http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=204154

Violence in Kosovo Down ahead of Local Elections

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28, 2000 -- (Reuters) Violence in Kosovo has
declined substantially in the run up to municipal elections on Oct. 28, the
chief UN
administrator in the Yugoslav province said on Wednesday.

"The level of violence is decreasing, there is no major incident in the
campaign,"
Bernard Kouchner, the civilian head of the UN Mission in Kosovo, known as
UNMIK told reporters.

Kosovo's municipal elections, the first in more than a generation, is the first
test of
democracy in the province since NATO and the United Nations took over control
in June last year.

Nineteen parties are fielding candidates in the elections, which are however
marred
by an abstention of ethnic Serbs who have not registered on electoral lists.

Kouchner said that fewer than 1,000 Serbs who had attempted to register were
intimidated by fellow Serbs taking their orders from Belgrade. "It was a
political
mistake," he said.

Some 180,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo since June 1999 when international
peacekeepers took control of the province after Yugoslav forces withdrew
following NATO's 11-week bombing campaign to halt Belgrade's repression of
ethnic Albanians.

About 100,000 Serbs are now left living in the province. Kouchner said that even
though Serbs were boycotting the municipal poll, they were still active members
of
administrative structures in Kosovo.

Similarly, he reported a low turnout among Serbs for parliamentary and
presidential elections in Yugoslavia last Sunday.

The election outcome, pitting President Slobodan Milosevic against opposition
candidate Vojislav Kostunica, is still unclear. Yugoslavia's state-run electoral
commission is scheduling a runoff round after reporting Kostunica beat Milosevic
in the first round, but failed to get 50 percent.

Kostunica said he will not participate in a runoff because the opposition is
confident that it clinched a majority in the poll.

Kouchner said it was too early to gauge a reaction from the Kosovo's ethnic
Albanians to the election result. But he indicated they did not view Kostunica
as a
great improvement on Milosevic.

He cited reports in a Kosovo newspaper that Kostunica had his picture taken with
Serb paramilitaries in Kosovo holding a Kalashnikov. "But certainly they want to
see democracy in Serbia," Kouchner said.