December 17, 2000
Belgrade was waiting Sunday for a response from the United Nations after threatening to use its own anti-terrorist methods if the UN did not clear ethnic Albanian rebels from southern Serbia fast. At an emergency meeting in Bujanovac, just outside the buffer zone between the province and Serbia proper on Saturday, President Vojislav Kostunica and his administration demanded the "UN Security Council take measures as soon as possible for the urgent withdrawal of Albanian terrorists" from the area. "Failing this, Yugoslavia will use its legal and legitimate rights to resolve the problem by using methods internationally authorised in the fight against terrorism, which is its duty," said the declaration approved by the Serbian and Yugoslav government at the session chaired by Kostunica.
Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic, who was to attend a Security Council session on Tuesday, said he would "seriously explain to its members that our army and the police are ready to defend the territory of our country." "But we expect determined measures to be taken urgently by those who are responsible and those are (NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo) KFOR and (UN mission in the province) UNMIK," Svilanovic told Belgrade radio B92.
And Zoran Djindjic of Kostunica's Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), told Beta news agency that he would expect the council to make a "compromising solution by December 31 the latest."
Kostunica himself said on Saturday he was an "optimist," regarding the future moves by the United Nations, expecting the council to "make a step further" towards solving the crisis in the tense demilitarized zone between UN administered Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. "It is very encouraging that the council put the situation in the southern Serbia on its agenda, which shows that it is giving full importance to this issue," Kostunica said. But he warned that only this move "will not be sufficient." "Our goal is to have really safe ground zone with no terrorists, with both Serbs and Albanians living there," Kostunica said.
The five-kilometer (three-mile) wide ground security zone between Kosovo and Serbia proper was set up by the 1999 peace deal between Belgrade and NATO. The area is banned for any armed forces except lightly-armed Serbian police. But the self-proclaimed Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) has clashed with Serb police in recent weeks, killing three policemen and seizing several villages in the zone. The rebels want the towns of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, and the surrounding area, which have a large ethnic Albanian population, to be part of an independent Kosovo, which is currently under UN administration.
Asked whether he expected NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo (KFOR) to disarm the UCPMB rebels, Kostunica said there "are many ways for solving the problem, with or without KFOR and their action." "Yugoslavia will examine all the possibilities," Kostunica said.
The calls to the UN and NATO came amid reports by the Yugoslav army that the UCPMB guerillas were planning further offensive in time or immediately after Serbia's legislative polls, due to be held on December 23.
General Vladimir Lazarevic, commander of the Yugoslav 3rd army in charge of the region said the guerillas "were gathering men and arms... planning an offensive around December 27 which would include several thousand terrorists." "They are bringing the weaponry into to zone, fixing up bridges and improving communication links," Lazarevic told Beta. He said the number of "terrorists in the area is not important since their aims are clear -- to destabilise the country and fulfil their goals."
Kostunica's administration was praised by the West for avoiding any use of force to solve the crisis, unlike the previous regime of Slobodan Milosevic. But it strongly condemned NATO peacekeepers of failing to cut off rebels' weapon supply and their intrusions into the territory of the buffer zone. It also called for a limited return of Yugoslav army troops to Kosovo, as agreed upon the UN-approved peace deal for the province, and for the setting up a coordinating group to better monitor the conflict near the zone.
