http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=singapore/headlines\
/001128/world/afp/Kostunica_arrives_amid_security_crisis_in_tense_southern_Serbi\
a.html

Tuesday, November 28 6:12 AM SGT

Kostunica arrives amid security crisis in tense southern Serbia

BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia, Nov 27 (AFP) -

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica arrived late Monday in the southern
Serbian town Bujanovac
to oversee the tense situation after deadly clashes between ethnic Albanian
rebels and Serbian
police.

"We come to bring peace and security to the people living here," said Kostunica,
accompanied by
Yugoslav army chief General Nebojsa Pavkovic and the Serbian state security
chief, Rade
Markovic.

About 1,000 people gathered in this town near the Kosovo boundary to meet the
reformist
president, who took over from hardliner Slobodan Milosevic in October.

"Justice is on our side, we will do everything for the security zone to be
returned to the police and we
will not allow provocations anymore," Kostunica told the crowd, who shouted his
name in approval.

Kostunica accused NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers deployed in the neighbouring
UN-administrated province of Kosovo of failing to fulfil their duties.

KFOR "let Albanian terrorists come into the safety zone," Kostunica said,
referring to the
demilitarised buffer zone set up between the province and Serbia proper.

He warned that "KFOR is a dragon with a thousand heads, its various activities
are inconsistant."

"We are in a more difficult situation now, but we are going to solve this
because we have the army,
the police and the people, and we respect every single paragraph in all
international agreements,"
Kostunica said.

The buffer zone was established by the Military Technical Agreement signed
between Belgrade and
NATO in June last year ahead of the KFOR deployment in Kosovo.

Under its terms, only Serbian police can patrol the zone with light weapons
(under 12mm) but the
Yugoslav army is denied access.

Kostunica arrived directly from a visit to the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) conference held in Vienna, where Yugoslavia was officially welcomed back
to the
international body after years of isolation under Milosevic.

"Some problems need more time to be resolved. Diplomacy can not give a deadline.
Our goal is to
regain control of the security zone, but we will respect" international accords,
Kostunica said after
meeting local officials.

However, he insisted that "when our territorial integrity is in question, we
will defend ourselves by all
means, but above all, the political and diplomatic ones."

Kostunica said that he would bring the attention of KFOR and UN mission in
Kosovo (UNMIK)
officials to the situation in the southern region.

"Things have changed, terrorist activities are clearly condemned," Kostunica
said, insisting that the
new authorities in Belgrade would not allow themselves to be "provoked."

Both army chief Pavkovic and Serbian security head Markovic were appointed by
Milosevic, and
the latter's continued presence as security chief had delayed the formation of a
transitional
government in Belgrade.

Belgrade on Monday accepted an offer by the rebels to extend their ceasefire
until Friday.

One of three Serbia's Interior Ministers, Bozo Prelevic, told Beta news agency
that the police "is
ready to clear up the situation" in the region, but "the tensions will not be
lowered with such action."

The police estimate that between 800 and 1,000 ethnic Albanian guerillas,
members of the so-called
Liberation Army of Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac (UCPMB), were deployed in the
area of the
security zone.

UCPMB rebels, who aim to unite the predominantly ethnic Albanian Presevo valley
with
neighbouring Kosovo, took the key border town of Konculj in an offensive last
week which left
three Serbian police dead and sparked four days of clashes.

Fears of renewed fighting caused more than 2,500 civilians to flee the region
for UN-adminstered
Kosovo and neighbouring Macedonia, the UN refugee agency said.

In the stampede to escape the conflict, one child was killed when a tractor
carrying 10 ethnic
Albanian civilians hit a mine on the road between the Serb-held village of
Veliki Trnovac to
rebel-held Breznica on the Kosovo boundary, Bajram Hasani, a doctor at Bujanovac
health centre
told AFP.

Six others were injured in the blast, he said.