Kosovo War Refugees Offered Escort Home

President Slobodan Milosevic offered Friday to allow diplomatic observer patrols to escort home tens of thousands of people uprooted by his military assault on armed Albanian separatists in Kosovo province.

The escort patrols could ease some of the suffering caused by the 5-month-old conflict in the southern province while Western officials try to coax the separatists into resuming peace talks. The aim is to protect ethnic Albanians returning to battered towns and villages from harassment by the same government soldiers who drove them out.

Special U.S. envoy Christopher Hill elicited Milosevic’s offer during a two-hour meeting in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, after condemning the Balkan strongman’s latest and biggest offensive against the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army.

The rebels, backed by most of the ethnic Albanians who make up 90% of Kosovo’s 2 million people, are demanding the province’s freedom from Serbia, the dominant republic of Yugoslavia. Western governments fear a spread of the conflict into Albania and other nearby Balkan countries.

Milosevic’s army and paramilitary police achieved their stated objective this week of clearing pivotal highways blocked by the rebels. But their six-day offensive also inflicted uncounted casualties and destruction on many settlements far from any major road and sent as many as 50,000 people fleeing into the woods or to distant shelters.

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Briefing reporters in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, Hill said he told Milosevic: “We cannot afford this new cycle of violence. . . . It’s intolerable to see this additional flow of refugees.”

Hill said Milosevic replied that the offensive was over. In a statement, Milosevic’s office called for a resumption “without delay” of peace talks abandoned by the rebels in May and a lifting of U.S. and European sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia weeks ago as punishment for its harsh crackdown.

But Milosevic’s troops remained in the field Friday, and a diplomatic observer patrol reported sporadic artillery shelling and mortar fire at the rebel-held village of Junik, near the Albanian border.

On a six-hour tour past more than 100 settlements in the path of the government offensive, the patrol also observed “a good deal of damage,” including smoldering ruins of homes and farm equipment, one member said.

“Despite what Milosevic said, there’s intermittent action,” he added. “They’re obviously keeping the pressure up. . . . But I don’t think any widespread offensive is still going on, based on what we saw.”

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The observer patrols are newly assembled teams totaling about 40 diplomats and military specialists from the United States, Europe and Russia. They are supposed to monitor the conflict and, by their presence, deter attacks on civilians.

Milosevic accepted the patrols last month and then reneged on a pledge of free access to all of Kosovo. Diplomats said they were repeatedly turned back at government checkpoints when they tried to observe the offensive.

Hill said he protested the obstruction Friday and won a new pledge from Milosevic to cooperate with the patrols--and to allow them the additional role of escorting displaced people back home.

That role needs to be thought out before it is accepted, Western officials said. The patrols might escort a homecoming convoy to each village, they said, but could not stay on to monitor everyone’s safety.

“We don’t want people living out in the woods, especially when the weather turns bad,” one diplomat said. “On the other hand, we don’t want people coming back into an area where they’re going to be shot at, either.”