although their relatives appeared surprised. The maximum military sentence for murder is the death penalty or 20 years in prison.

Susica is now occupied by NATO soldiers as part of a peacekeeping operation authorized by the United Nations in response to the Yugoslav military's human rights abuses. The army prosecutor in the case was forced to obtain confirmation of the murder from NATO troops there.

The trial did not delve into whether or how the murder fit into what Western officials and war crimes investigators have alleged was a series of crimes against humanity ordered by senior Yugoslav leaders during the war.

"At the moment, we have a big confusion: Some people are ready to implement the real law, while others are working the way they did under the old authority," said Natasa Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade.

Special correspondent Zoran Radjen contributed to this report.

BELGRADE, - In a meeting signaling increased cooperation between NATO and Belgrade against ethnic Albanian insurgents operating along the Kosovo border, the commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo crossed into Yugoslavia today to meet a senior political leader.

Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu traveled to the town of Bujanovac to talk to Nebojsa Covic, the deputy prime minister of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, about the security situation in a three-mile neutral zone that separates the two sides. Since January, a growing guerrilla group supplied from Kosovo -- a Serbian province now under U.N. administration -- has pressed attacks on Serbian forces in the zone, exploiting a truce Belgrade signed with NATO last year that permits only lightly armed Serbian police to enter the area.

Last month, the group killed four Serbian policemen in its campaign to unite the area with Kosovo -- both of which have majority ethnic Albanian populations.

"The meeting was constructive, and I am encouraged by the discussion," Cabigiosu said in a statement released by the peacekeeping force after the first public meeting at this level on the issue. "I believe it is possible to find a peaceful solution to this problem, and this meeting was a step in the right direction."

The meeting came as the new Yugoslav government of Vojislav Kostunica called for renegotiation of the agreement that ended last year's Kosovo war -- which included a 78-day NATO air assault on Yugoslavia and was followed by NATO-led occupation of the province. Kostunica said Tuesday that the Kosovo buffer zone should be narrowed to about one mile to allow his country's forces to "cleanse" the area of insurgents.

NATO and Western governments remain opposed to that option because they believe it would inflame opinion among Kosovo Albanians. Meanwhile, the peacekeepers have been attempting to curtail guerrilla activity by sealing the border area.

As part of that effort, British soldiers newly deployed along the border in the U.S.-patrolled sector of eastern Kosovo, arrested 13 guerrillas early this morning as they were trying to cross into the buffer zone from Kosovo with a large cache of weapons. The British said they seized seven machine guns, five AK-47 assault rifles, 30 rocket-propelled grenades, 50 hand grenades, two antitank mines and four rocket launchers.

"Clearly, they are moving across the boundary in order to carry out attacks on Serbs," said a NATO spokesman, Lt. Col. Stephen Kilpatrick, according to Press Association, the British news agency.

At the same time, a U.N. police station in a predominantly Serbian-populated town of Zubin Potok in northern Kosovo was attacked by gunmen who riddled four police cars with bullets and blew up a vehicle with hand grenades. No one was injured.

Northern Kosovo has been on edge since the weekend, when one Serb was killed during protests following the arrest of another Serb by international police. Bernard Kouchner, the chief U.N. administrator in Kosovo, called on the Serbian community to calm the situation.

"There seems to be some kind of inter-Serb rivalry going on," said U.N. spokeswoman Susan Manuel. "Suddenly, U.N. police are targeted, and we don't know what's going on. There's no message with the madness."

BELGRADE, 20 déc (AFP) - Le chef de la force multinationale au Kosovo (KFOR) et un ministre serbe ont discuté mercredi à Bujanovac, dans le sud-est de la Serbie, de mesures visant à mettre fin aux actions armées des séparatistes albanais dans cette région située en bordure du Kosovo.

Le général italien Carlo Cabigiosu, a qualifié de "constructive" sa rencontre avec le vice-premier ministre serbe, Nebojsa Covic, la première connue entre un commandant en chef de la KFOR et un haut responsable gouvernemental serbe depuis l'arrivée au Kosovo de la force multinationale commandée par l'OTAN en juin 1999.

"Je suis encouragé par ces discussions", a déclaré le général Cabigiosu dans un communiqué diffusé à Pristina, chef-lieu du Kosovo.

"Je pense qu'il est possible de trouver une solution pacifique à ce problème (de la guérilla albanaise), et cette rencontre a été un pas dans la bonne direction", a-t-il ajouté.

M. Covic a lui aussi estimé que l'entretien constituait un "grand pas en avant" pour la normalisation de la situation dans le sud-est de la Serbie, selon l'agence Beta. Il a indiqué que le chef de la KFOR et lui-même étaient "absolument d'accord pour une coopération mutuelle encore meilleure" entre la KFOR et Belgrade.

Cette rencontre intervient au lendemain d'une réunion du Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU consacrée à la tension dans la région.

Dans une déclaration adoptée à l'unanimité, la présidence du Conseil de sécurité a exigé la dissolution et le retrait de la guérilla albanaise, comme l'avait demandé le gouvernement yougoslave.

A Nis, principale ville du sud-est de la Serbie, le président yougoslave Vojislav Kostunica a estimé que cette déclaration représentait "un pas en avant", mais il a averti qu'il fallait maintenant "des mesures concrètes".

"Nous avons fait presque tout ce que nous pouvions au niveau des moyens diplomatiques et politiques, et le temps est venu de prendre des mesures concrètes pour que les terroristes soient expulsés de la zone de sécurité", a déclaré M. Kostunica.

Ces mesures, a-t-il assuré, "devront être coordonnées avec la KFOR et la Mission de l'ONU" au Kosovo (MINUK).

La veille, M. Kostunica avait pourtant dénoncé l'incapacité de la KFOR à venir à bout de la guérilla albanaise, alimenté en hommes et en armes depuis le Kosovo, et il avait préconisé la recherche "d'autres solutions" pour "nettoyer" le territoire qu'elle contrôle.

La zone de sécurité, où sévit la guérilla, a été imposée à Belgrade par l'OTAN en juin 1999. Elle est interdite d'accès aux forces militaires yougoslaves. Seuls des unités de la police serbe munies d'armes légères peuvent y patrouiller.

Large de cinq kilomètres, longeant toute la ligne administrative séparant le Kosovo du reste de la Serbie, la zone est contrôlée, sur une portion de quelque 200 kilomètres carrés, par les séparatistes albanais se réclamant de l'Armée de libération de Presevo, Medvedja et Bujanovac (UCPMB), trois communes du sud de la Serbie à forte population albanaise.

La KFOR a récemment renforcé ses contrôles le long de la "frontière", du côté du Kosovo.

Ce dispositif a notamment permis, dans la nuit de mardi à mercredi, l'arrestation de 13 rebelles albanais se dirigeant, à bord de deux jeeps et de deux tracteurs, vers la zone tampon.

Le convoi transportait deux lance-roquettes, 30 roquettes, 50 grenades à main, huit mines anti-char, huit fusils-mitrailleurs, des fusils d'assaut et des munitions ainsi que des uniformes.

En dépit de la vigilance accrue de la KFOR, Zoran Djindjic, un allié de M. Kostunica qui devrait diriger le prochain gouvernement de Serbie après les élections législatives le 23 décembre, a estimé mercredi que "la situation dans le sud du pays allait se détériorer dans les jours à venir".

"Les dix prochains jours seront critiques, et il faut s'attendre à une escalade des actions extrémistes albanaises", a-t-il déclaré.

Toutefois, selon M. Djindjic, la prise de position du Conseil de sécurité "est une plate-forme permettant l'application de mesures concrètes" contre les séparatistes

NIS, Yugoslavia, Dec 20 (AFP) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica called Wednesday for "concrete measures" to drive out ethnic Albanian guerrillas from a buffer zone in southern Serbia near the UN-run province of Kosovo.

In a statement a day after the UN Security Council in New York called on armed ethnic Albanian groups to leave the region, Kostunica said: "We have exhausted all diplomatic and political means at our disposal.

"The time has come to take concrete measures which should cleanse the security zone of terrorists."

Kostunica made his statement before talks in this southern Serbian town with Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov, whose country borders the region to the east.

He said the UN resolution, which called for both the dissolution of ethnic Albanian extremist groups in southern Serbia and the "immediate withdrawal from the area" of such groups, was "a step forward."

However what was needed was "concrete measures," he added. In Belgrade, Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic said that his country was "relatively satisfied" with the UN resolution.

Zizic said he thought the UN resolution "could have been stronger", but that it constituted "a good platform for greater involvement of Yugoslavia in the settling of the crisis."

Kostunica said measures to settle the conflict should be agreed with both the NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo (KFOR) and the UN mission in the province.

The crisis centres on a five-kilometer (three-mile) wide demilitarized buffer zone along the Serbian side of the boundary between Serbia and Kosovo, set up following the end of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

Guerrillas of the self-styled Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, who are fighting for these three town to be integrated into an "independent" Kosovo, have taken control of several villages within the zone.

Yugoslavia's armed forces are forbidden from intervening in the area, where only lightly-armed police forces are allowed.

On Tuesday Kostunica accused KFOR troops of not able to cope with the situation in the border zone and said other solutions would have to be found.

In Belgrade, Yugoslav army spokesman Svetozar Radisic said the army would act on "political instructions" concerning the demilitarized zone, an apparent hint that the army could move in if no other solution is found.

KFOR commander Carlo Cabigiosu met Wednesday with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic to discuss the crisis in the southern town of Bujanovac, near the buffer zone.

After his talks with Kostunica, the Bulgarian president said: "We are concerned with the situation in southern Serbia as well as with the actions of Albanian extremists there."

BELGRADE, Dec 21 (AFP) -The Yugoslav federation, comprising the two republics of Serbia and Montenegro, is a mosaic of power centres whose various interests have become ever more divergent on the issue of the country's future.

Yugoslavia itself has three administrations, at the Serbian, Montenegrin and federal levels. Each of the three has its own president, parliament and government.

The Serbian assembly -- widely seen as the real seat of power in the country since the republic dwarfs it partner Montenegro -- is due to be re-elected Saturday in a poll expected to sweep out the last remants of the ousted regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

Reformists won a landmark victory in September polls, when the hardline Milosevic was shoved from the federal presidency by moderate nationalist Vojislav Kostunica.

The federal administration controls Yugoslav diplomacy, as well as financial policy and defense.

The post of the Yugoslav president, largely ceremonial, is more fragile than ever, faced with a possible move towards independence by the pro-Western government of Montenegro.

A secession by Podgorica would lead to the de facto disappearance of the federation, which in turn replaced the old socialist Yugoslavia which splintered in a decade of nationalist conflict.

That is why Kostunica has pledged strong commitment to talks over the future of the federation.

In Serbia, with a population of 10 million -- including the breakaway province of Kosovo -- polls indicate power will end up with Kostunica's Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) after Saturday's polls.

Kosovo is, under the Yugoslav constitution, an autonomous province of Serbia but its status, as well as its administrative bodies, were revoked by Milosevic's regime in 1989.

Since the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, the mainly ethnic Albanian province has been administrated by the United Nations, with NATO-led peacekeepers providing security.

The autonomy of the northern Vojvodina province, which has the same constitutional status as Kosovo, was also reduced in 1989 and many in this multi-ethnic region demanded that it be re-established.

Montenegro, with a population of just 650,000, has been headed since 1998 by President Milo Djukanovic, a Milosevic foe, and has been demanding equal status with Serbia in a transformed federation, contesting the existing federal authorities.

If its demands are not heeded, Montenegro has threatened a referendum on independence. A yes-vote would pull the rug from under the feet of Kostunica's federal presidency.

The main negotiator in talks over the federation's future will be Kostunica ally Zoran Djindjic, who will be Serbia's prime minister in the likely event of a DOS victory.

Djindjic is seen as the frontman for a hardline faction within the DOS, a coalition of 18 parties which backed Kostunica's presidential bid and hopes now to obtain a majority of seats in the Serbian parliament

Serbia is currently run by an all-party caretaker government which took over from the Milosevic-dominated assembly after the October uprising that forced the ousted president to admit electoral defeat.

Djindjic has promised his government will root out corruption and crime, but also hold talks on the future of the federation and of Serbia itself.

Vojvodina's assembly is currently chaired by autonomy-partisan Nenad Canak, another DOS leader.

Both Kostunica and Djindjic would also insist on progressively re-establihsing Belgrade's authority over Kosovo, whose 1.8 million ethnic Albanians are calling for independence from Yugoslavia.

However, Belgrade's new administration has said it can offer no more than a return to Kosovo's autonomous status, a condition also set out in a UN Security Council Resolution that ended the Kosovo war in June 1999.

On the security front, Kostunica is legally the commander of the Yugoslav armed forces, estimated at about 80,000 men.

But the Serbian police -- built up by Milosevic into a 100,000-strong force and the largest security machine in the country -- falls under the ambit of the Serbian government.

BELGRADE, Dec 21 (AFP) - While polls indicate Saturday's Serbian elections may be in the bag for reformers backing Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, the new administration will face a daunting array of tasks after more than 10 years of the iron-fisted rule of Slobodan Milosevic.

"Our first democratic government has a single slogan -- establishing law and order in Serbia," said Zoran Djindjic, tipped to head the reformist cabinet.

The newcomers will first have to rebuild the people's trust in state institutions after years of disillusionment with the widespread corruption and inefficiency of the old regime.

"The first priority will be to form a government that is credible, not corrupt," Djindjic said.

"This will be the most important job in Serbia, because monopolist groups (under Milosevic) took control of all the sources of power, money and privilege."

The economy, crippled by years of international sanctions and mismanagement, needs financial assistance and new investment to breath life into its socialist-era industry.

"The government will have to tread carefully, pushing for companies' revival while at the same time providing new posts for those who will lose their jobs," said Nebojsa Savic, a leading economist.

One of the first steps the reformers took was to introduce new dinar banknotes, matching European standards and bringing its value into line with the black market exchange rate of 30 dinars to one German mark (0.5 of a euro).

The financial authorities are trying to root out black market dealing, which flourished in Milosevic's time to become the only real index of value.

They hope to win the country's return to international financial institutions to obtain desperately needed loans for the national economy.

UN officials say Yugoslavia urgently needs some 800 million dollars in aid to get through the winter, while the country's total humanitarian needs for the next six months are pegged at between 1.4 and 1.5 billion dollars, half of which the Belgrade government can cover itself.

But even if economic issues can be dealt without too much pain, the political inheritance of the previous regime remains a tough nut for the reformers to crack.

An upsurge of violence in southern Serbia -- where ethnic Albanian rebels have launched attacks on the police from bases in a buffer zone bordering the UN-run province of Kosovo -- has forced Belgrade to launch a diplomatic initiative to win the international backing for its cause.

The rebels of the Liberation Army for Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) want the three towns they claim to be fighting for to be incorporated into an independent Kosovo.

The UCPMB launched an offensive last month which killed three Serbian police and won several villages on the boundary.

While demanding UN help to solve the crisis, the reformers have insisted the thorny issue could be solved by Yugoslav security forces alone.

Nevertheless, they have tried to change the Milosevic-era image of heavy-handed policing.

Instead of sending in the heavies, they have pushed to harmonise relations with Serbia's national minorities, who are thought to constitute more than 30 percent of the republic's population, including Kosovo.

After forming a Yugoslav administration following September federal polls, the Yugoslav government named Rasim Ljajic, a Muslim from the Sandzak -- a Muslim region overlapping with Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro -- as minister for minorities, a move that raised hopes for a change of policy.

The new leadership in Serbia will also have to hold serious talks with its partners in Montenegro, the tiny Yugoslav republic which gravitated towards independence during Milosevic's rule.

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, while favouring independence, has remained open to transforming the federation into a union of the two republics, which would function as separate states with joint foreign and defence policy, and certain financial authorities.

Kostunica's reformers say they will pursue talks with the Montenegrin leadership after Saturday's polls, expected to sweep the last of Milosevic's allies from power.

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 20 (AFP) - The United Nation's new administrator in Kosovo, Hans Haekkerup, said Wednesday he will officially take over in the Serbian province on January 15.

Haekkerup, the Danish defense minister, was chosen December 8 by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to replace Bernard Kouchner of France in the breakaway province whose ethnic Albanian majority is at odds with the Serbian minority.

Kosovo is currently administered by the United Nations, and its security falls to the 40,000-strong KFOR multinational force.

Haekkerup, who will be charged with helping organize elections to develop a civil administration in Kosovo, said violence continues to be the biggest problem to achieving that goal.

"First we have to find a framework for the provisional self-government and it will take some months," Haekkerup said.

"When the assembly has been elected and the self-government has been appointed, I hope that I can transfer some departments for self-government and then gradually I'll transfer more departments."

Extraditing Milosevic not a priority, Kostunica tells BBC

LONDON, Dec 20 (AFP) - Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica told the BBC in an interview broadcast Wednesday that extraditing former president and indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic was not a priorty for his administration.

Milosevic, who was deposed in a popular uprising in October, has been indicted on war crimes charges by The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for alleged crimes committed in Kosovo.

Asked if he would extradite his predecessor to stand trial, Kostunica told the BBC he had more pressing problems.

"For us it is much more important to solve the problem of our integration within the international community, to solve the problem of the people lacking electricity," he said, adding: "At this moment, this is more important.

Kostunica also responded to criticism that he would pursue similar nationalist policies as his predecessor.

"My Serb patriotic feelings are very dear to me and my nation is very dear to me," he said in the interview.

"But it has nothing to do with any sort of hatred towards others. I am no more nationalist than most of the British, Germans and the French and others are," he added.

NIS, Yugoslavia, Dec 20 (AFP) - Bulgarian president Petar Stoyanov on Wednesday met his Yugoslav counterpart Vojislav Kostunica and expressed concern at the security situation in southern Serbia.

"We are concerned with the situation in southern Serbia as well as with the actions of Albanian extremists there," Stoyanov said. Bulgaria has a border with southern Serbia.

Prior to the meeting with Stoyanov, Kostunica said it was time to take concrete measures to drive out ethnic Albanian "terrorists" from a safety zone created along the border between Kosovo and Serbia proper.

The UN Security Concil condemned on Tuesday "the acts of violents committed by ethnic Albanian extremists in southern Serbia" demanding dissolution of the guerrilla force.

The five-kilometer (three-mile) wide demilitarized buffer zone along the Serbian side of the boundary between Serbia and Kosovo was set up following the end of NATO bombing campaign on Belgrade in 1999.

However, the guerrillas of the self-styled Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, who are fighting for these three town to be integrated into an "independent" Kosovo, have recently taken control of numerous villages within the zone.

Both Kostunica and Stoyanov said they were "in favour of using political means" in order to resolve crisis in Balkan region.

The two presidents said that the "common goal of the two neighbouring countries" was to join the European integration process, while Stoyanov also announced an increase of trade between Belgrade and Sofia

NIS, Yugoslavia, Dec 20 (AFP) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica called Wednesday for "concrete measures" to drive out ethnic Albanian guerrillas from a buffer zone near the UN-run province of Kosovo.

"We have exhausted all diplomatic and political means at our disposal and the time has come to take concrete measures which should cleanse the security zone of terrorists," Kostunica said before talks here with Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov.

Kostunica said the measures should be agreed with both the NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo (KFOR) and the UN mission in the province.

The five-kilometer (three-mile) wide demilitarized buffer zone along the Serbian side of the boundary between Serbia and Kosovo was set up following the end of the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

But guerrillas of the self-styled Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, who are fighting for these three town to be integrated into an "independent" Kosovo, has taken control of several villages within the zone.

KFOR commander Carlo Cabigiosu met Wednesday with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic in the southern town of Bujanovac, near the buffer zone.

The meeting came after the UN Security Council adopted unanimously late Tuesday a statement condemning the Albanian guerillas for committing acts of violence in southern Serbia.

In Belgrade, Yugoslav army spokesman Svetozar Radisic said that the move was "the most important" act for Yugoslavia, adding that the army would act on "political instructions."

Zoran Djindjic, Kostunica's ally, said the document was "positive," but noted that he had expected it to be more "operational".

Djindjic also said the next 10 days would be crucial as the guerrilla actions "escalate," Beta news agency reported.

On Tuesday Kostunica accused KFOR troops of not able to cope with the situation in the border zone and said other solutions would have to be found.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia Serbia's pro-democracy alliance, which drove Slobodan Milosevic from power, predicted victory in Saturday's parliamentary elections and suggested that the former ruler could be charged for wrongdoing.

The 18-party alliance, founded this year as the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, staged their last election rally Wednesdsay at a Belgrade hotel, cheering the coalition's candidate for prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, and other allies of President Vojislav Kostunica.

Djindjic predicted the alliance, which defeated Milosevic in Yugoslav federal elections in September, would repeat the triumph in the ballot for the 250-seat parliament in Yugoslavia's main republic of Serbia.

``To be successful this country needs decisive leadership,'' Djindjic said. ``Serbia is not just a chunk of territory, but a great idea and a tremendous responsibility.''

If the pro-democracy alliance wins a majority in the republic's parliament, as all polls indicate, Milosevic could be in trouble. Without a strong party controlling parliament behind him, Milosevic is more vulnerable to prosecution on charges of 13 years of misrule that impoverished Yugoslavia and made it a pariah state.

In his address, Djindjic did not mention Milosevic, but referred to his rule several times.

``There will be no vengeance, but there will be no amnesty either,'' Djindjic said. ``What we need is a strong and uncorrupted government.''

Milosevic was ousted from the Yugoslav presidency in a popular uprising on Oct. 5 after he refused to concede defeat in Sept. 24 federal elections.

Eight parties and coalitions, including the main groups Democratic Opposition of Serbia and Milosevic's Socialists are competing in the Serbia election. There are more than 6.5 million voters in Serbia.

According to polls, Milosevic's Socialists cannot expect more than 15 percent of the vote, compared to up to 80 percent for the Democratic Opposition of Serbia.

The only other party likely to win any parliament seats is the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, former Milosevic allies.

Djindjic promised a new era, urging people to accept the ``challenges of the world that emerges before their very eyes.''

``We are determined that the next century become the century of Serbia, and may the 21st century in the Balkans be the one without wars,'' he said.

Although there are two republics in Yugoslavia, Montenegro is much smaller and has less than 10 percent of Serbia's 9 million people, meaning that whoever controls Serbia controls Yugoslavia.

Three Serb soldiers have been jailed by a Belgrade court for murder committed during the Kosovo conflict last year.

It is the first time that the Yugoslav army has officially acknowledged such crimes.

The conviction came at the end of a month-long trial at a military court in the city of Nis.

Correspondents say it is an indication that the new Yugoslav President, Vojislav Kostunica, is serious about coming to terms with the war crimes committed by his countrymen during a decade of conflict in the Balkans.

Soldier's mission

The men - an officer and two reservists - were jailed for the murdering an elderly ethnic Albanian couple in Kosovo.

The three Serbs, who had pleaded not guilty, were given sentences of more than four years each.

The officer, Major Dragisa Petrovic, was jailed for inciting the murder after ordering that all the villagers of Gornja Susica, a village near the Kosovo capital Pristina, be driven out.

The case came to light because another Yugoslav soldier followed up reports of the murder and pushed for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

"This is the first time that a court in Serbia has cooperated with Unmik (the UN mission in Kosovo) to uncover war crimes," said a Belgrade-based human rights group, the Humanitarian Law Fund.

Correspondents say it is unlikely that the trial would have gone ahead if the former President, Slobodan Milosevic, were still in power.

President Kostunica has said that Serbs must confront crimes committed on their side of the war, but has not moved against Mr Milosevic himself, although he has been indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal.

High-level talks have taken place between the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo and the government of Serbia.

The Nato-led force, K-For, says progress has been made in efforts to end attacks along the Serbian border by ethnic Albanians.

The talks came a day after the Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, demanded tough action to stop the cross-border attacks.

The international force said it had intercepted a group of heavily armed guerrillas who tried to cross into southern Serbia during Tuesday night.

A spate of recent attacks has led to fears that Serbia might breach its agreement with Nato and the UN and send tanks back into the demilitarised border zone.

Serbian threats

Ethnic Albanian guerrillas have been using this area to launch attacks on Serbian security forces with relative impunity.

The K-For commander, General Carlo Cabigiosu, met the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister, Nebojsa Covic, just inside Serbia for the first time in an effort to resolve the problem.

The general said afterwards that it had been a step in the right direction.

"The meeting was constructive and I am encouraged by the discussion," said General Cabigiosu.

"I believe it is possible to find a peaceful solution to this problem."

On Tuesday, Mr Covic reportedly said: "If it comes to an attack by terrorists, Serbia would respond with all possible means."

"That is not a threat but a fact," he was quoted as saying.

At the United Nations in New York, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic told the Security Council that Belgrade wanted peace, but violence by "Albanian extremists" threatened the stability of the whole region.

The Security Council on Tuesday passed a statement calling on the guerrillas to withdraw from the demilitarised border zone between the province and Serbia and end their raids into Serbia.

Guerillas captured

Earlier on Tuesday, the Nato-led peace force said that machine-guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank mines and communications equipment had been seized from a group of Albanians near the town of Zegra in northern Kosovo.

The 13 guerrillas, who were trying to smuggle weapons from Kosovo into the demilitarised zone, were taken to a Nato camp for questioning.

In a separate incident, a United Nations police post in a Serb-populated village was attacked.

With Serbian parliamentary elections due in three days, the attack is being seen by UN officials as an attempt to radicalise the local population and undermine support for more moderate parties.

Yugoslavia is to rejoin the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after being kicked out of the powerful Washington-based organisation eight years ago.

Terms of the agreement have not yet been revealed but the move has been warmly welcomed in Yugoslavia.

Under the regime of former President Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslavia was cut off by the IMF in 1992 and the World Bank in 1993 for its role in a series of Balkan wars and its refusal to pay back loans.

The move is the latest stage in Yugoslavia's international rehabilitation since election of Vojislav Kostunica and popular removal of Slobodan Milosevic in October.

Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic said the move was an "important step to the normalisation of relations with the international community."

Great success

"This is a great success for the federal government and the central bank after only two months of negotiations," said Yugoslavia's central bank governor Mladjan Dinkic.

"It's a green light for investors and we expect substantial private investments next year," he added.

Rejoining the IMF is critical to Yugoslavia because foreign investors are unlikely to return to the troubled economy without a package of economic and structural reforms.

Yugoslavia is also seeking to rejoin the World Bank, but a spokeswoman said a decision has still not been made.

Arrears

"There's still a lot of steps that need to be taken...it could be some time,"she said.

World Bank officials have agreed in principle to Yugoslavia's readmission, but want the issue of the Balkan nation's $1.7 billion loan arrears to be resolved first.

Yugoslavia's economy is in tatters after more than a decade of war and sanctions, most recently from the Kosovo conflict and Nato bombings last year.

A fresh injection of cash from the two international lenders after years of isolation could prove invaluable in helping rebuild the country's economy, which contracted by more than 20% last year.

Official campaigning ends on Wednesday ahead of Serbia's parliamentary election on 23 December.

The elections are the first since the new Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica, took office.

It is still not clear whether voting will take place in Kosovo. There is confusion over whether the United Nations authorities who run the province will provide facilities for the vote.

Though the 18-party Democratic Opposition alliance led by Mr Kostunica is expected to win convincingly, observers say it may struggle to maintain unity after the election and will be under pressure to deal quickly with ethnic violence in Kosovo.

The election could see the final removal from power of the Serbian Socialist Party of former president Slobodan Milosevic.

New start?

BBC central European reporter Nick Thorpe says that much has changed in Serbia in the 11 weeks since the dramatic fall of Mr Milosevic and his regime.

There is a new mood in the country, spearheaded by a media freed of the restraints placed on it by the old authorities.

A new dinar, the Yugoslav currency, has been launched.

Some officials have been replaced, but far fewer than the more radical voices in the Democratic Opposition would like.

Gas and oil shortages have been alleviated by deliveries from Russia and European countries, but the longer-term energy crisis remains.

International community

In foreign affairs, the country has been re-admitted to international bodies, including the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

And difficult talks have begun with other republics of the former Yugoslavia over the division of assets and debts.

Our correspondent says the real power in this country rests with the Serbian Government, not with the Government of the Yugoslav Federation - making this election more important in some ways than the vote in September which ended with Mr Milosevic's fall from power.

In a further sign of the changing times, Mira Markovic, the wife of ousted former president, has complained about the about bias in the state media - once firmly under the control of the Milosevic regime.

Mr Milosevic himself complained at a party congress last month that the media was now in the hands of "foreign intelligence services".

Barring any unforeseen upsets the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) - the 18-party coalition which brought down the regime of Slobodan Milosevic last October - will triumph in the elections to the Serbian parliament on 23 December.

By mid-January DOS should then have constituted a new government for Serbia and a transitional phase following the end of the Milosevic era will be over.

According to an agreement between the parties that make up DOS and President Vojislav Kostunica of Yugoslavia - which on paper consists of the two republics of Serbia and Montenegro - the new premier of Serbia will be Zoran Djindjic.

Mr Djindjic, a veteran opposition leader, is widely credited with having been the key man in orchestrating the fall of Mr Milosevic. He has a reputation for being ferociously intelligent, quick and a brilliant organiser.

He is also credited with being a pragmatic politician although his critics often accuse him of machiavellianism and of being a political opportunist.

Serbia has been devastated economically and socially by 10 years of fighting wars and by the international sanctions that accompanied them, so Mr Djindjic and his team will have a monumental task ahead of them.

Amongst the most urgent jobs facing the new Serbian authorities will be to negotiate a new relationship with Montenegro.

The authorities in the tiny neighbouring republic say that Montenegro is already independent in all but name and so they have begun organising a referendum on independence, which they expect to take place in spring.

Break-away

President Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro says he would like to see some form of loose alliance of the two states to be formed after independence.

The new Serbian authorities may well opt for a clean break though, so, in a few months, the current Yugoslavia may well be dead, and Serbia and Montenegro will be Europe's newest independent countries.

Whatever happens with Montenegro, Kosovo which is now an international protectorate under the UN and K- For, the Nato-led peace force, will remain a major problem for Serbia for years to come.

Although Serbia would like to restore its sovereignty there its majority ethnic Albanian population will never accept this.

In fact the men and women likely to run the new Serbian government know this and, burdened by so many other problems, they are likely to leave the Kosovo issue on the back-burner for as a long as possible.

If they can ignore Kosovo though the new Serbian authorities cannot ignore ethnic Albanian guerrillas fighting to attach a part of the Presevo valley, in Serbia proper, to neighbouring Kosovo. The guerrillas are inside the demilitarised zone separating K-For and the Yugoslav army.

Confrontation

So far the authorities in Belgrade have restrained their armed forces but unless K-For succeeds in choking off the guerrillas' supply routes, the new Serbian government may be sorely tempted to send in the troops to finish them off.

If they do this, without Nato's consent, they risk plunging Serbia back into confrontation with the international community.

On the domestic front the economy will be one of the most important tasks facing the new authorities.

The average monthly salary in Serbia is now about £33 ($50) and the enormous popularity currently enjoyed by DOS will, over the next year, be measured in great part by how successful the new government will be in turning the economy around.

The tasks are formidable. Having lost 10 years compared to the rest of former communist Europe, Serbia has a huge job to do when it comes to legal and banking reform, closing down loss-making plants, modernising potentially profitable industries and the agricultural sectors.

Corruption

It also needs to deal with the legacy of dubious privatisations under the Milosevic regime, which sold many assets to cronies of the former leader.

Crime and corruption will also have to be dealt with by the new authorities otherwise the country can expect that both will stifle development plans.

If they fail, those with money inside the country will be reticent to invest in productive enterprises at home and most foreign investors will simply pass Serbia by in search of safer investments.

The new authorities will also have to deal with the legacy of the war years. In particular they will be faced by ever more persistent demands for men like Slobodan Milosevic, who are indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, to be handed over for trial.

Yugoslav President Kostunica has said that he believes that the Hague Tribunal is a political court with no legal legitimacy. But, if Montenegro becomes independent in 2001, Mr Kostunica may find that he is unemployed, as he will no longer have a country left.

Others point out that the law prohibits extradition but neighbouring Croatia was forced to change its laws to send its indicted war criminals to The Hague.

Disintegration

Legislation already passed in the US stipulates that unless Serbia's indictees are turned over to The Hague the US will cut aid to the country.

The war crimes issue has the potential to sour Serbia's current honeymoon with the West and embarrass some of its new leaders.

During the siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo Mr Djindjic once famously roasted an ox at a feast with Radovan Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs, who is also an indicted war criminal.

As if all of this was not enough to deal with, the next few months may also see the disintegration of DOS, which was an unnatural coalition brought together only to fight Mr Milosevic.

This should lead to the development of a more normal party system in Serbia with Mr Djindjic leading an emerging social democratic wing and Mr Kostunica a European-style conservative or Christian democratic wing.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The U.N. chief prosecutor has said the new Belgrade government has no choice but to arrest former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic to answer war crimes charges.

Carla del Ponte said she will visit Belgrade next month when she hopes to persuade Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to drop his opposition to surrendering Milosevic.

"The co-operation with the tribunal must begin next year," she said at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Wednesday.

Milosevic, overthrown in October but still free in Serbia, was indicted last year by the tribunal for crimes against humanity for the persecution and deportation of ethnic Albanians in the province of Kosovo.

The alleged atrocities committed by his forces prompted NATO to launch 11 weeks of air strikes in 1999.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic have been indicted but also remain at large.

Del Ponte's demand came a day after Kostunica repeated his opposition to sending Milosevic abroad for trial.

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Kostunica said the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on apartheid-era crimes in South Africa and Chile's recent judicial process against former dictator Augusto Pinochet could serve as models for his country.

Del Ponte said Kostunica would only be right if the world were a perfect place.

"In a perfect world, it wouldn't have taken 10 years for democratic Chile to start prosecuting Pinochet.

"In a perfect world, we could also ask the Republic Srpska (Bosnian Serb) authorities to judge Karadzic and Mladic -- why should they be denied that 'right' if Belgrade is allowed to have Milosevic and others tried at home?" Del Ponte said.

Del Ponte said discussion in Belgrade appeared to ignore non-Serb victims and expressed her doubts about those in charge.

"What we see for the time being is that key individuals of the Milosevic regime continue to count on the new Yugoslav president's trust," she said.

'Political institution'

Earlier this month, Milosevic said his "conscience is completely clear" over the years of conflict that coincided with his rule.

He said he could "sleep peacefully" and denounced the U.N. war crimes tribunal as part of a system used to commit genocide against Serbs. He added that he had nothing to fear from the courts in Serbia.

He added that he did not even recognise the war crimes tribunal.

"That institution is a political institution which is one of the means for carrying out genocide against the Serb people -- a people which dared to defend its country and to defend its national interests," he said.

Kostunica said he doubted the court's impartiality when prosecutors refused to launch an investigation into NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.

The tribunal has dismissed the idea of indicting NATO members, but Del Ponte said her team would be able to investigate more crimes in which Serbs were victims if Belgrade opened its doors.

She said she was "very concerned" at the lack of arrests made by NATO over the past six months and would be urging member states to step up their efforts in the new year.

Pristina - The NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo has arrested 30 ethnic Albanian rebels, the guerilla group UCPMB claimed Wednesday.

KFOR troops from the United States detained them near the town of Sefer in the tense buffer zone between Kosovo and southern Serbia, said Sheqir Sheqiri, a spokesman of the political wing of the UCPMB.

Some 40 more rebels had managed to flee during the operation, and three guerrillas had been captured by Serb forces, he said.

U.S. forces in eastern Kosovo denied the report, while a KFOR source in Pristina told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa he had heard that a group of 30 young men had been detained and later released.

The Presevo Medvedja and Bujanovac Liberation Army (UCPMB) has fought Serbian units in the five-kilometre-wide buffer zone with Kosovo.

Belgrade alleges the organisation wants Pristina to join the predominantly ethnic Albanian province of Kosovo. The UCPMB claims it is defending local residents against aggression by Serbian police

BELGRADE, December 20 (Itar-Tass) - Serbian Vice-Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic and KFOR commander Carlo Cabigiosu met in Bujanovac on Wednesday to discuss concrete measures to improve the difficult situation in Kosovo's buffer zone.

The meeting was held in southern Serbia, the headquarters of the Yugoslav-Serbian coordinating committee designed to help stabilise the situation in the region.

His arrival to Bujanovac followed the U.N. Security Council's resolution, which condemned Albanian extremists' actions in southern Serbia and demanded their leaders leave Kosovo's demilitarised zone. In their statement the Serbian vice-prime minister and the KFOR commander said they are ready to develop cooperation to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica considered the U.N. Security Council document on the situation in Kosovo as an "encouraging step", adding that it is necessary to take concrete measures to settle the situation.

He believes that Yugoslav authorities will use all political and diplomatic measures to stabilise the situation in southern Serbia. Kostunica also urged the U.N. military and civil missions in Kosovo to takes their measures.

"It is necessary to deploy Serbian police troops in the buffer zone. There should not be terrorists there so that the residents can live in peace," he added.

UNITED NATIONS - The new chief U.N. administrator for Kosovo said on Wednesday in his first public comments about the job that his first priority would be to speed the shift to self-government in the southern Serbian province.

Hans Haekkerup, the Danish defense minister, said the transition to self-government -- which includes parliamentary elections expected next year -- will be fraught with risks and will take a long time, but he hopes the process will ease the violence that has gripped the region in recent years.

``The violence now is the biggest problem,'' he told reporters, expressing hope self-government ``will take some of the steam out of the situation and also prepare the way for a final political settlement, even if that is not just right around the corner.''

The U.N. mandate in Kosovo is to create substantial democratic autonomy short of the independence demanded by the ethnic Albanians and rejected by Belgrade and the province's minority Serbs.

Only then will Kosovo's final status be decided, determining whether it will end up as a Yugoslav province with substantial autonomy; as a Serbian province, without the right to secede; or as an independent, mainly ethnic Albanian state.

An ambiguous Security Council resolution 1244, adopted in June 1999, suspended Serbia's right to government in Kosovo but upheld Yugoslavia's sovereignty over the territory.

The resolution, which put Kosovo under U.N. control, followed an 11-week NATO bombing campaign that forced the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops and police who had been oppressing the Albanian inhabitants.

Since then, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, an indicted war criminal, has been ousted from office, replaced by the new Belgrade government headed by Vojislav Kostunica.

Most analysts seem to agree that Kosovo Albanians can no longer count on merely drifting to de facto independence now that Milosevic has been replaced by Kostunica, a democratic reformer whom the West is eager to shore up for the sake of Balkan peace.

Haekkerup, who was named two weeks ago to succeed Bernard Kouchner of France, said he will start his new job Jan. 15. He pledged to develop close contacts with all interested parties including Kosovo's Serbs, ``to make sure they will be part of the process.''

``My goal is to get Kosovo away from the headlines, but at the same time keeping the interest of the international community in what is going on in Kosovo,'' he said.

``First we have to define the legal framework for provisional self-government, and this of course will take some months, but I will speed up the work that has already been started on that,'' he said.

BELGRADE, — Three Serb soldiers were jailed on Wednesday for the killing of an ethnic Albanian couple, the first time the Yugoslav army has officially acknowledged its men committed atrocities during the Kosovo conflict.

Beta news agency said a military court sentenced an officer and two reservists to almost 14 years in total for the murders in March last year, during NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

The conviction -- improbable under toppled Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic -- may be seen as a sign his successor Vojislav Kostunica is serious about coming to terms with war crimes committed by his countrymen during a decade of Balkan bloodshed.

The Court Martial in the southern city of Nis sentenced Major Dragisa Petrovic to four years and 10 months for ``inciting the murder,'' Beta said.

He had allegedly ordered that all the villagers of Gornja Susica, near the Kosovo capital Pristina, be driven out.

Reservists Nenad Stamenkovic and Tomica Jovic were sentenced to four and a half years each for killing the elderly couple in the village on March 29 last year.

The three men, whose trial only began after Milosevic lost power, were convicted of murder, not war crimes -- which would have been more embarrassing for the military.

Kostunica has said Serbs must confront crimes carried out by their side but -- perhaps with one eye on key elections coming up on Saturday -- has made no move against Milosevic himself.

The autocratic Milosevic was toppled by popular protest in October after refusing to concede he had lost elections. He has been indicted for war crimes by the U.N. international tribunal in The Hague but is still living free in Belgrade.

Political observers say a trial in Serbia -- perhaps on corruption rather than war-crimes charges -- may be more likely than extradition for him.

Wednesday's case came to light because of the persistence of another Yugoslav soldier, Colonel Ljubisa Micic, in following up reports he had heard of the murder of Feriz and Rukije Krasniqi and pushing for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

He obtained written confessions and lodged criminal charges with the army prosecutor's office.

A year and a half later, those charges led to the trial.

``This is the first time that a court in Serbia has cooperated with UNMIK (the U.N. mission in Kosovo) to uncover war crimes,'' said a Belgrade-based human rights group, the Humanitarian Law Fund, while the trial was under way.

Serbs vote on Saturday to elect a new parliament for their republic, which dominates federal Yugoslavia.

Polls show Milosevic's Socialist followers are set to lose their last remaining power base in the election.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia - The commander of the NATO (news - web sites)-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo and a senior Serbian official met for the first time on Wednesday to discuss ways to deal with ethnic Albanian guerrillas operating outside Kosovo.

A representative of the guerrillas said such meetings led nowhere and called for direct talks between the rebels and Belgrade under international supervision.

KFOR commander Lieutenant-General Carlo Cabigiosu traveled into Serbia proper, to the town of Bujanovac near the five-km (three-mile) buffer zone skirting the boundary with Kosovo to talk with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic.

``The meeting was constructive and I am encouraged by the discussion,'' a KFOR statement quoted Cabigiosu as saying. ``I believe it is possible to find a peaceful solution to this problem and this meeting was a step in the right direction.''

He gave no details and did not refer directly to Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica (news - web sites) who said on Tuesday the buffer zone should be narrowed to allow Belgrade to ``cleanse'' the area of ethnic Albanian rebels because KFOR had failed to do the job.

Kostunica called for revisions to a 1999 cease-fire pact with NATO which set up the zone, where Yugoslavia may not station any security forces except local police with light arms.

The situation in the buffer zone became a serious security issue late last month when four Serbian policemen were killed in clashes with ethnic Albanian guerrillas there.

On Tuesday night, British KFOR troops sent in as reinforcements detained 13 ethnic Albanians trying to smuggle arms in four cars from Kosovo into the buffer zone.

The guerrillas, who call themselves Presevo Medvedja and Bujanovac Liberation Army known as UCPMB, say they are trying to protect the large ethnic Albanian community in the Presevo Valley of southern Serbia from Serbian police persecution.

Belgrade insists they are separatists intent on joining the Presevo Valley to Kosovo.

Shaqir Shaqiri, spokesman for the UCPMB political council, told Reuters it was ``irritated with the meeting in Bujanovac.''

``The only solution for the Presevo Valley problem is through direct negotiations between ethnic Albanian political and military representatives and the Serbian side under international supervision,'' he said.

Buffer Zone An Election Issue For Serbia

Serbia holds a parliamentary election on Saturday and for Kostunica and his alliance it is important to show a tough stand on Kosovo and the buffer zone to meet nationalist sentiment.

Yugoslavia's independent Beta news agency quoted Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Covic as saying on Tuesday that ``if it comes to an attack by terrorists, Serbia would respond with all possible means.''

The West, keen to see Kostunica securing victory over the party of former Yugoslav authoritarian ruler Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites), is eager to help.

The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday condemned violence by ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia and called for such groups to be dissolved and their members to leave the area.

Tension in the buffer zone southeast of the Kosovo capital Pristina has coincided with increased violence in the north of the province populated mostly by ethnic Serbs. Two U.N. police stations have been attacked since Saturday and one Serb killed.

Kosovo Serbs plan to hold the election on Saturday while the ethnic Albanian majority seeking independence from Serbia fiercely opposes the poll.

BELGRADE - The leader of the 18-party reformist bloc poised to sweep Serbia's parliamentary election vowed Wednesday to forge ``modern, uncorrupted'' government that will crack down on endemic graft and gangsterism.

After a decade of wars, U.N. sanctions, the impoverishment of millions and the enrichment of a few ten thousand in ruling circles, polls show reformists will crush long-dominant nationalists in Saturday's parliamentary election.

Zoran Djindjic, premier-designate of the Democratic Alliance of Serbia (DOS), told its final campaign rally that Yugoslavia's main republic could expect honest government dedicated to democracy, the rule of law and peace with neighbors.

``Let us try to win in peace, we don't want wars any more. Let's make the 21st century an era of peace in the Balkans,'' Djindjic, 48, told thousands of supporters in Belgrade's main Sava convention center.

``We first have to change ourselves ... we should not make compromise with our shortcomings. We should start with our home, and that is our government, and it must be clean and uncorrupted and must be capable,'' he said.

``Then we will clean the institutions to make this country an example of a modern, organized state.''

Djindjic said there would be no campaign of vengeance against figures from the fallen authoritarian regime of Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites), ``but there won't be any amnesty either.''

Among the overriding priorities of a DOS government would be rooting out networks of corruption linking senior state officials, police and business figures which have bled state coffers dry over the past decade, Djindjic has said.

Milosevic's tenure was marked by the rise of a politically connected elite enriched by black marketeering and import monopolies while most Serbs were driven by hyper-inflation and international sanctions into poverty.

Billions Of Dollars Missing

Yugoslavia's new reformist central bank governor Mladjan Dinkic said recently that several billion dollars were spirited abroad during Milosevic's rule in the 1990s.

Milosevic was toppled in a popular uprising 10 weeks ago sparked by his attempt to annul the victory of DOS challenger Vojislav Kostunica (news - web sites) in Yugoslavia's presidential election.

When the dust cleared, the new federal rulers found the cupboard bare -- empty bank accounts, food warehouses vacant and oil reserves dry. Belgrade is counting on European Union (news - web sites) aid and local improvisation to get through the winter.

But the key to rebuilding and modernizing Yugoslavia over the longer term will be wholesale economic and legal reform in its dominant republic, Serbia, whose size and 10 million people dwarf its federal partner Montenegro.

``If our country is to be successful it must have determined political leadership and stable democratic institutions,'' Djindjic told the DOS gathering.

``For us Serbia is not just a territory, not just a population, for us Serbia is a great idea and a great obligation,'' he said to applause.

The latest poll by Belgrade's Strategic Marketing agency put DOS support in Saturday's election at 62.8 percent with Milosevic's Socialist Party (SPS) far behind at 12.7 percent.

Milosevic, indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for alleged atrocities in Kosovo, has lashed out against ``foreign intelligence services'' he says are now running Yugoslavia. But the SPS eschewed campaign rallies for ``security reasons.''

A former SPS coalition partner, the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party, attracted eight percent, the poll found.

The Serbian Renewal Movement, whose firebrand leader Vuk Draskovic once co-led Serbia's opposition bloc with Djindjic but dropped out over largely personal differences, bordered on the minimum five percent needed for parliamentary seats.

COPENHAGEN, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Denmark's Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen resigned on Wednesday, saying he could not administer Denmark's opt-outs to the European Union's Maastricht Treaty on closer cooperation.

``I am not the right person to administer these exemptions,'' Petersen, who had been foreign minister for more than seven years, told a news conference.

``I cannot wholeheartedly support these opt-outs which I do not consider to be in Denmark's interests after the Nice Treaty,'' agreed earlier this month.

In 1992, Danes voted against the Maastricht Treaty, but a year later approved a tailored version of the accord after winning the right to opt-out from four areas, notably the single currency and joint defence.

In a referendum on September 28 this year, Danes again rejected participation in the euro, which had been broadly supported by the government, industry and the financial community, by 53 to 47 percent.

``I seriously considered resigning after the September 28 referendum but fo