On 31 May 2001, a seventeen-month insurgency by ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia ended when Yugoslav forces entered the south-eastern sector of the Ground Safety Zone (GSZ), a five kilometre-wide strip of land along the administrative border with Kosovo.

The GSZ had been created as part of the Military Technical Agreement in June 1999 in order to prevent an accidental clash between KFOR, the NATO-led Kosovo Protection Force, and the Yugoslav army (Vojska Jugoslavije or VJ). Ethnic Albanians under the banner of the selfstyled UCPMB (Ushtria Clirimtare e Presheves Medvexhes dhe Bujanovcit, the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac)...

The three municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja are situated in southern Serbia along the border with Kosovo. They cover an area of 1,249 square kilometres. Their geographical position gives them considerable strategic significance. As part of the corridor formed by the Morava and Vardar rivers, for centuries the Presevo Valley formed a link in the main trade and invasion route between Western Europe and the Levant. Today it connects central Europe and the northern Greek port of Thessalonika on the Aegean Sea. Serbia’s main north-south highway begins in Belgrade and ends in Nis, just north of the Presevo Valley,...

The proposal presented by Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic in February 2001 had two conceptual pillars. The first was that every inch of the three municipalities would remain an integral part of Serbia with no change in borders and no autonomy. The second was a raft of reforms intended to end official discrimination against ethnic Albanians by integrating them into Serbian institutions, such as the education system and the police, and to assure all citizens of their full civil rights. It also provided for a number of concrete confidence-building measures including the withdrawal of VJ units from population centres,...

International observers generally agree that the behaviour of VJ and Serbian police during the reoccupation of the Presevo Valley was good. The unit previously garrisoned in Presevo was the VJ’s notorious Pristina Corps. Recognizing the danger of having the Pristina Corps handle the reoccupation of the GSZ, the Coordinating Body for Southern Serbia created a Joint Security Force (JSF), comprising VJ brigades untainted by service in Kosovo and also MUP. During the reoccupation the JSF was commanded by General Ninoslav Krstic, who enjoys considerable esteem among NATO officials. One U.S. officer glowingly described Krstic as “consummately measured – exactly the...

Both constituent elements of the JSF – the police from the Serbian Ministry of the Interior (MUP) and the VJ – are being dramatically drawn down. All MUP elements should be withdrawn when the fourth class of the multiethnic police force completes the academy and the force reaches its full strength of about 450. The Coordinating Body has undertaken to reduce the VJ presence to about 1,800 in the entire Ground Security Zone, mostly in Presevo.

The current commander of the Joint Security Force is General Momcilo Momcilovic, formerly chief of staff to General Krstic, who remains the deputy president...

The Belgrade authorities and NATO deserve credit for a landmark achievement in the Presevo Valley. Until the deadly attack on policemen in Muhovac, the process that was completed on 31 May 2001 appeared to have resolved the immediate problem of armed conflict in southern Serbia. However, that attack and other recent signs of unrest underscore the fragility of the peace.

As leading actors in the peace process emphasise, it is precisely that . a process, and one that has only begun. Its success so far has depended on several factors. First, the new authorities in Belgrade were determined to break...