‘The War Has Ended,’ Yugoslav General Says

Yugoslav and Western generals signed a military agreement Wednesday to end NATO’s 78-day air war against Yugoslavia, provided that the Balkan nation’s armed forces begin a “demonstrable” withdrawal from Kosovo by this afternoon and complete the pullout in 11 days.

The agreement calls for an immediate cease-fire in Kosovo and provides for a pause in NATO’s bombing campaign beginning perhaps as early as today if the Yugoslav forces start removing troops and equipment.

“The war has ended,” Yugoslav Gen. Svetozar Marjanovic, one of the negotiators, declared to reporters in this Macedonian border town after the pact was signed.

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said he would order a halt to the airstrikes, which began March 24, upon word from U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, that the pullout of Yugoslav forces had begun.

A NATO official, who asked not to be named, said Clark would “wait for the gray light of dawn” today, then send reconnaissance aircraft over Kosovo to see if Yugoslav troops and police had begun to leave. An announcement that Solana had ordered an end to the bombing could follow shortly after.

Wednesday’s military agreement fleshes out a basic deal that was struck a week ago by Western leaders and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

The discussions that began Saturday and led to the military agreement nearly broke down several times over a number of tricky issues, including whether Yugoslavia would begin withdrawing its troops before NATO declared a pause in the bombing.

NATO declared no pause Wednesday, and NATO’s commander of the Kosovo operation, Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson, said the alliance would continue airstrikes until it saw proof of a “verifiable and orderly” retreat by Yugoslav troops and police forces from Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia’s larger republic, Serbia.

There were no reports of NATO bombings after the agreement was signed, however. But shortly before the signing, Yugoslavia’s official Tanjug news service said, five missiles hit the Kosovo village of Bljac.

NATO claimed that it was keeping up the raids as a “sword of Damocles” hanging over the Yugoslav government, but some Western officials signaled that the air campaign had, in fact, been cut back significantly during the final stretch of the military negotiations.

German Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping spoke of a “de facto suspension of attacks since 9 a.m. [Wednesday].”

At the same time, NATO officials in Brussels reported signs of troop movements that could signify--and they stressed the word “could”--a Yugoslav withdrawal was already in its earliest stages.

Nebojsa Vujovic, who represented the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry at the marathon military technical talks here, told reporters after the signing that withdrawal would start “in a matter of hours.”

The U.N. Security Council, playing its role in the delicate choreography of peace, met Wednesday to discuss a resolution authorizing both a peacekeeping force that would protect returning refugees and a civilian administration that would govern Kosovo. The session ended without a vote, but the council was expected to reconvene early today.

News of the agreement touched off wild celebrations both in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, and in Pristina, the provincial capital of Kosovo.

President Clinton, remaining cautious Wednesday until Yugoslav forces have clearly begun their withdrawal from Kosovo, called the agreement “another important step” but warned that NATO would “watch carefully” to make sure Milosevic complied with it.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insisted that a verifiable pullout of Yugoslav troops be the first measure toward peace.

“It is up to the Serbs to agree to the military technical agreement and take the first step,” Albright told CNN in Cologne, Germany. “We have our position clearly stated, and they know what they have to do to get this door unlocked.”

The military agreement provides that, once NATO has verified the beginnings of a Yugoslav withdrawal, the alliance will call a bombing pause and simultaneously seek a U.N. Security Council resolution to authorize a peacekeeping force to enter the province.

This planned 48,000-strong peacekeeping force, to be constituted primarily of NATO troops and led by NATO commanders, is to enter Kosovo on the heels of the departing Yugoslav forces, to prevent an anarchic and dangerous power vacuum, officials said.

With the deal signed, NATO began moving the first peacekeeping troops toward Kosovo.

About 1,900 Marines from the 26th Expeditionary Unit, who have been stationed on ships in the Aegean Sea, received orders to go ashore in Salonika, Greece, at dawn today, en route to Macedonia and then Kosovo. The Marines are to be the first U.S. troops deployed into the province.

About 1,700 U.S. Army soldiers, another part of the initial force, were ordered to begin moving from their base in northern Albania toward the Macedonian border.

Other Army personnel in Germany, who will be part of the larger peacekeeping force that will later police the province, also received orders to begin moving south today.

For purposes of the withdrawal, which is a complex logistical task, the plan divides Kosovo into northern, central and southern zones. Yugoslav forces are to make a “demonstrable”--if not complete--withdrawal from the northern zone within the first day, freeing up territory that troops now in the central and southern zones can move into on their way out of the province.

Five days later, all forces are to be out of the southern zone. After another three days all forces are to be out of the central zone and, by the 11th day, all the forces are to be out of the province completely.

Clark, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s supreme commander, will use surveillance photos and intelligence from other sources to judge the progress of any troop withdrawal. U.S. officials said NATO would give the Yugoslavs a certain amount of wiggle room, provided they are clearly trying to meet the deadlines.

“We will just have to see how many people are moving, and how quickly, and out of what areas,” Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said.

A vote late Wednesday by NATO ambassadors to endorse the deal allows the alliance’s military arm to resume the bombing without further permission in the event that Yugoslav forces fail to follow through on the military agreement. Officials said this was designed to prevent Milosevic from trying to divide the 19 allies over the potentially difficult issue of resuming the airstrikes.

NATO designated roads in the northern end of the province that the Yugoslav forces can use to depart without risking attack by allied aircraft. Once all troops are gone, NATO will declare the air campaign to be officially over.

One urgent question is whether the cease-fire will be observed by the Yugoslav forces and the ethnic Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The two sides have continued to battle fiercely in the southwestern corner of the province. But alliance officials insisted that the KLA is on board with the deal and will not seek to attack its enemies as the Yugoslav forces withdraw from the province.

Undersecretary of Defense Walter Slocombe said there had been “extensive contact” with KLA leaders. “I think they’ve stated publicly, and they’ve certainly stated privately, that they will not attack retreating forces of the Serbs and of Belgrade.”

Serbian television reported the agreement as one between Yugoslavia and “representatives of the United Nations,” underlining the government’s face-saving claim to its people that it was not surrendering to the NATO countries that had conducted the bombing campaign.

“Aggression against Yugoslavia has ended,” the broadcast said. “The policy of Yugoslavia and President Slobodan Milosevic has won.”

The accord ended five days of maneuvering in which Milosevic tried to use ambiguities in the peace plan he accepted last week to gain time and new concessions on the timing of the withdrawal and the halt of bombing.

For the Yugoslav government, the consequences of the delay seemed to have been terrible. During the week since the general agreement was reached, NATO claimed to have attacked and destroyed 29 tanks, 93 armored personnel carriers, 209 field artillery pieces, 11 antiaircraft gun positions, 86 mortars and many support vehicles and prepared positions.

“These are the sort of losses that no army can suffer for long and remain operational,” NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said in Brussels.

At the United Nations, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who headed the civilian authority in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1995 to 1997, predicted “the most challenging, the most complicated peace implementation operation ever undertaken, certainly by the U.N. system, and most probably by the international community in modern times.”

“I know from bitter experience in Bosnia that the word ‘peace’ should be used with caution,” he warned. “. . . Peace inside this region comes when there is peace inside the people as well. . . . We are not there yet.”

The deal between NATO and Yugoslavia says the pullout is to include “regular army and naval forces, armed civilian groups, associated paramilitary groups, air forces, national guards, border police, army reserves, military police, intelligence services, federal and Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs local, special, riot and anti-terrorist police, and any other groups or individuals so designated by the international security force [KFOR] commander.” KFOR is short for Kosovo Force, as the peacekeepers have been designated.

The agreement prohibits all flights by Yugoslav military aircraft and helicopters in Kosovo without specific NATO permission, beginning today.

By Saturday, all antiaircraft radars, antiaircraft missiles and artillery must be withdrawn to locations elsewhere in Serbia at least 15 miles from the Kosovo border. The agreement prohibits ground forces from being within a five-mile buffer zone of the Kosovo border.

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Reitman reported from Kumanovo, Richter from Washington and Dahlburg from Brussels. Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Belgrade, Paul Watson in Pristina and John J. Goldman at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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* A BUFFER IN KOSOVO

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel says peacekeepers must remain for many years. A6

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Terms

Immediate cease-fire by Yugoslav forces

Suspension of NATO airstrikes after signs of wit hdrawal from Kosovo

Clearing or marking of all minefields and booby traps by Yugoslav forces

Phased pullout of Yugoslav forces

WITHDRAWAL TIMETABLE

6 days: Zone 1

9 days: Zone 2

11 days: Zone 3