-Caveat Lector- >From Int'l Herald Tribune Paris, Monday, April 5, 1999 New Darkness In the Balkans The Ghosts of Many Wars Are Haunting Refugees By Roger Cohen New York Times Service BERLIN - All is dark again in southeast Europe. Close your eyes and those long lines of ragged ethnic Albanian refugees struggling out of Kosovo fuse with so many other processions of the Balkan bedraggled: a million Greeks out of Turkey in 1923, 500,000 Turks out of Greece in the same year, more than 750,000 Muslims out of Bosnia in 1992 and 175,000 Serbs out of Croatia in 1995. Where will it end? After 12 days of NATO air attacks on Serbia and Montenegro, confusion seemed absolute. A war begun to persuade President Slobodan Milosevic to agree to a peace plan offering autonomy to Kosovo's ethnic Albanians had become a battle to stop him from evicting all those Albanians under cover of the mayhem of air strikes. A NATO air campaign with limited goals had begun to look like a full-scale war whose true target was Mr. Milosevic - and whose potential to spread to Macedonia and Albania seemed real as more than 200,000 Kosovo refugees straggled across those countries' borders. Another somber possibility was that the alliance itself could be threatened by the ignominy of failure on the eve of what had been billed as a glorious 50th birthday party this month at a gathering in Washington. ''The credibility of the alliance has been heavily damaged,'' commented Christoph Bertram in the German weekly Die Zeit. ''And it is a bitter irony that in the beginning it was concern for this credibility that was the decisive factor behind the attack.'' That attack has now gained an unpredictable momentum. ''To say we are not at war seems to me a statement too ridiculous even to refute,'' said General William Odom of the Hudson Institute. ''And wars, as von Clausewitz noted, are acts of force to compel our enemies to do our will. So let's get on with it before the president inadvertently tears up our alliance.'' But America's will seemed unclear, even on such fundamental issues as whether to terrorize or talk to Mr. Milosevic, and what degree of independence Kosovo should have. A number of outcomes now seem possible, but one trend is inescapable: The history of the Balkans since the beginning of the 19th century is broadly that of the emergence of nation states. In the place of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and later the multinational state of Yugoslavia, smaller countries of peoples claiming the same language, religion and culture have emerged. The process began with Greece, which rose against the Ottomans in 1821 and gained independence in 1930. More recently, the process has brought the establishment of Slovenia and Croatia in 1991. Throughout, the intermittently bloody unscrambling of mixed populations who often had scant sense of ''nationality'' has been apparent. The trend seems unlikely to stop. It suggests that the truncated, surviving Yugoslav federation is unlikely to fare better than its far larger predecessor. One day, Kosovo and Montenegro will probably go their own ways, allowing Serbia, at last, to proclaim itself once more a nation state, as it was in the 19th century. But in the interim, many scenarios seem possible. The first critical issue, officials said, is whether to keep a diplomatic channel open to Mr. Milosevic that might permit some salvaging of an accord on autonomy for Kosovo. For now, the channel remains, meager and reduced further by each new reported Serbian atrocity against the ethnic Albanians, but it has not been abandoned. As a result, no clear decision has been made to go for overthrowing Mr. Milosevic. General Klaus Naumann of Germany, a top NATO general, did say that ''we clearly intend to loosen his grip on power and break his will to continue.'' But only with the bombing of the Serbian Interior Ministry in Belgrade on Saturday did the alliance begin to appear ready to place Mr. Milosevic's jugular in its sights. What could further radicalize this NATO approach? Perhaps a revelation of large-scale Serbian executions of the many missing ethnic Albanian men of fighting age. Or gross Serbian mistreatment of the three U.S. soldiers captured last week. Another catalyst could be reliable intelligence suggesting that resistance to Mr. Milosevic in the army and security forces is rising fast, so that only a coup de grace is needed. Or a further deepening of the refugee crisis. At that point, NATO might intensify its bombing of Belgrade. President Bill Clinton could turn up the propaganda war by appealing directly to the Serbian people to rise against Mr. Milosevic because he has brought them to ruin. Major resources could be invested in stirring Montenegrin restiveness, already strong. All these measures could undermine Mr. Milosevic. Whether they would remove him is another matter. Mr. Milosevic has shown extraordinary resilience even as he has unleashed waves of destruction. After so much time, and so much propaganda, what democratic Serbian forces may lie concealed in his shadow is unclear. What does seem clear, however, is that it will be extraordinarily difficult for Kosovo's Albanian leaders to agree now to any accord with the man who has terrorized them. In this sense, the removal of Mr. Milosevic may eventually favor a diplomatic settlement structured around Kosovan autonomy, at least as a first stage, or a Serbian-Albanian partition of the province. But as Richard Holbrooke, who long negotiated with the Serbian strongman, has observed, Mr. Milosevic ''likes to pull rabbits out of his hat.'' He might free the U.S. prisoners in the hope that the gesture will stimulate opposition in Europe to the bombing. He could try to work on the Greeks and Italians, who have wavered in their support of the war. He could turn up the propaganda of Serbian suffering in the hope that the once-pacifist Green Party, now part of the German government, rediscovers its roots and brings down the coalition of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. None of these strategies seems likely to work. But what may favor Mr. Milosevic, and undermine Western unity, is a widespread sense that NATO has made serious errors. Political goals have been constantly reformulated since the bombing began. A war to save an international plan for autonomy formed at Rambouillet, France, may be destroying that plan once and for all. Most profoundly, NATO's efforts to take on new roles of crisis management while avoiding the commitment of ground troops may be the biggest risk. History does not suggest that air power alone can drive out an army. The longer the conflict goes on, the more strains in the alliance could emerge. But Mr. Clinton has looked unusually determined of late. The 1 million dead in Bosnia and Rwanda during the 1990s have clearly had an effect on him. Where he long looked the other way in Bosnia, he now seems ready to fight for Western values and against the repetitive destruction wreaked on Europe by Mr. Milosevic in Croatia, in Bosnia and now in Kosovo. In a speech last week at the Norfolk Naval Air Station in Virginia, the president said he was determined to make Mr. Milosevic ''pay the price of aggression and murder.'' He asked whether America could look the other way ''as entire peoples in Europe are forced to abandon their homelands or die.'' He still seemed entrenched in his rejection of the use of ground troops, but that position may not hold over time. If negotiation is impossible with Mr. Milosevic, the only way to ram home the message may be to mass troops and tanks in Macedonia, or even to use the new NATO member Hungary as a base from which to send the alliance's immense armored divisions rumbling over the plains to Belgrade. Paris, Monday, April 5, 1999 A Field of Horrors Camp in Macedonia Is Poor Refuge By Carlotta Gall New York Times Service BLACE, Macedonia - Every few minutes stretcher bearers struggled through the crowd, slipping and falling up the muddy slope in their haste to get another patient to the medical tent. Others literally ran with children in their arms. They were the very few who were allowed through the police cordon Sunday. Macedonian military and police troops formed a human barrier around the thousands of Kosovar Albanian refugees camping at Blace, beating back anyone who tried to get through. Armed with automatic weapons, and dressed in riot gear with flak jackets and helmets, the security forces are keeping about 30,000 people penned into a small stretch of land. Conditions have deteriorated alarmingly as thousands of refugees have poured in from Kosovo over the last few days and been detained by Macedonian police officers. There is a growing sense of desperation among the people. Expelled at gunpoint and herded into train wagons, the refugees have arrived often with only the clothes on their backs. One family held up a huge sign made out of cardboard that said, ''Help,'' in English. Aid agencies said 11 people died Friday night, and 14 more died Saturday night, mostly the old and very young, many of them suffering from exposure. Local journalists reported several babies had been born in the camp. One of the mothers died in childbirth Saturday, they said. Hepatitis and pneumonia are already raging through the sprawling camp, where people are sleeping in the open under the rain or beneath makeshift shelters of blankets and plastic. There are no toilets, and people are using the nearby river for washing and drinking. The scene of thousands of people camped on the hillside and across the fields is a messy and noisy jumble. Smoke drifted from hundred of fires. Men squatted down beside their plastic shelters, others were crushed together around the single white tent registering refugees. The occasional person who tried to slip out was shoved back hard by police officers or soldiers. More are trapped on the other side of the border, unable to pass since Macedonian authorities effectively closed the border. A long tail of cars snakes back up the road. Many refugees have abandoned their cars, and stand massed by the immigration booths on the road waiting to come through. They face Macedonian police, who have used riot sticks against the crowd to keep them back. The Macedonian government denies closing the border but is adamant that it cannot absorb any more refugees for reasons of both economic and political stability. The Macedonian authorities have also prevented foreign aid organizations from working in the camp. Local aid workers were doing the job, driving into the camp on tractors laden with food and drink. They stopped at intervals and threw provisions into the crowd in random fashion. Foreign aid organizations have been kept out. There is a single medical tent to care for the sick, and it is clearly overwhelmed. Patients lay and sat around on the ground outside, mostly old people unable to move on their own. A lone figure, in white medical coat and surgical mask and gloves, hurried through the mud searching for a patient. The authorities have begun transferring refugees out to other camps, piling them into buses in haphazard fashion. One busload was taken to the refugee camp of Ragushe, further along the Serbian border. Surrounded by wire fencing and guarded by Macedonian police, the refugees were confused and fearful. ''We thought we were moving away from an aggressor, and we find something very similar to the Serb police,'' said Hazen Dakaj, a 52-year-old refugee. He stood by the wire fence, greeting his family who were stuck inside the camp. In the chaos of boarding the buses in the middle of the night, three of the 14 members of his family had been separated and lost. ''They brought us in buses here when they saw people dying,'' he said. ''They did not care if we were together or not.'' In the face of Macedonia's reluctance to take in the refugees, NATO countries were gearing up to take over responsibility for them Sunday. Turkey, Germany and Norway have pledged to take in 36,000 refugees between them, a spokeswoman at the prime minister's office in Skopje said. Humanitarian flights were due to arrive Sunday with food and supplies for the refugees and would fly the first loads of refugees out immediately. Meanwhile just down the road from the border, North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops were constructing a large transit camp with military tents and showers due to open Sunday night. Refugees will be given food and water, medical treatment and washing facilities while they are registered and will then be sent on, either to other camps or abroad. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. -Thomas Huxley + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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