Serbia

Belgrade.--A visitor to Serbia would be forgiven for believing there is no war in the region and no United Nations sanctions. The restaurants are full. Tourist agencies advertise cheap holidays in Africa and Australia. People stroll down Belgrade's Prince Michael Street in balmy winter weather in fashions that would not look out of place on Paris's Champs Elysees.But the atmosphere of normalcy has an edge of the surreal. It has been carefully contrived by the government of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic prior to new elections scheduled for Dec. 20. Using government television as his personal propaganda machine, he has managed to mask a reality of economic chaos, rising unemployment and encroaching war.This week, one man began a crusade to rip away the mask: Milan Panic, the Serb-born American millionaire who has served as prime minister of the rump Yugoslavia since July.

THE FALL of the Communist dictator Slobodan Milosevic was completed in the Dec. 23 election for parliament of Serbia. Nearly two-thirds of the vote went to the Democratic Opposition and only 14 percent to his Socialists. The downfall began in the Sept. 24 election for president of Yugoslavia, which the dictator tried to steal before conceding to a popular uprising. The winner was Vojislav Kostunica. Mr. Milosevic continued to live in luxury, parts of his regime still responsive. Not now. The reformers have replaced the Yugsoslav military commanders in Monetengro.

THE ANNALS of democracy will long feature the wave of people power that swept the war criminal Slobodan Milosevic from office in Serbia in favor of a constitutional lawyer, Vojislav Kostunica. But thrilling as the final victory was, that was not the half of it. Despite the dictator's admission of defeat on TV yesterday, Mr. Kostunica's and Serbia's greatest challenges lie ahead. The first is restoring law and order. Much of the economy is in the hands of criminals put in business by sanctions and protected by the ousted regime.

WASHINGTON -- Even as the West courts Serbia's president in hopes of bringing peace to Bosnia and winning the release of the remaining United Nations hostages, his military is secretly continuing to deliver a range of assistance to the Bosnian Serbs, U.S. and European officials say.The Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, vowed last year to seal the border between Serbia and Bosnia and won an easing of U.N. sanctions. Mr. Milosevic insists that since then only nonlethal aid has been sent to the Bosnian Serbs.

THE SUMMIT OF Baltic states in Macedonia on Wednesday called an end to a decade of war among the republics and peoples of former Yugoslavia. It admitted the present Yugoslavia to membership in the Balkan Stability Pact. This is an agreement under which the European Union plans to invest $4.5 billion over seven years to bring the little countries of southeastern Europe closer to the economic and infrastructural standards of Western and Central Europe. By gaining recognition for himself and for Serbia, the part of truncated Yugoslavia that elected him president, Vojislav Kostunica brought immediate benefits to the Serbian people.

THE NORTH Atlantic Treaty Organization remains a viable alliance. Its three-day summit in Washington, not the celebration of a half-century bloodless triumph in the Cold War that had been planned, showed unity and resolve.What NATO countries agree on is that Serbia will be bombed until its rulers agree to reverse ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. The allies picked up support from small Eastern European nations near the conflict, many of which seek NATO membership.Hungary, the new member geographically most useful and most at risk, agrees to use of its soil for air operations, not for ground troops.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Serbia's voters will get to choose today among three main candidates for the presidency in a contest that has often seemed more like a bad soap opera than an instrument of political change.One contender calls for a return of the monarchy, and his office is selling gold and silver coins with his own likeness. Another bused his supporters to Bosnia to throw bricks at U.S. soldiers. And a third, often flanked by long-legged beauty queens, boasts that he is the "shadow" of his patron, President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, who rules the country like a private firm.

THE FIRST THING Zoran Djindjic did after becoming mayor of Belgrade by a majority of the city assembly was to restore the independence of a television station Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic had municipalized and incorporated into his Socialist (formerly Communist) propaganda machine. Under its former directors, Studio B is once again telling two million viewers the straight news and views of all parties. It is beholden to none, not even the Zajedno (Together) coalition that re-established it.This is one of the causes that precipitated months of street demonstrations.

THE WORLD is off to a good start in recognizing the change in Yugoslavia. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Monetary Fund and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have made overtures to Belgrade to rejoin. Most nations are lifting sanctions. The most urgent need is fuel and food to get the Serbian people through the Balkan winter. Fallen dictator Slobodan Milosevic left food warehouses, oil reserves and national bank accounts empty.