Hunger strike over Serbian oil deliveries

Mayor Tomislav Panajotovic of Pirot said that he and the town council will soon go on a hunger strike if the central authorities do not allow EU heating oil shipments to cross from Macedonia into Serbia, RFE/RL's South Slavic Service reported on 30 November (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 29 November 1999). In Nis, Mayor Zoran Zivkovic said he will call on citizens to "seek out the guilty ones in Belgrade and Dedinje" (where Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic lives) if the authorities do not allow EU oil to reach his town. In Brussels, the EU's Chris Patten said that the Energy for Democracy program will continue regardless of whether the Serbian authorities allow the current oil shipment to cross the border. Elsewhere, a shipment of heating oil bought by the city government of Novi Sad has arrived from Hungary, Montenegrin Television reported on 1 December. PM