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| Viewing file: Select action/file-type: <a name="newsitem946542156,958,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Ex-General Pleads Not Guilty</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By REUTERS<br><br>THE HAGUE, Dec. 29 -- A top Bosnian Serb commander pleaded not guilty today to charges that he directed a sniping, shelling and terror campaign against civilians during the three-year siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. <br>The commander, Gen. Stanislav Galic, 56, led the Sarajevo Romanija Corps from 1992 to 1994, reporting to Dr. Karadzic and General Mladic. He has since retired and was arrested last week by NATO forces in Bosnia. <br><br>The siege of Sarajevo, from early 1992 until 1995, killed 10,500 people, almost 1,800 of them children, the indictment said. Prosecutors say General Galic was in command during the deadliest months of the campaign. <br><br>He is accused of seven counts of violations of the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity -- more specifically, sniping, shelling, inflicting terror and murder. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946542119,88387,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>U.N. Tribunal Plays Down Its Scrutiny of NATO Acts</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The New York Times<br><br>By STEVEN ERLANGER<br><br>RAGUE, Dec. 29 -- Officials of the tribunal investigating war crimes in the Balkans said today that a study of possible Western crimes in the recent Kosovo war is a preliminary, internal document that is highly unlikely to produce indictments or even be published. <br>The officials were quick to play down the importance of the study, which was requested in August by the United Nations' chief prosecutor at the time, Louise Arbour. The report, which was completed last week by the tribunal's senior legal adviser, will be studied over the holidays by the current chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, the officials said. <br><br>The existence of the study was reported on Sunday by the British newspaper The Observer in an interview with Mrs. Del Ponte. But Mrs. Del Ponte emphasized that the tribunal had more pressing tasks than prosecuting the Western leaders who have been most supportive of the tribunal, including the extension of current indictments of President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia and four of his top associates to possibly include charges of genocide. <br><br>"It's not my priority, because I have inquiries about genocide, about bodies in mass graves," she told the paper. <br><br>The tribunal's spokesman, Paul Risley, said in a telephone interview today that the study was an appropriate response to public concerns about NATO's tactics. "It is very important for this tribunal to assert its authority over any and all parties to the armed conflict within the former Yugoslavia," he said. <br><br>Mr. Milosevic has not been indicted for actions in Bosnia, however, leading to criticism from Belgrade, Moscow, Beijing and elsewhere that the tribunal has bent to pressure from the United States to bring an indictment over Kosovo. But tribunal officials say that Washington in particular has been reluctant to hand over relevant intelligence about Bosnia that touched Mr. Milosevic or the late Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman. <br><br>The tribunal can charge only individuals with crimes, not states, institutions or organizations. <br><br>The preliminary report is understood to be a legal analysis of the basis for bringing charges of war crimes for NATO activities like the bombing of civilian power stations and bridges, which NATO said had military uses. The report also examines the wide use of cluster munitions, which NATO said were being used only against airfields and other military targets, but some of which fell into populated areas, like the grounds of a hospital in the center of Nis, in central Serbia. The study looks at the history of such weapons and how they have been used in previous wars. <br><br>As an internal document, it will not be released to the public, Mr. Risley said. If Mrs. Del Ponte decides to take no further action, the document will be filed for later historians. If she decides to order work on preparing indictments of individuals, the document would simply provide useful background. <br><br>The tribunal currently relies on NATO troops in Bosnia to capture and hand over those charged with war crimes who still live there, and Mrs. Del Ponte has pushed NATO governments to do more to capture notable figures like Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, who is said by Western officials to move between Montenegro and the Foca area of Bosnia, and Gen. Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander, who is thought to live in Serbia. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946542082,573,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Rocking Serb economists mark New Year early </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By Philippa Fletcher <br>BELGRADE — Serb opposition figures turned to music to mark the dawn of the new millennium three days early on Wednesday, saying the country needed to move faster toward a new century and a fresh start. <br>Economists from an opposition network formed earlier this year joined musicians for an open air concert in Belgrade to try to forge an opposition force aimed at ousting Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.<br><br>The main organizer was Mladjan Dinkic, a 35-year-old dissident economist who also plays bass guitar in a group called Monetary Shock.<br><br>"Let's sing together for a little while and then we'll overthrow the one who has been in our way all these years," Dinkic told a mainly young crowd of several thousand.<br><br>The performers quickly distinguished themselves from the country's squabbling opposition politicians, by starting their concert early, rather than up to an hour late like the ill-attended daily rallies held for almost three months from September.<br><br>Entering 2000 Three Days Early<br><br>"Let's enter the year 2000 three days before the deadline — because during the last 10 years we've lost almost the entire century. We have no more time to waste!" said a G-17 Plus statement explaining the early celebration.<br><br>The economists' opposition network of professionals is called G-17 Plus.<br><br>The concert, held under the slogan "New people for a new time," also had a much lighter touch than the nightly rallies across Serbia by the opposition politicians.<br><br>Those were marked by lengthy speeches blaming Milosevic's 10 years in power for a growing economic crisis and Serbia's international isolation.<br><br>At Tuesday's concert, singer Rambo Amadeus confessed to the lively crowd braving a cold winter drizzle that he'd had a few drinks.<br><br>"I was celebrating the first birthday of my son. I hope this is the last year under this regime for him ... when he was only three months old he experienced bombing," he said, referring to the NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia over Kosovo this year.<br><br>Pensioner Gordana Radic said she had come to support a group she felt could attract those disappointed by the opposition.<br><br>"I'm a bit old for the music!" she shouted over the noise.<br><br>Dinkic said after the concert ended with New Year countdown and a few fireworks that there was much more to be done.<br><br>"Next year we have to prove that we are able to change the regime and to change it, and finally to start working and living normally like other people in the world," he said, forgetting that he had already declared the start of the new year.<br><br>The Serbian Culture Ministry took over arrangements for the real millennium eve concert in Belgrade after opposition Serbian Renewal Movement, which runs the city council, pulled out on Friday, saying it did not want to spark a civil war.<br><br>The party, led by the charismatic but mercurial Vuk Draskovic, said it had heard pro-government political parties were planning their own concert for the same night and feared a clash between rival supporters — its most oft-cited reason for not adding its weight to the daily street protests. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946542057,39132,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Montenegro offers salaries deals to Yugoslav army</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">PODGORICA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Montenegro offered on Wednesday to pay Yugoslav army officers in the republic in hard currency if the army agreed to supply goods from Serbia to the same value in return, a government official said. <br>The offer, announced by Montenegro's Finance Minister Miroslav Ivanisevic after a government session, was the latest move by the independence-minded republic to separate its fate from that of isolated Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. <br><br>It was clearly designed to protect Montenegro from inflation by cutting out the weakening Yugoslav dinar, overcome a trade blockade by Belgrade and lure the military to its side. <br><br>But it was not immediately clear if the army would accept it without at least tacit approval from Milosevic, since the local commander, Milorad Obradovic, is considered loyal to Belgrade. <br><br>"The Montenegrin government decided today to pay salaries to all employees in Montenegro in German marks," Ivanisevic told reporters. <br><br>"Taking into consideration the living standard of the Yugoslav army employees and pensioners in Montenegro, the government also decided the incomes of these two categories should be converted into hard currency from dinars," he said. <br><br>"This is conditioned on the Yugoslav army ensuring goods can be purchased for Montenegro from Serbia at wholesale prices in exchange for the dinars earmarked for salaries and pensions." <br><br>Belgrade slapped a ban on payments operations with Montenegro after the Western-leaning republic introduced the German mark as legal tender in November. Serb police also block deliveries of food to the republic. <br><br>The army's practice of flying in sackloads of dinars to pay its troops in the coastal republic have threatened Montenegro's monetary moves, part of a series of unilateral steps to boost its autonomy from Belgrade. <br><br>The two republics, which make up today's Yugoslavia, have been at loggerheads since pro-Western Milo Djukanovic was elected president of Montenegro in 1997 and introduced policies at odds with Milosevic's leftist rule. <br><br>Last week Djukanovic said Milosevic might not approve of Montenegro's offer to the military, which he said was necessary to limit inflationary pressure in the republic and boost the army's living standards. <br><br>"By halting payment operations, Serbia made each new dinar a worthless paper in Montenegro," he said. "In that sense paying the army members in dinars represents an inflationary pressure." <br><br>He told university students on Thursday the offer would be made to commanders of Yugoslavia's Second Army, which covers Montenegro, in a few days but that "Belgrade may not like it and it may be a pretext for them to misuse the army." <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946541996,9792,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>ANALYSIS-Milosevic eyes politics in army reshuffle</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">BELGRADE (Reuters) - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has shored up loyalty in his devastated army with a slew of promotions which also make clear he is not prepared to allow Montenegro and Kosovo to slip quietly from his control. <br>The most senior figures singled out for promotion are prominent in a new campaign to try to show that the army still has a role to play in western-leaning Montenegro, which has threatened independence, and Kosovo, where NATO now rules. <br><br>Decrees issued Tuesday evening by Milosevic, who is supreme commander, indicate that he may have weeded out possible dissent with an accompanying series of dismissals, although that is hard to judge because it was not specified who was sacked. <br><br>The dismissals could have merely formed part of reported plan of sharp cutbacks in the armed forces which the cash-strapped government can no longer afford to maintain. <br><br>The promotions and decorations appeared to be aimed at keeping happy officers whose barracks and equipment were smashed in NATO air strikes this year and who have now been hit by the funding shortfall, rather than paving the way for any offensive. <br><br>But the focus on Montenegro and Kosovo make clear Milosevic, who faces an economic crisis and an ongoing although so far ineffectual opposition campaign to oust him, also wants to keep these two hot spots high on the political agenda. <br><br>Earlier this month, NATO warned Milosevic not to interfere in Montenegro, the only republic left with Serbia in Yugoslavia, after the army saw off Montenegrin police in a tense standoff over control of its main civilian and military airport. <br><br>MONTENEGRO, KOSOVO COMMANDERS PROMOTED <br><br>Milorad Obradovic, commander of the Second Army, which covers Montenegro, was given a higher rank in the same job in one of Milosevic's Tuesday decrees, carried by state news agency Tanjug and read on state television. <br><br>Military intelligence chief Geza Farkass also got a higher rank and Vladimir Lazarevic rose from commander of the army's Pristina Corps -- based in Kosovo until NATO forced it from the province last June -- to deputy head of the Third Army. <br><br>Monday, Lazarevic and his new direct boss, Third Army commander Nebojsa Pavkovic, both said Serb forces could return to Kosovo in June when the NATO-led peacekeepers might be forced out by a veto on their continued deployment by China or Russia. <br><br>Shunned by the West, which has made clear it wants him out, Milosevic has turned to Russia and China for support in hopes of exploiting their differences with Washington and Brussels. <br><br>The two states, which have veto power on the U.N. Security Council, have criticized NATO's actions in Kosovo, but the issue of the peacekeepers' continued mandate is likely to be at most a bargaining chip in their wider dealings with the West. <br><br>NATO sources say there is no chance of Serb forces returning to the province after the widespread atrocities committed against the majority ethnic Albanian population and local analysts see the statements as political posturing. <br><br>They share an underlying concern that Milosevic may try to strike out against Kosovo or Montenegro if public anger grows and he finds himself completely cornered, but say if he does he is more likely to use police or paramilitaries than the army. <br><br>NEW MOBILIZATION DIFFICULT AFTER KOSOVO <br><br>It was well-trained police which played the main role in flushing out separatist Kosovo Albanian guerrillas during the year-long conflict which proceeded the air strikes, while the conscript army merely pounded villages from a distance. <br><br>Bratislav Grubacic, editor of the Belgrade newsletter VIP, said senior officers were themselves aware the army could not return to Kosovo and would have trouble mobilizing troops for a fight in Slav Montenegro, especially since the air strikes. <br><br>As to whether the military could threaten Milosevic, he said the top commanders were loyal to the president, who he said made sure they were well looked after, despite the army's humiliating withdrawal from Kosovo and parlous state. <br><br>"On the lower levels it's difficult to judge. There is a lot of dissatisfaction among the lower ranks but not yet to the extent that the army might turn against the regime." <br><br>The Tanjug report on the decree made clear Milosevic had not forgotten the lower ranks. <br><br>"More than 80 percent of the medals were for noncommissioned officers and junior officers," it said, citing Milosevic's military cabinet. <br><br>"Decorations are a sort of pay-off," said Grubacic. <br><br>"They give people the feeling that everything's comfortable in the army." </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946461587,17843,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>U.N. Tribunal Investigating NATO's War in Yugoslavia</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The New York Times<br><br>THE HAGUE, Dec. 28 -- The chief war crimes prosecutor for the United Nations is reviewing the conduct of NATO pilots and their commanders during last spring's 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, her spokesman said today. <br><br>The staff of the prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, compiled a report on the air strikes at the urging of several "interested parties," including a group of Russian lawmakers and a Canadian law professor, said the spokesman, Paul Risley. <br><br>The war crimes tribunal, set up in 1993 by the Security Council, cannot indict governments or international organizations. <br><br>But if Ms. Del Ponte presses charges against any individual, it would be a landmark in global justice -- and a highly debatable one. No Western civilian or military leader has ever been brought before an international tribunal. <br><br>NATO began the bombing campaign in March to force President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his crackdown against Albanians in Kosovo. <br><br>The contents of the tribunal's report are confidential. However, NATO has been criticized for civilian deaths in what it has described as accidents, including the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and an attack on a bridge as a passenger train was crossing it. <br><br>NATO's spokesman, Jamie Shea, refused to comment on the inquiry. <br><br>Investigating NATO's conduct would go far in dispelling the belief -- prevalent in the Balkans -- that the tribunal is a tool used by Western leaders to escape accountability. <br><br>But even if evidence of violations of international conventions on warfare were found, it is questionable whether Ms. Del Ponte, a former Swiss federal prosecutor, would go so far as to issue any indictments. <br><br>The handling of the report is a delicate matter for the tribunal, which depends on the military alliance to arrest and hand over suspects. NATO peacekeepers in the Balkans have detained about half of the 34 suspects now in custody. <br><br>Ms. Del Ponte alluded to this when a reporter for The Observer in London asked whether she would be prepared to press charges if the inquiry turned up incriminating evidence. <br><br>"If I am not willing to do that, I am not in the right place: I must give up the mission," she said in the interview, published last weekend. <br><br>But she stressed that other investigations would take precedence, saying: "It's not my priority, because I have inquiries about genocide, about bodies in mass graves." </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946461542,89418,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>MoD confident that Nato acted lawfully in Kosovo </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The Independent<br><br>By Gavin Cordon, PA News <br>The Government said it was "confident" Nato forces had acted within international law during the Kosovo conflict following the announcement that the UN chief war crimes prosecutor was to review the alliance's bombing campaign. <br><br>Ministry of Defence officials were privately relaxed following the disclosure that prosecutor Carla Del Ponte had received a report on the conduct of Nato pilots and their commanders during the 78–day bombardment of Yugoslavia. <br><br>"We are confident that, at all stages of the conflict, Nato forces conformed with the relevant international law," a MoD spokesman said. <br><br>The report was compiled by Ms Del Ponte's staff at the urging of several "interested parties," including a group of Russian parliamentarians and a renowned Canadian law professor, her spokesman Paul Risley said in The Hague. <br><br>The war crimes tribunal, set up in 1993 by the UN Security Council, cannot indict governments or international organisations. <br><br>If Ms Del Ponte chose to press charges against any individual as a result of the report, it would be a landmark in international justice – and a highly controversial one. <br><br>No Western leader or military figure has ever before been hauled before an international tribunal. <br><br>Nato launched the bombing campaign in March to force Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his crackdown against ethnic Albanians in the southern province of Kosovo. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946461500,23486,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Opposition coalition accepts rival's call for meeting ousting Milosevic</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">Associated Press<br><br>BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Serbia's largest opposition coalition accepted an invitation Thursday from a rival group to discuss developing a joint strategy to oust President Slobodan Milosevic. <br><br>Vladan Batic of the Alliance for Change told Belgrade's independent B2-92 radio station that he would attend the meeting and hoped the opposition would forge a successful united front. <br><br>Talks are set for Jan. 10. <br><br>The largest single opposition party in Serbia - the Serbian Renewal Movement led by Vuk Draskovic - called Monday for a meeting of all major pro-democracy leaders to draft a joint platform against Milosevic. <br><br>"We shall not disclose any strategy proposals in advance because the whole idea of the talks is that they harness common ground for the entire opposition," Draskovic's party spokesman Ivan Kovacevic said Tuesday. <br><br>The meeting is seen as yet another attempt to bring Serbia's fractured opposition together. It has been plagued by personal rivalries between its leaders, and the rifts have in the past ruined chances for Milosevic's ouster. <br><br>Western officials, while supporting the opposition's struggle, have criticized its disunity. <br><br>Earlier this year, Draskovic refused to join street protests led by the Alliance for Change, insisting they would lead to civil war. <br><br>Two minor opposition groups have also accepted the call for the January gathering. Regular elections in Yugoslavia are scheduled for the year 2000. <br><br>In a rally hinting at the opposition's drawing power, some 10,000 Belgraders gathered Tuesday on the capital's main square for a rock concert meant to usher in 2000, three days early. <br><br>The concert, organized by the pro-opposition G-17 Plus group of intellectuals, was a symbolic gesture against the scheduled New Year's Eve celebration to be organized by the Socialists and Communist Youth groups. <br><br>One of the organizers of the concert said that since "Serbia is already so far behind the rest of the world, why not enter the New Year three days ahead of everyone else?" media reported. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946461469,54473,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Milosevic makes sudden changes in army</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">BELGRADE, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic made a sudden series of changes in the army on Tuesday, promoting some commanders and dismissing others. <br>"The Yugoslav President and Supreme Commander Slobodan Milosevic issued decrees on the promotion, assignment to new posts and cessation of professional service of a certain number of Yugoslav army chiefs," the state news agency Tanjug said, quoting Milosevic's military cabinet. <br><br>It went on to list senior officers who had been promoted but did not identify who, or how many, had been sacked. <br><br>One of the most significant promotions went to Vladimir Lazarevic, who Tanjug said rose from the post of commander of the army's Pristina Corps -- based in Kosovo until it was forced to withdraw in June -- to deputy head of the broader Third Army. <br><br>On Monday, Lazarevic was one of several senior officials quoted as saying Serb forces would soon return to Kosovo and NATO-led peacekeepers might be forced out in June, part of an apparent new campaign by Belgrade to garner popular support. <br><br>NATO SOURCES REJECT IDEA OF SERB FORCES RETURNING <br><br>NATO sources say there is no chance of Serb forces returning to the province after the widespread atrocities committed against the province's majority ethnic Albanian population and local analysts see the statements as political posturing. <br><br>But they share an underlying concern that Milosevic may strike out, either against Kosovo or Montenegro, Serbia's smaller partner in the Yugoslav Federation, if public dissatisfaction grows and he finds himself completely cornered. <br><br>Milorad Obradovic, commander of the Second Army, which covers Montenegro, was given a higher rank in the same job as was Geza Farkass, security chief of the general headquarters. <br><br>Earlier this month the army saw off police from the pro-Western and independence-minded republic -- the only one not to have split with Serbia -- in a tense standoff over control of its main airport. <br><br>TIMING OF PROMOTIONS A SURPRISE <br><br>Bratislav Grubacic, a leading political analyst and editor of the Belgrade newsletter VIP, said the promotions were logical but that the timing came as a surprise. <br><br>He said the names of those who lost their jobs might indicate the extent of dissatisfaction within the military, whose facilities were badly hit in almost three months of NATO air strikes that ended with a humiliating withdrawal from Kosovo. <br><br>"I would be very interested to see the list of those dismissed," he said. <br><br>Grubacic said that despite the army's humiliating withdrawal from Kosovo most of the top commanders were loyal to Milosevic, who he said made sure they were well looked after. <br><br>"On the lower levels it's difficult to judge. There is a lot of dissatisfaction among the lower ranks but not yet to the extent that the army might turn against the regime." <br><br>The government has set aside more than 70 percent of next year's budget to rebuild military infrastructure and replace equipment damaged in the air strikes as well as making sure officers feel properly rewarded in an inflationary environment. <br><br>"Decorations are a sort of pay-off," he said. "They give people the feeling that everything's comfortable in the army." </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946371652,7134,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Montenegro to West: we can't wait forever</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">PODGORICA, Montenegro (Reuters) - Montenegrins who do not want their country to be the stage for the final clash in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia say the West must understand they will not wait forever to escape from Slobodan Milosevic. <br>Pressure is mounting to break free of Montenegro's dominant but isolated federal partner, Serbia, they warn, and the coming months will be crucial. <br><br>"There is growing impatience, especially among the young, who are not prepared to sacrifice another decade in Milosevic's dungeon," said a senior aide to President Milo Djukanovic. <br><br>Djukanovic's pro-Western government has applied its own visa and customs laws and introduced the deutschemark as currency. <br><br>But its self-assertiveness appears to have alarmed the West and Djukanovic has been told Montenegro will get no recognition from the United States and the European Union if it secedes. <br><br>This is despite the fact that Montenegro was a full constituent republic of the old federal Yugoslavia, like Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, all now recognized as independent states. <br><br>Djukanovic is being urged, instead, to work for democracy from within Yugoslavia, joining forces with the troubled Serbian opposition "as if we were Serbia and as if we did not already have our government," as one exasperated senior official put it. <br><br>"Waiting endlessly is what we will not do. And neither are we selling out our sovereignty, no way," said deputy premier Dragisa Burzan. The Djukanovic aide said it would be "immoral to insist we live under Milosevic's leadership." <br><br>"Does the West prefer to have Milosevic in one room or in the whole apartment?" demanded electoral analyst Veselin Pavicevic. Montenegro already has democracy, whereas Milosevic's opponents still seem hopelessly divided. <br><br>A top aide to Djukanovic said the West was making the wrong move by "reducing Montenegro to the level of just some other Serbian opposition town." And the chances of democracy spreading from here to Belgrade were thin, he added. <br><br>"The only genuine political counter to Milosevic's power is the Montenegro democratic movement, which is already in government," said presidential aide Milan Racen. <br><br>The republic may be small, with just 650,000 people, but it's a state with a history going back over 800 years, he said. <br><br> <br><br>PRESIDENT-FOR-LIFE MILOSEVIC? <br><br>Other senior government figures and analysts interviewed by Reuters over the past few days say agree that this "mistaken" policy -- apparently driven by fear of more violence and aversion to a new confrontation with Belgrade after Kosovo -- plays directly into Milosevic's hands. <br><br>They warn that Belgrade and the opposition Serbian nationalist party which represents it here is out to destabilize Montenegro and oust Djukanovic, perhaps by fomenting violence that would trigger "emergency" measures. <br><br>"He will certainly start a new conflict if he thinks it will enable him to stay in power. And with Montenegro he could create a new political space allowing him to stay in office for life," said a senior Montenegrin official. <br><br>"If NATO allowed him to occupy Montenegro militarily that would mean the ultimate and complete defeat of international policy in the region," he added, urging the West to make its policy "pre-emptive and not reactive." <br><br>Pro-Milosevic politicians deny any such strategy. They accuse the Montenegrin government of crime, corruption and political dirty tricks, including secret plots to compromise opponents, undermine the federal army and rig elections. <br><br>Srdjan Bozovic of the pro-Belgrade party recently brought these charges to the attention of the European Union monitoring mission here, evidently in hopes of a sympathetic hearing from EU countries ambivalent toward Djukanovic, such as Italy. <br><br>But Bozovic's party, said government supporters, is simply preparing the scene for the violence it plans to make happen. <br><br> <br><br>NO TANKS EXPECTED <br><br>Chain-smoking deputy premier Burzan does not expect to look up soon and see Yugoslav army tanks surrounding his office. <br><br>"I don't think there's any plan for a coup d'etat in the classic sense," he said. "I think Milosevic cannot launch an open assault on us because he knows he would be defeated and possibly shaken right out of power at home." "He is trying to strangle us economically, create social tensions and sow unrest so he can step in a 'save the people' from their mean and corrupt government," Burzan said. <br><br>He appealed for Western credits and investment guarantees of $250 million next year to bolster the economy and ensure that the move to a hard currency cannot be undermined by Belgrade. <br><br>"Otherwise I am afraid we will seen the democratization process destroyed by social unrest stoked by Milosevic." <br><br>Some worry that street clashes could be ignited in mid-January when the Orthodox Christian New Year coincides with the second anniversary of Djukanovic's election victory and gunfire is typically part of the celebration. <br><br>Burzan said Milosevic would like 50,000 on the streets for the occasion but even when pro-Serb feeling was high during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia "they could only manage 5,000-8,000 people, so I think this is an exaggerated fear," he said. <br><br> <br><br>HIGH-RISK ELECTIONS TO COME <br><br>Elections in spring are another matter. Nearly a quarter of the electorate is due to vote in municipal elections in the capital, Podgorica, and the city of Herceg Novi, and there are fears of rising tension as they approach. "These will be high-risk elections," said Pavicevic. <br><br>Bozovic of the Serb party said the situation was difficult but "not on such a scale that it would lead to armed clashes." <br><br>Pro-Serb officials deny that a new Military Police unit, the 7th Battalion, is being recruited exclusively from pro-Milosevic ranks in Montenegro as a political battering ram. <br><br>Belgrade insists it is a perfectly normal force. <br><br>"That's a lie. It is exclusively a one-party unit," said a presidential aide here. "They have 600 men already. The aim is to build its strength to 2,000 but they won't get it." <br><br>Well-armed police loyal to Djukanovic now outnumber the federal army, which is poorly paid and suffers low morale. Djukanovic recently suggested paying them in deutschemarks to secure their loyalty to Montenegro rather than Belgrade, which flies in sacks of fast-depreciating dinars to meet the payroll.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946371607,31316,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>One Man's Nightmare in Serbia: Life With Virtually Nothing Left</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The New York Time <br>By STEVEN ERLANGER<br><br>LESKOVAC, Serbia -- For Vlada, a unit commander for the Yugoslav Army during the Kosovo war, the months since have been a wretched period of guilt, poverty, doubt and repression, stemming from his participation in anti-government demonstrations in this conservative, wary town. <br><br>He thinks he is slightly mad; he thinks everyone else in Leskovac is, too, ground down by Serbia's long isolation, its wrecked economy, the war and the long reign of the seemingly immovable Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, whom he reviles. <br><br>Vlada still dreams of what he saw in Kosovo, of the long lines of expelled Albanians, of the dying and the dead, but less often. Now his dreams are of anxiety and loss. <br><br>"I have big problems with myself," he said, smoking a cheap Drina cigarette in his small house. "I'm nervous from morning until night, and I want to have a fight or an argument with someone all the time. <br><br>"There's no money here, no cash, no cooking oil, no sugar, no fresh milk. We look like Romania at the end of the 80's. No one smiles on the street. Everyone looks sad, and people are dressed badly. The best job belongs to the guy who fixes shoes. It's miserable. No one has problems of $1,000 or $2,000, but of 20 cents, $2 or $20. We've become a cheap people, separated from one another, without morality or scruples or fellow feeling." <br><br>He described a friend who said he could find him cooking oil. "So I gave him 100 dinars for eight bottles of oil," he said, mentioning an amount equal to about $5.50. "And two weeks later, there is nothing. And he will never come, and our friendship falls apart over 100 dinars. Because he couldn't ask me for a loan -- no one can afford to give loans any more." <br><br>In early July, after Serbian troops and policemen were forced to withdraw from Kosovo by 78 days of NATO airstrikes, Vlada took part in the anti-government demonstrations here in Leskovac, his home in deep southern Serbia and a traditional stronghold of Mr. Milosevic's Socialist Party. <br><br>The demonstrations, led by army reservists seeking delayed combat pay, shook the government. But the Belgrade-based democratic opposition did not capitalize on the spontaneous unrest, and the demonstrations here, too, have since dwindled away. <br><br>But Vlada, whose bitter accounts of the war were detailed in The New York Times in July, has been marked for special attention by the government, as have other protesters. As the demonstrations collapsed and Mr. Milosevic himself came to visit the town in October, Vlada has been harassed in a pattern that demonstrates the skill of this authoritarian government and the deep hold the Socialists -- the former Communists -- still have on the structures of power. <br><br>"The repression here is not physical but psychological," he said. "It's as if every activist of the ruling structure has been ordered in the next 24 hours to frighten two people who are against the regime." <br><br>Local members of the Socialist Party sought out every person who had been in the demonstrations here, which were filmed by the police, and also sought out their friends. <br><br>"The police go to my friends," Vlada said, and ask: 'Why him? Why did he do it? Why does he need this?' " <br><br>Vlada, who feels exposed enough in Leskovac and asked that his last name not be used, makes leather goods. He has little money and wants to continue his education in economics to finish a degree. He made an application that was denied, he said, "and I got back the answer, 'We can't help because he was in the demonstrations.' " <br><br>The message was delivered to his cousin by two members of the Socialist Party, who questioned the cousin about Vlada. The content of the message, Vlada said, was: "Well, they can help me, but they're very disappointed in me. And they expected the cousin to pass on the message and talk to me, which of course he did." <br><br>All this watching, a long tradition from the authoritarian party, is more effective than prison and cheaper, Vlada said, especially in small towns, when everyone knows everyone else. "If they arrested people, they'd need more jails and have to feed them at least once a day," he said sardonically. <br><br>The reason he met a reporter in his home, he said, was that last summer, after meeting in a cafe, he was asked questions about the encounter by people he knew. <br><br>"They asked: 'Who were those people? What did you talk about?' " he said. "It didn't matter that no one approached us at the time. The party has a wonderful infrastructure here. It's like a kind of secret service that works in cells and circles." <br><br>When Mr. Milosevic came to Leskovac on Oct. 11, the town was full of police and security guards, and everybody who worked for a state company was told to attend the rally or risk losing their jobs. <br><br>"If there were 20,000 people there, there were 5,000 security men, all of them edgy," Vlada said. "It was easier to lose your life that day as a Serb in Leskovac than as a Serb today in Kosovo. The world thinks every Serb is guilty for everything, but for the last six years, Milosevic can't walk freely through the streets. Every third person would kill him in cold blood, and the rest wouldn't care. Eighty percent of people wait for him to die; it's the only way we can get out of this magic vicious circle." <br><br>Leskovac is a center for Yugoslavia's Third Army, which controls southern Serbia and, before the war, Kosovo. When its main commanders, Nebojsa Pavkovic and Vladimir Lazarevic, come here to local headquarters, which is in a park, the whole town is blocked, with military policemen in bulletproof vests standing guard, rifles fixed with bayonets. <br><br>"They protect these beloved generals from the people who love them," Vlada said acidly. The park itself has been closed to normal civilians for months now. "So in the center of this town you have armed military police, and it's another shame." <br><br>But it is the poverty and hopelessness of his life and that of his friends, their lack of perspective in a deepening winter, that depresses Vlada the most. <br><br>Here in Leskovac, even those who work are making the equivalent of only 30 to 50 German marks a month, or $16 to $27. With no fresh milk, a liter package of preserved milk costs a mark a day. "To get your kids milk now takes your whole salary," he said. <br><br>To have your appendix out, he said, you need to give 100 marks to the surgeon -- two months' salary -- and bring your own food to the hospital. <br><br>"This is horrible now," he said. "Everyone has their own fear, that someone will arrest you or kill you, and your death will mean nothing to anyone around you. People are afraid the electricity will be cut off in the winter because they owe money for it, or it will be cut off because of shortages, like today, for four hours. Everyone is afraid something in the house will break, because there is no money to fix it, let alone replace it. <br><br>"And people become crueler and less thoughtful to one another. I think I'm a cultured person, and now I start screaming about prices in the shops. It doesn't matter that the salesman isn't responsible. When I buy toothpaste, I need 20 minutes to compare the sizes and the prices, and in the end I buy something, but it shocks me, and I come home nervous. And I put the toothpaste on the table, and I tell my wife how much it costs." <br><br>Even those who work for the government are in trouble. A friend spent two months working hard to rebuild a bombed railway bridge at Grdelica, where NATO rockets hit a passenger train. For 60 days of work, the man received 500 dinars, or $27. <br><br>But when the politicians came to reopen the bridge, in a blaze of publicity, they decorated the manager of the company for his services to the nation and provided a lavish spread of meat and drink. <br><br>The workers protested and said they would prefer the cash. But the manager said: "Don't worry, no one will ever pay for this food and drink. Maybe someone else will get a medal." <br><br>Vlada insists that he did not knowingly kill anyone in Kosovo, though he saw terrible and disturbing events, with "ethnic cleansing," killings and mental and moral breakdowns. "I'm satisfied with the way I acted, and if called to fight to defend the country I would go again," Vlada said. "But I hate the whole world for giving me this opportunity." <br><br>The war was unnecessary, he said. It was "made by empires and pride." And now, he said, the mess in Kosovo lets Mr. Milosevic defend the war and accuse the opposition of being traitors for dealing with the leaders of the same countries that bombed Serbia. "The visit of the opposition leaders to Washington and to Madeleine Albright was covered here as if they were going to ask for a new bombing campaign, and a lot of people believe this," he said. <br><br>Zoran Djindjic, the leader of the Democratic Party, who is contemplating resigning for his failure to oust Mr. Milosevic, is treated like the government's main enemy. "People who hate Milosevic buy this propaganda," Vlada said. "They would be happy if Milosevic dies, but first they want to kill Djindjic." <br><br>Vlada says Kosovo sometimes bursts through into his dreams. He and his men spent 60 days without clean water or electricity, sleeping on the floor of abandoned Albanian houses in the hills between Gnjilane and Kacanik, fighting the Kosovo Liberation Army and hiding from NATO bombs. <br><br>"Lately, I dream of the house we were in last," he said. "A few days ago I had a real nightmare. There is the house, and the owner of the house changes. Sometimes it's a Serb, sometimes it's an Albanian." <br><br>"There are a lot of people standing around, and I know that the dead have come back to live in their houses," he said, his voice suddenly cracking, "and I don't want them to think badly about me." <br><br>He stopped to compose himself, lighting another Drina. "But my problems now are sugar and cooking oil and toothpaste," he said. "This town is a twilight zone, like your worst dreams, when you're dreaming and sweating. When you have something and you lose it in a dream, and it recedes farther and farther away, and you can't catch it. <br><br>"That's our life today. We'll probably live worse than this, and this is horrible. We never think it can get worse, but it does."</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946288398,42257,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Serbia to step up ripostes to 'Western propaganda'</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">ABC News<br>Yugoslavia that forced it to halt a mass purge of rebellious ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and withdraw troops and police from the province, which is now under U.N. administration. <br><br>MONTENEGRO, WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL CITED AS PROPAGANDA TARGETS <br><br>Vucic said the pressure was expected to take the form of media reports on Montenegro, Yugoslavia's reformist, pro-Western republic now estranged from leftist Serbia, and activities of the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague. <br><br>"What is the aim of the West? Their media will focus on Montenegro, preparing ground for fresh political pressure on Yugoslavia. And except for two local media, no electronic media in Montenegro would oppose this occupation," he said. <br><br>"The Hague tribunal is another topic for the Western media. But the Serbian government has prepared a web site where it will unveil the truth on the crimes of the Hague tribunal. The Serbian government will fight this propaganda and disseminate the truth about the tribunal," he added. <br><br>Serbia and Montenegro have been increasingly at odds over the past two years as the small, coastal republic seeks to break away from what it sees as the damaging leftist nationalism of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. <br><br>Milosevic is one of five senior Yugoslav officials indicted by the tribunal for alleged Serbian atrocities against ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo conflict. <br><br>Vucic, a member of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party, a coalition partner to Socialists and neo-communists in the Serbian government, said an important aspect of Western pressure was the financing of some local media. <br><br>He singled out the independent news agency Beta and the daily Danas as among those receiving aid from abroad. <br><br>Such financing came from the Open Society Fund of billionaire financier George Soros, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, the European Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, according to Vucic. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946288332,54152,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Serbs Leave Tense Kosovo Town in NATO Convoy</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">ORAHOVAC, Serbia (Reuters) - A convoy of peacekeeping vehicles carrying injured, sick and elderly Serbs with children left a Kosovo town for government-controlled Serbia on Saturday, fleeing winter cold and ethnic strife in the province. <br>"At home in Orahovac we have no heating, the temperature is below zero all the time. We are freezing," Stanka Janetovic, 34, told Reuters. Her son Goran, 7, was suffering from pneumonia and the medical unit in Orahovac had no antibiotics. <br><br>"The injured and children suffer the most. Besides keeping them warm, we have no other means to treat them nor feed them," she said, adding that she wanted to take her son to the safety of Nis, a large city in southern Serbia. <br><br>Kosovo, a southern province of Serbia, has been under U.N. administration since June when Serbian security forces halted a bloody crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians and withdrew under NATO bombardment. <br><br>Serbs remaining in Kosovo have been subjected to revenge violence by majority Albanians since NATO-led peacekeepers arrived and tens of thousands of Serbs have fled the province as a result. <br><br>Orahovac, a town in central Kosovo, has an enclave of 2,000 Serbs who feel menaced by surrounding Albanians. <br><br>On their way out of Kosovo, the 46 Serbs in the convoy from Orahovac stopped at the Russian hospital in Kosovo Polje, where six Serbs injured in ethnic violence were treated recently, before continuing onwards to central Serbia. <br><br>Orahovac's ethnic Albanians say that local Serbs were involved in massacres of their kin during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia earlier this year. <br><br>SERB 'CONCENTRATION CAMP' IN ORAHOVAC <br><br>For their part, Orahovac Serbs say they are living in a ghetto akin to a concentration camp, under the constant threat of ethnic Albanian attacks. <br><br>They say 10 Serbs have been killed and more than 10 injured since the arrival of the KFOR peace force. <br><br>Last week, one Serb was killed and several wounded in a grenade attack on a cafe, after which Orahovac Serbs gathered before the local Orthodox church demanding KFOR enable them to leave safely or they would all walk to Montenegro, a neighboring Yugoslav republic. <br><br>They shelved the idea until another reported bomb attack on a Serb house on Friday night. <br><br>After several hours of negotiations with KFOR, they reached a deal to let a group of 46, including six injured, 12 ailing elderly people and children with their families, leave in KFOR vehicles. <br><br>"I have relatives in Vojvodina (northern Serbia) and hope to get there to save my children, because they need urgent medical treatment. They suffer malnutrition and cold," Milica Kujundzic, mother of eight-month-old Ivan and three-year-old Tamara, said. <br><br>Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, due to return home later on Saturday after a two-day visit to Yugoslavia which included a stop in Kosovo, was quoted by the state agency Tanjug as saying he hoped Russian peacekeepers would eventually operate in the Orahovac area to reassure its Serbs. <br><br>Ethnic Albanians blocked roads around Orahovac with cars and tractors from August to November to prevent Russians from taking over security in the area from Dutch soldiers as scheduled. <br><br>Kosovo Albanians say the Russians have a pro-Serb bias. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946288284,33764,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Opposition in Serbia to Seek Early Elections</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By REUTERS<br><br>BELGRADE, Serbia, Dec. 26 -- The largest Serbian opposition party intends to call on people to demonstrate for early elections, the independent news agency Beta said today. <br><br>"We have decided not to wait anymore," Beta quoted Aleksandar Cotric from the Serbian Renewal Movement as saying. <br><br>The move could strengthen the bitterly divided and fragile opposition, which has so far failed to unite on methods to be used to end the rule of the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, despite many such efforts in the past. <br><br>Addressing an party meeting in the western Serbian town of Loznica, Mr. Cotric said the movement would soon "call its supporters to win early elections on the streets," Beta reported. <br><br>The movement, led by Vuk Draskovic, avoided a protest wave begun by the Alliance for Change opposition group after NATO's March-to-June air war against Yugoslavia. <br><br>The alliance, insisting on Mr. Milosevic's resignation ahead of early elections, held anti-government rallies for 89 consecutive nights but put them on hold 10 days ago until mid-January. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946288237,57149,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Bosnian Mart Becomes Den Of Criminal Enterprise</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The Washington Post<br><br>By R. Jeffrey Smith<br><br>ARIZONA HIGHWAY, Bosnia –– A tribute to American military generosity and good intentions is posted in the middle of the teeming marketplace on this rural road, just around the corner from the "Las Vegas" and "Colorado" brothels and dozens of shops selling counterfeit CDs and other smuggled merchandise. <br><br>"Our thanks to the U.S. Army for supporting in the development of this market," says the large sign in the midst of what has been jokingly called the Wal-Mart of Bosnia but is actually one of the largest havens for tax cheats, contraband and prostitution in the Balkans.<br><br>The sign, no longer a point of pride at the nearby headquarters of the 4,000 U.S. peacekeeping troops in northeastern Bosnia, has become instead an embarrassing symbol of how some of the estimated $5 billion in Western investment in this war-wracked country has gone sour.<br><br>Here and elsewhere in Bosnia, criminal gangs--using skills gained circumventing blockades and embargoes during the 1992-95 Bosnian war--are smuggling in thousands of cartons of untaxed cigarettes and unknown quantities of illegal drugs a week. They have also established well-protected corridors for trafficking in stolen cars from Western Europe and prostitutes from Eastern Europe. <br><br>"Unofficial markets . . . have mushroomed throughout the country," said a recent European Commission report on organized crime in Bosnia. Western officials say that 40 to 60 percent of Bosnia's economy now appears to be based on black-market commerce. This has fueled the rise of a wealthy criminal class that wields enormous political influence and annually diverts hundreds of millions of dollars in potential tax revenue to itself. <br><br>Although there is little evidence of direct diversion of foreign aid to private hands, the siphoning off of public revenue has helped ensure the country's continued dependency on outside assistance for many years to come, officials say. "To me, the biggest problem [in Bosnia] is the economy . . . and linked to that is crime and corruption," U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ronald Adams, the top NATO officer in Bosnia, said in an interview in Sarajevo, the capital. <br><br>Since 1995, when a U.S.-drafted peace accord halted 2 1/2 years of war between Bosnia's Muslims, Croats and Serbs, virtually the only economic growth stimulated here has been either through crime or the trickle-down effect of direct foreign aid, according to James Lyons, head of the International Crisis Group office here. <br><br>Criminal groups have thrived in Bosnia because ethnic enmities have hampered the formation of a government with blanket legal jurisdiction over the patches of territory administered by rival Muslim, Serb and Croat officials. "Within Bosnia today, organized crime and corruption are more serious threats to security and stability than military confrontation," said American diplomat Robert Barry, head of the local office of the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Barry recently told a group of students that he sees an "emerging relationship" between extremist politicians, members of wartime security institutions and new criminal gangs as the biggest obstacle to democratic reform in Bosnia. <br><br>From its formal opening in the spring of 1996, the Arizona market, named for NATO's designation of an adjacent highway, was seen as a model for the rest of Bosnia. Western officials promoted the site as a cradle of local entrepreneurship that would provide an economic springboard for the rest of the country. The Pentagon funded roughly $40,000 of its start-up costs, and the market was officially established on a muddy field in a NATO-enforced "zone of separation" between former Croat, Muslim and Serbian combatants. <br><br>In the three years since, the market has grown into a sprawling complex of more than 1,000 largely wooden trading stalls that employ more than 2,500 people and indirectly support another 7,500. In a single weekend, it has attracted as many as 25,000 customers from throughout Bosnia and four neighboring nations--Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Yugoslavia. Most are drawn by extraordinary bargains made possible because none of the merchants pay taxes and most goods are either smuggled in or customs duties on them were underpaid. <br><br>Some officials say the Arizona market is an example of how the West's policies here--particularly its preoccupation with physical reconstruction instead of the more difficult task of orchestrating lasting economic and political reform--have fostered the enormous expansion of criminal activity. Western officials say Bosnia loses an estimated $30 million a year from untaxed sales of legal goods at the market, but some proceeds are pocketed by local police, who have helped obstruct law enforcement and tax collection. In addition, international monitors have implicated the chief of the local police force, Marko Geljic, and 21 other police officers in prostitution-related activities at the market. <br><br>But the Arizona market is not an isolated den of criminal activity in Bosnia. In the southern city of Stolac, a weekly market in cars stolen in Western Europe and brought in through Italy, Slovenia and Croatia draws thousands of customers. Zenit Kelic, who heads the nascent federal customs agency, says that license plates and registration papers are readily available for purchase from municipal officials in the town. "A huge number of police officers in Stolac are directly involved in running that crime," Kelic said of the auto-theft ring. <br><br>Western officials began contemplating serious action to clean up the Arizona market early this year when an extremist group of Bosnian Croat war veterans with close ties to hard-line government officials in Croatia began erecting a second market at the site. The founding director of the organization, Mladen Nateltilic, has been indicted by the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and the group has sent threatening letters to Western officials probing its business activities. <br><br>But the officials' concern grew to alarm when it appeared that the veterans group--whose symbol is a wheelchair-bound man with an assault rifle in his lap--was seeking revenues from the new market to promote nationalist aims in Bosnia. <br><br>Jacques Klein, an American who directs U.N. operations in Bosnia and oversees international monitoring of all police activities, was among those who argued at a meeting of Western diplomats last month that move to build a second market justified bulldozing the entire site. <br><br>"Its time is past," Klein said in an interview. "It is controlled by hard-line obstructionists [who oppose ethnic integration]. . . . All the structures are illegal. There are illegal auto sales, prostitution and counterfeit CDs. . . . No one knows who owns the land, and it is killing trade in neighboring areas." <br><br>So far, the idea has been rejected by other Western officials, who say the market is now so big and its beneficiaries so powerful that its destruction would touch off violence and risk NATO casualties. <br><br>Other officials noted that Robert Ferend, the new Western administrator of the Brcko municipality that includes the Arizona market, sees the site as a potential source of revenue for the municipality if its operations can be regulated and properly taxed. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946121466,72008,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>INTERVIEW-Yugo PM says Montenegro graft exposed</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">BELGRADE, Dec 24 (Reuters) - The Yugoslav government said on Friday that the resignation of Montenegro's foreign minister had stripped the veil off corruption in the coastal republic, whose pro-reform stance has put it at loggerheads with Belgrade. <br>"Unfortunately, there are other individuals in Montenegro who violated other laws. I think this is only the first step towards baring the truth," said Yugoslav federal Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic, a Montenegrin leftist and bitter enemy of the republican government in Podgorica. <br><br>"The Socialist People's Party will submit to the public undisputed material evidence of corruption among the members of the Montenegrin government," he told Reuters in an interview. <br><br>Bulatovic, a former Montenegrin president regarded as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's protege, is also the head of the largest opposition party in his native republic. <br><br>"I have for long warned the public that Montenegro has no future with business which became the predominant economic activity in Montenegro," he said, alluding to corruption. <br><br>"I am personally not looking forward to it (exposing graft) because I think it is shameful for one state to find itself in such a position." <br><br>Branko Perovic, foreign minister of Montenegro which is increasingly defying central authority exercised from Belgrade, resigned on Thursday over alleged involvement in smuggling and criminal links with the Italian mafia. <br><br>His resignation coincided with strong criticism from Bulatovic's party, which accused the pro-Western Podgorica government of involvement in organised crime. <br><br>"This resignation was forced by the decision of Italian judiciary and not by criticism of a single political party. An Italian court filed charges against the Montenegrin foreign minister, who is only a tip of the iceberg," Bulatovic said. <br><br>EVIDENCE LEADS TO DJUKANOVIC, SAYS FOE <br><br>"All material evidence in the world and in the country prove that (Montenegrin President Milo) Djukanovic himself has organised these activities, which have unfortunately brought Montenegro a very bad reputation in Europe," Bulatovic said. <br><br>Western diplomats and opposition critics say the leftist-nationalist, Serbian-led government in Belgrade is itself corrupt and tinged by gangsterism. The other Yugoslav republic is Serbia, which is far bigger than Montenegro. <br><br>An Italian judge earlier this month ordered Perovic and 26 other people to stand trial on smuggling and criminal association charges, relating to the period when Perovic worked for the Rome office of Yugoslav Airlines (JAT). <br><br>Montenegrin Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic praised Perovic's resignation as a move aimed at relaxing pressure being exerted on his government. Vujanovic also accused Bulatovic of being familiar with and approving of Perovic's disputed activities. <br><br>According to Montenegrin media reports, Perovic mediated in a business that provided the Podgorica tobacco industry new equipment and a deal that still keeps its factory running. <br><br>But Bulatovic insisted the resignation was just a tactical manoeuvre. <br><br>"The decision by the Naples prosecutor's office will be the sole criterium. All activities of the Italian side lead to Djukanovic as the main organiser. The name of Momir Bulatovic is mentioned nowhere on the list," he said. <br><br>NON-VIOLENT SERBIAN NEW YEAR <br><br>Bulatovic, whose party is estimated to enjoy 40 percent popular support in Montenegro, played down reports that the socialists were planning a violent celebration of the Serbian Orthodox New Year on January 13. <br><br>"That is nonsense, spread by (Montenegrin Interior Minister) Vukasin Maras and Djukanovic, who think that problems in the state can be resolved by police exclusively. <br><br>"We have every right to celebrate the Serbian New Year. We will not be initiators of any clashes or unrest, but we do have a right to gather in a democratic society." <br><br>In January 1998, the Yugoslav prime minister's supporters organised violent demonstrations on New Year's Eve in an apparent bid to scuttle Djukanovic's takeover as president the next day after he defeated Bulatovic in elections. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946121441,98973,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>INTERVIEW-Yugo PM says Montenegro graft exposed</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">BELGRADE, Dec 24 (Reuters) - The Yugoslav government said on Friday that the resignation of Montenegro's foreign minister had stripped the veil off corruption in the coastal republic, whose pro-reform stance has put it at loggerheads with Belgrade. <br>"Unfortunately, there are other individuals in Montenegro who violated other laws. I think this is only the first step towards baring the truth," said Yugoslav federal Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic, a Montenegrin leftist and bitter enemy of the republican government in Podgorica. <br><br>"The Socialist People's Party will submit to the public undisputed material evidence of corruption among the members of the Montenegrin government," he told Reuters in an interview. <br><br>Bulatovic, a former Montenegrin president regarded as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's protege, is also the head of the largest opposition party in his native republic. <br><br>"I have for long warned the public that Montenegro has no future with business which became the predominant economic activity in Montenegro," he said, alluding to corruption. <br><br>"I am personally not looking forward to it (exposing graft) because I think it is shameful for one state to find itself in such a position." <br><br>Branko Perovic, foreign minister of Montenegro which is increasingly defying central authority exercised from Belgrade, resigned on Thursday over alleged involvement in smuggling and criminal links with the Italian mafia. <br><br>His resignation coincided with strong criticism from Bulatovic's party, which accused the pro-Western Podgorica government of involvement in organised crime. <br><br>"This resignation was forced by the decision of Italian judiciary and not by criticism of a single political party. An Italian court filed charges against the Montenegrin foreign minister, who is only a tip of the iceberg," Bulatovic said. <br><br>EVIDENCE LEADS TO DJUKANOVIC, SAYS FOE <br><br>"All material evidence in the world and in the country prove that (Montenegrin President Milo) Djukanovic himself has organised these activities, which have unfortunately brought Montenegro a very bad reputation in Europe," Bulatovic said. <br><br>Western diplomats and opposition critics say the leftist-nationalist, Serbian-led government in Belgrade is itself corrupt and tinged by gangsterism. The other Yugoslav republic is Serbia, which is far bigger than Montenegro. <br><br>An Italian judge earlier this month ordered Perovic and 26 other people to stand trial on smuggling and criminal association charges, relating to the period when Perovic worked for the Rome office of Yugoslav Airlines (JAT). <br><br>Montenegrin Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic praised Perovic's resignation as a move aimed at relaxing pressure being exerted on his government. Vujanovic also accused Bulatovic of being familiar with and approving of Perovic's disputed activities. <br><br>According to Montenegrin media reports, Perovic mediated in a business that provided the Podgorica tobacco industry new equipment and a deal that still keeps its factory running. <br><br>But Bulatovic insisted the resignation was just a tactical manoeuvre. <br><br>"The decision by the Naples prosecutor's office will be the sole criterium. All activities of the Italian side lead to Djukanovic as the main organiser. The name of Momir Bulatovic is mentioned nowhere on the list," he said. <br><br>NON-VIOLENT SERBIAN NEW YEAR <br><br>Bulatovic, whose party is estimated to enjoy 40 percent popular support in Montenegro, played down reports that the socialists were planning a violent celebration of the Serbian Orthodox New Year on January 13. <br><br>"That is nonsense, spread by (Montenegrin Interior Minister) Vukasin Maras and Djukanovic, who think that problems in the state can be resolved by police exclusively. <br><br>"We have every right to celebrate the Serbian New Year. We will not be initiators of any clashes or unrest, but we do have a right to gather in a democratic society." <br><br>In January 1998, the Yugoslav prime minister's supporters organised violent demonstrations on New Year's Eve in an apparent bid to scuttle Djukanovic's takeover as president the next day after he defeated Bulatovic in elections. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946121427,23339,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>INTERVIEW-Yugo PM says Montenegro graft exposed</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">BELGRADE, Dec 24 (Reuters) - The Yugoslav government said on Friday that the resignation of Montenegro's foreign minister had stripped the veil off corruption in the coastal republic, whose pro-reform stance has put it at loggerheads with Belgrade. <br>"Unfortunately, there are other individuals in Montenegro who violated other laws. I think this is only the first step towards baring the truth," said Yugoslav federal Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic, a Montenegrin leftist and bitter enemy of the republican government in Podgorica. <br><br>"The Socialist People's Party will submit to the public undisputed material evidence of corruption among the members of the Montenegrin government," he told Reuters in an interview. <br><br>Bulatovic, a former Montenegrin president regarded as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's protege, is also the head of the largest opposition party in his native republic. <br><br>"I have for long warned the public that Montenegro has no future with business which became the predominant economic activity in Montenegro," he said, alluding to corruption. <br><br>"I am personally not looking forward to it (exposing graft) because I think it is shameful for one state to find itself in such a position." <br><br>Branko Perovic, foreign minister of Montenegro which is increasingly defying central authority exercised from Belgrade, resigned on Thursday over alleged involvement in smuggling and criminal links with the Italian mafia. <br><br>His resignation coincided with strong criticism from Bulatovic's party, which accused the pro-Western Podgorica government of involvement in organised crime. <br><br>"This resignation was forced by the decision of Italian judiciary and not by criticism of a single political party. An Italian court filed charges against the Montenegrin foreign minister, who is only a tip of the iceberg," Bulatovic said. <br><br>EVIDENCE LEADS TO DJUKANOVIC, SAYS FOE <br><br>"All material evidence in the world and in the country prove that (Montenegrin President Milo) Djukanovic himself has organised these activities, which have unfortunately brought Montenegro a very bad reputation in Europe," Bulatovic said. <br><br>Western diplomats and opposition critics say the leftist-nationalist, Serbian-led government in Belgrade is itself corrupt and tinged by gangsterism. The other Yugoslav republic is Serbia, which is far bigger than Montenegro. <br><br>An Italian judge earlier this month ordered Perovic and 26 other people to stand trial on smuggling and criminal association charges, relating to the period when Perovic worked for the Rome office of Yugoslav Airlines (JAT)</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946121193,26495,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>ANALYSIS-Serbia's last partner sees tense new year</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">PODGORICA, Montenegro (Reuters) - It does not smell like war here in Montenegro on the eve of the new millennium, but the potential at least lurks in the clear air of the Balkan winter. <br>Serbia's last remaining partner in federal Yugoslavia, and its only outlet to the Adriatic sea, is trying to steer an independent course away from what it views as the ruinous policies of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. <br><br>There has been continuous friction over Montenegro's independent visa, customs and monetary laws, its rejection of federal authority from Belgrade, the presence of a federal army that may one day confront the republic's strong police force. <br><br>But so far, no shots have been fired. <br><br>"It all seems so normal. But nothing is normal right now in this parallel world," said a resident Western observer strolling along crowded streets past new boutiques. <br><br>MAFIA AND MAD COW DISEASE <br><br>Thursday, the foreign minister resigned under the taint of Italian allegations that he collaborated with the mafia in smuggling. The president said he planned to offer the army payment in deutschemarks instead of Belgrade's weak dinar. <br><br>The city is choked by too many cars, one for every two citizens, with many luxury models stolen from rich Western Europe and tolerated at the time by a cash-needy government. <br><br>The pro-Serbian opposition has accused the pro-Western government of importing mad cow disease in cattle donated by Germany and Austria. <br><br>There are rumors of U.N. refugee camps being prepared in nearby Herzegovina so Montenegro can be emptied and refilled with Albanians. <br><br>Conspiracy, disinformation and paranoia perpetuate the anxiety of a people who feel they are facing the choice of sharing Serbia's international isolation for as long as Milosevic remains in power, or risking a breach. <br><br>The Belgrade government, nurturing its ties to Moscow and Beijing, accuses the West of fomenting separatism in Montenegro. <br><br>But Western powers, still getting their breath back from the Kosovo campaign and weary of the long slog to building democracy in ex-Yugoslavia, are urging restraint on all sides. <br><br>Although NATO brackets Montenegro with 25,000 troops in Bosnia and twice that many in Kosovo, the prospect of direct Western military intervention, as in the allied bombing of Yugoslavia earlier this year, appears remote. <br><br>"For now it is the politics of ambiguity," said political analyst Srdjan Darmanovic of the Montenegro Center for Democracy and Human Rights. "We are in a sense a hostage of the problem of Kosovo and its long-term status in or out of Yugoslavia." <br><br>ELECTION YEAR <br><br>"There has been constant conflict and there is a definite risk of escalation, but I do not say it is inevitable," Darmanovic said. <br><br>He predicted rising political tension in the spring as the main pro-Western and pro-Serbia parties campaign for votes in local elections in Podgorica and Herceg Novi, which will ballot a quarter of all Montenegro voters. <br><br>"The propaganda campaigns have already started," he added. Montenegro has already said it will not take part in Yugoslav federal elections scheduled for late next year because Belgrade has not replied to its request for a redefinition of their relationship. <br><br>A boycott could hand the political advantage to Belgrade. An early election call by Belgrade could be the signal for "the instigation of a new crisis," Darmanovic said. <br><br>Yugoslav Army chief of Staff Dragoljub Ojdanovic has denied Montenegro allegations that a new military police unit, the 7TH Battalion, has been recruited from the ranks of hardliners in the pro-Serbian opposition party. <br><br>Darker rumors circulate, impossible to test, of 2,000 disengaged paramilitary fighters who have supposedly converged on Montenegro in civilian dress from former flashpoints. <br><br>Montenegro cannot be compared to past Yugoslav conflicts. It does not have the ethnic hatred of Kosovo or the longstanding nationalism of Croatia. Its multi-ethnic mix -- 62 percent Montenegrin, 10 percent Serb, 14 percent Muslim and 7 percent Albanian -- has been relatively stable. <br><br>Some Western analysts doubt whether Milosevic would gamble on a full-scale army crackdown to halt what Belgrade sees as a slide to independence, but they fear a creeping coup d'etat, or an overnight fait accompli which would catch NATO flat-footed with no plan and possibly no collective will to intervene. <br><br>For the time being, Montenegro is counting on Western political and financial support, particularly backing for its risky move to a deutschemark economy which has angered Belgrade. <br><br>The prospect of an all-or-nothing independence referendum next spring appears to have receded while President Milo Djukanovic, heeding European Union and U.S. calls for prudence, attempts to persuade voters he can improve their lives and keep Milosevic at bay without violence. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946029381,17581,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Montenegro to woo Yugoslav army with cash</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000"><br>PODGORICA, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Montenegro will pay Yugoslav Army troops on its territory in hard currency instead of depreciating Yugoslav dinars in an attempt to win their loyalty from Belgrade, President Milo Djukanovic said on Thursday. <br>The offer was the latest shot in a monetary, political and legal war to separate Montenegro's fate from the internationally shunned government of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. <br><br>Djukanovic said it would be made to Montenegrin 2nd Army commanders in the coming days but warned that "Belgrade may not like it and it may be a pretext for them to misuse the army." <br><br>The pro-Western leader is engaged in struggle with Milosevic to insulate Montenegro's 650,000 people from what he calls Belgrade's disastrous policy of starting -- and losing -- wars, and printing money. <br><br>He said the army's practice of flying in sackloads of dinars to pay its troops in the tiny Adriatic republic threatened to seriously dilute its drive to make the German mark an official currency and, in time, to create Montenegro's own money. <br><br>Speaking to a meeting of university students, Djukanovic predicted the republic's monetary system would stabilise next year. But he criticised banks and companies for keeping their reserves of deutschemarks out of circulation. <br><br>FOOD IMPORTS <br><br>He also promised to start importing food staples to make up for shortages caused by Belgrade's refusal to continue normal supplies, a move in the continuing dispute over federal control over currency and banking. <br><br>Montenegro has already established its own visa and customs regime and refuses to recognise federal authority. <br><br>Djukanovic said Milosevic was using the army as a tool to keep Montenegro in check and stop it severing ties with Serbia, putting an end to the shrinking federal republic. <br><br>But he said Montenegro should do nothing to provoke Belgrade into action that both would regret, a reference to fears of civil war between Serbs and Montenegrins in the republic. <br><br>Western powers who back Djukanovic have muted earlier, veiled warnings to Milosevic that NATO could intervene to protect Montenegro and are now urging Belgrade and Podgorica to exercise restraint and refrain from provocations. <br><br>Their policy appears to be to support the republic financially and politically, encouraging links with Serbian opposition to Milosevic while hoping for a change of government in Belgrade and democratic reform. <br><br>But the political situation is becoming increasingly polarised, with reports that Belgrade is forming a military police battalion of Milosevic loyalists to do its bidding in Montenegro should the republic seek a clean break. <br><br>Montenegrin Foreign Minister Branko Perovic resigned earlier on Thursday amid allegations by an Italian court of past mafia links -- a decision diplomatic sources said was urged on Djukanovic by European Union powers who support his government. <br><br>The president said Perovic had made a highly moral move and predicted his name would be cleared.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946029253,2188,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>FOCUS-Montenegro minister quits over Mafia charge</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000"><br>PODGORICA, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Montenegro's Foreign Minister Branko Perovic resigned on Thursday over alleged involvement in smuggling and criminal association with the Italian Mafia. <br>In a damage-limitation move which Western diplomatic sources said had been awaited, Perovic gave up his office to placate European Union supporters of Montenegro's western-leaning government and ease opposition pressure against it. <br><br>The small coastal republic of Montenegro, Serbia's only partner in what remains of federal Yugoslavia, is engaged in a struggle with Belgrade to separate its fate from that of the isolated government of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. <br><br>Western governments, backing Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic as an example of democratic alternatives to Milosevic, may have insisted that Perovic had to go, diplomatic sources in the capital, Podgorica, said. <br><br>"In a desire to free you from worry for my fate, of perhaps abusing my high-ranking position in the government or of covering up the case, I am submitting my irrevocable resignation," Perovic told parliament. <br><br>The resignation came amid strong criticism from the opposition Socialist People's Party, led by Yugoslav Premier Momir Bulatovic, which has accused the government of involvement in organised crime. <br><br>Earlier this month, fears increased that Montenegro's de facto divorce from Serbia could explode into civil war when federal army troops and special police loyal to the Montenegro government squared off at the capital's airport. <br><br>But the dispute, over the right to build on airport land, was resolved without violence and the situation has eased. <br><br>PM: LET ITALIAN COURT DECIDE <br><br>An Italian judge earlier this month ordered Perovic and 26 other people to stand trial on smuggling and criminal association charges, relating to the period when Perovic worked for the Rome office of the Yugoslav airlines (JAT). <br><br>But Prime Minister Philip Vujanovic said that whatever his foreign minister was charged with doing must have been approved by Bulatovic himself. <br><br>"This man has left with honour and the one who appointed him to Italy is your leader Momir Bulatovic. And for four years he knew what Perovic was doing and approved of it," he said. <br><br>Vujanovic also accused the pro-Belgrade opposition party of hypocrisy. <br><br>"Your regime is led by a man (Milosevic) who is not accused of alleged commercial crimes but of war crimes, and will soon be accused of genocide. Yet not one of you called him to come to the Yugoslav parliament and explain," Vujanovic said <br><br>Vujanovic told parliament he was grateful to Perovic for all he had done for Montenegro and that the foreign minister had done nothing for his personal gain. "Let the Italian court decide who is guilty," Vujanovic told the deputies. <br><br>"We were expecting something like this to happen three months ago," said one Western diplomat, noting that the pro-Belgrade opposition party clearly had advance knowledge of Italy's looming charges against Perovic. <br><br>"Perovic did an excellent job as a diplomat but he had obviously become an embarrassment to them, damaging the image of the Djukanovic government to the benefit of its opponents and Belgrade," he added. <br><br>Justice Minister Dragan Soc said Perovic's resignation would ease pressure on Montenegro's government. <br><br>"I look at this resignation as a political and a moral act, aimed at freeing the government of pressures resulting from the court charges and from interpretations of the charges by the (pro-Belgrade) Socialist People's Party," Soc told Reuters. <br><br>The charges in the case against Perovic indicate involvement of businessmen and members of the Mazzarella clan of the Camorra crime organisation, the Naples-area version of the Sicilian Mafia. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946029210,82991,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>An island of tolerance in province destroyed by conflict </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The Independent<br><br>By Raymond Whitaker in Stimlje, Kosovo <br><br><br>"We are all equal here," said Sadik Musliu. "Why can't the rest of Kosovo be the same?" <br><br>It says much about Kosovo today that the Stimlje Institute, the mental hospital of which Dr Musliu is director, is the only place in the whole province where Serbs and Albanians can safely live together. Outside the high fence, revenge attacks and intimidation are driving Serbs out of Kosovo every day, but within the institute, more than half of the 316 inmates are Serbian. The same is true of the children's wing, where there are 35 patients between the ages of two and 12. <br><br>"Nobody has ever tried to exclude patients on the basis of community, neither before the war nor afterwards," said Dr Musliu, 42. He became director of the hospital in the summer, when Belgrade withdrew its forces from Kosovo and all but one of the Serbian staff departed. "The Serbian patients can go into the town without fear," he said. "The institute has the respect of local people." <br><br>Unlike almost every other public institution in Kosovo, the Serbs did not wreck the hospital when they left, but that does not mean it has been immune from the effects of two years of war, ethnic cleansing and Nato bombing. There was fighting between Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army within a few hundred yards of the gates, and just over the hill is the village of Racak, where the massacre of 45 Albanian civilians in January set in motion the events which led to Nato's air campaign. <br><br>"The patients could hear shooting many times," said Dr Musliu. "Through the fence they saw people being beaten, and paramilitaries driving up and down shouting: 'Long live Milosevic!' They were all frightened, Serbs and Albanians." The institute's head nurse, Liriye Bistiqi, escaped death at Racak by less than five minutes, having left for the hospital just before the Serbian police and paramilitaries arrived, while Dr Musliu himself took refuge in the hills with his family during the worst of the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Serbs during the bombing campaign. <br><br>Now the doctor and the nurse struggle to restore the workings of Kosovo's only mental hospital, which, although intact, suffers from disrepair and a shortage of qualified staff. Patients wander the grounds – one woman was trudging barefoot through the snow until shooed indoors – importuning everyone for cigarettes and money. Even the older patients in the children's ward smoke, including one boy whose legs had been amputated by a train. <br><br>The younger children have just as strong a craving for affection, rushing to staff and visitors to solicit hugs. Among them is Samela, seven, who has lived in the institute all her life, because her mother is a patient. "Now she is disturbed like the rest, but she has nowhere else to go," said the director. "At least she has her mother. Most of the other children have no one. <br><br>"If they are Serbs, their parents may have fled to Serbia, if they are Albanian their mothers and fathers may be dead. Since the war, nobody comes to visit them. They call us mother and father, and each other brother and sister." Two elderly patients were eating with the youngsters. "Their own children have gone to Serbia," he said. "They want to treat these ones as if they were theirs." <br><br>The children, who speak a mixture of Serbian and Albanian among themselves, seem lively enough, despite the poor food and the lack of playthings – one boy who had found a piece of plastic wrap was being begged by the others for a chance to pop some of the bubbles. "It is hard to keep them stimulated," said Dr Musliu, "but we are doing what we can to teach them art and music as well as technical subjects." <br><br>The War Child charity delivers fresh fruit to the children each week and has provided a playground, but must now find winter clothing to enable more of them to play outside. <br><br>Apart from basics such as better food and washing facilities, Dr Musliu considers the greatest need, for adults as well as children at the institute, to be more professionally qualified staff. "I was the only doctor here until last month, when one more came, and I am still the only one trained in mental health," he said. "Before the war, 80 out of a staff of 110 were Serbs, and they are very difficult to replace. This hospital should have at least eight doctors, and ideally three or four specialists in psychiatry. We can't get people to work here because we can't find them accommodation or tell them when or if they will be paid." <br><br>Some help is being provided by the Norwegian Red Cross, but, for the moment, Stimlje Institute can only tick over. "We have people coming to the gates every day, begging for admission, but we can't improve conditions if we let more patients in," said the doctor. "When I came here 16 years ago we were able to look after 440 people, including 70 children. Now I have one child who could be discharged, but his family is from Vojvodina [at the other end of Serbia]. There is no way he can go home." <br><br>During the past two years in particular, the hospital must have seemed like a refuge from the insanity surrounding it. The demand for its services can only grow in the years to come, given the trauma suffered by so many people in Kosovo, but its future is as uncertain as anything else in a province still nominally part of Serbia but in practice drifting towards some kind of independent status under the UN. Dr Musliu, however, refuses to speculate on any of this. "This is a humanitarian institution," he says firmly. "All I can think about is the people under my care." <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem946029156,89861,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Russian defense minister visits Yugoslavia</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By DUSAN STOJANOVIC -- Associated Press Writer<br><br> BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The Yugoslav president and Russia's defense minister exchanged medals of friendship and heroism Thursday, and accused the West of failing in its peace mission in Kosovo. <br><br> A statement from President Slobodan Milosevic's office after his meeting with Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev accused NATO members of continuing a policy of "violating Yugoslavia's legitimate rights, peace and stability in the region." <br><br> It charged that the West had violated the U.N. agreement regarding Yugoslavia's southern province and that international officials were "aiding ethnic cleansing" of non-Albanians from Kosovo. <br><br> "Yugoslavia and Russia consider the present situation in Kosovo unsustainable," the statement said. It called on the United Nations to step in and allow the return of Yugoslav army and police forces to the province. <br><br> NATO-led peacekeepers arrived in Kosovo in June following a 78-day bombing campaign to halt Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists. <br><br> Western governments and international human rights groups have assailed Moscow in recent weeks for its own bombing campaign in the Russian breakaway province of Chechnya. In light of Kosovo, the Kremlin has called that criticism hypocritical. <br><br> Russia has said it would not bow to Western demands to moderate its campaign against Chechen rebels, whom it calls terrorists, and Sergeyev did not hesitate to throw his support behind Milosevic Thursday. <br><br> The Russian defense minister also bestowed awards on Yugoslav army chiefs for their "heroic defense of the country," the state-run Tanjug news agency reported. <br><br> Among those decorated was Yugoslav army chief of staff, Gen. Dragoljub Ojdanic, who along with Milosevic has been indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. <br><br> "The NATO aggressor did not dare undertake a land operation, fully aware of the strength and determination of your army," Sergeyev was quoted by Tanjug as saying while handing out the medals. <br><br> Earlier Thursday, at a ceremony at Milosevic's residence in Belgrade, the Yugoslav president decorated Sergeyev with medals for promoting cooperation between the two countries and their armies. <br><br> Sergeyev arrived in Yugoslavia on a two-day visit for what Russian media said would be tough talks with U.N. and NATO officials in Kosovo on the way they were doing their jobs. <br><br> He met Thursday with Milosevic and his army commanders, who are looking for help in repairing damage caused to the military by NATO airstrikes. <br><br> Milosevic has criticized the international Kosovo mission for its failure to protect minority Serbs in the province from retaliatory ethnic Albanian attacks, and Sergeyev said Thursday, "events over the past few months prove that what is happening in Kosovo is not peace." <br><br>Sergeyev's trip to Kosovo was scheduled for Friday. While in the province, he said he will meet German Defense Minister Rudolf Sharping to discuss military relations between the two countries. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945938041,87081,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Albania lifts oil embargo on Montenegro, Kosovo</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">TIRANA, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Albania has lifted the oil embargo against Montenegro, Serbia's West-leaning partner in Yugoslavia, and Kosovo on condition that fuel products are not sold in Serbia, the government said on Wednesday. <br>Ministries would now authorise the sale or supply of oil and petroleum products to its neighbours Montenegro and Kosovo but would not permit delivery of fuel to Serbian cities controlled by opponents of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. <br><br>"Selling oil and its by-products to the Republic of Montenegro and Kosovo will be allowed on condition they do not pass through the territory of the Republic of Serbia or reach any other destination in Serbia," the government said in a statement. <br><br>Fuel aid began arriving in some Serbian towns earlier this month under an EU scheme designed to boost Milosevic's opponents and provide heating fuel as winter sets in. <br><br>Lifting the embargo is part of Albania's efforts to cooperate with its northwestern neighbour Montenegro and help the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo rebuild the shattered province. <br><br>Albania's scrapping of the ban follows the lead set by the EU which freed Kosovo and Montenegro in October from an oil embargo slapped on Yugoslavia last year. <br><br>The EU and the United States have imposed sanctions on Yugoslavia to punish Belgrade for Serbian repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, now controlled by NATO-led peacekeepers. <br><br>After NATO's March-to-June bombing campaign, Western countries said they would not allow any post-war aid to Serbia as long as President Slobodan Milosevic remained in power. <br><br>Foreign Ministry spokesman Sokol Gjoka said Albania lifted the embargo to show its willingness to cooperate with democratic forces in Montenegro that back European integration and oppose the Milosevic regime. <br><br>The coastal republic has been in a tug-of-war with Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia since its 650,000-strong population elected pro-Western Milo Djukanovic president two years ago. <br><br>Albania is also keen to promote trade between Montenegro, which is also home to an ethnic Albanian minority, and its underdeveloped northern areas. </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945937979,65398,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Mira Shocked By Sex, Drugs And Rock And Roll </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">Having called for the 'decontamination' of the media, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic's wife Mira Markovic is once more leading the charge against opposition broadcasters.<br><br>By Vlado Mares in Belgrade (BCR No.104, 21-Dec-99)<br><br>Having so recently demanded the "decontamination of the media", and the Belgrade regime has now renewed its witch-hunt of political opponents at the universities.<br><br>Mira Markovic, the leader of the Yugoslav Left (JUL) and the wife of the Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic has accused university professors of offering drugs and hard currency to the students, in place of lectures.<br><br>She used the occasion of the opening of the new Belgrade radio station KUL on December 15 to make her original contribution to the spreading of paranoia and xenophobia in Serbia.<br><br>The name of the radio derives from the slogan of the party of Mira Markovic - JUL IS KUL (Jul is Cool), and the ceremony was held in the offices of the Committee of JUL's University branch.<br><br>"They (university lecturers) are getting the directions for contact with the Yugoslav students and the means for such contacts in some foreign embassies in our country and from some intelligence and other similar institutions abroad," Mira Markovic pointed out.<br><br>"The presence of certain persons who are interpreting the situation in the FRY and in the world to the students could be noticed at the universities in our country over the past several years.<br><br>"One sort of those interpreters have never graduated from any faculty, while others have studied outside our country, with the obligation they assumed to pay back to those who enabled and financed their stay abroad," Markovic said.<br><br>She went on to maintain that the lecturers were "offering drugs and hard currency" to the students, instead of discussions about theoretical, academic and philosophical issues.<br><br>JUL announced the decontamination of the media at the end of November. Only a week later, at the beginning of December, the leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) Vojislav Seselj, brought charges against the Belgrade dailies Blic and Danas, as well as the Belgrade radio-television station Studio B.<br><br>Judging by the speed, with which the regime charged against the media after their decontamination was announced, time bodes ill for Serbia's universities.<br><br>The authorities first clamped down on dissent in the universities in May last year when a new law aimed at educational establishments led to the dismissal as well as the resignation of a large number of lecturers<br><br>The regime's "success" made Seselj, Milosevic's coalition partner, Vojislav Seselj say on 1 March this year: "We sorted out the situation at the Universities, we have sorted out the situation in the media to a large extent, we will sort out the situation in the judiciary as well. A bit a bit, we'll make order in Serbia."<br><br>However, after the NATO intervention and the increase in the anti-regime mood of the citizens, Milosevic has assesses that the previous "successes in making order in Serbia" have proven insufficient.<br><br>This is why the JUL announced a new campaign. As always, Seselj has turned out to be the regime's best executioner. Belgrade will no doubt now combine direct repression and destruction while employing more subtle and indirect methods.<br><br>Meantime, a few weeks after the latest fines were handed down to the independent media for transgressing the law on information, the authorities are putting the finishing touches to their latest plan to win control of both the hearts and minds of the people.<br><br>The preparations for the opening of as many as 11 new television stations in Belgrade are underway. Most of them will broadcast their own news programmes as dictated fully by the government.<br><br>One of the first to start broadcasting is the TV programme of Radio B 92, led by the perpetual student Aleksandar Nikacevic, which has already begun to broadcast a test signal, and which, as was announced, should start broadcasting at the end of December.<br><br>During the NATO campaign, the original B-92 radio station then led by Veran Matic, was taken over and "nationalised" by the authorities that installed Nikacevic. Matic and his team started a new station - Radio B2-92 which like its original predecessor, is a thorn in the regime's side.<br><br>The next project the regime is planning, is the launch of Yugoslav Radio Television (JRT) headed by Jovan Ristic, a leader of the JUL party and the long-standing director of the Radio-Television of Serbia.<br><br>The station's launch was originally scheduled for December, but is now slated for the spring. The Interspeed company controls the station, which is itself part owned by the president's son, Marko Milosevic.<br><br>And the GENEX company headed by former Serbian Prime Minister Radoman Bozovic, one of the closest of Milosevic's associates, is readying its own station for a spring launch.<br><br>Meantime, the Belgrade media company Sajam, headed by Sinisa Zaric, has also announced the launch of a TV station devoted to the business world and business fairs. Belgrade's GRMEC, headed by Rajko Uncanin, is also planning to launch a TV stations, which, according to some information, could be called Business TV.<br><br>It is interesting that all those listed, except from Jovan Ristic, are on the list of those who are barred from travelling to EU countries due to their support of the Milosevic regime.<br><br>Sources report that the new TV stations have been allowed to locate their transmitters in prime areas around the city. It is believed that at least one station will broadcast in the range of 12 gigahertz, which, experts claim, will seriously obstruct the reception of satellite TV.<br><br>Vlado Mares is a journalist for the Belgrade independent news agency BETA.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945937944,89308,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>U.N. Prosecutor Plans Bigger Push in Balkans</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS<br>HE HAGUE, Dec. 22 -- The United Nations' chief prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia said today that she would almost double the number of war-crimes investigations next year in hopes of indicting more than 150 suspects by the time the tribunal finished its work. <br>The prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said almost all the new targets of indictments would be senior officials responsible for "ethnic cleansing" campaigns in the wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia. <br><br>"My top priority for the new year will be the arrest of leading figures who are still at liberty," she said. Key figures under indictment but not in custody include the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic; the former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic; and Mr. Karadzic's military chief, Ratko Mladic. <br><br>Mrs. Del Ponte, a former federal prosecutor in Switzerland who replaced Louise Arbour of Canada in September, departed from her predecessor's policy of not discussing continuing investigations. The number of investigations in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo will increase to 36 next year, from 19 now, she said. <br><br>"You have not yet seen the whole of the investigative activity of the office of the prosecutor," she said at a news conference marking her 100th day in office. <br><br>By the time prosecutors finish investigations in 2004, Mrs. Del Ponte said, she hopes to have indicted 150 suspects -- five times the number now in custody. <br><br>Mrs. Del Ponte's comments came a day after the tribunal took custody of a Bosnian Serb general, Stanislav Galic. <br><br>General Galic, who was arrested on Monday by NATO forces in Bosnia, has been charged with giving the orders to shoot at civilians during the 1992-95 siege of Sarajevo. Mrs. Del Ponte called his arrest "a powerful indication of what can be done," and urged NATO to dedicate a task force to arrest others who are believed to be responsible for atrocities. <br><br>Mrs. Del Ponte also responded to reported comments by Mr. Milosevic's wife, Mirjana Markovic. Ms. Markovic was said to have likened tribunal officials to Nazis and called the tribunal's prison "a sophisticated replacement for concentration camps and crematoria." <br><br>Mrs. Del Ponte said, "If I could speak with Madame Milosevic, I would tell her to invite her husband to the detention center to see how comfortable it is." <br><br>Mrs. Del Ponte, who is also the chief prosecutor for the United Nations tribunal on Rwanda, said she would devote half her time to the Tanzania-based court to improve operations there. That appeared to be a gesture to the Rwandan authorities, who angrily suspended cooperation with the tribunal after an important genocide suspect was released on a technicality. <br><br>"The year 2000 will be a big year" for the Rwanda tribunal, she said.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945771374,46792,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>German General's Kosovo Peackeepers Are Fighting Crime</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By CARLOTTA GALL<br><br>RISTINA, Yugoslavia -- In the absence of a strong international police force in Kosovo and facing a rise in crime, the commander of peacekeeping troops in the province has ordered his soldiers back out onto the streets in force. <br><br>He is not happy about it, but six months into the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, he says the 1,800-member U.N. police force was not able to cope. <br> <br><br>"We realized there was no success and that we had to back up the police," the commander, Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, said Monday in an interview at his headquarters, perched on a hill above Pristina, the Kosovo capital. <br><br>Over the weekend a marked increase of troops was evident here, as they set up road blocks to spot-check cars for weapons and to look at the identification papers of drivers and passengers. The troops were reacting to the increase in violence of recent weeks and a fear of kidnapping. <br><br>Reinhardt joined in the call for nations to contribute more people to the police force, but in the meantime he is stepping in to fill the gap, sending some of his forces out from their bases by the hundreds. "You cannot fight the high-level criminal with a tankist or a soldier -- they are not trained to do it," he said. "But there is a gap which we try to bridge by being there." <br><br>Reinhardt took over command of the 50,000 members of the peacekeeping force for Kosovo in October, after his predecessor, Gen. Mike Jackson, said the job was no longer one for the military, but for the U.N. police and civil administration. <br><br>Now two months later, Reinhardt and the overwhelming presence of his soldiers represent the only realistic chance to prevent violence in the province. Alongside ethnic killings and intimidation -- mostly by Albanians against Serbs and other minorities -- there has also been an increase of crime among the Albanians and a spread of organized crime, all of which falls to the general's lot. <br><br>The general, who began his military career in the German Mountain Infantry and went through the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. in the 1970s, is a gray-haired, unassuming man. In his loose-fitted German camouflage jacket, he lacks the charisma of the tall, battered figure of Jackson. <br><br>Yet in his quiet way, he is tackling the nasty climate of ethnic retaliation with a firm resolution and some unorthodox ideas that he says are bearing results. <br><br>Each of his five military brigades in Kosovo has 120 patrols out on the streets, in the villages and countryside every day, he said, and 1,000 of his forces are day and night guarding Serbian families in their homes and protecting buildings and installations. <br><br>He is moving troops from areas that are relatively calm, dominated by one ethnic group, to mixed areas, or "fault lines," where there is violence. He has boosted the troop level in the Serbian area of Kosovo Polje, just outside Pristina, to 2,000 from 600, and improved security considerably. <br><br>He has also sent an extra battalion to the town of Gniljane, in the American sector, and moved in three companies to protect the various ethnic minorities -- Serbs, Muslim Slavs or Goranis and Turks -- in and around the town of Prizren in southern Kosovo. <br><br>German forces in the Prizren area have been criticized for not doing enough to stop the intimidation of minorities there, but the general sticks by his policy. "With 50,000 men, you cannot safeguard everyone, but by being there we can prevent things happening," he said. <br><br>He has been resolute, too, in ordering sweeps through districts where there has been an outbreak of violence, often traveling to watch the operations himself. He was there when French troops sealed off and searched an area in the Serbian part of the divided town of Mitrovica last week after a grenade attack. "We put on a big show of force," he said, "to show we take counter actions immediately." <br><br>Road blocks or barricades are not tolerated, and even the residents of Orohovac have been persuaded to remove their weeks-old blockade against Russian troops who were to deploy there. <br><br>"I took them away by persuading people that this is the better way," he said. He does not seem to have solved the issue of the Russian deployment there, which local Albanians vigorously oppose, but the tension has subsided. <br><br>The general also supports an unorthodox tactic used in Pristina, where the British commander of the city is using former policemen of the Kosovo Liberation Army as a source of information and a conduit for solving problems. <br><br>There are clearly parts of the mission that chafe the general. "It is tougher than I expected as far as the workload, and more difficult as far as human relationships," he said in a reference to the ethnic tensions. <br><br>He is impatient to see the judicial system up and running so he can rid his soldiers of the job of being prison guards. <br><br>Yet he has clear ideas about the running of the province that go beyond his role as a soldier. Just back from a lunch with four Serbian bishops in the monastery at Gracanica, outside Pristina, he was clearly determined to defend the Serbian minority. His men will protect Serbian convoys and buses to allow Serbs to travel to market and to other Serbian enclaves. "By doing that we take the pressure out of the pot," he said. "If people feel under siege they become aggressive." <br><br>He called for financing for education and employment, saying a majority of young Albanians were jobless and frustrated, and were taking out their frustration on the minorities. <br><br>He also said he disagreed with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is advising displaced Serbs not to try to return to Kosovo for the moment, and he spoke with satisfaction that a few hundred Serbs had managed to return to villages in northern Kosovo under protection of his troops. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945771336,91301,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>U.N. Tribunal Confirms Bosnian Serb General Arrest</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The U.N. criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Monday confirmed the arrest of General Stanislav Galic, commander of the Bosnian Serb unit which laid siege to Sarajevo during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.<br><br>``We now have the three commanders of the area occupied by the Bosnian Serbs,'' prosecution spokesman Paul Risley said.<br><br>Galic, who headed the Bosnian Serb's Sarajevo-Romanija corps, is charged with violations of the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity for allegedly initiating a shelling and sniping campaign against the besieged Bosnian capital.<br><br>He was expected to arrive in the Hague within the next 48 hours and make his initial appearance before the tribunal this week, Risley said.<br><br>Tanjug reported the Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry as saying the retired general and advisor to ousted Bosnian Serb hard-line president Nikola Poplasen, had been arrested by the NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) this morning.<br><br>The arrest adds to that of General Radislav Krstic, accused of genocide at Srbrenica in 1995, and Bosnian Serb military chief Momir Talic, charged with a bloody purge of Muslims and Croats in northwestern Bosnia in 1992. ``They reported to (Radovan) Karadzic and General (Ratko) Mladic who are the last two senior individuals remaining,'' Risley said.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945771300,58190,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>NATO arrests Bosnian Serb commander who directed siege of Sarajevo </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">Nando Media<br><br>BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (December 21, 1999 1:26 a.m. EST <a href="http://www.nandotimes.com">http://www.nandotimes.com</a>) - The Bosnian Serb general who kept Sarajevo under siege for nearly three years, transforming the former Olympic host into a symbol of suffering and ethnic intolerance, was arrested Monday by NATO troops. <br><br>The soldiers arrested Stanislav Galic under a sealed indictment issued by the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, tribunal spokesman Paul Risley said. <br><br>At least 20 peacekeepers detained Galic and placed a hood over his head before taking him away, the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported, citing eyewitnesses. Other witnesses told The Associated Press that Galic was seized after cars blocked his vehicle. <br><br>The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity. <br><br>The arrest leaves Radovan Karadzic, the wartime leader of Bosnia's Serbs, and Ratko Mladic, his senior general, as the most important figures from the Bosnian Serb military command structure who remain at large. <br><br>Risley said Galic would stand trial for his role as commander of the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Bosnian Serb army during the 1992-1995 siege of Sarajevo. <br><br>"For 44 months, the Sarajevo Romanija Corps implemented a military strategy which used shelling and sniping to kill, maim, wound and terrorize the civilian inhabitants of Sarajevo," read Galic's indictment released by the tribunal. <br><br>"People were even injured and killed inside their own homes, being hit by bullets that came through the windows," it said. "The attacks on Sarajevo civilians were often unrelated to military actions and were designed to keep the inhabitants in a constant state of terror." <br><br>Gen. Radislav Krstic, accused of genocide in the fall of Srebrenica in 1995, and Gen. Momir Talic, alleged architect of the bloody purge of Croats and Muslims from northern Bosnia in 1992, were arrested on tribunal charges earlier this year. <br><br>"This latest arrest ... is in line with my policy of targeting senior figures in the chain of command for crimes committed during periods of armed conflict," said Carla Del Ponte, the tribunal's chief prosecutor. <br><br>In Brussels, Belgium, NATO said the arrest was a "warning to all those indicted for war crimes and still at large." <br><br>At U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke called for the arrest of other suspected war criminals. The capture "is evidence enough that we have not finished with the problems of Bosnia," he said. "We're not turning away from Bosnia." <br><br>Before the start of the Bosnian war, Galic served as a colonel with the Yugoslav army. He was promoted to general after taking command of the Sarajevo-Romanija corps. <br><br>Recently, he was an adviser to Nikola Poplasen, the hard-line Bosnian Serb president removed from office in March by international officials administering Bosnia. Poplasen was fired for opposing the Dayton peace accords, which ended the war. <br><br>Poplasen said the arrest was an attempt to "humiliate the Serb population." <br><br>The Bosnian Serb defense ministry complained the tribunal unfairly targeted their part of the country and "nobody is arresting generals from the Muslim-Croat federation." <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945679996,56774,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Nato warns of more chaos in Kosovo </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The Sunday Times<br>James Clark Home Affairs Correspondent <br><br>THE western allies who won the Kosovo conflict stand on the brink of losing the peace, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Nato's new secretary-general, has warned. <br>The former British defence secretary said the province was on a knife-edge and could be plunged into chaos again if the United Nations is unable to enforce the peace agreement won earlier this year. <br><br>Speaking in Brussels last week, Robertson said: "There's a very thin line between success and failure - and we're walking that line at the moment. I believe we will win. I believe that again the stakes are too high to lose Kosovo to another mono-ethnic state. <br><br>"We had Bernard Kouchner, the UN representative in Kosovo, delivering a pretty tough message to foreign ministers from 45 nations that if they don't start giving the UN the money to get the civilian police in there, to get the teachers back to the schools, to get the administration going, to get this Kosovo protection corps under way, then we'll lose the peace." <br><br>A Nato source said last night that Robertson was concerned not only for the future of Kosovo, but that failure "to finish the job" would reflect badly on the organisation's credibility. <br><br>He said: "The money is arriving very slowly. What must not happen is that we find ourselves unable to pay the wages of the men we have taken from the <br><br>various factions and brought into the peace corps. If that happens, mafia organisations are just waiting to employ them." <br><br>Robertson, who has shuttled between 21 countries in the two months since his appointment,also indicated for the first time how close Nato had come to sending in ground troops before Belgrade capitulated. <br><br>"I have no doubt that if we had come to crunch decisions, and we were fast approaching that, the alliance would have stuck. The credibility of Nato would have been deeply damaged if we had not succeeded." <br><br>Turning to the growing scale of the Chechnya crisis, Robertson rejected demands that Nato intervene: "I have not yet met anyone in their right mind who suggests we take military action against Russia for what they are doing in Chechnya today." <br><br>Russia could stabilise under a different leadership, he said: "There will be presidential election next year. President Yeltsin will hand over to a successor. There are again inside Russia the seeds of future progress."</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945679956,15792,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>A year in Kosovo: from Serbian oppression to the Wild West </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The Independent<br>Raymond Whitaker <br>19 December 1999 <br><br>Avoid Malisevo on market day: if I were composing a travel guide to Kosovo, that would be my first piece of advice. <br><br>When I first made acquaintance with it, Malisevo – the "s" is pronounced as a "sh" – was the most sinister place in the Balkans. The Kosovo Liberation Army had seized the town in 1998 during a brief and bloody attempt at conventional warfare against the Serbs, and unwisely declared it the "capital" of liberated Kosovo. <br><br>In revenge the Serbs levelled Malisevo. Driving down its snowy, ruined main street at dusk in January, with not a soul about bar the heavily armed paramilitary police of the Serbian interior ministry, was to know how Albanians felt under Serbian rule. You shrank down in your car and tried to make yourself invisible. <br><br>That was the biggest change when I returned in June, just after the Serbian forces had been replaced by multinational peacekeepers. Now it was the Albanians who were walking tall and the Serbs who were creeping about, if they dared to venture out at all. Despite the thousands of dead, the devastation on all sides, the long summer evenings outside the Grand Hotel in Pristina were like one big party. Cars raced past with red-and-black Albanian flags flapping from the windows; joyous reunions were taking place on every side. <br><br>Not, however, in Malisevo. The town had suffered so much destruction, so many dead, that life was slower to return. But Kosovo this year has been a place of changes as sudden as those of its climate – until you open the curtains in the morning, you never know whether you will be greeted by rain, sunshine, heavy snow or an overnight thaw. <br><br>Descending into Malisevo on a Thursday this month, I was confronted by an impenetrable mile-long traffic jam. Market stalls lined both sides of the street and hundreds of people were strolling past them, narrowing the passage still further. Two lines of K-For military vehicles, heavy trucks delivering aid, tractors and the myriad private cars that now clog every road in Kosovo were trying to push through the crowds. It took an hour to get from one end of town to the other and my appointment in Prizren was a dead loss. <br><br>From grim oppression in January to euphoria in June to chaos in December: that has been my experience of Kosovo in 1999. The highway to Pristina from the snarled-up Macedonian border, where truck drivers wait for days to pay the taxes and bribes necessary to gain entry to Kosovo, is a good barometer of the changes. At the beginning of the year the restaurants and petrol stations along the way were open, but doing next to no business in a stagnant Serbian-run economy. All were destroyed in the war and in the summer you had to buy your fuel, often containing more water than petrol, from sellers waving bottles at the side of the road. <br><br>Now Serbian place names have been defaced on every road sign and at the turn-off to south-western Kosovo the names Kukes and Tirana have been added. All the filling stations have re-opened and more are being built. The same with restaurants and bars: a flood of investment has come into Kosovo, much of it from the crime lords of northern Albania, feeding off the influx of K-For troops, UN officials, journalists and the hundreds of aid organisations whose logos cover every available surface. Fortunes are being made by some, widening the gap between the top and the bottom of Kosovar Albanian society. <br><br>After the Serbs removed Kosovo's autonomy a decade ago, the Albanians did their best to ignore the authorities. They set up their own schools and clinics in private homes and went into business for themselves, funded to a large extent by remittances from relatives working in Germany and Switzerland. The Serbs, clinging to their state jobs, were often worse off. <br><br>Now the UN is in charge but the Albanians are still going their own way. And, without the sense of shared adversity which used to bind them, the result is anarchy. Pristina is a crazy place where the street and traffic lights do not work, there is no phone or postal service and the water and power are off for several hours a day, but everyone is frantically doing business amid the destruction. You can buy anything you need at street stalls and eat and drink well at restaurants equipped with their own generators. "We must wean the Albanians away from their parallel administration mentality," a UN official told me, but the Albanians do not appear to be listening. <br><br>The price, of course, is that guns rule. At first they were used against the Serbs, who were often driven out despite the protests of Albanians who knew them. In the past few weeks Albanians have increasingly become the victims. When it comes to crime, Kosovars – many still recovering from the shock of spending time in Albania during the war – are unanimous that the problem comes from there. But there are political attacks as well, often blamed on the former Kosovo Liberation Army, which seems to have no shortage of weapons despite having supposedly been disarmed by Nato. "If you want to see how many guns there still are in Kosovo, just be here on Millennium Eve, when they'll all be fired in the air," one resident of Pristina told me. <br><br>For all the Wild West atmosphere, Pristina and the other large towns of Kosovo will be considerably better off this winter than the countryside. Rural Albanians took the brunt of Serbian brutality this year, as they have done every other year, and many who lost everything have migrated into the towns. But as the year 2000 comes in, hundreds of thousands of people across Kosovo will be huddled in tents or one hastily repaired room of their wrecked homes, just trying to keep warm. <br><br>Seeking out these pockets of deprivation, we stopped at a curve on a mountainous road to answer the call of nature. A short way down a dirt track leading off the road, I came across piles of clothing slowly rotting into the soil and a moment later noticed the bullet casings still littering the tarmac where we had parked. Such relics of the summer's horrors are a sobering reminder, not only of what Kosovo has been through in 1999, but of how far into the new millennium its inhabitants will have to go before they can hope for something like normality.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945679903,47503,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Belgrade's jailing of activist sparks international protest </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The Independent<br>By Vesna Peric Zimonjic In Belgrade And Raymond Whitaker In Pristina <br>19 December 1999 <br><br>The jailing in Serbia of Flora Brovina, an Albanian paediatrician, writer and women's activist, has attracted international protest and highlighted one of the unresolved issues of the Kosovo war – the estimated 1,500 Albanian political prisoners still held by the Belgrade regime. <br><br>Dr Brovina, 50, was arrested in Pristina in April and has now been sentenced to 12 years by a court in the Serbian city of Nis for "conspiring to commit hostile acts" and "terrorism" aimed at promoting the independence of Kosovo. The evidence against her included possession of wool donated by Oxfam, which she distributed to displaced Albanian women to knit sweaters. The British-based aid organisation also has projects in Serbia, but as Nikola Barovic, a Belgrade lawyer, put it: "In Stalin's time one got 10 years for nothing. Here one gets 12." <br><br>Another Serbian legal figure, Natasha Kandic, head of the Humanitarian Law Centre, said: "The sentence against Flora Brovina is a political measure against her [and] clearly has nothing to do with the alleged crime Brovina has committed." <br><br>Other Serbian opposition groups described her imprisonment as "ethnic revenge", especially after it emerged that both the judge in Dr Brovina's trial, Marina Milanovic, and the prosecutor, Miodrag Surla, come from Kosovo. Both worked in the district court of Pristina, which hurriedly moved to Nis when the Serbian administration withdrew from the province in June. Serbian judges are named by parliament and are considered part of the regime. <br><br>Although she suffers from health problems – she has high blood pressure and slight paralysis on her left side – Dr Brovina is reported to have refused to lodge an appeal against her sentence. Married to Ajri Begu, who is now an economic adviser to the United Nations administration in Kosovo, she supported herself during her medical studies by writing for magazines, and has published several books of poetry. She is unusual in her generation of Albanian women for her involvement in public affairs – in 1992 she founded the League of Albanian Women in Kosovo to protest against Serbian rule and to provide humanitarian assistance to Albanian women and children. <br><br>Although she insisted the organisation was non-political, she organised numerous protests. When Serbian forces staged bloody reprisals in the Drenica region early in 1998, she led 20,000 women in a march through Pristina. <br><br>The Serbian authorities had probably marked Dr Brovina out as an opponent much earlier, however. Her PhD thesis was on a spate of mysterious poisonings in Kosovo in 1990, when thousands of Albanian schoolchildren were sent to hospital with head and stomach pains and vomiting. Some experts blamed mass hysteria, but a UN toxicologist who analysed the victims' blood and urine samples found signs of sarin poisoning. Several years later it emerged that the Yugoslav army had produced the deadly nerve gas. <br><br>Gradimir Nalic, of the Yugoslav Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights, said Dr Brovina was "a scapegoat". "The whole process against her," he added, "showed the arrogance of the regime. There was also a message in that for the first time it was not an anonymous, simple ethnic Albanian on trial, but an intellectual, a physician, a human rights activist." <br><br>Baton Haxhiu, editor of Koha Ditore, Kosovo's most prominent Albanian-language newspaper, described Dr Brovina as a "hostage" of Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic. "Her imprisonment, with the Serbian elections coming up, helps him to show his people that Kosovo is not lost," he said. "Milosevic can say: 'This is how we deal with separatists and terrorists on our soil.' It is also useful in his dealings with the international community – Flora and the rest of the Albanians held in Serbia can be used as bargaining chips as he tries to escape isolation." </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945516456,92049,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Strangers in a Familiar Land: The Serbs of Kosovo</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The New York Times<br>By STEVEN ERLANGER<br><br>GORAZDEVAC, Kosovo -- Zivko Maksic walks around this village as if he were taking exercise in a prison yard. An electrician, he used to work at the beer distillery in Pec, about six miles away, but now it is too dangerous to travel there. In fact, he cannot even tend his fields, less than a mile from the village. When he tries, neighboring Albanians shoot at him. <br>Mr. Maksic, 54, is almost philosophical about his narrowed world. "The land we have that's close, we work that," he said. "But the land farther on isn't safe. We tried to work it but they attacked us." <br><br>Mr. Maksic is a beefy man who looks pale, ill and exhausted. He and his friends Radomir Jeremic, 36, and Sinisa Jovovic, 22, were standing chatting idly on a recent day, under a low roof against a freezing drizzle. <br><br>"We have no access to the town, that's the hardest thing," Mr. Jovovic said, referring to Pec. He is single, but cannot possibly think about getting married. He had a girlfriend in Pec but "that's finished now." <br><br>The Serbs in this last remaining Serbian village near Pec are surrounded by hostile Albanians and guarded by Italian troops from the international peacekeeping force that arrived in June. The troops have checkpoints at every road into the village to protect this enclave of "multi-ethnicity" in western Kosovo, but they do little patrolling. <br><br>In fact, there is shooting nearly every night, an effort to scare the Serbian villagers, and Albanians often cut off the electricity. <br><br>The other night, when a grenade went off and broke the windows of the last operating coffee shop, the Italians were nowhere to be found, Mr. Maksic said. When asked about the attack, the Italian captain, who would not give his name, asked in apparent innocence, "Oh, is that what happened?" <br><br>Still, the easygoing Italians are popular here. Residents cannot imagine how they could live without the protection. <br><br>"The Serbs here are O.K.," the Italian captain said. "Our problems are with the Albanians." <br><br>In the windows of a nearby shop, there was a pathetic collection of goods, all from Serbia: vodka and fruit brandy, filthy cans of tinned fish, some salt, cheap cigarettes and "Only!" brand cola and orange soda. <br><br>Pec, like the rest of Kosovo, is overflowing with goods from Albania and Macedonia. But the Italians say they have better things to do than to shop for the Serbs of Gorazdevac. German troops do bring in fresh bread from a bakery they have restarted in their zone, near Prizren. <br><br>But the only vegetables available are those the residents can grow or preserve. There are no newspapers, nor access to any Serbian-language media -- print or broadcast. <br><br>There have been a few protected convoys to Pec, Mr. Maksic said. "But they attack the buses with stones," he said. "Two buses went through Pec and they broke all the windows, and now people are frightened to go." <br><br>The Yugoslav government helps a little. Pensions are paid on time but do not go very far. A truck convoy comes about every 10 days, bringing supplies and animal feed, but it is not enough. <br><br>Other than farming, there is not much to do here. The only factory in town, which made cheap shoes, shut down five years ago. The peacekeepers sometimes pay residents 2 German marks an hour (about $1.10) to clean up common areas or about 5 marks an hour (plus fuel) if residents provide their own tractors. <br><br>Part of the tension has stemmed from the return of Serbs to Gorazdevac. Some fled at the end of the war and have come back; others have come from other parts of Kosovo. Some have come to stay; more have looked around, then left again. <br><br>By the end of October, about 600 Serbs were living here, about 60 percent of the population before the war this spring, but many Kosovo Albanians are convinced there are war criminals among the Serbs who use the protection of the peacekeepers' convoys to cover their movements. The peacekeepers have been reluctant to escort Albanians through Gorazdevac, even from nearby Pocesce, whose only access road to Pec runs through here. <br><br>In a report by the human rights division of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Gorazdevac is called "perhaps the most delicately balanced single issue" in western Kosovo. "It was also the most likely to initiate violence," the report concluded. <br><br>In general, the Serbs here deny deep feelings of guilt or responsibility over the mistreatment of Albanians by Serbian troops and militias, or at least they do not express such feelings to a foreigner. "The Albanians started this long ago," Mr. Maksic said. "They wanted a Kosovo republic, to leave Yugoslavia. They asked for too much." <br><br>Just outside the village are some burned-out homes where Albanians once lived. The Serbs say they know little about what happened. Mr. Jovovic suggested that the Albanians "moved out on their own," and that to prevent having Serbs use the houses, "they burned them themselves." <br><br>When told how bizarre that sounded, Mr. Jovovic shrugged. <br><br>Milijanko Jeremic, 45, and no relation to Radomir, said the problems all stemmed from "two policemen who came from Serbia during the war, and they made all the problems." The villagers, he insisted, were guilty of nothing. He shrugged. "It was war." <br><br>Of course he knew the Albanians suffered, Milijanko Jeremic said. But now, he said: "All the Turks, the Croats and the Serbs are being pushed out. It was a war, and a nasty war. But should only one people live here now? Is that what America wants? I have nothing in Serbia. My house and my country are here." (Serbs often call local Muslims Turks, a relic of Ottoman rule.) <br><br>He kicked at the grass. "We're not pessimists," he said, then laughed. "Of course, we're not big optimists, either." <br><br>Bozidar Radulovic, 65, said there was nothing good for anyone during the war. "But now we're in a bad situation," he said. "We live like in a quarantine, on a reservation." He pointed down the road to the coffeehouse, where the grenade exploded. <br><br>"There's lots of pressure on us," he said. "They provoke us. That shop was the only place we go out and they bombed it. We're afraid to go anywhere." <br><br>Suddenly there was an eerie screaming. In the center of the village, in a yard, Mr. Jovovic was helping Mr. Maksic slaughter a pig. As the blood pumped from its throat, the pig continued to squeal. <br><br>Aco Dakic, 57, fixing the tiles on his roof in the rain, barely looked up at the sound. He said about 10 houses of Serbian families had been burned on the outskirts of the village, and about six belonging to Albanians. His wife helped hold the ladder. <br><br>Will he stay in Gorazdevac? Mr. Dakic said: "Well, my wife wants to stay. Anyway, where can we go? We don't have anywhere else to go. Whatever we have, we have here. For 35 years, whatever I could earn or build is here." <br><br>They have three daughters, however -- 16, 19 and 20. "And what kind of life will they have here?" Mr. Dakic asked. His wife turned away. He swore an oath. "We don't know anything," he said bitterly. "We have no information." <br><br>Asked about the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, who had been popular with Kosovo's Serbs, Mr. Dakic said: "That's a political thing. I don't want to get into it." <br><br>What about his Albanian neighbors? Mr. Dakic looked upset. "We were fine, almost like brothers," he said. "But the Albanian leaders and our leaders needed to find a common language, not violence." <br><br>He stopped, then asked: "Why did NATO come? To push the Serbs out? I can't understand why they can't put things in order." </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945516272,57033,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>West keeping wary on Milosevic - UK's Hoon</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">GIOIA DEL COLLE, Italy, Dec 17 (Reuters) - British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon on Friday warned Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic that the West was keeping a wary eye on him -- and would respond to any more aggression. <br>"It is important that he remains contained," Hoon told reporters after visiting British troops in the Balkans and Harrier jump jet pilots stationed at the southern Italian air base of Gioia del Colle. <br><br>Six months after the end of the NATO air war over Kosovo, Hoon was as blunt as his predecessor George Robertson in condemning Milosevic. <br><br>"He is a man who has repeatedly broken his word not only to his own people but also to Western nations. We have to make sure he does not have an opportunity to take advantage of us, we need to keep a watchful eye on Milosevic," Hoon said. <br><br>The warning came amid new tensions between Serbia and Montenegro -- the last two remaining states making up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. <br><br>Yugoslav armed forces accused the Western-leaning Montenegrin state of "playing with fire" earlier this month after it challenged Yugoslav control of the military side of Montenegro's main airport. <br><br>"Clearly there is tension and there is tension about the airport on both sides. We have to make sure they do not step over the mark," Hoon said. <br><br>"Across the region we want to ensure we are in a position to respond to Milosevic if necessary." <br><br>Hoon flew into Pristina on Thursday to visit the 4,000 British troops patrolling war-ravaged Kosovo. <br><br>"There is some progress. It is very slow. One of the key questions is how are we able to pull it all together," he said. <br><br>Since taking office two months ago, Hoon has consistently highlighted "overstretch" as a major problem for British troops acting around the world from Sierra Leone to East Timor. The peacemaking commitments have been a major drain on resources. <br><br>On this, his first trip to the Balkans as defence secretary, he announced that British forces would be dramatically cut next year in Bosnia from the current level of 3,300 to 2,000 by the end of next year. <br><br>But NATO's troop commitment would not be reduced as Canada and the Netherlands would be making up the shortfall. <br><br>At present, Hoon said, there were no plans to cut British troop levels in Kosovo.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945516238,15124,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Yugoslav army and Montenegrin police bury hatchet</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">PODGORICA, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The Yugoslav army and Montenegrin police agreed on Friday to bury their differences and to cooperate to reduce tension in the Western-leaning republic following an airport standoff last week. <br>A joint statement issued after a meeting of the Yugoslav Second Army, the Yugoslav Navy and the Montenegrin Interior Minstry said all sides agreed to work together to overcome and prevent any possible misunderstandings. <br><br>It said: "Well-organised and coordinated cooperation can prevent possible misunderstandings, which will significantly reduce overall tensions in Montenegro." <br><br>The meeting in Podgorica came ten days after a tense standoff between Montenegrin police and Yugoslav air force troops at the republic's main airport, apparently linked to a dispute over a planned hangar building. <br><br>The military has said some army units will remain on raised combat readiness at the airport outside Podgorica as long as Montenegrin police stay near the disputed area. <br><br>Friday's statement made no mention of the December 8 standoff. <br><br>"With the aim to further cooperate in fields determined by the Constitution and Law, the highest ranking officials of the Interior Ministry, the Yugoslav Second Army and the Yugoslav Navy agreed on further contacts, exchange of information and continued cooperation," the statement said. <br><br>Montenegro, a junior partner in the Yugoslav federation, avoided direct involvement in the conflict between Serbia and NATO over Kosovo earlier this year. <br><br>The two Yugoslav republics have been increasingly at odds since August, when Podgorica urged Belgrade to reform the federation and asked for more autonomy in running its own finance, defence and foreign policy. <br><br>The Western-leaning Montenegrin leadership has threatened to hold a referendum on independence if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic does not agree to reform the state. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945516206,97801,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Heavy snowfall could prompt state of emergency in Bosnia</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) _ Snow blanketed Bosnia and Yugoslavia on Friday, closing schools in the Bosnian capital, where 3 feet of snow fell _ the most in Sarajevo in 50 years. <br>Bosnia's state electric company mobilized 1,000 workers to try to keep power flowing. The state news agency warned a state of emergency might be required if the snow continues. <br><br>In Yugoslavia, some bus service was curtailed in the suburbs of the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Schools and factories in the central Serbian town of Gornji Milanovac were closed. <br><br>Several inches of snow covered the main north-south highway between Belgrade and Nis. Serbian television warned motorists not to venture out without snow tires or chains. <br><br>Airports in Sarajevo and in the Bosnian towns of Mostar, Banja Luka and Tuzla were closed and many roads were impassable. <br><br>In the south, the rain-swollen Neretva River slipped over its banks Thursday, flooding ground-floor apartments and a dozen of houses in Mostar, forcing the evacuation of about 400 families to a neighboring town. <br><br>Radio Mostar reported that floodwaters demolished pedestrian bridges near the site of a 16th century stone bridge that had been destroyed in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. <br><br>In the Bosnian Serb part of the country, snow knocked down power lines, leaving several towns without electricity. <br><br>Roads in mountain areas of Yugoslavia's smaller republic, Montenegro, also were closed due to snow, while flooding swept away a bridge over the Moraca River in Uvac, 15 miles north of the capital, Podgorica. No one was injured in the bridge collapse. <br><br>Most Montenegrin roads were blocked by snow. Northbound bus service was halted and the main railroad link to the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, from the coastal resort of Bar was shut down.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945516180,10626,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>EU, U.S. pledge to work for change in Yugoslavia</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The United States and the European Union said on Friday they would continue to push for democratic change in Yugoslavia and work with various forces to promote such change. <br>In a joint statement following a meeting between President Bill Clinton and an EU delegation led by European Commission President Romano Prodi and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, the two vowed to keep up their presence and efforts for change in the Balkans. <br><br>"We agree on the central importance of promoting democratic change in Yugoslavia and will remain engaged in enhancing the security of the region until that happens," the statement said. <br><br>Forces from EU nations and the United States are among the KFOR peacekeeping troops deployed in Kosovo for about six months since NATO-led troops occupied Kosovo following an 11-week bombing campaign of Yugoslavia. <br><br>The United States and European Union said they will keep working with pro-democracy opposition leaders in Yugoslavia and the Western-leaning government of Montenegro, which along with Serbia makes up the Yugoslav federation. <br><br>"We support the efforts of the freely elected government of Montenegro to advance political and economic reform within the FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia)," the statement said. <br><br>It reaffirmed efforts by NATO's KFOR and the United Nation's civilian administration to set the foundations for an effective administration in the southern Serbian province. <br><br>The statement said the United States and European Union also hoped to see democratic change in Croatia, where politicians are readying to replace the late President Franjo Tudjman. <br><br>"We call upon Croatia to take steps to ensure that its parliamentary and presidential election processes are free and fair, in accordance with democratic principles and OSCE (Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe) standards," the statement said. <br><br>The communique also applauded efforts by southeastern European countries to improve their investment climate, fight corruption, control arms and weapons of mass destruction and advance democracy and human rights throughout the region. <br><br>"We intend to work closely with southeastern Europe to take full advantage of the opportunity before us at the verge of a new century to forge greater stability and advance the region's integration into the euro-Atlantic mainstream."</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945516144,42547,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>U.S. rejects Yugoslav opposition call to end sanctions</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">BERLIN (Reuters) - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright turned down appeals from Yugoslav opposition leaders Friday to lift Western sanctions against Belgrade, saying free elections must be held first. <br>Speaking after meeting Serbian opposition leaders and Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, Albright restated Washington's determination not to lift the embargo on air flights and oil so long as Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic holds on to power. <br><br>"I can understand why they (the opposition leaders) are voicing these ideas," Albright told a news conference. <br><br>"We have said we are ready to suspend oil and flight bans on the holding of free and fair elections. We consider this a very important way of indicating that we are ready to integrate a freely elected Yugoslavia into a stable Balkans." <br><br>Leaders of the Serbian democratic opposition, including Zoran Djindjic, leader of the pro-western Democratic Party, and Vuk Draskovic, head of the nationalist Serbian Renewal Movement, said the sanctions were counterproductive. <br><br>They said the embargo was forcing Serbia, already cut off from the outside world in the aftermath of the Kosovo conflict, ever deeper into isolation. <br><br>Serbia has been subject to various international sanctions since 1992 over its role in a series of Balkan wars. <br><br> <br>SANCTIONS TURNING SERBIA INTO A "PRISON" <br><br>"The sanctions are against the people of Serbia and are a Western-built wall transforming our state into a prison," Draskovic told reporters. <br><br>Djindjic, who has a tense relationship with Draskovic, also called on the West to provide more help in the opposition movement's push to oust Milosevic from power by peaceful means. <br><br>"The West would help if it lifted sanctions," he told Reuters in an interview. "Otherwise the people say that the West does not respect us because it does not follow our requests." <br><br>Finnish Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen, representing the EU presidency, said it was "in the hands of the people" to fullfil the preconditions for lifting the blockade. <br><br>Europe has taken a less firm line on the sanctions than Washington, with one German government source saying that Berlin supported their easing. <br><br>But the source ruled out an early unilateral move by Europe to lift sanctions, saying that could only happen in step with the United States. <br><br>Albright praised Djukanovic for tiny Montenegro's democratic stand against threats from Serbia and said that although economic sanctions would remain in force, the United States would step up humanitarian aid efforts. <br><br>Djukanovic said: "Today, Montenegro is facing great repression because Milosevic correctly identifies that the threat to his regime is coming from Montenegro. <br><br>"I hope he is right in his fears. Despite his resistance, we are stepping down the road to democracy." <br><br>Both Albright and Halonen said that more fuel would be sent by the West to towns controlled by pro-democracy forces under the "Energy for Democracy" program. <br><br>Albright described the talks as the beginning of a "new phase" in bringing democracy to Yugoslavia. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945333860,70739,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>KOSOVO: EU resolves funding dispute </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By Neil Buckley in Strasbourg<br>The Financial Times<br><br>European Union states and the European parliament have found a last-minute compromise to a dispute over funding for the reconstruction of Kosovo.<br><br>The dispute had threatened to leave the EU without an agreed budget at the outset of 2000.<br><br>The deal ends a dispute that has been bubbling for weeks between parliament, the European Commission and the EU's Council of Ministers over how to find the E500m ($508m) the EU had pledged at a donor conference this summer to humanitarian aid in Kosovo and for rebuilding the Serbian province next year.<br><br>But while the EU's institutions agreed on how to pay for a multiannual programme for Kosovo worth E360m a year, they put off a decision on where the remaining E140m should come from until next year.<br><br>The delay opens the EU to the criticism that it is failing to deliver on its promises at a time when it is trying to increase its foreign policy clout.<br><br>EU ambassadors late on Wednesday accepted a deal offered by parliament, which is expected to be rubberstamped by EU ministers on Thursday morning.<br><br>That should clear the way for parliament, which has the final vote on the budget, to then approve it.<br><br>The EU's pledge for Kosovo was one of several foreign-policy commitments made after the Union's draft budget for 2000 had already been drawn up.<br><br>EU ministers had originally insisted that the E500m pledge for Kosovo should be financed partly by a 10 per cent cut in other external aid programmes.<br><br>Parliament refused, saying the money should come from unspent funds in other parts of the budget, together with an overall increase in the Union's external aid budget.<br><br>Wednesday's compromise involved E60m unspent from this year's budget being granted to Kosovo, with E300m found from other sources in next year's budget, of which E40m would come from existing external aid projects.<br><br>But Pat Cox, European Liberal Democrat leader in parliament and set to become the assembly's president in the second half of its five-year term, said the issue was one of principle.<br><br>"You can't deal with important foreign-policy investments like south-east Europe on the cheap," he said.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945333357,43844,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>U.N. Agrees to Share Power With Kosovars</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By CARLOTTA GALL<br>The New York Times<br><br>RISTINA, Yugoslavia -- The United Nations has agreed to a power-sharing pact with three Kosovo Albanian leaders, bringing them into the official administration to help govern the unruly Serbian province. <br><br>The U.N. special representative here, Bernard Kouchner, who signed the deal Wednesday, remains in charge. But he will now have a four-member Administrative Council that will propose policy and legislation. <br><br>The deal gives Kosovars an executive role in governing the province and official status and council seats to three Albanian leaders: Hashim Thaci, former political head of the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army; Ibrahim Rugova of the Democratic League for Kosovo; and Rexhep Qosja of the Unified Democratic Movement. <br><br>The fourth seat was reserved for a Serb. But Serbian leaders rejected Kouchner's invitation to send a representative. <br><br>U.N. officials said the accord would dismantle the unofficial local structures that the Albanians have been running and break up the political rivalries that have frequently stymied U.N. administration. <br><br>At a news conference after the signing, Kouchner described the agreement as the "first real success of the U.N. mission in Kosovo." It would give substantial autonomy, followed by self-government, to Kosovo, in keeping with a U.N. resolution on Kosovo, he said. <br><br>The chief of the troops here, Gen. Klaus Reinhardt, also welcomed the accord, saying it would foster needed cooperation among local officials, citizens and security forces in combating the crime and revenge killings that have engulfed Kosovo since NATO forced Serbian forces to withdraw in June.<br><br>Thaci seconded that view, saying: "This structure will help reduce the level of crime. I sincerely believe that with these structures there will not be any more masked people, political mafia and other crimes. And instead of hatred, I hope we shall build a climate of tolerance and peaceful coexistence." <br><br>The Albanian leaders said they would work together and join forces to build a new Kosovo until elections for a provincial government could be organized next year. <br><br>But the deal has quite obviously left the Kosovo Serbs out in the cold. <br><br>Serbian leaders in Kosovo have yet to endorse the pact and have not nominated anyone to fill their designated council position. Ethnic Serbs have left the province in large numbers since the NATO-led forces took over. But tens of thousands remain. They have withdrawn more and more into their own enclaves for safety and complain that their political and security needs are being ignored. <br><br>Even without the participation of the Serbs, however, the U.N. administration had arrived at such an impasse in managing civil and political life in Kosovo that many here felt that an agreement was desperately needed. Residents of Pristina, the provincial capital, say fear has gripped the city, with rumors of kidnappings keeping them at home at night. <br><br>At the least, the accord will spread responsibility from the United Nations to local leaders. Thaci and Rugova are to disband their alternative governments and integrate their people into the new administration, physically moving into offices in the U.N. administrative building in the center of town. <br><br>Kosovars are to take up positions throughout the administration of the province alongside U.N. officials. There are to be 14 departments with responsibility for finance, commerce, education, justice, health and so on. <br><br>Defense will be left to the NATO-led forces. But the governing council will have an expert committee on security that will work with international troops and the police. <br><br>Kouchner will be more like a presiding officer over the council, said a spokeswoman at the United Nations, Nadia Younes. <br><br>His deputy, Jock Covey, will be co-chairman of the council, along with a rotating co-chairman from among the four Kosovo council members. <br><br>Thaci, who has headed a self-declared provisional government since the security forces took over the administration of Kosovo from the Serbs, and Rugova, who calls himself president of a shadow government elected by Albanians some years ago, appear to have buried their personal rivalry. <br><br>Yet they could not resist political digs at each other at the news conference. <br><br>Of the three Albanians, Thaci was the main person who was dragging his feet on the agreement, said a U.N. official. "He had done the most legwork setting up his own structures," the official said, "and in a sense had the most to lose." </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945255624,28591,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>U.N. urges immediate cleanup of polluted areas in Yugoslavia </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">SARAJEVO (Reuters) — A U.N. expert called Monday for the immediate cleanup of pollution caused by the NATO-led bombing of Yugoslavia, saying it was endangering human health.<br><br>"The crisis in the Balkans has serious environmental impacts, and there is an immediate need for . . . cleanup work of the environmental hot spots. Otherwise there will be further risks for human health and for environment in the region," Pasi Rinne of the U.N. Environment Program for the Balkans said.<br> Rinne was presenting a report by the U.N. body at an international seminar on the environmental impact of conflicts and rehabilitation measures.<br> The report identified four major "hot spots" in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Pancevo near Belgrade, the central town of Kragujevac, the northern town Novi Sad and the Bor mining center.<br> Rinne said it was urgent to clean up the seriously contaminated wastewater canal of the Pancevo industrial complex, which flows into the Danube River, and the petrochemical factory that had suffered a mercury spill.<br> The Kragujevac Zastava car plant, the Novi Sad oil refinery and the Bor ore smelting complex also needed immediate action.<br> The impact of the Yugoslav conflict on Albania and Macedonia was related to the huge numbers of refugees they received from the Serbian province of Kosovo, the report said.<br> "Environmental problems caused by the stream of refugees into unprepared areas, with sanitation and drinking water services under enormous pressure in overcrowded refugee camps, are still an issue," Rinne said.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945255524,96083,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>War Crimes Tribunal Sentences Bosnian Serb to a 40-Year Term </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The News York Times<br><br>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS<br><br>THE HAGUE, the Netherlands -- The war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday sentenced a Bosnian Serb who had likened himself to Hitler to 40 years in prison, the toughest punishment handed down so far by the six-year-old United Nations court. <br>Goran Jelisic, 31, was found guilty on Oct. 19 of 31 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed while he was a shift commander at the notorious Luka prison camp in northern Bosnia during the Bosnian war. However, he was found not guilty of genocide. <br><br>Jelisic, a former farm mechanic who prosecutors said was responsible for the deaths of dozens of prisoners, had pleaded guilty and acknowledged before the court that he went by the nickname Adolf, a reference to Hitler. <br><br>During three and a half weeks of testimony earlier this fall, witnesses and prosecutors described Mr. Jelisic as responsible for a reign of terror at the Luka camp, near Brcko, in the spring and summer of 1992. <br><br>"The crimes that you, Goran Jelisic, have committed have shocked the conscience of mankind," said the presiding judge, Claude Jorda of France. <br><br>Jelisic stood silently in the dock as the sentence was read. <br><br>The charges related to the torture and murder of 13 Muslims and Croats in May 1992, shortly after the start of the Bosnian war. <br><br>Judge Jorda said that Mr. Jelisic's behavior had been "repugnant, bestial and sadistic." <br><br>"Your scornful attitude toward your victims, your enthusiasm for committing the crimes, the inhumanity of the crimes and your dangerous nature," he said, "constitute especially aggravating circumstances." <br><br>The longest prison sentence handed down by the court previously was 25 years for Dusan Tadic, another Bosnian Serb who was convicted of systematically torturing and murdering Muslims and Croats during the Bosnian war. <br><br>In the testimony against Jelisic, he was said by one witness to have boasted that he executed 20 to 30 Muslims every morning before breakfast. The ruling detailed the grisly way in which Jelisic's victims were beaten, mutilated and executed before being dumped into a river or a mass grave. <br><br>"Anyone who was here during the war knows what Adolf has done, not just to the victims but to all of us," Nedima Redzepagic, 48, a Muslim resident of Brcko, said Tuesday. "His name will be a nightmare to me my whole life. That monster deserves at least life imprisonment. But I'm very glad that he will finally be in the prison for a long, long time." <br><br>Jelisic's case set a high standard for proving the genocide charge. <br><br>Judge Jorda said that while Jelisic "presents the external signs of a perpetrator of genocide," prosecutors had not proven that genocide occurred or that Jelisic had clearly played a role in it. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945255414,50606,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Kosovo hit by winter aid shortage </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">ITN special:<br> <br> ITN has obtained an extraordinary and shocking insight into life in Kosovo, six months after the end of the war.<br>Despite an ongoing international aid effort, and despite the presence of thousands of KFOR troops, there is still widespread suffering. <br><br>There are three major problems:<br><br>The first is that - for some - aid is not getting through. That is a crucial consideration because winter has set in, and many families are still living in tents.<br><br>Second, there is still considerable tension between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, and some Serbs are forced to rely on armed peacekeeping troops for their survival.<br><br>And third is the fact that thousands of men, forcibly taken away by Serb troops, are still unaccounted for. <br><br>ITN correspondent Mark Austin, who reported on the war in Kosovo, returned six months on to the capital Pristina, and to some of the province's remotest areas. <br><br>Kosovo is in the grip of the first snow of a bleak Balkan winter.<br><br>Like hundreds of thousands of Albanian refugees the Sedeu family is back home, but in truth it is no home at all.<br><br>In temperatures below freezing even the most basic chores are a struggle<br><br>These people were promised fuel and materials to rebuild their ruined house but six months on and in this - and many other villages - no help has arrived.<br><br>The UN relief operation is bogged down by disorganisation and delay.<br><br>Nato forces are being asked to join in the aid distribution - tracked military vehicles often the only means to reach the more remote areas.<br><br>It is slow going. For the aid agencies here it is a race against time and a race they are losing.<br><br>It is clearly going to take a long time to rebuild Kosovo, and as winter sets in there is already patience among the people here for the United Nations to do more and to do it quickly.<br><br>The West may have won the war - is it now in danger of squandering the peace.<br><br>It is a question worth asking because six months on Kosovo remains dangerous and divided.<br><br>In one town barbed wire still separates Albanians from the few Serbs left - Serbs who in Pristina count increasingly on round the clock protection of British troops.<br><br>Last week and elderly Serb couple were shot dead in their apartment. Albanian gunmen are blamed.<br><br>They have also threatened other Serbs, including Sonny Brzera - a young single mother, who lives with her baby Jack and eight-year-old son Ivan.<br><br>They have only ventured out four times in five months.<br><br>When we were there Ivan made the trip to school for the first time since the war ended.<br><br>It was an extraordinary operation: he and twenty-five other Serb children were gathered together by armed soldiers.<br><br>They were herded into armoured landrovers for the ten mile journey to a Serb enclave.<br><br>It is a frightening way to go to school but for Serb children in Pristina it is the only way.<br><br>"Constant fear for the Serbs. They're actually frightened to step foot outside their houses now. Young Ivan for instance has been in his house now for three months. The only time he gets to go out is when a K-FOR soldier takes him," Sergeant Dicky Bird from the Royal Green Jackets told ITN.<br><br>These are the lengths they have to go to to ensure the safety of Serb schoolchildren in Pristina.<br><br>Six months on and Tony Blair's declared aim of a multi-ethnic Kosovo is simply a world away.<br><br>In fields across the province lie the anti-tank mines intended for NATO's invasion force.<br><br>A ground invasion never happened of course but the mines remain, hidden now more than ever by the winter snow. <br><br>Albanian women have joined the de-mining teams but this is a job that will take years.<br><br>And for thousands of women here it is the war with no end.<br><br>Six months on their husbands are still missing.<br><br>Pranvera Sharani doesn't know whether her husband and five other men from her family are dead or languishing in Serb prisons.<br><br>"We just want to know. We cry every day," she told me. <br><br>Her neighbour is also missing her husband.<br><br>On the eve of the new millennium this remains a desperate place.<br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945163149,12545,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Lessons are hard in classrooms darkened by torture </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By Raymond Whitaker in Trstenik, Kosovo <br>14 December 1999 <br><br>If a British eight-year-old visited Trstenik One primary school, in the Drenica valley of Kosovo, he or she might think it looked quite familiar at first. <br><br>The building is perhaps a bit spartan, but its Seventies-style design would not seem out of place in a medium-sized town in the Home Counties. There is a playground, paid for by the charity War Child and installed by Canadian peace-keepers. <br><br>The thick mud covering the assembly area, tracked all over the school by its lively population of pupils aged from six to fourteen, is more of a problem: the director, Rexhep Bazaj, 51, says that it drives him to distraction. <br><br>"Serbian tanks cracked the water pipes when they came into the grounds," the director explained. "The ground is waterlogged all round the entrance, and it is impossible to keep the school clean. I wish we could get someone to fix the problem." This is the first clue that the air of normality at Trstenik is deceptive, but there are others. <br><br>Large white tents, provided by a French charity, dot a field next to the school. Until recently classes were held there, because the main building was unusable. During the Nato bombing and the Serbian reign of terror in Kosovo, one classroom was turned into a torture chamber. <br><br>Blood-encrusted wires, staves and clothing were found by the teachers when they returned. The evidence was taken away by war-crimes investigators, who also discovered human body parts in a well just outside the grounds. <br><br>Other classrooms were used as detention cells by Serbian forces. The inmates included two teachers from the school, who were taken to Serbia with President Slobodan Milosevic's departing troops. One of the manual workers, wounded when the Serbs fired on refugees, also ended up here. <br><br>"We don't know too much about what went on at the school during the bombing, because we were hiding in the hills," Mr Bazaj said. "All I know is that when we came back the school was burnt out. We had to replace every window and door, repaint every wall and clear wreckage and filth from every classroom. It took two months." <br><br>All the school's equipment was smashed; in an alcove stand two safes that have been forced open. <br><br>Zymer Halilaj, 52, teaching an Albanian-language class of pupils aged nine and ten, says that things are somewhat easier since the windows in his classroom were restored a week earlier, before which temperatures had fallen below freezing at times. Now his main problem is the destruction of all the school's books. "I have to write everything on the blackboard for them to copy down," he complained. "It is very time-consuming." <br><br>Trstenik One and Two, a companion school a mile away, are highly unusual. Built and run by the Albanian community of the Drenica region, with help from relatives abroad, they were outside the control of the Serbian authorities. Albanians in most other parts of Kosovo were educated in private homes after 1990, when Serbia began removing the province's autonomy. But Drenica was where Albanian passive resistance turned to guerrilla warfare early in 1998, and this year's ethnic cleansing campaign is not the first time the children's education has been disrupted. <br><br>"In March 1998, when the first Serbian massacre took place not far from here, we had to close the school for a month," Mr Bazaj said. "We reopened when the international observers came, then closed again when they withdrew, just before the Nato bombing began. <br><br>"Three of our teachers and 13 pupils were killed by the Serbs during the bombing, and all the children are still traumatised to some extent. Some of them went to Macedonia, but many others were in the hills, fleeing from place to place to escape the Serbs." <br><br>Trstenik now has 932 children coming to school in two shifts, some 10 per cent below its prewar enrolment. "The destruction in this region was the worst in Kosovo, and some families are simply unable to return, because they have no homes to go to," the director said. "The pull of the Drenica is strong, and many people have come back despite the terrible conditions. More than half our pupils are in sub-standard accommodation, and many lack proper shoes and warm clothing." <br><br>A little way south and up a muddy track just out of sight of the school, Hamide Hajdini, 35, lives in a tent supplied by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, next to the ruins of her home. She shares it with her husband, their nine children – two of whom attend Trstenik – and her father-in-law aged 70. "The house was shelled, then burnt by the paramilitaries," she said. "We had to go into the mountains and live in rain, snow and cold. <br><br>"I am glad my daughters are back at school, but it is very difficult for them to study at the moment. We have just finished repairing the stable, and will move in there for the winter. Maybe it will be better then, but I don't know when we will be able to rebuild our house." <br><br>The effect on Trstenik was described by Muzafere Nika, 29, whose responsibilities as the new school administrator include discipline. The previous administrator was killed in the Serbian pogrom. "The children cannot concentrate at all, and some have problems of aggression," she said. "The 45-minute periods seem far too long to them. Discipline is definitely at a lower level than it used to be, but it is not surprising when some of them are still living in tents. Everything they had was burnt and destroyed." <br><br>Primary schools in Britain are normally covered in drawings, paintings and cut-outs produced by the children, and Trstenik used to be the same. No longer, or at least not yet: with one exception, the walls are bare, partly because materials are lacking, partly because there has not been time for the pupils to produce anything. <br><br>The exception, however, is chilling. In one corner, unaccountably left hanging when the Serbs tore everything else down, there is a realistic and skilfully executed crayon drawing of a Kosovo Liberation Army attack on a bridge. Even to the youngest British primary school pupil, that would make clear things are far from normal in this school, and will not be for some time to come.</font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945163108,7781,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>U.N., KFOR Tackle Kosovo Crime, Defend Record</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">By Reuters<br>PRISTINA (Reuters) - International officials on Monday announced new measures to crack down on the violence and impunity which have plagued postwar Kosovo and mounted a staunch defense of their first six months in charge of the territory. <br><br>Bernard Kouchner, the head of Kosovo's United Nations-led administration, said he would appoint 400 extra judges and prosecutors and change the applicable law in an effort to kick start a justice system which has barely functioned. <br><br>General Klaus Reinhardt, commander of the 50,000-strong NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force, said his troops would mount more joint patrols with Kosovo's international police force. <br><br>Speaking at a news conference with other senior officials to mark half a year of KFOR and the U.N. in Kosovo, both men insisted their staff had accomplished much in a short time. <br><br>But officials also acknowledged they had not yet got a grip on crime and ethnically motivated violence, although both have declined since KFOR and the U.N. arrived after 11 weeks of NATO bombing to end repression of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. <br><br>``The intervention by NATO in Kosovo in the first place was to protect a minority and to ensure the human rights of the oppressed and vulnerable,'' Kouchner said. <br><br>``Our efforts to do the same for the current minorities, particularly the Serbs, have partially failed.'' <br><br>Some 420 murders have been committed in the past six months, according to KFOR and U.N. statistics, with Serbs in particular the victims of gruesome attacks by revenge-seeking Albanians. <br><br>Kouchner said Kosovo, which legally remains part of Yugoslavia, would get its own penal code and use laws in force before it was stripped of its autonomy in 1989. <br><br>ATTEMPT TO GET JUDGES WORKING <br><br>The move is intended to win over ethnic Albanian judges and lawyers who have refused to apply current Yugoslav and Serbian legislation. But it may prove controversial in Belgrade, which insists Kosovo is still under its overall jurisdiction. <br><br>``With all these steps, Kosovo should enter the new millennium as a more secure place...where crime is not tolerated and where justice is available for all,'' Kouchner said. <br><br>The former French health minister also took aim at critics in the media who have accused his administration of being too slow to get a basic infrastructure up and running. <br><br>``Many people say we've been slow, but slow to do what?'' he said. ``Does anyone remember what we found here six months ago? Empty streets. Shuttered shops. No water. No work.'' <br><br>He cited getting health and education systems going again, establishing a customs service, and providing emergency repair kits to around 60,000 families whose homes were damaged by conflict among his administration's successes. <br><br>Reinhardt said his troops had already accomplished much of their mission by ensuring Serb forces had withdrawn and had stayed out. They were now focusing on increasing protection for Serbs and other minorities, seen as collaborators by Albanians. <br><br>``Three out of four of my soldiers are out day and night patrolling,'' the German general said. <br><br>``I now have 1,000 soldiers on static guard duty every day. Their sole purpose is the guarding of houses, churches or other sites where ethnic minorities are located,'' he added. <br></font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945163077,84157,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Why Milosevic May Miss Neighboring Strongman</center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">Croatia buries President Franjo Tudjman, a demi-despot who provided cover for some of the Serbian leader's excesses <br>Croatians mourn the death of President Franjo Tudjman <br>The Time Daily<br> <br><br>Slobodan Milosevic wasn't at the funeral Monday of his fellow president, Croatia's Franjo Tudjman; they were sworn enemies as a result of the Bosnian war. But even as tens of thousands of Croats turned out to mourn the former Yugoslav army general who led them through a bloody war for independence, the Serbian strongman may have felt the loss of his nemesis — after all, Tudjman and Milosevic were the very best of enemies. "Tudjman probably wouldn't have been elected in 1990 if most Croats hadn't felt threatened by Milosevic's nationalism," says TIME Central Europe bureau reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. "And Milosevic more than once used Tudjman's threats to the Serbs in Croatia and elsewhere to rally support for himself." <br>Also absent from Tudjman's funeral were the leaders of the NATO countries, which, although they'd backed him in his war against the Serbs, subsequently began to keep their distance from the authoritarian nationalist. "The West's early decisions on Croatia were made in a time of crisis management, when Tudjman's anticommunism was enough to win him support," says Anastasijevic. "Later, Tudjman's lack of enthusiasm for democracy and factors such as his denial of the Holocaust made them more uncomfortable." But while Western governments are hoping that Tudjman's passing will open the way for a new democratic turn toward Europe, the late president's legacy presents many obstacles. "Tudjman's 10 years in power saw the emergence of an oligarchy that will fight hard against any moves toward greater democracy," says Anastasijevic. "The country's democratic forces also have to act carefully so as not to provoke a coup by Tudjman's handpicked generals. So Tudjman's system will definitely outlive him." <br><br>— TONY KARON </font><br></p> <a name="newsitem945163018,12917,"></a> <p><strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="Navy"><center>Balkan gangs push mafia aside </center></font><br></strong><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="000000">The Guardian<br>Rory Carroll in Rome <br><br>The end of the Balkan war has brought a wave of criminal gangs into southern Italy, many of which are proving so violent and well-armed that the mafia has forged alliances with them rather than try to resist the onslaught. <br>Police have been stunned by the savagery and professionalism of recent heists in which gangs used Kalashnikovs, explosives and motorised battering rams to kill escorts in armoured cars. In the past robbers tended to shoot only if pursued or fired at first. <br><br>Albanians and mercenaries from Serbia, Montenegro and other parts of the former Yugoslavia are blamed for the attacks, which are linked to the growing trade across the Adriatic in contraband cigarettes, drugs and illegal immigrants. <br><br>Two ambushes on remote roads in the heel of Italy last week brought a wave of public shock of the kind not seen since the Red Brigade terrorists were active. <br><br>In the first attack last Monday, 10 masked men, some with Balkan accents, rammed and cornered two trucks driven by private security guards near the town of Lecce. Explosives blasted open the doors and machinegun fire raked the guards, killing three and wounding five. The gang escaped with £700,000. <br><br>In a second attack on the same day guards were said to have had a miraculous escape when a different gang intercepted a delivery of pensions. <br><br>"The abundance of arms, vehicles and determination is striking," said Alessandro Stasi, a chief appeals prosecutor. <br><br>The viciousness of the foreign gangs has persuaded most mafia leaders to step aside or try to forge alliances, according to Amato Lamberti of the Camorra Observatory, which monitors mafia activity. <br><br>"This is a new type of criminal, with new rules and new weapons. He has explosives and machine guns and doesn't hesitate to use them. They tend to be from Montenegro, Albania and recently we're seeing more and more Serbs." <br><br>Evidence that foreign and Italian gangs were collaborating emerged last May when a group attacked an armoured truck in Milan with explosives and fired more than 350 rounds, killing one guard. Several men from the Balkans were later arrested. <br><br>According to Professor Ernesto Savona, the director of Transcrime, an Italian research institute which studies international crime, Albanian gangs now control the smuggling of illegal immigrants. <br><br>A pact is believed to have been made in which the Italian gangs retained control over trade in cigarettes and arms, while the new arrivals took over prostitution rackets, and the smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants. <br><br>Last week an Italian judge ordered Branko Perovic, the foreign minister of Montenegro since 1998, and 26 other people to stand trial on smuggling and criminal association charges. The charges against him relate to the period when he worked for the Rome office of the Yugoslav Airlines, JAT. </font><br></p> |
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