Mr Gavrilovic is still popping up on television and radio to defend Belgrade’s stance on Kosovo, or the violence of the Serbian police and army, usually on the grounds that their enemies are just as bad.
But now it is hard to say who Mr Gavrilovic represents. For his unflagging support for Belgrade, and the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic – no matter how bloody the latest atrocity – he is regarded as the man who defends the indefensible. “This would ruin Miami’s image of preserving its heritage,” she said.. FOR SIX years Misha Gavrilovic has been the hard face and uncompromising voice of Britain’s Serbian community. It is a black Floridian, Enid Pinkney, who is leading the fight to preserve the circle.

On the other hand, he is said to favour the city’s incorporation into the county, and is known to be ambitious.To move forward, he has to bow to Florida’s powerful environmentalists, many of whom are outraged at the thought of breaking up or moving the “Miami Circle”, and its black community, many of whom have taken on the issue out of solidarity with native Americans. Some of his aides suggested the plan should be seized from the developer if necessary. In the murky world of south Florida politics, analysts noted the following: as county major, Mr Penelas cares little about lost tax revenue in the city of Miami. “The circle may be one of the most important archaeological discoveries in south Florida I would like to see it preserved,” he said. He did not want to upset the developers of a building project bound to provide millions of dollars in taxes to the financially strapped city.

No one suggested politicians may have been paid off to get the project under way in the first place but, if they were not, it would be the exception rather than the rule in Miami.Then, last weekend, Alex Penelas, mayor of Miami-Dade County, the area which surrounds the city, suggested the circle be left where it is. Seminole Indians in headdresses and brightly coloured outfits did tribal dances at the scene last week, carrying signs saying “Save the Circle”.Joe Carollo, Miami’s Cuban-American mayor, suggested the circle be broken up and moved elsewhere as a tourist attraction. The developer was on the point of demolishing it when local preservation groups showed up to demand it be left intact. At best, it appears it will be broken up, moved elsewhere and re-assembled as a museum piece. It has become something of a political football, with distinct racial connotations in this melting pot of a city.It was discovered late last year by workers preparing to build a $100m complex of apartments and shops. Security guards have been hired to keep hundreds of curious visitors at bay.The question now is: will the circle be unbroken? That looks unlikely. Archaeologists think the circle, a little smaller than the centre circle of a football field, was laid by Tequesta Indians who inhabited the lowlands that are now Miami and the Florida Keys for 2,000 years until Spanish and English sailors arrived in the 16th century.Some believe it may have been the foundation of a “temple” One rumour insists it is an ancient UFO landing site.

MIAMI IS considered young, barely 100 years old, a baby even by North American standards. Most Americans believe it dates effectively from the late 1940s, the Art Deco boom years, when wealthy New Yorkers and other northerners poured down here to bronze their ageing bodies. So it came as a shock when construction workers preparing the ground for the latest series of skyscraper monstrosities they call “condos” unearthed a circle of stones, shells, animal bones and flints that appeared to have been in place for up to 800 years.
It is the first such monument found in the eastern half of the US: a flattened stone circle, akin to Mayan designs, angled in line with the points of sunrise and sunset. They are referring to the recent election in Venezuela of Hugo Chavez, a former army colonel and a populist whose revolutionary rhetoric has left international financiers jittery.But for now, it’s samba, samba, samba. Later today, to the pounding of 300-strong percussion bands, the elaborately garbed dancers will gyrate past the sambadrome the way only Brazilians can.Come Ash Wednesday, the crisis will be back to haunt revellers suffering their annual hangovers..

They warn against tax increases or other austerity measures which would widen the dramatic rich-poor divide.Some political analysts warn that too much reliance on the IMF could turn more and more Brazilians against Mr Cardoso’s free-market policies and possibly lead to what they call the “Venezuelan scenario”. The President has come under increasing criticism not only from state governors but from opposition politicians, labour groups and even the country’s influential Catholic bishops.The latter view IMF support with suspicion and they have accused the President of “total submission” to the international financial institution. Polls show only one in five Brazilians approves of his current job performance.His main concern now is to win back international confidence in Brazil, first by meeting IMF conditions for a pounds 25bn bail-out package aimed at preventing a Russia-style “meltdown”. The devalued real has put Argentinian exporters at a distinct disadvantage and there is talk of imposing emergency tariffs, something that would destroy Mercosur’s very raison d’etre.The carnival will be a welcome diversion for Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the beleaguered President of Brazil, whose popularity has plunged over the past month as a result of the financial crisis. Several other governors followed his lead, panicking investors and raising fears that Brazil itself would default on its domestic and foreign debt.Just before the carnival got under way, the central government agreed to cover half of the Minas Gerais foreign debt, and Mr Franco agreed to make payment on the other half.The compromise eased the fears of international financiers concerned that Brazil’s crisis will send shock waves through Latin America, into the United States and across the world.The crisis has already caused tension within the so-called Mercosur common market, linking Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. They were likely to sing newly written samba songs protesting his arrest, said residents.One expected guest at the main parades today and tomorrow is likely to be Itamar Franco, former president of Brazil and now the controversial governor of Minas Gerais state. Mr Franco made headlines at the carnival a few years ago when he was president, being photographed on a podium with a knicklerless young woman.A month ago Mr Franco triggered Brazil’s latest financial crisis when he threatened to default on his state’s debt to the central government.