Issues Initialzing and Accessing Integer Array

[Shaitan00]

Coding Style: NetBeans IDE 4.0 Beta2 (Java)

Given an Integer array (global/static) defined within my Class scope, I want to be able to use the integer array from within any function in the class itself.
However I seem to be having issues accessing the array, what I do is I Initiallize (define the size) the array 1st thing in my main, then later in another function (StartConf) I want to use the array.
My goal is to increment a value in the array when this function is run (for a specific index).

public class Main {

 public static int[] confArray;

 public static void main(String[] args) {
   // Each Indexed Integer corresponds to the amount of users in that channel/topic
   int confArray[] = new int[10];
   // I need to INITIALIZE the array = 0 here, currently I can only do it manually confArray[1]=0, etc...
   .. DO SOME STUFF ..
   StartConfs();
 }

  public static void StartConfs() {
    confArray[0] = 0;	// THIS FAILS, nullexceptionpointer
    onfArray[0]++;	// THEN OF COURSE THIS FAILS
 }

So I have 2 major issues:
1- I need to Initialize my int[] = 0 (so I am sure my counters start at 0)
2- I need to be able to access it from inside the StartConf function

Currently if I debug through the code I can see that in my main the int[] is created (still not 100% on the best way to initialize the entire thing = 0)
However my StartConf function sees it as a NULL int[] (as if it was not created) and generates errors like "nullpointerexception" because the int[] is null (but I initialized it in my main)
I am trying to use this as a "global variable", am I doing something wrong?
Any help would be appreciated, Thanks,