-Caveat Lector-
"The Serbs and elements of the Kosovo Liberation Army are likely to
CONTINUE fighting and seek to rearm for future war -- the Yugoslavs with the
aid of Russian nationalists and the KLA with possible help from Muslims in
Iran ...
"30,000 NATO peacekeepers have been stationed in Bosnia for FOUR YEARS
now -- and still no end to their mission is in sight."
Post-War Kosovo Scenarios Eyed
By LAURA MYERS
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- When NATO bombs and missiles stop striking Serb military
targets across Yugoslavia, what might the political map of the Serbian
province of Kosovo look like? And who will be living there?
Foreign policy analysts suggest four leading scenarios for the province's
future once the conflict between the military alliance and Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic's forces ends:
A NATO-led force accompanies ethnic Albanians back into Kosovo after Serb
army and police forces pull out of the province. This is the most optimistic
picture and tracks the Clinton administration's goals.
The Albanian Kosovars, a majority of the province's population, would live in
peace but in a devastated land that would need international help to be
rebuilt. Living under NATO or U.N. protection for at least several years, the
Kosovars may or may not gain the autonomy NATO is pushing for -- or the
independence for which they have been fighting.
Milosevic's forces hunker down and absorb the NATO pounding while mopping up
their ethnic cleansing campaign, which could slow or even stop. Serbs have
swept about half the 2 million people out of Kosovo since February 1998 --
the majority since NATO airstrikes began March 24.
NATO could declare it has achieved its military goal of degrading Serb forces
until they no longer threaten Kosovars in the province, which once was 10
percent Serbian. Refugees in neighboring nations or European camps might
never return.
Milosevic negotiates a peace deal -- perhaps with the help of a friendly
nation such as Russia -- to withdraw Serb forces from all or part of Kosovo
and allow refugees to return under international protection. This could
result in a real or de facto partition along ethnic lines or demilitarized
zones.
Speaking to reporters Sunday, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright did not
rule out a partition of Kosovo, so long as there are ways to protect Orthodox
Christian sites. But Defense Secretary William Cohen and White House chief of
staff John Podesta, in separate television interviews, dismissed any idea of
partition.
NATO airstrikes, alone or with ground troops, drive Serb forces from Kosovo.
President Clinton has repeatedly ruled out ground troops for such an
operation, although a growing number of members of Congress want him to
consider it.
Ethnic Albanians could return, enjoying de facto or real independence with a
demilitarized no-man's land between Serbia and Kosovo guarded by
international peacekeepers.
But war is messy and politics unpredictable, and almost anything can happen
-- from the war spreading to neighboring Macedonia and Albania and beyond, to
the Western-leaning Montenegro government splitting from Yugoslavia, leaving
Serbia alone in the onetime six-nation federation that mostly dissolved in
earlier this decade.
``This is a long, drawn-out chess game. We may know two or three moves in
advance, but not much beyond that,'' said Janusz Bugajski, director of East
European studies at the private Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington.
Anthony Cordesman, also at the center, said none of the possible outcomes is
``particularly attractive'' because the United States and NATO would be left
more deeply entangled in the Balkans than ever, and for years to come.
For four years, 30,000 NATO peacekeepers have been stationed in Bosnia and no
end is in sight for their mission. Proposed for Kosovo is a 28,000-member
NATO-led force, including 4,000 Americans.
The Serbs and the most radical elements of the Kosovo Liberation Army also
will likely continue fighting in pockets of Kosovo or Yugoslavia and seek to
rearm for future war -- the Yugoslavs with the aid of Russian nationalists
and the KLA with possible help from Muslims in Iran, Cordesman said.
Bosnia and Macedonia -- both former Yugoslav states -- could be further
destabilized as the possibility of Kosovo independence remains ``a time
bomb,'' he said.
Ivo Daalder, a former White House official who worked on Bosnia matters,
views the most likely outcome under current conditions as partition of Kosovo
populated by returned ethnic Albanians, allowing both NATO and Milosevic to
declare a measure of victory.
NATO would not accept Serb control of a Kosovo emptied of most of its ethnic
Albanians because it would be too great a blow to the 19-nation alliance on
its 50th anniversary and in its first offensive military campaign, said
Daalder, now affiliated with the Brookings Institution.
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