Yugoslavia May Seek Help of Moderate Foe

The Yugoslav government, desperately seeking a way to get NATO to stop its bombing, appears to believe that a political deal with moderate ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova may be the key to avoiding a far larger war in Kosovo.

The immediate goal of President Slobodan Milosevic is a bombing pause, perhaps granted in return for concessions by Belgrade that could include the release of three U.S. soldiers captured last week on the Macedonia-Kosovo border.

Other elements in Milosevic’s game plan include ongoing mediation efforts by Russia, the announcement this week of a unilateral cease-fire against Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas in Kosovo and the welcoming to Belgrade last week of papal envoy Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran.

The efforts to strike a political deal with Rugova are central to Belgrade’s strategy for ending the war, Milan Bozic, minister without portfolio in the Yugoslav government, said Thursday in a telephone interview from Belgrade. Bozic downplayed the importance of any possible release of the captured soldiers, and the United States has rejected any deal to gain their freedom.

The Clinton administration says it won’t end the bombing unless Milosevic agrees unconditionally to all of NATO’s demands: end military action against the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo; withdraw all army, special police and paramilitary units from the Serbian province; and allow refugees to return to their homes under the protection of a NATO-led international peacekeeping force.

“I think President Milosevic would be making a mistake to believe that anything that doesn’t meet the demands laid out by the NATO alliance would bring an end to these hostilities,” White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said.

Primary Goal Seen as Met

Belgrade is searching, however, for some kind of solution that falls far short of meeting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s demands.

Milosevic’s maneuvers may also have other aims: trying to shore up his domestic support by placing blame for continued fighting on NATO, to improve his international image, and perhaps to split NATO by making an offer that some member nations wish to accept but others insist on rejecting.

U.S. officials and non-government experts in Washington generally agree that Milosevic has changed tactics because his “ethnic cleansing” campaign has already achieved its primary objective; he hopes to split NATO unity and disrupt the alliance’s determination to continue the bombing, and the relentless attacks have begun to hurt.

“He has achieved probably more than he ever thought he could,” said Lawrence J. Korb, a former senior Pentagon official. “He is moving to a different phase. He has obviously changed the situation on the ground enough so that he would go into talks with a strengthened position.

“I would not bite,” Korb, now a vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, added. “If we go to the table now, we are in a difficult position. We should continue to bomb for a while longer. Then we would get a much better deal.”

Yugoslav officials insist they have long been trying to reach a deal.

“For 10 days now, we are working together with diplomats in Belgrade and abroad on how to get out of this vicious circle,” Predrag Simic, a political advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Vuk Draskovic--a relative moderate in the Yugoslav leadership--said in a telephone interview Thursday from Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital.

NATO’s rejection of the Yugoslav diplomatic feelers means that “at this moment we have a problem how to launch any kind of feasible political initiative,” Simic added. “We are caught in a vicious circle, and things are spinning out of control.”

Rugova’s freedom of action and personal safety are in serious question, because he is in the hands of Serbian forces. He is believed to be a virtual hostage, guarded by Serbian police along with his wife and two children.

But Rugova is known as a pacifist and a moderate, and in recent days he has made some comments in the presence of foreign diplomats and reporters indicating willingness to search for a political solution. There are also sharp and long-standing tensions between Rugova and the guerrilla leadership.

Jakup Krasniqi, the KLA’s political director, has said that Rugova appears to be acting out of fear and pressure from the Serbs. Krasniqi said recently that if Rugova is willingly cooperating with Milosevic in seeking a political settlement, “he has committed an act of treason against his nation.”

Bozic, however, insisted that Rugova remains an important player, especially because he is the elected leader of Kosovo Albanians, although in unofficial balloting that never was recognized by Belgrade.

“Mr. Rugova is illegal, because he created illegal elections, but he is legitimate because he has majority support of Albanians in Kosovo,” Bozic said. “From my point of view, he’s quite capable of negotiating and being a guarantor of a solution.”

If Belgrade could produce an agreement with Rugova--however suspect such an agreement would surely be--and offer to allow some kind of international monitoring of its enforcement, even if that falls short of NATO troop deployment, that could present a serious challenge to unity in the NATO alliance.

“We do believe that the negotiations with Rugova are of the highest importance, and we think analysts in the West know that very well,” Bozic said. “The problem is that the State Department, which is running the Pentagon, is afraid of such a solution.”

A Little Room for Give-and-Take

Administration officials said privately that there may be a little more room for maneuver than Lockhart’s public response indicates--but not much. These officials said that if Milosevic makes a counterproposal that would guarantee the peaceful and safe return of refugees and would provide broad self-rule for the province’s Albanian majority, some minor details might be negotiable. But they said Milosevic has not yet come close to offering such a deal.

The administration specifically rejected any sort of deal for the release of the three GIs.

“We would obviously welcome the release of the servicemen, but let me be clear: We will accept nothing less than the unconditional release of these servicemen,” State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Thursday. “We will not negotiate for their release.

“We don’t intend to allow Milosevic--in this case or any other--to use his tactic, as cynical as it would be and as familiar as it would be to us, of seeking concessions for resolving a crisis or a problem that he himself created.”

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen told reporters at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany that the only NATO concession to Acting Cypriot President Spyros Kyprianou’s effort as intermediary in the soldiers’ case would be to hold fire to ensure safe passage for his plane.

“We don’t intend to stop our operations in order to benefit Mr. Milosevic,” Cohen said. “I’m not going to allow him to manipulate us. . . . [The prisoners] should be released unconditionally.”

Simic expressed disappointment that NATO did not carry out a 48-hour pause in bombing after the first phase of the campaign, noting that at one point there had been talk within NATO of such a break to attempt a diplomatic initiative.

In recent diplomatic efforts by Belgrade, including the visit by papal envoy Tauran, “the idea was to have Easter as the moment that both sides can step back without losing face,” Simic said, referring to Sunday’s Orthodox observation.

For its part, the Clinton administration invited Russia, Cyprus or any other country with influence in Belgrade to urge Milosevic to accept the West’s demands. But officials made clear to any potential mediators that the United States and its allies were unwilling to offer much in return.

“Clearly, there are countries that are in touch with President Milosevic’s regime, and that’s fine with us,” Rubin said. “Some of our diplomacy . . . is to make sure that any potential interlocutor with the Serbs understands, so there’s no misunderstanding of what’s required.”

U.S. Made ‘Complete Miscalculation’

But Rubin said most of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s diplomatic efforts are aimed at maintaining support for the bombing, rather than trying to negotiate with Serbia conditions that would end the attacks.

“Diplomacy at this stage has been to back up the use of force,” Rubin said. “I would say that Secretary Albright’s biggest task each day is to ensure that the NATO allies remain as united as they’ve been remaining.”

Albright plans to meet Monday in Brussels with other NATO foreign ministers to discuss strategy.

Simic placed blame for the current situation squarely on the U.S.--and especially on Albright.

“More and more people, including myself, call this war Albright’s war,” Simic said. “It was a complete miscalculation of U.S. policy that led us to this point. It was a miscalculation to think that pressure might lead to some substantial change in the position of Belgrade on Kosovo, or that a few days of bombing would lead Belgrade to capitulate. . . . If there is another miscalculation, I am afraid we could be entering a very long war.”

*

Holley reported from Podgorica and Kempster from Washington.