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Monday, November 27 11:01 PM SGT

Chronology of the conflict in south Serbia

PARIS, Nov 27 (AFP) -

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica was to fly to southern Serbia on Monday
amid growing
tension and uncertainty on the Kosovo border where ethnic Albanian guerillas
have launched attacks
on Serb police.

Following is the chronology of events in the region in the year 2000:

JANUARY

30: The UCPMB surfaces for the first time at the funeral of two Albanians killed
by Serb police in
Dobrosin, a village near Bujanovac, in the five- kilometre (three-mile) wide
demilitarised zone
between Kosovo and Serbia proper.

The buffer zone is a product of the Military Technical Agreement signed in
Kumanovo, Macedonia,
in June last year ahead of the KFOR deployment in Kosovo. Under its terms, Serb
police can patrol
the zone with light weapons (under 12mm) but the Yugoslav army is denied access.

FEBRUARY

26: A Serb police officer is killed and three others injured near the village of
Konculj. The UCPMB
claims responsibility for the attack. One Kosovo Albanian is killed.

29: A UN official from Ireland is wounded in shooting near Dobrosin. Western
sources in Pristina
blame the attack on Kosovo Albanians. In March, a UN official in Belgrade, who
did not want to be
indentified, directly accused the UCPMB.

MARCH

2: The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says 6,000 Albanians have taken refugee in
Kosovo since
June 1999 because of rising tensions in the region.

23: The "Political Council for Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac" is created during
negotiations in
eastern Kosovo between the UCPMB, Hashim Thaci (the former leader of the Kosovo
Liberation
Army), and the US representative in Kosovo, Christopher Dell.

APRIL

6: An Albanian is shot dead in Dobrosin.

8: The UCPMB leader, Shefket Hasani, who insists that "only arms" can resolve
the problem in the
Presevo valley, says his "army" now numbers 200, but that he can mobilise 18,000
to 20,000
fighters.

21: The Democratic Action Party (PDD) of Presevo mayor Riza Halimi, calls for
the demilitarisation
of Presevo, Medveda and Bujanovac, and the beginning of a political process
aimed at bringing
autonomy to the region.

Two police officers are wounded by automatic gunfire in Bujanovac.

Two UCPMB members who open fire on police are shot dead in a village near
Bujanovac.

MAY

25: KFOR reports there have been three days of clashes in the buffer zone.

JUNE

8: Five Serb police officers are wounded by a mine set by "Albanian terrorists"
near Bujanovac,
according to the police.

24: Police say the last two Serbs living in a village near Bujanovac were
probably killed.

AUGUST

30: A Serb who was a member of Slobodan Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia is
killed near the
village of Markovac.

OCTOBER

13: Two police officers are killed and nine others injured when their vehicle
drives over a mine
between the villages of Mali and Veliki Trnovac.

NOVEMBER

10: A Serb police officer is killed when his vehicle runs over an anti-tank mine
in the same area.

20: Four Serb police officers are injured and three others are reported missing
in shooting with the
UCPMB near Bujanovac.

23: After two days of fighting in the Presevo valley, KFOR closes a control post
at Dobrosin to
prevent the UCPMB from using Kosovo as a base.

About 400 Albanian "terrorists" penetrate into southern Serbia and block the
main road between
Bujanovac and Kosovo, the Yugoslav interior ministry says.

24: Albanian separatists fire at least one mortar shell from Kosovo into
southeast Serbia overnight,
KFOR says.

Serbian authorities give KFOR 72 hours to bring an end to attacks by Albanian
separatists.

Belgrade says from 800 to 1,000 Kosovo Albanians are in the Lucane sector six
kilometres (four
miles) west of Bujanovac, where Serb police have set up their defences.

600 people seek refuge in Kosovo.

25: Ethnic Albanian separatists announce unilateral ceasefire and turn the
bodies of three slain
Serbian policemen over to NATO-led peacekeepers in Merdare.

27: More than 1,500 civilians have fled into Kosovo and Macedonia in recent days
fearing trouble
as the end of a NATO brokered ceasefire approached.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica says he will fly to southern Serbia amid
growing tension, but
denied plans to send the army back into the area.