Yugoslav Daily Survey, 98-05-26

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From: Yugoslavia <http://www.yugoslavia.com>

Yugoslav Daily Survey

CONTENTS

[01] YUGOSLAVIA AND AUSTRIA OPEN TALKS ON CULTURAL COOPERATION

[02] CONDITIONS DO NOT EXIST FOR THE RETURN OF SERBS TO CROATIA

[03] ELECTION STATISTICS FOR MONTENEGRO

[04] TERRORISTS BRUTALLY ATTACK CIVILIANS

[05] MONTENEGRIN PRESIDENT DJUKANOVIC VISITS BRUSSELS

[06] ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORISTS KILL A POLICEMAN

[07] SERBIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER RECEIVED THE CZECH AMBASSADOR

[01] YUGOSLAVIA AND AUSTRIA OPEN TALKS ON CULTURAL COOPERATION

Tanjug, 1998-05-25

Yugoslavia and Austria opened talks on a four-year Programme of Cooperation in Culture, Education, Science and Sports in the Austrian capital on Monday. The programme, which is to provide a framework for even more successful cooperation between the two countries in the respective areas, is to be signed on Wednesday.

[02] CONDITIONS DO NOT EXIST FOR THE RETURN OF SERBS TO CROATIA

Tanjug, 1998-05-25

The president of the Association of Serbs Expelled from Krajina Petar Dzodan said that he was surprised by the weak reaction of the international community to the new instructions of the Croatian Government for the return of expelled Serbs to Croatia. There are no changes in the new instructions compared to the earlier period, and therefore there can be no return for Serbs to Croatia, Dzodan said at a news conference in Banja Luka. Dzodan pointed to the dissatisfaction with the international community which has made a lot of promises but has not made possible the return of expelled Serbs to Croatia. Dzodan said he had no confidence in Croatian courts, and that there were currently in Croatian prisons Serbs who have not been proved guilty. Dzodan called on representatives of the international community and the authorities in Republika Srpska to take part more intensively in the resolution of problems of expelled Serbs from Krajina, in keeping with the conclusions of the recently held International Conference on the return of refugees to Banja Luka.

[03] ELECTION STATISTICS FOR MONTENEGRO

Tanjug, 1998-05-25

Montenegro voters will cast ballots on Sunday, May 31, for the eleventh time since the multi-party system was introduced. One of the ten times Montenegro voters turned out was for a referendum, on March 1, 1993, when they decided that Montenegro, as a sovereign and absolutely equal republic, shall remain part of Yugoslavia. The 1992= parliamentary elections had a run*off. Presidential elections were held three times and each time in two rounds.

The first multi-party elections in Montenegro after World War II were held on December 9, 1990, with a number of political parties and coalitions running. Ever since, roughly 19 political parties have participated in elections each time. Seventeen parties have registered for the upcoming, May 31 elections. There were 402,905 registered voters for the first, 1990 multi-party parliamentary elections in Montenegro, and 450,000 for those on November 3, 1996. Contrary to the number of voters, the number of Assembly seats decreased. The first multi-party Assembly had 125 seats, with the League of Communists of Montenegro holding a majority of 83. The second multi-party Assembly had 85 seats, with the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) (transformed League of Communists) having a majority of 46 seats.

The current Assembly of Montenegro has 78 seats. The DPS has had a majority in the Assembly throughout and does so with 45 seats even now after a rift which broke it up into two. Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, has the largest constituency of about 122,000 voters, and is followed by Niksic with 56,000 and Bijelo Polje with 42,000.

According to the 1991 census, of the about 616,000 inhabitants in Montenegro, over 300,000 were Montenegrins, who were followed by Muslims (90,000), Serbs (over 57,000), ethnic Albanians (about 41,000) and Yugoslavs (close to 26,000).

[04] TERRORISTS BRUTALLY ATTACK CIVILIANS

Tanjug, 1998-05-25

Three Serbian civilians were injured in another brutal attack launched by ethnic Albanian terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija early on Monday. Pristina media said that Elektro-Kosmet worker Slobodan Vukovic had received serious and Momcilo Antic and Dimitrije Radovic slight injuries when terrorists opened fire from automatic rifles at their car near the village of Streoce on the Pec-Decani road. The injured are at the Pec Hospital. In another attack which took place near the village of Istinic at about the same time, terrorists fired from Kalashnikov guns at Gojko Gojkovic's car. Nobody was hurt in the attack. A large number of terrorist attacks, including the brutal murder of 15-year-old Dalibor Lazarevic, were launched in the past five days, despite the start of a dialogue between a Serbian state delegation and representatives of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija. The attacks were also launched at ethnic Albanians who declared their loyalty to the Serbian state as well as Yugoslav Army members. The attacks are aimed at making the situation in Kosovo and Metohija worse in order to allege that dialogue does not produce expected results.

Nedzad Pnisi of the village of Damjan was killed in the municipality of Djakovica on May 19, after a group of armed ethnic Albanians dressed in the uniforms of the terrorist organisation so-called Kosovo Liberation Army entered a local shop where a number of inhabitants of the ethnic Albanian- populated village sat and talked. According to eyewitnesses, the terrorists shouted "We are fighting for you while you drink here," opened fire from automatic weapons killing Pnisi. Members of this terrorist organisation are trying to intimidate Roman Catholic and other ethnic Albanians and make them take part in their terrorist operations. On the same night, terrorists launched a mortar and automatic weapons attack at the house of the Garic family, one of the two Serb families who remained in the village. Meanwhile in the municipality of Klina, a group of armed ethnic Albanians took Ivan Zaric and two Romanies in an unknown direction.

On May 20, a group of armed ethnic Albanian terrorists attacked Serbs in the village of Veliko Krusevo in the municipality of Klina, killing a 15- year-old boy Dalibor Lazarevic and seriously wounding brothers Dragoljub and Slavisa Miljanovic. The brothers' father, Trajko Miljanovic, told Tanjug that the terrorists had arrived in the village in a tractor and called Dalibor's name. When the boy came out of the house, they brutally killed him. Groups of armed ethnic Albanians have also started to attack journalists, trains and Yugoslav Army members. On May 21 near the village of Komorane on the Pristina-Pec road, terrorists stopped a Kyodo news agency journalist and took his bulletproof vest and the bulletproof vest of a local interpreter who was also in the car. A large number of other journalists have also been attacked lately, in order to be prevented from reporting from the ground. In a series of attacks against Yugoslav Army members, on May 23 terrorists opened fire from automatic weapons, snipers and mortars at a column of military vehicles taking regular supplies to the Morina border post, which also speaks about the terrorists' insolence and wrongness of their delusions about an independent Kosovo and Metohija, aimed at setting up a greater Albania.

[05] MONTENEGRIN PRESIDENT DJUKANOVIC VISITS BRUSSELS

Tanjug, 1998-05-25

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic leaves on Tuesday for a one-day visit to Brussels. The Montenegrin Foreign Ministry said that Djukanovic will hold talks with European Foreign Policy Commissioner Hans Van den Broek and Chairman of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Southeastern Europe Doris Pack. Djukanovic is also scheduled to meet with Belgian Foreign Minister Eric Deryke.

[06] ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORISTS KILL A POLICEMAN

Tanjug, 1998-05-25

Police officer Dragoljub Djukic died in the Pec General Hospital on Monday from wounds sustained in a terrorist attack earlier in the day, a hospital source said. Djukic was wounded in the chest by sniper fire when his police patrol was attacked at the village of Streoci near Decani in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province at about 4 p.m. (1400 GMT) on Monday. Djukic, born in the village of Babici near Pec, was deputy commander of the Pec police station. Unofficial sources said that Djukic had been wounded when groups of armed ethnic Albanians attacked a police patrol from a nearby woods. Police and civilian cars were repeatedly fired at near Streoce on Monday.

[07] SERBIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER RECEIVED THE CZECH AMBASSADOR

Tanjug, 1998-05-25

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Ratko Markovic received on Monday in the Serbian government building Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Belgrade Ivan Busnjak at the latter's request. In an open and cordial talk, Ratko Markovic informed the Czech diplomat about the course and results of the first meeting of the state delegation with representatives of the Albanian national minority in Kosovo and Metohija. It was pointed out that the first meetings established the basic conditions for future regular meetings between the two delegations and their talks, the Serbian Information Ministry said.

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