WEEKLY SELECTION-YUGOSLAVIA: US Rejects Serb Proposal Amid Anger

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 3 1999 (IPS) - US President Bill Clinton Tuesday rejected a cease-fire proposal from Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and hinted that Washington may soon change its stance that Kosovo should remain part of the Yugoslav Federation.

Clinton dismissed Milosovic’s offer as “unacceptable”

His remarks followed a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who had met Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov after the latter spent six hours in talks with Milosevic in Belgrade Tuesday morning.

Schroeder also rejected Milosevic’s offer to reduce Yugoslav forces in Kosovo and permit refugees who have fled the province if NATO first ended its week-old bombing campaign.

“This is no basis for a political solution,” Schroeder was quoted as saying, while his defence minister, Rudolf Scharping, told reporters that acceptance of Milosevic’s proposal would bring the “(peace) of a graveyard.”

Nonetheless, as NATO ended a full week of bombing raids on Yugoslav military targets, US officials conceded that the air campaign had not yet curbed what some spokesmen have begun to describe as a “genocide” against the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

More than 150,000 Albanian Kosovars so far have fled to neighboring Albania, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro since the bombing campaign began, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which said no let-up in the exodus was in sight.

At a State Department ceremony Tuesday, Clinton claimed that the past week’s outflow brought the total number of people forced from their homes in Kosovo since fighting between Yugoslav forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) broke out last year to more than half a million.

Since NATO launched its campaign, entire Albanian towns and villages have been shelled or put to the torch by Yugoslav military and special police, and Serb paramilitary forces, who appear intent on forcing out much, if not most, of Kosovo’s Albanian population. Before hostilities broke out last year, Albanians accounted for 90 percent of the province’s two million people.

In his remarks Tuesday, Clinton also charged that Yugoslav forces were “singling out for murder Kosovar leaders who supported a peaceful solution” to the conflict.

US officials Tuesday heatedly rejected charges that the NATO air campaign – undertaken after Yugoslavia had rejected the NATO- crafted Rambouillet accord and sent 40,000 troops and special police into Kosovo – had actually made the situation much worse.

“Now it is clear that, as the Kosovar leaders were saying ‘yes’ to peace, Mr. Milosevic was planning a new campaign of expulsions and executions in Kosovo,” Clinton said. “He started carrying out that plan as the talks ended, increasing our sense of urgency that the airstrikes NATO had threatened for some time must begin.”

NATO had pressed both the KLA and Milosevic to sign onto a peace accord which would have restored Kosovo’s autonomy which Milosevic had taken away 10 years ago. The agreement also provided for the deployment of some 28,000 NATO troops to keep the peace between the two communities.

The accord was aimed at stopping an increasingly violent war between the Yugoslav army and the KLA, which had been fighting for Kosovo’s secession.

Until now, Washington and other NATO powers have opposed independence for Kosovo out of concern that it could fuel a drive for a “Greater Albania” consisting of Albania, Kosovo and western Macedonia, which has a large Albanian coalition.

That could, in turn, foster a wider and more dangerous Balkan conflict, according to US officials and independent observers.

But Clinton suggested Tuesday that Washington’s position on Kosovar independence may now change as a result of Milosevic’s refusal to bow to NATO’s demands that he withdraw his forces and accept the accord worked out with the KLA.

“The NATO air campaign is designed to raise the price of (Milosevic’s) policy,” he said. “For a sustained period, he will see that his military will be seriously diminished, key military infrastructure destroyed, (and) the prospect of international support for Serbia’s claim to Kosovo increasingly jeopardized.”

One hour later, Clinton issued a brief statement after his conversation with Schroeder in which he said he agreed with the German chancellor that Milosevic’s proposal to begin withdrawing forces from Kosovo if NATO ceases its campaign was unacceptable.

“President Milosevic began this brutal campaign: it is his responsibility to bring it to an immediate end and embrace a just peace,” Clinton said.

At the same time, State Department spokesman James Rubin said Milosevic’s proposals “fall far short of we think is necessary. Our position is clear: Milosevic must halt the offensive against the Kosovar Albanians, withdraw his forces, and embrace a settlement based on the Rambouillet framework.”

Rubin also noted that Belgrade may try to oust the government of President Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro, a Yugoslav republic which has been critical of Milosevic’s hard-line policies.

The inflow of thousands of Albanian refugees and the NATO attacks, which have included Yugoslav Army bases in Montenegro, reportedly have produced a backlash among the majority Slavs there.

“Any attempt by Belgrade to overthrow the democratically elected government in Montenegro would only fuel wider regional instability, lead to deeper isolation for the Yugoslavian authorities, and escalate the conflict with NATO,” said Rubin.

Meanwhile, military planners insisted that the air campaign was moving according to schedule and is now focusing more on tactical targets, such as tanks and artillery units which are directly involved in the “ethnic cleansing,” as opposed to the Yugoslav air-defence systems, fuel depots and ammunition dumps which were the top-priority targets during the first week.

Still, US officials admit that the special police and Serb paramilitary forces have mostly dispersed into small units throughout the province and thus make very difficult targets for NATO warplanes.

While the administration continues to rule out deploying any US ground forces to Kosovo while fighting continues, it also suggested Tuesday that it would not necessarily oppose providing close air support for ground units from other NATO countries.