Proper Pressure on Milosevic

In the shadow of still smoldering Bosnia-Herzegovina, a new Balkan hot spot has flared and forced Washington, its European allies and a reluctant Russia to try to restrain the source of the trouble, Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic. In Bosnia the issue was ethnic power, with the Bosnian Serbs prodded to war by Milosevic. This time in Kosovo, a Yugoslavian province, the ethnically Albanian minority is demanding autonomy amid a sea of Serbs. What began with the breakup of Communist Yugoslavia in 1991 may yet prove that the Balkan countries cannot escape their frightful past.

The European powers and the United States are rightly taking steps to prevent that from happening. They agreed Monday to impose an immediate ban on sales of the weapons--armored vehicles, riot gear--that Milosevic’s police have used to put down the Kosovo protests. Any attempts by his Serbian-led regime in Belgrade to continue the oppression should be met with further restrictions, at the minimum a ban on export credits and visas for key officials. That could at least hurt and shame Yugoslavian officialdom. None of the Western nations raised the possibility of sending troops into this latest Balkan flare-up.

The American message to Milosevic was carried by U.S. envoy Robert Gelbard, who went to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, on Tuesday and urged the government to find political solutions that would end “a dramatically worrisome cycle of violence and more violence.” Serbian authorities reportedly rushed to bury the bodies, but not before Albanians saw the bloody proof that the Balkans have far to go to reach the point where they belong to a modern Europe.