Ready for Another Balkan War? Meet the New Rebels

By Andrew Purvis/Pristina

A mud-spattered Renault Le Car chugs to a halt on a dirt road overlooking Serbia's snow-covered Presevo Valley. Out clamber three men dressed in mismatched fatigues, toting an assortment of pistols and grenades. The apparent leader, a deeply tanned, shorter version of Fidel Castro, steps forward. "Welcome," he says, "to Kosovo, Part II."

This is the newest insurgency facing the Yugoslav leadership--30 to 70 young men claiming to represent the 70,000 to 80,000 ethnic Albanians still living under Slobodan Milosevic in southern Serbia. Their group's name: Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, or, in Albanian, the UCPMB. Since January it has staged ambushes on Serb police, provoking reprisals. The killings and the sudden emergence of the UCPMB bear a striking resemblance to the maneuverings three years ago of the Kosovo Liberation Army. "This is an unfinished war," says an Albanian editor in Pristina. Indeed, the Presevo Valley is expected to share the top of the agenda when Kosovo's NATO commander briefs the U.N. Security Council this week in New York City.

The region is predominantly ethnic Albanian, but like Kosovo before last year's NATO bombing, its power structure is dominated by Serbs. It was at the Jan. 27 funeral of two woodcutters allegedly executed by Serb security forces that nine former K.L.A. soldiers first declared their intention to resist. "We have no other option than to protect ourselves," says the UCPMB founder, a 35-year-old former car mechanic who insists on anonymity. Belgrade's plans remain unclear, though NATO intelligence has reported an increase in police and army activity along the Kosovo border. Officially, Belgrade calls the group U.S.-backed "terrorists" intent on provoking a NATO intervention.

NATO leaders are publicly asking Milosevic to show restraint and privately warning Albanian leaders to use their influence to stop the insurgency. Last month nato Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark met with Sami Lushtaku and other former K.L.A. leaders. Says Lushtaku: "He looked me straight in the eyes and said, 'Back off. Control your people.'" The nightmare scenario for nato is a massacre by Serb police, a flood of refugees and attendant publicity that would be hard for nato to ignore. Then Presevo really could become Kosovo II.

--By Andrew Purvis/Pristina. With reporting by Anthee Carassava/Presevo Valley

With reporting by Anthee Carassava/Presevo Valley