Do More for Refugees

The tragedy of Kosovo adds up to diminishing numbers. Some 600,000 refugees have crossed the Yugoslav border, primarily into Albania and Macedonia. Nearly that many have been routed from their homes by fear and Yugoslav forces and are huddled in five pockets across the embattled province, a NATO spokesman said Monday. In Washington, President Clinton put forward some other numbers, saying he would ask Congress for more than $6 billion to continue funding the air war, including $591 million for humanitarian aid. Considering the crisis at hand, those numbers could stand some revision.

NATO’s air war to block President Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign to rid Kosovo of its inhabitants is fully justified. Few episodes in recent history have been so cruel, and the Serbian leader’s name will be linked forever with the brutal phrase “ethnic cleansing.” But at this crisis point, a high priority should also be applied to protecting the Kosovo Albanians in their own province and across the Yugoslav borders with Albania and Macedonia.

So more of the $6-billion plus that the White House wants to carry out the NATO campaign should go instead to the refugee effort, and all NATO governments as well as other countries should step up their support. In Macedonia alone, the influx of Kosovo Albanian refugees has laid a a heavy strain on government finances. “We are on the brink of disaster in the economy” due to lost trade, Foreign Minister Aleksander Dimitrov said Monday. His government has been forced to use its resources instead to maintain control on the border.

A NATO policy to increase support for the refugees would not significantly diminish the air war and holds the promise of stabilizing the border situations. Air power has already made Milosevic pay in military and infrastructural losses, particularly in denying Yugoslavia the profits of river trade on the Danube.

Allied air assaults have proved less effective in the rough terrain of Kosovo, where Milosevic’s shock troops have herded Kosovo Albanians into contained areas across the province and intermittently shelled them. Now NATO briefing officers say they have photographic evidence of mass graves. A situation like this demands the use of every fighter available.