As Yugoslav Crisis Worsens, Neighbors Fear Being Pulled Into Balkan Quagmire

As the Western world is preoccupied by the U.S. presidential election and a debate over European unity, alarm bells are sounding throughout the troubled Balkan countries that the Yugoslav war is poised to spread.

The fall of Bulgaria’s first post-Communist government last week is the latest in a disturbing series of signs that the poor and politically troubled countries of southeastern Europe are increasingly vulnerable to the expanding Balkan conflict.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Philip Dimitrov and his reform-oriented Cabinet were forced to resign after only 11 months in office in the wake of allegations they were engaged in a secret arms deal with the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia.

Dimitrov denied the accusations of Bulgaria’s intelligence service chief and called for a parliamentary vote of confidence. When he failed to win majority endorsement, he and his ministers were forced to resign.

Western diplomats in Vienna, which still serves as the main listening post for Eastern Europe, say the Bulgarian government crisis could be brushed off as an internal power play. Many believe Dimitrov and his Union of Democratic Forces lost the confidence vote because the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, a predominantly Turkish party that usually sides with Dimitrov’s party, switched allegiance to the opposition Socialists to protest what it sees as highhandedness in the governing party.

But whether the arms-trading charges are true or not, they serve as a stark reminder of the historical pressures on Yugoslavia’s neighbors to jump into the deadly conflict.

The fall of the Sofia leadership also adds to the regionwide turmoil that has produced a revolving-door procession of governments and hampered efforts to create a post-Communist order:

* More than a month after elections in Romania, populist President Ion Iliescu is still stymied in his attempts to broker a coalition government from among the diverse parties in a badly divided Parliament. Although he promised in his inauguration speech Friday to work toward political and economic reform, Iliescu may have to join forces with extremist factions who hold the balance of power if he wants to seat a new government.

* Fears of an alliance between Romanian nationalists and neo-Communists have galvanized radical elements in Romania’s Hungarian minority in the weeks since the Sept. 27 election, raising the specter of ethnic confrontation, especially in the tense region of Transylvania.

* Albania, the poorest and most isolated of the Balkan countries, is reported by diplomats who have recently visited Tirana to be marginally more stable since a March vote brought a non-Communist government to power. But the Democratic Party won the leadership in part on a promise to help ethnic Albanian brothers in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, where a savage clash with heavily armed Serbian police is looming.

Kosovo is a province of the republic of Serbia, but Albanians make up 90% of its 2 million residents. Serbia’s strongman president, Slobodan Milosevic, has deployed tens of thousands of security troops to Kosovo, ostensibly to protect the Serbian minority from repression. But the ubiquitous police presence and official attempts to eradicate Albanian language and culture have poisoned relations between the two communities, threatening an explosion of armed conflict.

Kosovo and Macedonia are considered to be the most dangerous venues for the spread of the Yugoslav war because both have the potential to draw foreign countries into what so far has been a battle among the fragments of the former Yugoslav federation.

Albania, which has a military cooperation agreement with NATO member Turkey, could move in to protect fellow Albanians in Kosovo, probably drawing in the Albanian minority in Macedonia.

Macedonian involvement could quickly escalate into a full-scale Balkan war.

Although landlocked and tiny, Macedonia has a strategic location that makes it an important crossroads for both sides in a potential regionwide conflict: It lies between Greece and Serbia, which remain nominally allied despite harsh U.N. and European Community sanctions against the Serb-dominated remains of Yugoslavia. Macedonia also would provide the geographic link between Albania and Bulgaria, providing a land bridge between those allied against Serbian aggression. But such a bridge could further isolate and antagonize Greece.

The Greek government, reeling under triple-digit inflation and a political crisis, has held up recognition of Macedonia by fellow members of the European Community by claiming that the former Yugoslav republic has no right to use that name. The absence of formal relations with Macedonia could tie the hands of foreign mediators who might be summoned to intervene in a crisis.

The 53-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe has sent delegations of observers to Kosovo and Macedonia to serve as what CSCE spokeswoman Elizabeth Pryor calls “an early warning system.”

“But if the people of the region are intent on killing each other, there’s nothing we or anyone else will be able to do to deter them,” Pryor said, noting that the CSCE has no military wing and therefore no means of intervening in armed conflict.

Monitors in the areas of Yugoslavia already rife with violence complain that their reports to headquarters fail to generate the kind of action needed to prevent the conflict from spreading.

“We’ve been telling our governments for months that the Serbs and Croats appear embarked on a plot to divide Bosnia between them, with no regard for the Muslims being squeezed out,” said one frustrated EC monitor based in Croatia. “No one (in the European governments) wants to execute the steps needed to stop them because that would mean taking a side and getting militarily involved.

“You can’t do that with a battle raging over Maastricht (the European unity treaty) and all eyes on who’s going to be President in America.”

Tinderbox Region

The fall of Bulgaria’s first post-Communist government last week was a disturbing reminder that surrounding the warring republics of the former Yugoslav federation are several poor and politically troubled countries increasingly vulnerable to the conflict.