http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=200600

UN Unaware of Yugoslav Polling Plans in Kosovo

PRISTINA, Sep 19, 2000 -- (Reuters) Yugoslav officials have told the United
Nations nothing about their plans to set up 300 polling stations in
UN-administered
Kosovo for crucial elections in six days, a UN official said on Monday.

Belgrade has made no requests to the NATO-led peacekeeping force, KFOR, to
protect Serb voters from possible ethnic Albanian violence, and given no hint of
when ballot boxes and officials will arrive or where they will be set up, it
added.

UN and KFOR officials said they were not concerned by the lack of information
and denied that the UN's hands-off policy towards what the West says will be a
crooked election could increase the security risk they acknowledge it may pose.

"We haven't been informed on this. It's up to Belgrade to decide how many
polling
stations they'll need," UN spokeswoman Claire Trevena told a regular briefing in
Pristina.

A Yugoslav election official, Peka Obradovic, was quoted on Monday in a
Serbian newspaper as saying 300 polling stations would be established in Kosovo
for the weekend ballot.

"No requests for security have been made," said KFOR spokesman Major Scott
Slaten. "It's up to the Yugoslav officials if they want to drive (ballot) boxes
into
Kosovo."

"If a situation develops we will react. But we can't react to ifs and maybes,"
Slaten
said. KFOR commanders were prepared for increased risks and had sufficient
troops at the ready.

IGNORE THIS VOTE

The major Western protecting powers in Kosovo believe Sunday's presidential
and federal assembly elections will be manipulated to secure four more years for
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who has ruled for the past decade.

The UN strategy of ignoring the vote in Kosovo - apart from preventing violence
-
reflects conflicting aims: it does not want to recognize a fraudulent election,
but it
does not want to prevent polling, even if such a tactic were physically
possible.

Kosovo has been an international protectorate since NATO forces entered in June
1999 after three months of air strikes against Yugoslavia. But legally
Yugoslavia
maintains sovereignty over the province and major powers have no relish for
exchanging this for independence, as sought by the Albanian majority.

The West, attempting to bolster opposition to Milosevic, is promising the people
of
Serbia immediate aid if they vote the nationalist hard-liner out of office. At
the
same time, it concedes it can do nothing to stop massive fraud. Around 100,000
Serbs are estimated to remain in Kosovo, but the number of potential voters is
anyone's guess.

Serb communities in the north of the province, where ethnic Albanians are few,
are
free to move about, and travel over the border of the province into Serbia
proper,
although controlled by NATO peacekeepers, is relatively simple.

Trevena said neither ballot boxes nor Serb officials would have any trouble
entering, provided there were no weapons. The UN insists on four days' written
notice from any election candidates seeking to campaign in Kosovo, but "polling
stations in themselves don't pose any threat". Serbs in central and southern
Kosovo live under the protection of KFOR, in enclaves surrounded by ethnic
Albanians and prey to revenge attacks for mass killing in 1998-99.

Slaten said Kosovo Albanians should "stay home and ignore" the Yugoslav vote -
which they will boycott en masse - but would be dealt with if they tried to
attack
polling stations.



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