LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Western governments are watching potential new
flashpoints in Yugoslavia with anxiety but with little idea of how to cope with the most
menacing problem -- Kosova.
 Two sullen handovers on Thursday will highlight other troublespots which could trigger
fresh conflict -- Eastern Slavonia and Montenegro.
 Eastern Slavonia reverts to Croatian rule after two years of United Nations administration,
with thousands of Croatian refugees chafing to reclaim their homes from nervous Serbs.
And in Montenegro, Serbia's smaller sister republic in rump Yugoslavia, defeated
President Momir Bulatovic reluctantly hands over power to his elected successor, Milo
Djukanovic, while actively trying to destabilise his pro-Western government.
 Djukanovic, strongly supported by the United States, poses the first serious challenge to
Slobodan Milosevic's authority over the residual Yugoslav federation. Rivalry among the
Bosnian Serbs is also a worry for Western governments as they discuss a new mandate
for a continued NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia.
 But NATO officials and independent analysts say it is Kosova, a Serbian province where
ethnic Albanians outnumber Serbs nine to one but are denied autonomy, which holds the
greatest potential for an explosion.
 Since mid-December, NATO's policy-making council has been receiving weekly
intelligence briefings on the deteriorating situation, a NATO source said.
 "People are beginning to realise that Kosova risks exploding," the source said. "The
Kosovars have acquired large numbers of weapons from last year's chaos in Albania. The
Serbian police have effectively lost control in most of the countryside, especially at night.
Kosova now has much more potential than Bosnia to ignite a regional confrontation."
 Efforts by Western governments to draw Milosevic into negotiations on Kosova have so
far been rebuffed by Belgrade, which regards the issue as purely internal.
 France and Germany were cold-shouldered when they wrote to Milosevic in November
asking to join talks on autonomy for Kosova to "put an end to the international isolation of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" -- a hint of linkage with a lifting of remaining financial
sanctions against Belgrade. Yugoslavia stormed out of a Bosnian peace conference in
Bonn last month because the final document referred to Kosova. Milosevic rose to power
in the late 1980s on a wave of Serbian nationalist anger over Kosova, stripped of its
autonomy in 1989, which set in motion the break-up of Yugoslavia. Western officials say
they are concerned that the moderate leader of the ethnic Albanians, Ibrahim Rugova, is
being undermined by lack of progress, and the shadow Kosova Liberation Army (KLA)
guerrilla group is gaining ground by killing Serbs and attacking police stations.
 James Gow, an expert on the Balkans at the Centre for Defence Studies at King's
College, London University, said Kosova was "now a very dangerous place, a potential
flashpoint becoming more likely by the day, although it's impossible to predict which day".
 Michael Williams, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said
there was a growing risk of a Palestinian-style "intifada" (uprising) by ethnic Albanians. The
NATO source said there was concern that the violence could give Milosevic a pretext for
declaring a state of emergency and imposing martial law.
 Some diplomats fear a "nightmare scenario" in which violence could suck in neighbouring
Macedonia and Albania, and even feuding NATO allies Greece and Turkey.
 Others are less concerned, saying the ethnic Albanians have no record of revolt and lack
the territorial army units or police force that were the nucleus of rebel forces in Slovenia,
Croatia and Bosnia. But NATO officials and independent analysts agree the new Balkan
tensions are interlinked. If Djukanovic succeeds in liberalising Montenegro and loosening
Milosevic's grip, he could embolden the Kosova Albanians, they said.