[ALBSA-Info] The Washington Post

[Agron Alibali]

The Balkan War
   
Friday, March 10, 2000; Page A20 


IN THE BALKANS, the hunted have become the hunters:
The latest troubling development is a bloody foray
into Serbia by reconstituted units of the ethnic
Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). It is
especially dangerous that these raids are being staged
from the U.S.-patrolled area of Kosovo, which leaves
U.S. forces with no attractive options. If they do not
respond, U.S. credibility is undermined and Serb
reprisals are likely; if they try to stop the Albanian
groups, clashes are possible. So the United States is
right to condemn the attacks and urge KLA leaders to
desist. 

But that cannot be the entire answer. Albanians struck
inside Serbia because they believe, with some
justification, that Slobodan Milosevic's forces had
begun the ethnic cleansing of a small
Albanian-populated area abutting Kosovo. Furthermore,
evidence is growing that Mr. Milosevic is covertly
sending paramilitary agents across the border into
Kosovo to attack Albanians, especially in the divided
town of Kosovska Mitrovica. Mr. Milosevic's apparent
objective is to make Kosovo ungovernable, creating a
crisis he can exploit for domestic political gain
while sapping NATO's will to garrison the province.

One root of this problem is the ambiguous Western
policy on Kosovo's status. War came to Kosovo after
Mr. Milosevic stripped the province of the political
autonomy it enjoyed under Tito and substituted a kind
of Serb-dominated apartheid. Even without last year's
savagery, it would be hard to imagine how Kosovo could
ever live under Mr. Milosevic again. Yet the United
States and Europe, through a U.N. Security Council
resolution, insist both that Kosovo is part of
Yugoslavia and that it should enjoy "substantial
autonomy and meaningful self-administration." An
interim U.N. government is supposed somehow to make
this mandate succeed.

Underfunded by the U.S. and European governments, the
U.N. mission in Kosovo has stumbled. No elections for
local government will be possible before the fall, at
best, and participation by Kosovo's dwindling Serb
minority is doubtful. If you consider the way Mr.
Milosevic treats Serbs who cross him--this week's raid
by his goons to shut down opposition television in
Belgrade is a relatively mild example--it becomes even
more doubtful that many Serbs would risk participating
in multiethnic politics in Kosovo.

As extreme Serb and Albanian elements try to fill the
political vacuum, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan
has called for the Security Council to debate and
define the notion of "substantial autonomy." Such a
discussion is necessary, as are U.S. efforts to rein
in its erstwhile KLA allies. But even more urgent is a
credible allied strategy for bringing about internal
political change in Belgrade, without which no stable
political arrangement in, or around, Kosovo can be
achieved.

 
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com