http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=202300

Hopes, Tempers Rise As Kosovo Serbs Face Vote

LAPLJE SELO, Yugoslavia, Sep 23, 2000 -- (Reuters) Emotions were rising
among the isolated Serbs of central Kosovo on Friday, 48 hours ahead of
Yugoslav general elections pitting nationalist hardliners against
pro-democracy
reformers.

A few dozen left Kosovo for central Serbia in a convoy of 20 cars, most
without
registration plates, under armed protection of Norwegian troops serving with
the
NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force.

One man said they were "just going for a weekend holiday", but they left the
impression of people moving discreetly to a less vulnerable locality before
Sunday's voting.

In the countryside around a cluster of protected Serb villages, excited
opponents
of President Slobodan Milosevic drove around with their party banner
fluttering,
passing out election leaflets to everyone they met.

But in the main Serb enclave of Gracanica, protected by troops from neutral
Sweden, there was an angry confrontation between a few older men, who could
hardly contain their rage, and youngsters who said Milosevic must go.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority is totally ignoring the ballot for a
Yugoslav
president and federal assembly, which it views as a purely Serbian affair
that no
longer concerns Kosovo.

KFOR and the United Nations administration intend to look after security on
polling day and they will also count the turnout, but in all other respects
the
Kosovo vote in this election is being rejected by the international
community as a
likely fraud.

SCATTERED SERB ISLANDS

Kosovo's Serb population has withered from at least 200,000 in early 1999 to
probably no more than 100,000 today. They fled from Albanians vowing revenge
for the wanton killings inflicted by Serb forces before and during NATO's
three-month bombing of Yugoslavia which ended in June last year.

The majority live in northern Kosovo, closest to the Serb heartland, and in
its main
city of Mitrovica, divided by a river into Serb and Albanian sectors. The
rest live in
pockets surrounded by ethnic Albanian communities and are severely
restricted in
their movements by safety concerns.

There are over a dozen scattered islands of remaining Serbs in the centre,
in places
such as Obilic, Strpce, Orahovac, Kosovo Polje, and Gracanica, and in the
southeastern city of Gnjilane, patrolled by U.S. KFOR troops.

The Serbs refused to register to vote in Kosovo municipal elections
scheduled for
October 28, but international organizations have reportedly made a rough
estimate
of the number of voters eligible for the Yugoslav elections.

This will not prevent cheating by Milosevic if his Socialist Party stuffs
Kosovo
ballot boxes, but it will counter any wildly exaggerated claims from
Belgrade, they
say.

A trip around central Kosovo underlined the radical changes brought about by
NATO intervention.

The village of Kijevo, once described by U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke as
"the
most dangerous place in Europe" because of its potential to ignite a war (he
was
proved correct) was totally devoid of Serbs.

Only two years ago, Kijevo was filled with triumphant Serb special forces
drinking
to the success of a fierce offensive to end a three-month siege of the
community by
Albanian guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

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