Serbs Not Concerned With Elections

By Merita Dhimgjoka
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2000; 1:57 a.m. EDT

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia -- A dark red marble marker
overlooking Kosovo's tensest community stands as a lonely relic of the
years when Serbs and Albanians fought a common enemy, the Nazis,
instead of each other.

It's a reminder, as Yugoslavia heads into elections Sept. 24 with Slobodan
Milosevic fighting to stay on as president, that things were once very
different - that in its communist period Yugoslavia's official credo was
ethnic tolerance, and many of its citizens actually believed in it.

Nowadays the memorial to those who "gave their lives for the freedom of
the future generations" is overshadowed by other realities - the antennas
and radio transmitters set up by NATO and the United Nations charged
with keeping the peace between Serbs and Albanians.

Below the monument lies Kosovska Mitrovica, divided into hostile halves.

The presidential and parliamentary elections include Kosovo, which
nominally remains part of the Balkan federation despite being under
NATO and U.N. control.

But the Serbs of Kosovska Mitrovica have other concerns - the approach
of winter, and the fear of their Albanian neighbors, still in vengeful mood
over the Serb crackdown that led to the NATO bombing last year.

Most of the 200,000-strong Serb minority has fled Kosovo. Those who
remain are pressed into NATO-protected enclaves, and they are angry -
with the West for taking the Albanian side, but also, in many cases, with
Milosevic for causing the war.

The Yugoslav president rose to power more than a decade ago by
promising to protect all of Yugoslavia's Serbs. Instead, after goading
Serbs into war first in Croatia, then Bosnia, and finally in Kosovo, he
abandoned them, leaving them to the mercies of rival ethnic groups now in
control.

Still, Milosevic seems to hope Kosovo can help him win the election
against his main rival, Vojislav Kostunica, who is presently ahead in the
polls.

Most of Kosovo's 2 million Albanians, having fought to break away from
Serbia, will likely boycott the elections. So will many Serbs, according to
some of their moderate leaders.

Still, it is feared a boycott will play into Milosevic's hands by allowing him
to claim the votes of those who stayed away.

That should be relatively easy. The United Nations and NATO have said
they will not monitor the voting, and restrict their role to keeping the
peace. Thus, like elsewhere in Yugoslavia, there will be no independent
verification of who voted for whom.

During the last Yugoslav elections four years ago, Kosovo Serbs
enthusiastically listened to Milosevic's message that a vote for him was a
vote for continued Serb supremacy in the province.

Now, people in Kosovska Mitrovica walk on weed-infested pavements
past boarded-up storefronts, windows plastered with election posters.
The mood is glum. Dark looks and gestures meet a visitor asking
questions about Milosevic and the elections. Serbs in this town have a
more urgent quest - survival.

"We are worried about the winter that's coming, about food and power,"
said Dusan Drobac, a Kosovo Serb.

The 20-year-old law student had little doubt Milosevic would manipulate
the ballot.

"Why should I vote, if I know who the winner is going to be at the end?"
he said.

Standing by the memorial stone, he pointed south to what is now the
Albanian half of Kosovska Mitrovica, and sighed.

"See the white house with the red balcony?" He said. "There's where I
used to live."

Even those lucky enough to have jobs don't seem to care about the
election.

Jelena Sedlarevic makes $70 a month selling nationalist mementos at the
"Srpska Zemlja" (Serbian Land) souvenir shop. She wears one of the
shop's more popular items, a T-shirt displaying the insignia of the "White
Wolves" - the vigilante group guarding the main bridge over the Ibar River
that divides the city's Serbs and Albanians.

Customers are few, and much of her time is spent daydreaming of better
times at home in Dragoljevac, her village in western Kosovo, now
occupied by ethnic Albanians.

She produced a mirthless smile when asked how she would vote.

"Only when I am able to return home can we talk about elections," she
said.

© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press