OBILIC, Yugoslavia (AP) - Dust fogs the air of Obilic's cavernous power plant, where two massive turbines turn on the lights in Kosovo - every now and then.

Workers hover over the sky blue control panel, waiting for the communist-era monoliths to clatter to a halt. The infrastructure collapse is not surprising here. Very little works in Kosovo, the land between governments that President Clinton visits Tuesday.

Gone is the government of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, excised by war and the arrival of NATO troops in June. In its place is a U.N. administration so beleaguered that five months after its arrival, its primary accomplishment has been getting itself organized.

So far, it has failed to contain crime, halt ethnic violence, establish a judiciary or just about any other structure of government. Pristina, the provincial capital, is a city where the streets have no names, most cars have no plates and people can't produce documents to prove they are alive or their relatives are dead.

The troubles attracted the notice of the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, when he visited Kosovo earlier this month.

``There is a void between what the military can accomplish and what is needed for a sustainable peace,'' Shelton said.

Welcome to life in the void, where even U.N. officials acknowledge they've been slow in getting started, primarily because the mission lacked quick money to jump-start it.

Efforts to get police officers on the streets, for example, have been delayed by their failure to show up: Of the 3,000 police pledged in June, only 1,700 had arrived by November. Serbs and other ethnic minorities continue to flee attacks leveled in revenge for the estimated 10,000 people killed during the 18-month crackdown by forces loyal to Milosevic.

``We're not where we wish we were,'' said Nadia Younes, the U.N. operation's spokeswoman.

But U.S. officials said today's situation is a big improvement over a year ago.

``This will be a difficult winter, but it will be a hell of a lot better than last winter when the Kosovars were being killed,'' said National Security Adviser Sandy Berger.

The U.S. and European nations pledged $1 billion last week to rebuild Kosovo, and that should accelerate the pace of progress, said Chris Hill, the National Security Council's senior director for Southeastern Europe.

``Funding has been a problem in the intervening months, but we think we're there now,'' Hill said.

The United Nations moved into a region suffering catastrophic collapse, and not just from the war that severely damaged at least 100,000 homes. Roads, bridges, hospitals, water lines and other infrastructure elements are crumbling from a lack of maintenance, a legacy of a 10-year war of economic attrition waged by Milosevic.

Nevertheless, the U.N. failure to accomplish its goals quickly is shattering the Kosovars' confidence in the mission, said Fron Nazi, a senior editor for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting.

Nazi faulted the U.N. top administrator, Bernard Kouchner, for the U.N.'s wimpy reputation, saying the former French health minister who helped found Doctors Without Borders directed his early efforts toward political consensus.

That ignored the facts on the ground, where the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian population was anxious at first to embrace the West and its dictates.

``Unfortunately, they didn't understand how powerful they were,'' Nazi said, referring to the international community. ``Most people wanted the (United Nations) to step in and implement the governing structures. If they did that, they would have been well received.''

Now, Kosovars have reason to be cynical. Hundreds of public employees show up for work, but don't get paid. Doctors, teachers and other professionals complain that they are surviving on a one-time stipend of about $55 while hundreds of people whose only skill is conversational English can make that in a single day working for international organizations.

Then there are the water system's constant shutdowns, the rarely working mobile phone system and the long power blackouts.

At the Obilic plant, which escaped the notice of NATO's pilots, plant director Istref Klinaku said blackouts are inevitable until newer units elsewhere in the plant are repaired.

The outages are scheduled to end this week, but Klinaku offered little hope the work will finish on time and even less hope that Kosovars will have heat this winter. Firewood, he suggests, might be a good alternative.

Plant repairs began only last month, but even Klinaku scratches his head when asked who is in running the operation.

``I'm confused,'' Klinaku said. ``It's rather unclear whether (the United Nations) is in charge.''
 

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