PRISHTINA, Jan 21 (KIC) - Serbian military and police troops resumed today their attack of Shipol village, which is in the outskirts of the town of Mitrovica, less than 40 km north of Prishtina. Shipol, the Ura e Gjakut and Bair neighborhoods of Mitrovica, as well as Vaganicë village, neighboring on Shipol, have been targeted by Serbian forces in the past three days. Two Albanians were killed and four wounded yesterday in Shipol, LDK sources said. One of the wounded has been named as Osman O. Prekazi (47), resident of Vaganicë e Poshtme. Today, part of the Bair neighborhood was sealed off and automatic weapons fire was heard there, at a time Ura e Gjakut was also sealed off by Serb forces. More than 90 Albanian houses have been raided in Shipol, Vaganicë, and in the town of Mitrovica in the past couple of days, with scores of Albanians reported arrested. The Albanian population of the Lushtë, Vaganicë e Poshtme, Vaganicë e Epërme, Vërnicë and Pirç villages have fled their homes. Most of them have gone to the Zmiq woods. More than 13,000 Albanians have been displaced by the recent Serb crackdown in Mitrovica, local Albanian sources said. At around 13:00 hrs, the Serb shelling in the area died down, and Serb infantry was reported moving into Vërnicë and Pirç villages. The KIC has been unable to obtain further information regarding the consequences of the Serb assault.

Serb Forces Attack Shtime Village

PRISHTINA, Jan 21 (KIC) - Serbian forces attacked today morning the village of Zborc, in Shtime municipality, the local Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms (CDHRF) said, quoting eye- witness accounts. Serb military and police, backed up by tanks and other combat equipment, had besieged the village, sources said, adding that some 200 Albanians - women, children and elderly - went to the Godanc cemetery, fearful to move further because of Serb snipers. Serbian troops carried out a horrendous massacre in the Shtime village of Reçak last Friday, killing around 50 civilian Albanians.

Albanian Doctor Shot Dead in Unsolved Circumstances

PRISHTINA, Jan 21 (KIC) - The body of a killed Albanian was found today at Prekallë village of Istog on the Mitrovica-Peja highway, LDK sources said, naming him as Dr. Xhevdet Gashi, in his early forties. The Albanian left his home at 17:00 hrs yesterday to go to work in the Peja emergency health_care center. Dr. Xhevdet Gashi is the fifth Albanian executed in mysterious circumstances in the Peja area, local sources said. The Albanian doctor was very much respected in the community, they added.

Shelling in Mitrovicë suburbs

Mitrovicë, 21 January (ARTA) 2100CET --

Large police and military forces blocked the Mitrovicë suburbs of Shipol, "Ura e Gjakut" and Bair, at 0900CET on Thursday, LDK sources notified. Serb military forces are now stationed on a hill, close to Bair, as they are shelling Shipol and nearby villages from their positions near the water supply system in Shipol.

The Albanian inhabitants of the villages of Lushtë, Vaganicë e Epërme, Vaganicë e Poshtme, Vërnicë and Pirq, have fled their homes, mostly seeking shelter in the Zmiq mountain.

It has been confirmed that about 1800 thousand inhabitants have already fled, the majority of which spent Wednesday night outdoors. 3 buses, 4 trucks, a tank, and 5 police vehicles, loaded with Serb policemen, left the military barrack in Mitrovicë at 1000CET on Thursday, heading towards Shipol.

Whereas, 2 buses, 2 terrain vehicles, a truck and a jeep, loaded with Serb security arrived in Mitrovicë from Rashkë, at around 1030CET.

A KLA special unit saves group of Albanians from siege

Mitrovicë, 21 January (ARTA) 2100CET --

A special unit of the 142 KLA brigade, rescued a group of ten Albanians from police siege in the Mitrovicë suburb of Shipol, on Wednesday morning, LBD sources notify.

The same sources claim that Serb special forces surrounded this group, in a house near the local mosque in Shipol. The KLA special unit undertook a rescue-operation immediately. The operation lasted five hours, and was successfully completed.

A KLA soldier, and a Serb soldier, was killed during the operation. None of the besieged were hurt and all were rescued.

OSCE verifiers intervened during the operation, demanding to have the besieged handed over.

Large presence of Serb forces

Shtime, 21 January (ARTA) 2100CET --

Serb forces stationed at Pishnajat e Shtimes shelled Gryka e Carralevës and Gryka e Shtimes, starting from 1100CET on Thursday, the LDK Information Commission (LDK IC) branch in Shtime reported.

Serb forces are still keeping the village of Reçak under control. The LDK branch in Shtime notifies that the police have entered the houses in Reçak, and tend to hide from reporters and OSCE verifiers. Villagers who attempted to return home claimed to have seen them.

The roads leading to Shtime are under strict police control. The police are stationed in four points only along the Lipjan-Shtime road.

Another massacred corpse found

Istog, 21 January (ARTA) 2100CET --

A massacred corpse found in the Istog municipal village of Prekallë on Thursday morning, at the Gjurakoc-Pejë highway, sources from the ground inform. The identity of the corpse has not yet been confirmed.

There are claims that large police forces are stationed along this road.

Reinforcements and strict police control in Podjevë

Podujevë, 21 January (ARTA) 2130CET --

New police\military reinforcements were seen in the Llap region, arriving from Serbia, as Serb forces stationed in the region already built many strongholds. According to the CDHRF branch in Podujevë, combined police and military units, along with their fighting technique, are stationed in Tabet e Llapashticës, Lupç i Poshtëm, Lluzhan, Peran, Dumosh, Vranidoll and Çuka e Shakovicës.

Locals claimed to have witnessed added police forces in many places such as Lluzhan, Lupç i Poshtëm, and Vranidoll. Sources say that the police are now keeping this region under strict police control, stopping every vehicle and conducting thorough searches.

Situation still aggravated in Malishevë

Malishevë, 21 January (ARTA) 2130CET --

The presence of Serb police forces in seven strategic points in Malishevë keeps the ethnic Albanian population of this municipality under constant pressure.

Serb patrols in-between checkpoints, as well as shooting on daily basis, induce fear among the locals, thus preventing tension from decreasing in the region.

There are reports that the police stationed in Smonicë e Tërpezës, tried to enter the village of Carrallukë on Wednesday morning.

On the other hand, witnesses assert that the Serb police, patrolling between Rahovec-Malishevë today, were very provocative.

Kosova has become the West's second tar baby in the former Yugoslavia, the result of policies that were too little or too late. Once again we witness death and destruction, though mercifully not on the scale of Bosnia. Any solution to the continuing crisis will require a long-term Western commitment, the dimensions of which are not yet clear and the domestic political support for which is dubious.

American diplomacy last October helped avert a humanitarian crisis in Kosova-a crisis the Clinton administration had helped create-from turning into a greater disaster. With Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for the first time under a serious bombing threat, more than 200,000 displaced Albanians returned to shelter for the winter. But despite a sustained diplomatic effort over the past six months, the U.S. and its allies have not been able to bring peace to Kosova.

Some 800 brave foreigners from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have arrived in Kosova to "verify" the October agreement with Mr. Milosevic; NATO's commander declares the Yugoslav president continues to violate it. The violence also continues, held in check more by the winter and the military disparity between the Serbian and Albanian sides than by any movement toward peace. And once again NATO makes threatening noises against Mr. Milosevic, which once again he ignores.

The Western approach to peace is to get the two vastly unequal sides into serious negotiations and produce an interim settlement that puts off the question of independence. Much like the diplomacy of the Bosnian war until the Dayton Accord, the effort has neither carrot nor stick. Rather, Western negotiators try hard to persuade, cajole or threaten the two sides to agree on some form of local self-rule, one that keeps Kosova tethered to Serbia.

But neither threats nor enticements nor the intimidation of Mr. Milosevic's police have been enough to get the parties to agree on what degree of autonomy the Kosovars will receive. Even if some desperate Albanian leaders were to sign to an agreement, it would not likely last, because of the rise of the Kosova Liberation Army, which is committed to independence and prepared to use violence to achieve it. And as the goal of keeping Kosova in Mr. Milosevic's Serbia recedes, the West, particularly the Europeans, redouble their dedication to that goal and more and more blame the KLA for the continued troubles. The Western consensus against Mr. Milosevic last autumn has been dissipated by the October agreements, the influx of the verifiers, and the lack of progress in the negotiations.

When the weather improves, we can expect more fighting, whatever the presence of outside verifiers. That in turn most likely means that Serb forces will repeat the destruction of Albanian villages last summer-but this time at greater cost in lives because of the improved military capabilities of the KLA. Indeed if our goal-keeping Kosova under Serbian control-remains the same, either the KLA will have to change or we will see Mr. Milosevic wreak havoc on their countrymen. Ironically a Kosova crisis could occur at the same time that NATO is celebrating its 50th anniversary, demonstrating the organization's hollowness not its vigor.

In these circumstances, what can the West do? Our options are not attractive. We can intensify our efforts to fashion an "autonomy" agreement with the hope that something turns up-such as a political change in Serbia. This approach has not shown much promise. We can probably improve the prospects for a limited autonomy settlement by warning the Albanians that if they do not sign up we will wash our hands of the province. But this will be politically and morally difficult for the Clinton administration, and could well result in a long-term guerrilla war with very harmful effects for Macedonia.

Alternately, we can change our political objective in Kosova and pursue real autonomy-autonomy with the Serb police gone and with the ultimate aim of independence. This would require at least one of the following: NATO would station forces in Kosova, making it a virtual protectorate. This approach would create a major internal dispute within NATO and could well lead to Serb-NATO hostilities. It also would be a domestic political headache in the U.S.

The U.S. could try to change the Serbian political situation in the hope of working out a satisfactory autonomy agreement with Mr. Milosevic's successor. That would mean bombing Serb military targets in retaliation for Mr. Milosevic's violation of the October agreements and undermining him politically, including seriously pursuing him as a war criminal. But we do not know how to get rid of him. Nor do we know who would succeed him and what his successor would do. The U.S. could take a longer-term perspective as well as increase its leverage on Mr. Milosevic by arming and training the KLA and accepting independence as a goal. This could require direct Western military support of some kind. Such a proposal would raise hackles in NATO.

None of these options are particularly attractive-but then neither is the status quo. The West is now in the bizarre position of sending civilians to do dangerous work maintaining an agreement that, Washington's protestations to the contrary, is clearly breaking down. Two or three people are being killed every day, and there is the imminent threat of much greater violence. A small and rapidly shrinking Kosova Serb population, and Mr. Milosevic's murderous rule in Albanian Kosova, has made it difficult if not impossible to keep Kosova Albanians attached to Serbia on any stable basis.

We can support Mr. Milosevic, we can support the Kosova Albanians, or we can stay on the fence. If history is any guide, we will stay on the fence as long as possible-but this will only result in more violence, more cost and more commitment later. It's time to accept the idea of independence for Kosova, and determine how it can be achieved at the lowest possible cost.

THE BALKAN ACTION COUNCIL

P.O. Box 27392

Washington, DC 20038-7392

White House Says Force May Be Needed Over Kosovo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday it may be necessary to use force to restore stability in Kosovo following the massacre of 45 ethnic Albanians in the province.

``It is important for the stability of the region that the international community insist on Serb compliance, through the use of force if necessary,'' White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters.

Kosovo is a southern Serbian province where majority ethnic Albanians are fighting for independence. In October 1998 NATO authorized its forces to hit Yugoslav military targets if Belgrade violated pledges to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict.

The United States has demanded Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic reduce the Serb security presence in Kosovo, cooperate with a U.N. war crimes tribunal and reverse a decision to expel U.S. diplomat William Walker, the head of the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) set up to monitor the conflict.

Belgrade gave Walker until Thursday evening to leave the country after the U.S. diplomat blamed Serb forces for the massacre of the 45 ethnic Albanians in the village of Racak on Saturday.

``I'm not aware of any encouraging signs,'' Lockhart said of Serb compliance. ``What's important here is that we take positive forward steps here toward access and identifying those responsible and bringing them to justice.''

Warships set sail as Kosova crisis deepens (Times)

BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR

AN AMERICAN aircraft carrier, accompanied by two guided missile cruisers armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, was ordered to the Adriatic last night after Nato decided to increase strikepower there.

Britain also announced that four more Harrier GR7s were being sent from RAF Laarbruch in Germany to Gioia del Colle in Italy early next week to join the four already in position. An extra tanker will also be sent to Italy.

The military build-up came as Washington announced that Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, would fly to Paris and London next week for meetings on the Kosova crisis.

The US Navy's USS Enterprise, equipped with more than 70 aircraft, was ordered to leave the Mediterranean for the Adriatic when it became clear that President Milosevic, the Yugoslav leader, would not halt the repressive action in Kosova. The two warships escorting the carrier are the USS Philippine Sea and the USS Gettysburg, which would be used to launch cruise missiles on Serb targets if Nato decides to go for airstrikes.

In simultaneous moves aimed at increasing pressure on Mr Milosevic, all Nato aircraft in Italy were switched from four days' operational notice to two, and the alliance's Standing Naval Force Mediterranean, a grouping that includes the American destroyer USS Thorn, armed with Tomahawk missiles, was also ordered to the Adriatic.

The Royal Navy Type 23 frigate HMS Iron Duke, which forms part of the standing Mediterranean force, left Gibraltar for the Adriatic.

Yesterday's decision by Nato's North Atlantic Council in Brussels to increase the military firepower came after a briefing by the two generals who met Mr Milosevic in Belgrade on Tuesday. They reported that the Yugoslav leader had shown no flexibility over Kosova and had been "blunt and obdurate" in his refusal to agree to Nato's demands.

General Wesley Clark, Nato's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and General Klaus Naumann, chairman of the Military Committee, told the North Atlantic Council that their meeting with Mr Milosevic had been a "direct and forceful encounter".

The council is expected to remain in almost continuous session throughout the week. William Cohen, the US Defence Secretary, said Nato's credibility "remains on the line".

Observers deny Racak massacre was fabricated

FROM TOM WALKER IN PRISTINA

INTERNATIONAL monitors in Kosova rejected yesterday as propaganda reports from Belgrade - boosted by speculation in French newspapers - that the Racak massacre of ethnic Albanians was a set-up.

Le Figaro and Le Monde suggested that between Friday night and Saturday morning, when the international furore over Racak began, the Kosova Liberation Army could have fabricated evidence and even mutilated some of the bodies.

The reports point out that the beleaguered monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe were invited to observe the operation and that they were in Racak on Friday evening, after the police had pulled back from the village, and appeared to report nothing untoward. They also state that a television team from Associated Press filmed part of the police operation and little of the evidence from its footage tallied with Albanian accounts of the killings.

At the same time, the Serbian state media is giving prominent coverage to the initial reports of Dr Sasa Dobricanin, the Pristina state pathologist, who has said that none of the 40 bodies retrieved on Monday "bears any sign of execution". He added: "The bodies were not massacred."

The backlash is helping Belgrade to substantiate its case against intervention and to justify its expulsion of William Walker, the OSCE Ambassador, who technically has to leave Yugoslavia as persona non grata by tonight.

But in Pristina OSCE officials yesterday were standing their ground and an expert gave the first detailed briefing containing compelling evidence that Racak was indeed a massacre in which many victims were murdered - either shot or bludgeoned - at close range. Speaking on condition of strict anonymity, the source did admit, however, that some bodies may have been moved and that one may have been decapitated and another had an extra gunshot wound inflicted after death.

"I think we can say this was a very nasty massacre," said the source, who dismissed Serb claims that the bodies had been stripped of KLA uniforms. "There was complete agreement between the holes in the clothes and the bodies."

Le Figaro had suggested that the KLA tried to transform a military defeat into a political victory.

US prepared to launch strikes as frustration builds over Kosova

WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (AFP) - The United States said Wednesday it is prepared to launch air strikes against Serbian forces if they are approved by NATO as frustration over Kosova built in Washington.

"NATO has the ability not only to threaten air strikes but to carry them out," Defense Secretary William Cohen said.

"The Act Order remains in effect, and we are prepared to execute that if that is the will of the NATO membership."

Shortly after those comments, the State Department announced that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would add two stops -- London and Paris -- to her upcoming trip to Russia to discuss Kosova.

In both capitals, Albright is to meet her counterparts to discuss Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's defiance of Western warnings to enforce a Kosova cease-fire he agreed to in October.

"This is a very serious situation," State Department spokesman James Rubin said, alluding to a Tuesday meeting between Milosevic and two top NATO officials that he described as "unsatisfactory."

"The fact that President Milosevic has failed to cooperate and provided unsatisfactory responses across the board is deeply troubling to us given the seriousness of the situation," Rubin said.

"The response of President Milosevic is unacceptable."

Generals Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander for Europe, and Klaus Naumann, head of NATO's military committee, met for seven hours with Milosevic on Tuesday delivering demands from the alliance.

"He was stubborn. He was persistent. He was determined to go his own way," Clark said in an interview in Brussels with CNN television.

The demands included reversing the decision to expel William Walker, chief inspector of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and allowing UN war crimes investigators to probe Friday's massacre of ethnic Albanians in the town of Racak.

That massacre of 45 people, which the OSCE has blamed on Serb security forces, led to the current crisis between NATO and Milosevic.

The final two demands were for the killers to be identified and brought to justice, and for a drawdown in troops and reduction in the number of ceasefire violations.

Neither the State Department, the Defense Department or NATO would comment on whether air strikes would be authorized or what the targets might be if they were.

Last fall, NATO was prepared to launch a phased air campaign "to reduce the ability of Milosevic's forces to threaten those in the region itself," Cohen recalled at a Pentagon news conference.

"I wouldn't want to speculate on what targets might be involved should any action be taken, but it obviously would have to be a NATO decision to reduce his ability to pose that kind of a threat to the region," he said.

At the same time, Cohen acknowledged that there have been ceasefire violations of the Kosova Liberation Army, or UCK by its Albanian acronym, and stressed that Washington did not support independence for the province.

"This is something that we also have to make clear to the UCK as well, that we don't intend to be an air force for the UCK," he said.

On the diplomatic front, Rubin said Albright would be travelling to London on January 28 and Paris on January 29 after her January 25 to 27 visit in Russia.

U.S. to Push NATO to Issue Ultimatum to Milosevic (NY Times)

By JANE PERLEZ

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration is planning to push U.S. allies for a NATO ultimatum telling President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia that he must back down in Kosova or face air strikes within days, officials said Wednesday.

The administration was feeling an urgency to "do something," several officials said, to save NATO from appearing irresolute over Kosova as the alliance's 50th anniversary approaches.

Milosevic, who rebuffed two top NATO military officials during a tendentious encounter in Belgrade on Tuesday, was cornering the alliance into proving its worth, the officials said.

Of uppermost concern as it addressed the Kosova crisis, the officials said, was the ability of Milosevic to belittle the celebration marking the West's triumph over Communism planned for April in Washington and turn it into a "Kosova summit," one Pentagon official said.

NATO's supreme commander, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, an American, said in a telephone interview from Brussels Wednesday that he had come away from his seven hours spent with Milosevic on Tuesday convinced that the Yugoslav leader was totally non-cooperative because he did not yet feel any realistic military threat.

"The international community has learned through long years of dealing with Milosevic that he is the most compliant when threatened directly with heavy military pressure," Clark said. "Since that seems what he primarily responds to, the international community has learned that it must produce it." Clark was referring to the air strikes that finally brought the Bosnia war to an end in 1995.

The timing of the ultimatum and when it would be issued was not yet clear, but it appeared that if Milosevic did not move to comply with a cease-fire that the ultimatum would be issued in the coming days. If Milosevic ignored the ultimatum and did not come into compliance with the cease-fire terms that he agreed to with NATO last fall, the 16 NATO countries would then vote to reauthorize air strikes.

After hearing the negative report Wednesday from Clark and his colleague, Gen. Klaus Neumann of Germany about their standoff with Milosevic, NATO started to prepare for possible military action by sending warships to the Adriatic Sea and cutting to 48 hours from 96 hours its preparation time for air strikes.

Britain increased its contingent of Harrier ground attack aircraft at the NATO airbase in Italy from four to eight.

The hostile meeting in Belgrade between Milosevic and the two generals deepened anger in Washington where officials have been denouncing the Yugoslav leader for allowing his forces to massacre more than 40 ethnic Albanians last Friday.

Because the credibility of the NATO alliance appeared at stake over this latest crisis, the Pentagon was not as resistant to the idea of military intervention in Kosova as it was last year, officials said. Last October, NATO voted to authorize air strikes against Milosevic's military installations in Kosova, which is a province of Serbia, and in Serbia itself.

The authorization was suspended after Milosevic agreed to the cease-fire brokered by the U.S. envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke.

Although the Clinton administration was working on the ultimatum that could lead to possible NATO air strikes, officials indicated that there was little appetite in the administration for NATO sending ground troops.

The disinclination for involving U.S. troops -- which are part of the peacekeeping force in Bosnia -- was clearly shown when a NATO "extraction" force was sent to Macedonia last fall.

The force is made up entirely of French soldiers. If air strikes were to proceed, the "extraction" force would be involved in getting the 700 unarmed international monitors out of Kosova before the strikes occurred. A major concern of the allies is that the civilian monitors, about 170 of whom are American, could be taken hostage.

An unanswered part of a strategy of NATO air power against Milosevic is what would happen after air strikes.

Among the questions that Western diplomats said would have to be addressed were how the resulting military and political vacuum in Kosova might be filled. There was no resolution on that question in either Washington or among the other allies, a Western diplomat said.

In their meeting with Milosevic, the two generals met resistance at every turn, NATO officials said.

On the question of the massacre, they said Milosevic insisted that the agreement he signed last fall with NATO allowed him to defend the sovereignty of his country.

The agreement specified that in this defense that he could use "adequate and proportionate" responses, NATO officials said. When challenged that the massacre last Friday involved "disproportionate and overwhelming" force, Milosevic insisted that it was proportional to what the "terrorists" in Kosova had done against his Serb forces.

Milosevic's regime refers to the ethnic Albanian Kosova Liberation Army, who are seeking independence, as "terrorists."

The two generals outlined to Milosevic how he had breached the agreement by increasing the number of Serb forces in Kosova beyond the agreed level. He had promised that there would be no more than three groups of 10 to 12 vehicles with Serb forces but there were now 10-13 such convoys, the generals told him.

On the question of allowing Louise Arbour, the chief prosecutor of the international war crimes tribunal into Kosova to examine the massacre site and the bodies, Milosevic said he would only countenance her presence as a "guest" of the Serbian government. This meant his government officials would dictate where she could go.

Ms. Arbour, who attempted to get into Kosova at the border with Macedonia on Monday but was turned back by border guards, flew back to the Hague Wednesday.

NYTIMES January 21, 1999

Western Diplomats Seek Concessions From Milosevic

By STEVEN ERLANGER

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- While NATO tried to persuade Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that the alliance is serious about using force against him, Western diplomats continued to flock here Wednesday to urge him to defuse a crisis he himself created.

Milosevic is back in the headlines after what the Clinton administration is calling a mass killing of ethnic Albanian civilians on Friday in the Serbian province of Kosova.

In some ways, it is a delicious moment for the Yugoslav leader, some senior Western diplomats here concede. He has thrown down the gauntlet to the West and is orchestrating anti-Western diatribes in the Serbian press, accusing Western officials of being unfair and too quick to believe propaganda from Kosova's ethnic Albanians.

At the same time, the United States and its allies are sending him envoys, pressing him to make relatively easy concessions that will allow them to avoid using force, which Milosevic doubts they are willing to do in any event. Even American officials say they have real doubts, as was the case with Iraq, of what policy would follow any air strikes.

Milosevic sent away NATO's top military commanders with very little after a seven-hour meeting on Tuesday. After the generals, Wesley Clark, the NATO commander, and Klaus Naumann of Germany, left on Tuesday, more envoys followed. Aleksandr Avdeyev, Russia's first deputy foreign minister, has been here, as has a senior State Department official, James Pardew. The American negotiator, Christopher Hill, who is also the ambassador to Macedonia, is about to arrive, and he will be followed by Knut Vollebaek, the Norwegian foreign minister who is the current chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Milosevic is also leaving himself room to maneuver and back down, the diplomats noted. The case of William Walker, the American head of the group's monitoring mission in Kosova, is one example.

He accused Serbian forces of the killing of at least 45 ethnic Albanians in the village of Racak, and in turn was accused by the Serbian propaganda machine of partiality. On Tuesday he was ordered to leave within 48 hours. That order was extended by another 24 hours after the organization, whose members include Russia, demanded that Milosevic allow Walker to remain on the job.

It appeared Wednesday night that Milosevic would let Walker stay, a senior Western diplomat said, at least as long as negotiations with the West continued. "As usual, if Milosevic concedes, it will be on an issue that he created," the diplomat said.

Vollebaek on Wednesday ordered Walker to keep working despite the deportation order. Walker returned to Pristina, the capital of Kosova, Wednesday.

In Vienna, Austria, on Wednesday, Vollebaek said: "I am convinced that Milosevic will allow him to stay. It would be an outrageous provocation, which I do not expect from him, if he threw him out forcefully."

But Serbian officials here echoed accusations made in the government-controlled press that the West had rushed to judgment on the issue of the 45 victims in Racak, arguing that they had been killed in fighting, not in cold blood, and that ethnic Albanians of the Kosova Liberation Army later mutilated the bodies, changed their clothing and dumped them in one spot to be discovered.

While such charges have been dismissed out of hand by American officials, French officials say they are taking them more seriously, while urging the kind of international forensic investigation Washington also wants. The Serbs have agreed to allow some Finnish forensic scientists to see at least some of the bodies found in the village last week.

Dr. Helena Ranta, head of the Finnish team, told Reuters Wednesday that she had urged Serbian authorities to halt autopsies on the victims until vital X-ray equipment could be brought in.

"Particularly for bodies of people killed by gunshots, the very first thing to be done, according to internationally recognized procedures, is to X-ray them," she said after meeting here with the Serbian justice minister, Dragoljub Jankovic.

In this matter, too, Milosevic has shown signs of cooperation, the Western diplomats noted Wednesday night.

Washington and the West are also insisting that Milosevic resume full cooperation with international agencies in Kosova, by living up to the cease-fire agreement he signed with the American envoy, Richard Holbrooke, last October, and by allowing the tribunal investigating war crimes access to Kosova.

The chief prosecutor of the tribunal, Louise Arbour, arrived at the Kosova border without a visa, and was not allowed in. On Wednesday she returned to The Hague, Netherlands. The refusal to admit her is consistent with the general Serbian position that there are no war crimes in Kosova because there has been no war there, the diplomats said. But the diplomats also noted that the tribunal has been allowed to open an office in Pristina, and that Ms. Arbour has previously visited Belgrade.

The October agreement was negotiated under the pressure of imminent NATO bombing, and even then was full of holes, American officials have conceded. The deal saved many Kosova refugees from dying of the cold and had restrained the warfare, at least until last week. But once the threat of bombing was withdrawn in October, there was little leverage on Milosevic to give Kosova the enhanced political autonomy that now seems insufficient to satisfy the ethnic Albanians, let alone the Kosova Liberation Army.

"Enhanced autonomy within Serbia, which Milosevic doesn't want to concede, is a nonstarter now," said a senior Western official. "Enhanced autonomy within Yugoslavia, on a similar basis with Serbia itself and Montenegro, is probably the minimum. Albanian national consciousness has changed a lot." Milosevic agreed in October to seriously negotiate a political settlement with the ethnic Albanian majority, which is seeking independence from Serbia.

It may be that the renewed threat of NATO bombing will give Milosevic more room to make necessary concessions to the ethnic Albanians of Kosova, short of the independence that the Serbs -- and the rest of the world -- do not want Kosova to have. But, a senior Western diplomat said, a threat by NATO to bomb Serbia is a "blunt instrument for a delicate problem."

U.S., NATO Again Ponder Striking Serbs

By Dana Priest and Charles Trueheart Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, January 20, 1999; Page A19

For the second time in three months, the United States and its NATO allies grappled with the possible consequences of punitive airstrikes against Yugoslavia as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic hardened his defiance of Western demands aimed at restoring peace in the separatist province of Kosova.

Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, comparing the standoff to a similar crisis last fall, told reporters yesterday, "I believe NATO's credibility remains on the line." He warned that if Milosevic continues to violate agreements over Kosova, "It is quite clear NATO has the ability not just to threaten airstrikes but to carry them out."

But as deliberations continued at NATO headquarters in Brussels and within President Clinton's national security team in Washington, officials said they were concerned about the possible outcome of a bombing campaign. Said a senior Pentagon official: "We're left with some bad options. That doesn't mean we wouldn't deploy them."

Administration officials acknowledge that, unlike last fall, there is little hope now that a limited air campaign will lead to negotiations between the Serbs and separatist rebels of the Kosova Liberation Army. "We haven't convinced either side that a political solution is the best option," one senior U.S. official said.

At the same time, officials are wary that airstrikes might tip the military balance in favor of the rebels, who are considered a more formidable force than they were several months ago. "We don't intend to become an Air Force for the" rebels, Cohen said yesterday.

Other options under consideration by the administration include further economic sanctions against Serbia and the possibility of dispatching a multinational peacekeeping force to the region to separate combatants, following the model of the NATO troops enforcing a peace agreement in Bosnia.

Among those calling for an international military force is Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Either we get in there with a NATO force or get the hell out," said Warner, who said prolonged fighting in Kosova could rattle the still-fragile peace processes in neighboring Bosnia and Albania.

In November, with 400 allied warplanes on standby, the United States and its allies secured a promise from Milosevic to withdraw forces from Kosova. The agreement, brokered by U.S. envoy Richard C. Holbrooke, created an uncertain and often dishonored cease-fire between combatants and sent hundreds of unarmed civilian peace monitors into the province under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The diplomatic situation has deteriorated since the massacre of 45 Kosovar civilians Friday, an explosive event Western officials have blamed on Yugoslav forces fighting the ethnic Albanian rebels. Milosevic has since ordered the expulsion of the leader of the OSCE contingent, U.S. Ambassador William Walker, and turned away a team of United Nations war crimes investigators led by chief tribunal prosecutor Louise Arbour.

NATO's two top generals said yesterday in Brussels that Milosevic displayed a "bunker mentality" during their marathon meeting in Belgrade Tuesday and responded to warnings about the renewed fighting in Kosova province with "repeated denial of the facts, denial of the obvious."

U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, the supreme commander of NATO, said he and Gen. Klaus Naumann of Germany, chairman of the alliance's military committee, had repeated to Milosevic three-month-old international demands that he withdraw security forces from Kosova and live up to his agreements to allow outside "verifiers" to monitor the situation in Kosova.

With diplomatic solutions still being explored, the generals backed up their verbal pressure today by putting NATO forces on 48-hour alert and by ordering two naval groups, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, into position to carry out any military action that may emerge from the next key meeting on Kosova. The six-nation Kosova "contact group" is to gather Friday in London.

The tightening of NATO's military readiness window from 96 to 48 hours and the deployment of the Mediterranean naval forces to Brindisi, Italy, and to the Aegean Sea near Kosovo, a NATO source said, were "precautionary, prudential; they are not signs of inevitability" regarding military strikes in Yugoslavia.

Priest reported from Washington and Trueheart from Brussels.

Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

The Kosova Test

Wednesday, January 20, 1999; Page A26

THE U.S.-led military alliance that faced down the Soviet Union, is planning a big celebration of its 50th birthday this spring. But in a small province of Yugoslavia, the alliance's credibility is being tested right now. If NATO and President Clinton cannot stand up to Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic in Kosovo, they might as well cancel the anniversary party right now. NATO will have shown itself to be useless.

Mr. Milosevic has been waging war against the civilian population of Kosovo for most of the past year. Ninety percent of Kosovo's 2 million people are ethnic Albanian, while only 10 percent are (like Mr. Milosevic) Serb. Especially after his brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing, most of the ethnic Albanians want independence for Kosovo. Mr. Milosevic continues to act as though he can thwart them through military subjugation.

Last October he reached an agreement, negotiated by U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, that was meant to pave the way toward a political solution. The agreement was unsatisfactory from the start; Mr. Milosevic is now violating every provision. He promised access to Kosovo for international war crimes investigators; he hasn't let them in. He promised to withdraw some of his troops; instead, he's been beefing up his forces. He said he would allow 2,000 unarmed "verifiers" to monitor the cease-fire, but he's interfered with their work. And, most important, there is no cease-fire; Serb shelling of Kosovo villages in the past few days has left another 5,000 homeless, adding to the hundreds of thousands burned and bombed out of their homes already.

Mr. Milosevic's contempt for NATO became totally clear this week, in the wake of a Serb massacre of 47 civilians in the village of Racak. He barred chief war crimes investigator Louise Arbour from entering Kosovo to investigate the massacre. His apparatchiks then removed the bodies so there could be no evidence of Serb crimes. He ordered the expulsion of U.S. diplomat William Walker, chief of the 800 or so verifiers who had deployed so far. He escalated the fighting.

The Serb dictator understands well that NATO has little appetite for involvement in another Balkan conflict. But NATO and the United States are involved and will remain so as long as Kosovo's instability threatens the entire region. Each time the alliance caves in to Mr. Milosevic, hoping to avoid taking the tough decisions, it only guarantees that the next crisis will be more difficult. Now it is time to take a stand. NATO must prepare to use force, ground troops as well as air power, to enforce a cease-fire and an interim political settlement. As a first step, it should order the immediate withdrawal of the unarmed verifiers, so that they do not become Serb hostages if NATO uses force.

Forensic team probes Kosova massacre (BBC)

A Finnish team of forensic experts is in Kosovo to investigate the killing of ethnic Albanians last week.

Members of the team are reported to have begun taking x-rays of some of the more than 40 dead bodies - found in the village of Racak in southern Kosovo - to determine whether they were killed in a gun battle, or murdered in cold blood.

The head of the team asked a Serbian forensic team, which began work on the bodies on Tuesday, to wait for her team's x-ray unit, saying that under internationally-recognised procedures, x-rays should be first step of any autopsy.

Dr Helena Ranta said: "It should of course have been done before, and that was one of the reasons I suggested they should stop.

"But for some reason or other they didn't, so we have to live with that."

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Ranta said that if there had been "manipulation" of evidence on the bodies, her team would be able to identify traces of interference.

She warned that Serb insistence that the bodies displayed no signs of torture or summary execution was premature. Her team would report within 10 days, she said.

"The world has a right to know what happened there," she said.

Walker to stay?

There are also reports that Belgrade might be prepared to back down over its decision to expel the head of the international verification mission in Kosovo, William Walker.

Mr Walker had been ordered to leave by Thursday evening after blaming Serbian security forces for the killings in Racak.

But the BBC correspondent in Pristina, Jacky Rowland, says that a senior Serbian official, who met a Russian envoy on Wednesday, said that the issue would be solved through compromise and to the satisfaction of both sides.

Mr Walker himself has no intention of leaving Kosovo, his spokesman says.

Jorgen Grunnet told the BBC: "There is no intention of leaving. He will stay here as long as the mission is here."

Nato bombers on heightened alert

Meanwhile, Nato has put fighter-bomber aircraft on a 48-hour alert, and ordered more warships to the Adriatic Sea, in readiness for possible air strikes against Yugoslav forces.

Nato officials have stressed that they want to see a political solution to ethnic Albanian demands for independence from Serbia.

Speaking to the BBC, Nato Secretary General Javier Solana said they were backing the international ceasefire monitors already in the province.

But he warned: "If the OSCE has to be withdrawn, there is no question that the only solution is a military type of solution".

The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan has urged the authorities in Belgrade to defuse the present crisis.

However, Mr Annan said he did not detect any change in their position when he called on them to withdraw their expulsion order against Mr Walker and allow in the chief prosecutor for the International War Crimes Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, Louise Arbour.

Firing in northern Kosovo

Sporadic fighting is reported to be continuing in northern Kosovo as refugee agencies deliver food to villagers too terrified to return to their homes.

Serb security forces fired an anti-aircraft gun over the village of Shipolje while police took away seven men to a nearby town.

Albright says Milosevic understands only force by Associated Press

Thursday, January 21, 1999

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is enlisting U.S. allies to push on Yugoslavia a series of demands about Kosovo that could result in attacks by NATO if President Slobodan Milosevic rejects them.

``Force is the only language he appears to understand,'' she said today. ``The world is confronted by new and unacceptable violence in Kosovo.''

A massacre last Friday of 45 ethnic Albanian civilians ``has brought tensions to a razor's edge,'' Albright said as she prepared for a trip that is to involve consultations with British, French and other allies on the crisis in the Serbian province.

As Albright took verbal aim at Milosevic, it was clear that the Clinton administration and much of Europe still look to the Serbian leader for a solution to the conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, many of whom want independence from Yugoslavia.

President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair confirmed growing concern in a 30-minute telephone conversation.

``They agreed that Slobodan Milosevic must be brought back into line,'' a government spokesman said in London. ``They reviewed the preparations on the military side, should the military option prove necessary.

The spokesman, anonymous under normal British practice, said ``equally, they agreed it was vital to inject new life into the political process aimed at bringing both sides to the table.''

Some members of Congress and analysts suggested other approaches, including the stationing of NATO forces in Kosovo.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and a handful of other senators have written President Clinton requesting an explicit U.S. statement that Milosevic must be replaced with a democratic government.

``No American policy to promote a stable and peaceful Balkan region can succeed if Serbia remains, as it has since the breakup of Yugoslavia, under the grip of a regime that depends on crisis for its continued hold on power,'' the letter said.

Morton Abramowitz, a former U.S. ambassador and ex-director of the State Department's intelligence office, has suggested the administration pursue independence for the ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90 percent of the province.

This would require stationing NATO troops in Kosovo. Also, Abramowitz said, the administration should try to undermine Milosevic politically and punish him as a war criminal.

Milosevic has been a central figure in U.S. diplomacy in the Balkans for years. He was courted for negotiations that produced an agreement in November 1995 to end an ethnic war in Bosnia.

So far, the crisis in Kosovo, and the stern U.S. approach to the Serbian leader typified by Albright in a speech Thursday to the Center for National Policy, has not spilled over to Bosnia.

But James Hooper, executive director of the Balkan Action Council, a group that follows developments in the troubled region, said an impact on Bosnia is inevitable. ``He is the one that is going to decide when,'' Hooper said.

The Dayton agreements, which ended the Bosnia war, gave Milosevic a prominent role in peacemaking in the republic ``and enabled him to transform his reputation from Balkan troublemaker to Balkans peacemaker,'' Hooper said.

Hooper proposed working with Milosevic ``to some extent'' but working also with the democratic opposition. ``We would create new and more effective leaders,'' he said. ``This could result in a process gradually leading to democracy.''

The Bosnia agreement is holding, and the likelihood of a resumption of fighting is minimal, said George Biddle, vice president of the International Crisis Group, a private think tank.

But the conflict could spread to Macedonia, Albania and elsewhere, Biddle said in an interview.

``Must we deal with Milosevic? He obviously is the president of Serbia, and he is the man you have to deal with,'' Biddle said.

But Milosevic is not listening to the United States and the allies on Kosovo, Biddle said. So, he said, the best approach is to issue an ultimatum and not talk to him.

Gary Dempsey, an analyst with the Cato Institute, takes a far different view. He says NATO airstrikes could further entrench Milosevic by unifying Serbs behind him while giving the Kosovo Liberation Army an incentive to provoke Serb forces even more.

And, Dempsey says, airstrikes could cause the Dayton agreement to unravel.

In her speech, Albright said there is no simple answer to the Kosovo problems. She said the Kosovo Liberation Army has been deliberately provocative, and the outlook for a negotiated solution is cloudy.

She set three demands for Milosevic:

-Reduce the Serb troop and police presence in Kosovo.

-Cooperate with the war crimes tribunal.

-Permit the verification mission, headed by American diplomat William Walker, back into Kosovo to operate unhindered.

Albright flies to Moscow on Sunday and will meet there with Russian leaders about Kosovo and other matters. At the end of the week she will confer in London with Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary, and in Paris with Hubert Vedrine, the French foreign minister.

Top Kosovo Monitor Allowed To Stay

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- The Yugoslav government announced Friday it was "freezing" the expulsion order against the American head of the peace monitors in Kosovo -- backing down after the envoy declared he would ignore the order to leave.

In a statement distributed by the state-run Tanjug news agency, the government said the expulsion order against William Walker would remain "frozen" until "the consequences of his behavior are fully clarified."

Walker was ordered to leave Yugoslavia by 5 p.m. Thursday after he accused Serb police of massacring 45 ethnic Albanians last week near the southern Kosovo village of Racak.

Walker defied the order and remained holed up in his office in the Kosovo capital Pristina.

The statement noted that since the order was issued Monday, the Yugoslav government "was contacted by high representatives of several governments and international organizations in their efforts to have this decision re-examined."

Allies Move Closer To Military Action Against Serbs

Britain and the West are edging closer to military action against Serb forces in the crisis over Kosovo - with a desperate hunt for a diplomatic solution still continuing.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has confirmed in a phone call to German Chancellor and current EU President Gerhard Schroeder that force may have to be used against President Slobodan Milosevic, Downing Street said.

But Mr Blair and Mr Schroeder also agreed that military action against the backdrop of a political vacuum could prove futile.

Meanwhile, last-minute manoeuvres in Kosovo saw the possibility that head of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe monitors in the crisis-torn province, American William Walker, may be allowed to stay after all.

Mr Walker had been ordered to leave the country after blaming the Serbs for the cold-blooded killings of 45 civilians in Racak.

The issue dominated the latest Downing Street Cabinet meeting, and top diplomats from the six-nation Contact group of nations are due in London on friday for talks on the crisis. The group consists of the UK, America, France, Italy, Germany and Russia.

Mr Blair's official spokesman said the Kosovo Liberation Army had been "unhelpful" in refusing to talk to the elected Government, thwarting any drive for a political solution.

"The message is clear - we are willing and ready to pursue any course of action that sorts this situation out," said the spokesman.

But he added: "It is difficult when there is no clear political process of any sort under way."

France sends military reinforcements in response to Kosovo crisis (AFP)

PARIS, Jan 21 (AFP) - France on Thursday announced it was dispatching an aircraft carrier to the Adriatic and redeploying 18 warplanes in response to the Kosovo crisis. The armed forces chief-of-staff said aircraft would be redeployed in Italy and an aircraft carrier sent to the Adriatic.

France would sent 18 warplanes, 12 of them fighter planes, to Italy's Istrana base and the aircraft carrier Foch, carrying 18 planes, was to head to the Adriatic, a statement from the chief-of-staff said.

It added that the decision was in line with an October 1998 commitment by France to provide forces for NATO in case of "possible air operations" against Serbia during the face-off over Kosovo at the time.

But on Thursday, French pilots were ordered to remain on a 48-hour standby, instead of the four-day standby implemented after last October's peace deal.