Reflections on Kosovo

Making sense of a gut-wrenching conflict

EDITORIAL

As we go to press, the New York Times reports that NATO commanders -- and, by implication, President Clinton -- made a major miscalculation when they assumed that several days of aerial bombardment would force Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic to accept the Western powers' proposed solution for ending the Kosovo crisis.

This would be disturbing news under any circumstances, but it is especially sobering as NATO prepares to "broaden and deepen" its attacks in Yugoslavia in order to blow up facilities crucial to the Milosevic government. This will most likely include sites in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital. Thus the cost of the atrocities perpetrated against Kosovars of Albanian descent will be brought closer to the general population.

But it is unlikely to halt the genocide and forced repatriation that Serb military forces are inflicting upon ethnic Albanians who a few weeks ago made up 90 percent of Kosovo's two million people. The magnitude of the atrocities that Milosevic has ordered may not approach those of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao, but his spirit and intent is every bit as evil as theirs was.

Bringing Milosevic to heel will be no easy task. President Clinton and other Western leaders need to convey this message clearly and repeatedly to their respective nations if the NATO allies are to have any hope of bringing this apparently shaky but just operation to a successful close.

The fact is that both Yugoslavia's antagonists and its allies have consistently done too little, too late.

The primary responsibility lies with the European community in whose backyard Milosevic has wrought his horrors for years. When it comes to denouncing evil, the Eurocrats act boldly. When it comes to upholding the tenets of what should pass for civilized society, they shirk.

Recent rhetoric aside, the United States has also been less than resolute. Anyone who claims that Washington's attention wasn't diverted from this growing crisis by the prolonged and destructive impeachment farce is refusing to face reality. The crisis in Kosovo has been building for years and intensifying for months.

And then there are the Russians. The Economist points out that "Russia's policy on Yugoslavia is more sentimental than practical: it chiefly reflects a dislike of NATO's influence, not any great interest in the nitty gritty of Balkan politics." Prime Minister Primakov's recent attempt to broker a solution was a failure. But blustering though it might be, the threat of Russian intervention is not to be dismissed.

A form of conventional wisdom is coalescing that the Kosovo slaughter has been brought about by the bombing. It's too serious an assertion to dismiss entirely, although we ultimately don't buy it. More than a month ago we wrote on this page, "When the spring comes and the winter snows melt, the massacres will begin in earnest." Even before that time, informed opinion held that it wasn't a matter of whether the Serbs would further torture the Kosovars -- it was only a matter of when.

So what is to be done?

The West must mount a massive aid program to help neighboring Balkan states absorb the streams of Kosovar refugees who face a grim choice: flee their homeland or be slaughtered by the Serbs.

NATO must reinforce the air fleet now pounding the Serbs. Independent military analysts have gone on record as saying that the NATO and US planes, as technically superior as they may be, are not numerous enough to do the job -- especially if the air war is to be expanded and intensified, as it should be.

NATO should also give serious consideration to recognizing the sovereignty of Kosovo. This proposal, put forward by William Pfaff of the International Herald Tribune, would allow the allies to continue the air war and openly aid the Kosovar rebels in accordance with international law. This is more than an intellectual nicety. It would provide an international framework within which a prolonged conflict could be waged.

There is no quick fix on the horizon.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.