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SERBIAN MASSACRES

• Progress of our forces in the cross-border region reported
• Lower intensity fighting reported from Llap region
• Three executed people found in a road in Prishtina
• Many Albanian civilians killed by the serb bombs
• Report of the commande of the 133 Brigade "Adrian Krasniqi"
• New massacre of the Serbian forces in Ribar tė Vogėl of Lipjan
• Five Serbian policemen killed in Bellanicė of Malisheva
• Killings and looting are going on in Gjakovė
• Movements in the direction of Macedonia from the regions of Gjilan
• Refugees tell how industrial city was cleared, street by street (AP)
• This time, Europeans see themselves in a desperate refugee plight (AP)
• Report: Montenegro rejects calls to put police under army command (AP)
• Ground troops option to be reviewed by NATO leaders (CNN)
• WASHINGTON TODAY: Congressional frustration growing over NATO role (AP)
• ANALYSIS-Independence for Kosovo seems more likely

Progress of our forces in the cross-border region reported

Deēan, April 20th (Kosovapress) - During the past five days, fierce combating took place in the OZ of Dukagjin. Their intensity was very high in the cross-border with Albania. A visible progress was made by the KLA forces towards thevillages of Junik, Molliq and Voksh. There were a lot of casualties, most of them on the enemy side. In the region of the 136 Brigade, which operates in the villages of Rugova, enemy forces have undertaken fierce attacks trying to penetrate in the KLA controlled area. Units of KLA are doing their best in order to protect the large number of Albanian civil population, which is placed there. Fierce fighting is taking place in the region of Dushkaja, especially in the surroundings of the village of Jabllanicė. On April 16th, the assistant-commander of the OZ of Dukagjin, Shkėlzen Haradinaj together with three others superiors of KLA: Fatmir Nimanaj, Luan Nimanaj and Hashim Halilaj, have fallen heroically there. In their strikes to destroy KLA units in this zone, Serbian terrorist forces attacked the civil population of these regions. Being in these difficult conditions, civil population that was placed in Dukagjin has moved in more secure regions near the cross-border with Albania. Units of KLA faced successfully enemy attacks by causing big losses to enemy, particularly during counter-attacks. Also considerable quantity of Serbian weaponry and ammunition has been acquired by the KLA.

Lower intensity fighting reported from Llap region

Podujevė, April 20th (Kosovapress) - Ther was fighting with a lower intensity in the region of Llap today, compared with past days. Villages of Bradash, Dobratin and Llapashticė have been attacked by grenades. Three civilians and one KLA soldier were reported wounded due to these attacks. The situation of civilian population is becoming very grave because of the lack elemetary living articles and as result of open air dwellings. A part of civil population tried to enter in Prishtina and some of them were able to penetrate, however ,the others have been turned back in Podujeva.

Three executed people found in a road in Prishtina

Prishtinė, April 20th (Kosovapress) - According to the eyewitnesses reporting from Prishtina, bodies of three local Albanians were left in "Xhemail Ibishi" street of the city. The witness, describing the situation in the city, claims that Albanian prosecutions and killings are taking place in Prishtina, particularly of young people who do not even dare to go out in the streets.

Many Albanian civilians killed by the serb bombs

Keqekollė, April 20th (Kosovapress) - In Koliq, commune of Prishtina, during yesterday's serbian bombing, 11 albanian civilians were killed as result of grenade explosions. Four more civilians were found dead in the village Rimanishtė and 6 in the surrounding villages. This number is not final, since the whole region has not been explored yet by our reporters. Serbian forces have incurred some losses during yesterday's confrontations in Mramor, where an armoured vehicle and a picgauer were destroyed. Units of KLA of the two Operative Zones, OZ of Llap and OZ of Karadak have taken part in the yesterday's battles in Mramor and its surroundings.

Report of the commande of the 133 Brigade "Adrian Krasniqi"

Istog, 20 prill (Kosovapress) - Enemy has incurred big losses in military technique and in soldiers during the last week confrontations between the soldiers of KLA of the 133 Brigade "Adrian Krasniqi" and enemy forces, particularly in the road lines Novosellė-Radavc, Gurakoc-Istog dhe Istog-Vrellė. Martyrs fallen in these combations were: Ismet, Mustafė Bicaj -attendand-commander for communications, Muharrem Smajl Vuthi - leader of platoon and the fighters, Skėnder Malush Maraj, Nezir Salih Mujaj, Izet Rexhep Shatri, Bujar Visoqi, Abedin Dervishaj, Xhafer Mehmetaj and Sami Tahir Gashi. Whereas ther are no informations about these soldiers: Smajl Tafil Fetahaj, Sylė Qeta, Qazim Hakaj, Nexhmedin Hakaj and Faruk Zymer Zekaj. 15 wounded soldiers were reported and among them the Chief of the Operative Commander and higher superior of KLA, Bujar Ukėimeri and the attendant-commander for infomations Remzije Zeqiraj. There are accounts of over 30 elderly civilians killed. Commande of the 133 Brigade, warns all persons who are collecting means from our compatriots all over the world, to use these means for the freedom of our country. Also they appeal to all albanian people all over the world to respond the order for general mobilization issued by General Headquarters of KLA, or in contrary they will be punished in accordance with war laws. The inquiry has been signed by Jonuz Jonuzaj.

New massacre of the Serbian forces in Ribar tė Vogėl of Lipjan

Lipjan, April 20th (Kosovapress) - Serbian forces have continued to put in enclosure , to kill, to burn and to deport the unprotected population of the villages of the commune of Lipjan. Yesterday, the village of Bujan has been burned, the population was looted. We have informations over one killed person but we could not learn his name. Yesterday village Godanc of Muhaxherėve, has been attacked but we dont`t know about the consequences of these bombardments. The village Kraishtė has been attacked with grenades from the serbian positions in Ribar tė Madh, and as result one woman is killed and two civilians are wounded. Serbian forces are placed in Kraishte. In Bregun e Zi, a part of civil population is being captured in their struggles to escape and there are no reports about their fate. Meanwhile, villages of Hallaq i Vogėl, Rufc i Ri, Ribar i Vogėl etc are put under serbian enclosure today. In Hallaq tė Vogėl, the population is being captured by serbian terrorist forces, whereas three citizens are being killed, two of them were owners of the electric in this village. Rufci i Ri is set on fire while the population is gathered in a place and they are surrounded by serbian forces. Half of Ribarit tė Vogėl is burning and the population is surrounded, There is a fear that massacres have been executed in this village and there are affirmations for 45 massacred civilians. The massacre according to one witness is going on.Ther are massacred people with knifes. From Lipjani we have informations that villages of Smallushė, Sllovi, Gadime e Epėrme, Gllavicė, Qallapek, Okllap, Kishnapole, Zhegoc etc are burned. A big part of the civil population of Lipjan, is being deported in Albania and in Macedonia. The deported column with civilian people was long 10 kilometres from Lipjani to Shtimje.

Five Serbian policemen killed in Bellanicė of Malisheva

Malishevė, April 20th (Kosovapress) - Yesterday in the village of Bellanicė of Malisheva, fierce confrontations between units of KLA and Serbian forces positioned there took place. During the confrontation, five Serbian police officers have been killed. In Bellanicė a 70 year old woman, Gjemile Ahmet Gashi from Samadrexha, who was reported missing wass found alive. However, she was unable to survive the starvation she was exposed to and died because of the lack of medication after she was found.

Killings and looting are going on in Gjakovė

Gjakovė, April 20th (Kosovapress) A big part of serbian military-police has left from Gjakova and they have gone in other war fronts. Now in the city only serbian para militaries have remained. These terrorist forces are mainly looting albanian houses of the city of Gjakova and its environs.They are gathering and stilling cattles, cars and they when NATO is taking actions they are burning their rubbers to make smoke to avoid NATO airstrikes. The serbian military techniques is mainly concentrated in the city hospital, 300 meters north-western. There were some killing before two nights, where 3-4 persons were killed but their identity is unknown. Radio Gjakova in serbian language has invite serbian population, particularly males from 18-60 not to leave from the city, in contrary they will be punished in accordance with yugoslav military code. There are just few movements of civil population in the city.

Movements in the direction of Macedonia from the regions of Gjilan

Karadak, April 20th (Kosovapress) Yesterday and today, the population of the environs of Gjilan has startedto move in direction of the cross-border with Macedonia, where over than 15.000-2.0000 expelled people are being concentrated mainly from Gilan. Whereas this new displacement has been caused because of the serbian intervention in the other part of the city, respectively in Dheun e Bardhė. Yesterday in Preshevė after one raid in albanian dwellings, 2000 persons in house of which were found some national symbols, have been kept by police and they have been beaten brutally but later they have been released. As has been informed today from the contravention court has pronounciate condemnations longer one month against 400 albanian persons who were expelled before two days in the cross-border of the region of Presheva in the village of Llojan. These men from different ages 18-70 have been sent immediately in the prisons to undergo the condemnation in the prisons of Vranja, Leskoc and Nish. This condemnations are executed because, as they say, these people were not showed in local police during they were waiting to cross in the Macedonia. Police has used its violence against these innocent persons without any reason.

Refugees tell how industrial city was cleared, street by street (AP)

1.29 a.m. ET (530 GMT) April 21, 1999
By Tom Cohen, Associated Press
KUKES, Albania (AP) — Xhalibe Hana and Bukurie Dulaku are neighbors — again. They lived a few houses from each other on Kumanova Street in Kosovska Mitrovica, an industrial city of 100,000 people in northern Kosovo. On Saturdays, they shopped in the market together, while their kids played in yards surrounding red-roofed houses crowned by satellite dishes.

It was a comfortable, middle-class existence in the city's ethnic Albanian district, south of the Iber River. There was French teacher Bedri Deda's family at No. 3, a few doors down from Hana, a secretary for a judge, who lived at No. 9. Dulaku's house was No. 19.

Now their addresses are E-5 and E-8 — two green canvas tents in a transit camp for Kosovo refugees just outside this northern Albanian mountain town. Still, the tents don't stop the persistent spring drizzle that seeps through the roof and leaks through the floor.

Like many of the thousands of other residents of Kosovska Mitrovica who poured out of Kosovo last weekend, Hana and her neighbors wear the only clothes they have and survive on bottled water and food rations handed out by relief agencies. With no idea where they'll go next, they can only dream that life will once again resemble their community on Kumanova Street.

"They have burned our homes, our shops, the bars, everything,'' spat Hana, 48, her pale features taut beneath curly brown hair.

"I have worked with a judge. I wore good clothes. Now look,'' she said, gesturing at her mud-stained skirt and socks. Asked what there would be to go back to, she answered: "If we stay here I will die. At least that is our home.''

For perhaps a decade, the refugees from Kosovska Mitrovica could see this nightmare unfolding but were powerless to stop it.

Their region is Kosovo's second-largest industrial center after Pristina, the provincial capital 25 miles to the southeast. It features a huge mining complex to process the lead, silver and zinc dug from the earth. That makes it coveted territory for Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic that includes Kosovo.

When Slobodan Milosevic stripped Kosovo's autonomy in 1989, the province's ethnic Albanians became second-class citizens, shunned by the bureaucracy. In the Kosovska Mitrovica region, the Trepca mine that employed 23,000 people fired almost all the ethnic Albanian workers, replacing them with Serbs. Employment fell to 8,000 and output fell.

The battle for control of Kosovo escalated in the past year, with Serb forces and separatist guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army often clashing in the region. Even before NATO launched its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia on March 24, the Yugoslav troops and Serb forces were clearing the KLA from the region.

According to interviews with Kosovska Mitrovica refugees, the security forces began cracking down on noncombatants the day after the NATO campaign began. Serb police and black-masked paramilitary forces ordered residents to remain in their homes in several ethnic Albanian neighborhoods. All the accounts described Serb forces repeatedly searching for weapons and stealing televisions, stereos, satellite dishes and other goods.

None of the refugees witnessed any killings, but all said they saw bodies. They were unanimous in portraying the three weeks that followed as a terror campaign, with houses burned and people disappearing. No one could leave, said Mustaf Muli of Vushtrri, an ethnic Albanian area north of the Iber.

"It was impossible to go on your own,'' he said. "If it was only four people, they would kill you on the road.''

Then last week, the Serb forces cleared out neighborhoods one by one to create the wave of refugees that reached Albania over the weekend. On April 14, it was Tavnik Street south of the Iber. The next day was Vushtrri. Kumanova residents were ordered out April 16.

The methods varied. Miradie Idrizi, 32, said Serb police came to Tavnik Street and fired guns in the air to hasten the departure. As people gathered in the street, she and her 14-month-old daughter Egzona were ordered onto tractor-pulled wagons while her husband, mother and sister were taken away. She hasn't seen them since.

A tortuous journey began Wednesday night in light but unremitting rain, she said. The three tractors slowly headed down to Klina, then turned west toward Pec. They were regularly stopped at police checkpoints.

She described a landscape of empty, burned villages leading to Pec, where shops and other buildings in the city were mostly untouched but homes were almost all damaged or destroyed. No one was on the streets except the police.

"The Serbs told us the KLA was burning our houses,'' she said.

It was the same farther south in Djakovica, which the tractors reached Thursday night. Idrizi said an old man on her wagon died there, and was quickly buried in a shallow grave on the side of the road. It took 15 minutes.

The tractors continued to Prizren and then up to the Albanian border, where Idrizi said they waited in a line of vehicles for two hours before crossing on Friday evening.

It was different for Bedir Deda, the longtime French teacher, and his family. After days of mixed messages from the Serbs — alternating expulsion threats with assurances of no trouble — the black-masked paramilitary forces suddenly went door to door on Friday morning, telling everyone on Kumanova Street to go to the bus station. Deda's daughter, Blaeda, managed to cram some clothes and her father's insulin — he's diabetic — into two small bags.

They climbed on a Serb-operated bus for about $30 a person and headed down to Pristina, en route to Macedonia. Deda and his daughter said they also saw burned villages and damage to the bus station in the capital. At Ferizaj, near the border, Serb police told them Macedonia was rejecting refugees and turned them back. The driver demanded another $12 per person to head toward Prizren and the Albanian border.

Because the bus couldn't climb the final four miles, they got off and walked for two hours up the mountain road, Blaeda said. Her father, 62 with shaking hands, made it by leaning on others, she said.

On the way, they passed the line of tractors, cars and trucks hauling Kosovska Mitrovica residents, she said, adding: "We knew all of them.''

This time, Europeans see themselves in a desperate refugee plight (AP)

1.20 a.m. ET (521 GMT) April 21, 1999
By Mort Rosenblum, Associated Press
KUKES, Albania (AP) — No one likes to say it for fear of seeming insensitive, but the feeling is clear among many outsiders here who have come to help: The horror is even greater because the victims are European.

It is not racial prejudice, but rather a strong sense of identity. Any one of those suffering Kosovar Albanian kids could be a daughter in Berlin or Barcelona or Berkeley.

Terrified families crammed into trains or herded onto the road in the name of ethnic purity stir frightening old ghosts of Nazi times.

Yet this is Europe in the last months of an enlightened millennium, more than 50 years after horrified civilizations looked at mass ethnic murder and swore, "Never again.''

Mike McDonough of the aid group Irish Concern has seen it all. He lived through the worst of crises from Angola to West Africa, with Rwanda and Somalia in between.

"This is my 17th country, and I've never been affected like this,'' he said. "I'm from west Ireland, and these people look like me. It's different, man. It's different.''

Humanitarian workers are surprised by the level of interest back home.

"When I talked to my friends and family about places like Goma (in Congo) or Somalia, they expressed polite interest and then got the usual glaze in their eyes,'' said Connell Foley, a consultant for Concern.

"But with this,'' he continued, "they can't hear enough.''

Mary Njoroge, a Kenyan working with United Nations relief efforts, says that although there is less death and disease than has been seen in Africa, human suffering is not a matter for comparisons.

She calls it understandable that Europeans and Americans react strongly to a situation to which they can identify. In fact, she added, "I'm surprised that Europeans are not doing more for these people.''

Although emergency food rations are arriving for the 600,000 refugees in Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro, many are still desperately short of shelter and other basic necessities.

The agency rivalries, bureaucracy and coordination problems that often plague large-scale relief operations have not been absent from this crisis.

But people far away, for whom this catastrophe strikes close to home, are paying close attention.

Barbara Smolian, an artist in Los Angeles, messaged a friend in Kukes that the familiarity of the victims overwhelmed her.

"I am not proud of caring more this time,'' she wrote. "In fact, it makes me ashamed of not caring enough the times before, when it (the refugee crisis) did not have a white face on it.''

She is hardly alone.

On April 6, AP photographer Jerome Delay photographed 2-year-old Albenite Baraliu, an orphan with blue eyes and sandy blond pigtails, after she fell from a tractor. Bild Zeitung newspaper in Germany put her photo on its front page.

Within an hour after the paper hit the streets, the switchboard received 10,000 calls. Within a few days, contributions to a fund for Albenite totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It is too early to assess how many ethnic Albanians the Serbs put to death since the fall offensive last year. The toll is likely in the thousands, monstrously high but well short of African comparisons.

In Rwanda, the total number of Tutsis hacked to death was higher than the more than 600,000 who so far have fled Kosovo. Cholera-haunted camps in eastern Zaire sheltered more than a million emaciated Rwandan refugees.

Not many fewer Somalis — mostly children — have starved to death, trapped between warring clans and plagued by bandits stealing supplies sent to feed them.

For McDonough, though, the impact is not only the death of individuals but also the attempted assassination of a society and a culture by the leader of a country next door.

Others agree. Serbs have not only murdered fathers and brothers, burned homes and stolen ancestral land. From the meager loads on fleeing tractors, it is plain that they have also, in effect, killed the dolls and teddy bears.

McDonough emerged shaken by a visit to a room full of well-educated, middle-class, urban Kosovars who with only a few minutes notice, were forced to flee for their lives to live in uncertain, miserable squalor.

"I saw 43 refugees crammed into someone's house,'' he said. "They were so cultivated. The father was a teacher for 36 years. His wife was an economist-accountant. They had a kid named Elvis.''

The family had walked from Prizren to Albania, days on the road. "When I saw the shape they were in, with an 86-year-old grandmother, I just wept.''

Report: Montenegro rejects calls to put police under army command (AP)

1.53 a.m. ET (554 GMT) April 21, 1999
LONDON (AP) — Montenegro's president has rejected demands by the Yugoslav army that he put his republic's police force under Belgrade's control, a newspaper reported today.

President Milo Djukanovic told the London-based Financial Times that his government was handed a letter from the Yugoslav federal army headquarters Monday night ordering the move.

"It is out of the question that the ministry of the interior could be subordinated to the Yugoslav army,'' Djukanovic was quoted as saying in the Financial Times. "Such an idea is unacceptable.''

Montenegro, along with the much larger republic of Serbia, make up Yugoslavia. But Djukanovic's pro-Western government has refused to join the Serb forces, and has strongly criticized Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's "suicidal'' policy on Kosovo.

His resistance has caused considerable tension between the two republics since NATO airstrikes began March 24.

Already, Milosevic has replaced the entire army command in Montenegro and appointed loyalists, signaling a possible move to oust Montenegro's government.

Tension increased this week with reports that Yugoslav forces were occupying northern villages in Montenegro and that six Albanian villagers were killed. The Yugoslav forces withdrew from the occupied villages Tuesday, but the Montenegrin government continued to seek an explanation for the reported deaths.

Ground troops option to be reviewed by NATO leaders (CNN)

April 21, 1999 Web posted at: 12:00 a.m. EDT (0400 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With NATO's airstrikes against Yugoslavia moving toward a second month, top U.S. officials say the controversial issue of ground troops will be reviewed this weekend at NATO's 50th anniversary summit -- but they still insist air power alone will work.

"I am sure the full range of issues involving Kosovo will be discussed, but I believe that the consensus in NATO very clearly is to stay the course," National Security Adviser Samuel Berger said at a White House briefing with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen.

"I am confident that NATO can, must and will achieve its objectives," Berger said. The three-day summit begins Friday.

Administration officials privately acknowledge last year's NATO ground troop assessment for the region is now out of date, given the dramatic events inside Kosovo over the last month.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that more than 500,000 Kosovar Albanians have fled to neighboring nations since Operation Allied Force began.

"We've indicated before if the military leadership, political leadership believes it should be updated, it can be done so rather quickly," Cohen said, referring to the earlier ground troop assessment.

Oil embargo explored

But officials say there is no NATO consensus for sending in ground troops and, with the campaign focused on airstrikes, the strategy now is to explore the tightening of sanctions against Yugoslavia, especially ways to bar oil shipments from getting in the hands of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

"We will consider new economic measures designed to deny Belgrade the ability to wage war against its own people, such as an embargo on oil products," Albright said.

Administration officials say they will press NATO allies to agree to cut off Yugoslavia's access to the petroleum products required to power Milosevic's military machinery.

"We think it's important that all sources of resupply of fuel and energy be eliminated. How that is to be achieved is a matter of discussion. ... We're looking for the most appropriate and expeditious way of doing it," Cohen said.

In Brussels, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea echoed those sentiments when asked about reports of oil still coming into Yugoslavia from other countries. Shea said NATO was still working on ways to cut that flow, but no decisions had been reached.

The embargo also would block materials needed to replace military equipment and rebuild the bridges, roads and refineries destroyed by Operation Allied Force.

In addition, President Clinton and his national security team will argue for a substantial expansion of the existing arms embargo against Yugoslavia when NATO allies gather in Washington this week for the military alliance's 50th anniversary.

Within NATO, concerns over sanctions

There are concerns within the alliance over the enforcement of tighter sanctions and how such sanctions might affect civilians both in and out of Yugoslavia.

"Blockades or other ideas need further consideration. They raise a number of difficult issues including legal issues which certainly should be studied very, very carefully," said Francois Bujon de l'Estang, the French ambassador to the United States.

When discussing the stepped up economic pressure at the NATO summit, officials say, the allies will make clear the goals of Operation Allied Force remain the same: Milosevic must pull his troops out of Kosovo, allow refugees to return, accept an international security force in Kosovo and accept the framework for autonomy in the province.

"The economic and political pressure will intensify until these goals are met," Berger said.

NATO's goals for the air campaign do not include removing Milosevic from power Albright said. But she added, "We believe that the Serb people would be better served by having a democratically elected government that represents their values."

WASHINGTON TODAY: Congressional frustration growing over NATO role (AP)

1.16 a.m. ET (517 GMT) April 21, 1999 By Tom Raum, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — NATO's cumbersome procedures are sharply limiting Army Gen. Wesley Clark's military options in Yugoslavia, some lawmakers are suggesting. "The NATO consulting process is slowing down the war,'' said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.

"And if you win it — what do you win? First prize is 50 years in Kosovo. I'm not sure that's a prize I want to win,'' Bennett said.

Congressional frustration is increasing over NATO's caution and its constant need for a consensus — amounting to what many suggest is a war by committee.

"But for NATO, we would not be in this fight, and because of NATO, we can't win this fight,'' Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., told Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as she defended NATO's role on Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

She strongly disagreed — although conceded NATO's was a little rusty as a military machine.

"NATO is the right instrument, and while it has never fought a war, it is doing a pretty darn good job doing it,'' she said. "We need to hone it, but we are on the right track.''

But calls are increasing in the Republican-led Senate for more direct action to stop Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's aggression against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.

A bipartisan group of seven senators led by 2000 GOP presidential hopeful John McCain of Arizona filed a resolution Tuesday that would authorize ground troops in Kosovo — even though the administration has not requested them.

"When a president threatens a war he should plan for it,'' McCain said late Tuesday in satellite remarks to the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. "President Clinton seems neither to have a plan A nor a plan B.''

Other lawmakers have called for even more direct action to try to overthrow Milosevic.

"I think we should put a Tomahawk missile through Milosevic's bedroom window,'' said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

But removing Milosevic is not part of NATO's strategy.

Albright made that clear earlier Tuesday at a White House briefing when asked if she thought Milosevic should be removed — and how that would be achieved.

"That is not ... our goal for this conflict,'' she responded.

That goal, "as we have all said, is to try to get the Serb forces out of Kosovo, the refugees back into Kosovo and have the protection of an international security force,'' she added.

The bombing campaign is not a U.S.-only operation, but is subject to review by the other 18 NATO countries. And NATO may need Milosevic one day to enforce terms of a peace agreement.

The United States says its prefers to have a democratic government in place in Belgrade — but is short on details on how that might be accomplished.

NATO's cautious position toward Milosevic was underscored Tuesday when British Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested allies will "carry on until he does step down.''

Jamie Shea, the NATO spokesman, quickly clarified Blair's remarks by saying NATO policy was to get Milosevic to "back down'' rather than "step down.''

To be sure, the four-week-old air campaign against Yugoslavia is run by a four-star American Army general — Clark.

But military planners from other NATO nations are closely watching over his shoulder.

"I think we've been able to strengthen the consensus process in NATO,'' Clark recently told a group of U.S. reporters in his command post in Mons, Belgium, about 30 miles from NATO headquarters in Brussels. "And I think that's very evident in the increasingly smooth flow of the air campaign.''

But lawmakers who have been to Europe to meet with Clark tell a different story, suggesting he is being hamstrung.

"General Clark just does not have the options he needs,'' said Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. "He needs a consensus finding for targets and for objectives. As a result, General Clark is bound by that consensus.''

A bad omen for NATO on the eve of its 50th anniversary celebration?
Not really, said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, and a strong NATO booster. And he says he fully expects NATO to be around for its 100th birthday, as well, "because it serves an ongoing useful function.''

"It's extraordinary how NATO's new nations, like Hungary, are willing to take risks for a common cause here,'' Levin said. "And the common cause this time is an important one. NATO will prove itself by succeeding in not allowing Milosevic to ethnically cleanse Kosovo.''

ANALYSIS-Independence for Kosovo seems more likely

By David Ljunggren
LONDON, April 20 - Increasingly hardline comments by British officials indicate NATO plans to strip Belgrade of all control over Kosovo, making it more likely that the province will one day gain independence.

In public Western powers insist they remain committed to the principles of the Rambouillet peace plan, which call for greater autonomy for Kosovo within Yugoslavia and an international force of troops on the ground to keep the peace.

Foreign Secretary Robin Cook indicated a major change in approach on Monday by saying that while Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic remained in power, Belgrade would have no control over Kosovo at all.

Moreover, he said, the international community would have to take control of the region for an unspecified interim period until it had been rebuilt.

"We are not proposing independence for Kosovo," Cook told reporters on Tuesday, adding a very significant rider: "What the long-term future for Kosovo holds will depend on our success in establishing democracy and self-government."

But once Kosovo had enjoyed the benefits of an international protectorate for several years, what could possibly persuade the population to agree to Belgrade reassuming ultimate responsibility after Milosevic had gone?

"I think we're probably talking about independence for Kosovo in the near future," said William Hopkinson, head of the international security programme at Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs.

He said the West was also mistaken if it assumed Milosevic's departure would produce a simple diplomatic solution.

"What happens then? Are you going to get a nice kind democratic Serb elected? You might find someone who is democratic, but whether he's prepared to concede sufficient autonomy to satisfy Kosovo is another matter," he said.

British officials were keen to point out that Cook's suggestions were supported by others inside the Alliance.

"This is not a formal NATO position as yet, but it has been talked about informally. We think it reflects mainstream thinking," said one senior diplomat.

"How could Milosevic be put in charge of Kosovo given all that has happened? It would be like putting the fox back in charge of the chickens."

In public and private, NATO insists that indepedence for Kosovo is out of the question but diplomats concede it is unclear whether this can be avoided.

They point to Bosnia, where international peace monitor Carlos Westendorp is becoming more and more involved in the running of the country and where 32,000 NATO-led troops are keeping the peace.

"How long would you have an international protectorate in Kosovo? Look at Bosnia. Those troops are going to be there for another 10 years and the country's problems are nowhere near as serious as those in Kosovo," said a NATO diplomat.

He said one option -- which first saw the light as part of of Rambouillet -- might be an agreement whereby the people of Kosovo decided their own status in a few years' time. A vote for anything other than independence seems inconceivable.

"Independence is the only course. Once the first bomb dropped, Rambouillet was dead," said Jonathan Eyal, director of studies at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank.

"Cook was trying to square the circle by shifting blame for the eventual independence of Kosovo onto Milosevic."

Colonel Terry Taylor, deputy head of the Institute of International Studies, said much depended on whether the West decided to negotiate with Belgrade on the status of Kosovo or sent in troops to occupy the province.

"I think the real question now is whether the major powers deal with Belgrade. London, Washington and others surely must be reluctant to enter into serious negotiations, because how can they be sure anything will be honoured?" he said.

"In the end it looks more likely that a military occupation seems to be the only option open...at some point (Western) military leaders have to come out and say Kosovo is no longer part of Serbia."