President Milo Djukanovic of the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro has said that the Yugoslav army is not involved in military activities in Kosovo beyond its constitutional duties of protecting the country's borders.

Mr Djukanovic's remarks on Friday followed growing demands for the return of Montenegrin conscripts serving in Kosovo where Serbian police units have been involved in a massive campaign against the majority ethnic Albanians and their guerrilla organisation, the Kosovo Liberation Army, the KLA.

The worsening state of relations between Yugoslavia's two republics, Serbia and Montenegro, is one of several reasons why the army has had a relatively limited role in the conflict in Kosovo.

While each republic has its own police, the army is organised on a federal basis and Montenegro objects to the soldiers' deployment as a force of repression against the Kosovar Albanians.

Nor does it want to see young Montenegrin conscripts killed in a conflict that many Montenegrins blame on the policies of Serbia's strongman, Slobodan Milosevic.

Army "protects borders"

Of course, the army hasn't kept entirely out of the fighting. But its role has been limited - at least according to official accounts - to protecting Yugoslavia's borders from incursions by members of the KLA.

Many of the KLA fighters and their supplies arrive in Kosovo - or return to the province - across the Albanian border and the army is doing its best to prevent such movements.

So far it's been left to the Serbian police to do much of the fighting - and initiate what foreign powers have described as a new wave of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

In terms of its size, firepower and motivation, the Serbian police - which is directly under the control of Mr Milosevic's closest associates - compares favourably with the federal army.

Unlike the mainly conscript-based army, it is a professional force of officers who are fairly well-paid by the standards of Serbia's impoverished economy.

The special units are equipped with a range of weapons normally associated with a military force - helicopters, armoured personnel carriers, mortars and so on.

Alternative army

In fact, the police has been built up under Mr Milosevic as something of an alternative army which can also be relied on to be more loyal to him because it has had more resources lavished on than the federal military. It's also better trained in counter-insurgency and riot control than the army.

And it has a large presence in Kosovo: a regular force of 13,000 as well 21,000 reservists, while a further 25,000 can be transferred there from other parts of Serbia within 72 hours.

True, there have reports of a number of policemen being sacked for refusing to go and fight in Kosovo.

With its huge superiority of weaponry over the KLA, the Serbian police can, for the moment, hold on to the big cities and most of the major roads in Kosovo.