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Belgrade Masses Its Troops But Will Gave A Chance To Diplomacy
by Jean-Eudes Barbier
BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia (AFP) - Belgrade security forces considerably reinforced their presence in tense southern Serbia Monday, as authorities tried diplomacy in their conflict with ethnic Albanian separatists.
Authorities were trying to "avoid a new war" in the region, and were in touch with NATO-led peacekeepers in the area, one of three Serbia's Interior Ministers, Slobodan Tomovic, said.
The KFOR troops had asked for "one or two days to make the guerillas withdraw," he added.
Tomovic, who had met earlier on Monday with local officials and police deployed in the demilitarized buffer zone, said that Belgrade was "ready to wait several days with an aim to avoid a war."
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica also arrived here late Monday to oversee the tense situation, and Belgrade accepted an offer by the separatists to extend their ceasefire until Friday.
Last week the separatists killed three Serbian police men and regained control of several villages.
On the road leading to the largely Albanian-populated town, Veliki Trnovac, a dozen special police vehicles were positioned.
Yugoslav forces were also deployed around the main power plant in the region, while other policemen checked people's identity papers and vehicles.
In Bujanovac, armored police vehicles equipped with light machine guns were deployed throughout the town, while Yugoslav army vehicles were circulating along its streets.
"We can confirm that [the separatists] are very present and that there is no obvious sign of withdrawal," a police spokesperson in Lucane said.
In Veliki Trnovac, dozens of men gathered despite heavy rain awaiting a return of local official Galip Beqiri, who had left for Bujanovac earlier Monday to discuss the situation.
Many were talking about the death of an Albanian woman and two children, killed as their tractor drove over an anti-tank mine on the road leading to Kosovo, just a mile from the village.
Six other Albanians were injured and hospitalized in the accident.
The group was trying to flee the region to reach Kosovo fearing further conflicts between Belgrade security forces and the Albanian separatists.
Like hundreds of other villagers, they turned a deaf ear to calls from local officials not to leave the town because the roads were presumably heavily mined.
Veliki Trnovac is situated in the officially five-kilometer (three-mile) wide buffer zone, set by a 1999 military accord between NATO and Belgrade.
Only the Serb police are allowed to patrol the zone, but are not allowed to deploy anything more powerful than light weapons.
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