Cynical Puppeteer in Hostage Crisis : West must not forget just who Milosevic is

Dozens of U.S. attack and transport helicopters, along with as many as 3,500 U.S. troops, are leaving Germany for Italy in preparation for an eventual evacuation of U.N. forces from Bosnia. As they leave, the rules of military engagement in the Balkans are ripe for revision.

The downing of a U.S. F-16 fighter patrolling the NATO no-fly zone over Bosnia has suggested to knowledgeable observers that the pilot must not have used all the weaponry at his disposal. Restrictive rules of engagement may well have prevented him from using, in particular, high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs) against the surface-to-air missile site that attacked him.

Restrictive rules of engagement have reflected U.N. fears that attacking Bosnian Serb installations of any kind would provoke hostage-taking or even more aggressive action against U.N. forces on the ground. Short of any evacuation, the restrictions are already being revised for a new British-French rapid reaction force. At the time of an outright evacuation, maintaining the restrictions would serve no purpose whatever.

Other, related questions also deserve urgent attention. The eventual NATO evacuation force may be as large as 60,000, with as many as 25,000 Americans taking part. Will this force report to Gen. Rupert Smith, the British UNPROFOR commander? How will it relate to the rapid reaction force, which also reports to him? The Clinton Administration should insist on operational clarity in advance.

The most important clarification, of course, is not military but political: a political judgment about who counts as friend and who as foe. In the hope of bringing the several-sided Balkans war to a negotiated end, the Western powers have maintained as nearly as possible a neutral relationship to all the warring parties.

Lives may be saved, however, both at and beyond this transitional moment if the Western allies can bring themselves to acknowledge the obvious. The Bosnian Serbs, having declared that the United Nations is their enemy, must be treated as the enemy they claim to be.

And as for Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who is shamelessly manipulating the still unresolved U.N. hostage crisis to his own advantage, he should be treated as the enemy’s supplier rather than as a statesman and an ally in the making.

Increasing the flow of oil to Milosevic by lifting the economic sanctions on his country only means increasing the flow to the forces from which the U.N. peacekeepers may soon have to flee. Further talks with this presumptive war criminal should be suspended against the day when, without conditions, he recognizes the legitimacy and, subject to negotiation, even the borders of the other republics of the former Yugoslavia.