Yugoslav military switches loyalties, backs president

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Fresh from engineering the ouster of Slobodan Milosevic, backers of President Vojislav Kostunica wrestled Yesterday with a new daunting task - creating a government free of powerful Milosevic allies without alienating them.

Even though Kostunica's authority was cemented by his inauguration as Yugoslav president Saturday, potential resistance to him remained on two levels: from Milosevic appointees still in place in federal ministries and from the powerful government of the Serbian republic.

Serbia, one of two Yugoslav republics, makes up 90 percent of Yugoslavia's population of 10 million. Its pro-Milosevic president - who by law has more powers than Kostunica - controls about 100,000 police, and indirectly much of Serbia's economy.

In addition, the Yugoslav army, whose top leadership switched loyalties to Kostunica on Friday, obliquely criticized the unrest that helped bring him to power.

In a statement after a meeting yesterday between Kostunica and the top army leadership, the army said that it expressed concerns "about certain occurrences in the country during the postelection period that are not in accordance with the constitution and the law."

The statement indicated that the military was abandoning the role of complete subservience that it played under Milosevic for the more traditional one of a pillar upholding law and order in Yugoslavia.

How to keep the state running on near empty coffers was another problem - Yugoslavia is bankrupt after a decade of stifling international anti-Milosevic sanctions and widespread corruption.