Yugoslav Leader Calls for End to NATO Mission in Kosovo

President Slobodan Milosevic rallied his supporters Thursday at a Socialist Party congress, calling for an end to the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping mission and blasting his opponents as “weaklings and thieves.”

At the congress, the first since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s intervention left the country divided and isolated, Milosevic sought to portray Yugoslavia as strong and stable under his leadership, and his aides denounced the United States in fiery language. But opponents said there was nothing to cheer about.

The largest opposition party, the Serbian Renewal Movement, said in a statement that congressional delegates can applaud only “the ruined country that has been turned into a concentration camp isolated in Europe.”

Thousands of Socialist supporters--waving flags and chanting “Slobo! Slobo!”--were bused in from rural Serbia, Milosevic’s stronghold, for a rally in front of the congress hall. Most were given the day off from work.

Inside, more than 2,000 delegates and as many guests attended the conference, the fourth since Milosevic’s Socialists mutated from the former Communist party in 1990.

Milosevic, the only candidate, was reelected as party chief. No major policy change or reshuffle in the ranks resulted from the one-day meeting.

In a rare public appearance, Milosevic used harsh language to signal a possible crackdown on the opposition, denouncing its leaders as pro-Western “colonizers, toadies and cowards.”

“In fact, Serbia doesn’t have a real opposition,” Milosevic said in his closing speech. “We have a group of paid weaklings, speculators and thieves who, using money from abroad and the fact that the population lives poorly, manipulate the people, especially the young.”

The opposition charges that Milosevic and his party have turned Serbia, the dominant republic in Yugoslavia, into a pariah state because of four wars he has started in the Balkans.

The opposition has demanded Milosevic’s resignation.