Powell’s Mission Aims to Avert New Crises

At a critical juncture for the Balkans, the Bush administration jumped into action this week in an attempt to prevent renewed nationalist passions from deteriorating into crises on three fronts: Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo.

Local leaders were enthusiastic in heralding Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s three-day European swing as a potential turning point. “Today will be marked in history,” Murtezan Ismaili, mayor of Tetovo, the volatile ethnic Albanian stronghold in Macedonia, said after meeting Friday with America’s top diplomat.

Indeed, the Bush administration’s first significant foreign policy impact may well turn out to be an increased political role in the Balkans, growing out of a trip largely unnoticed because of a preoccupation at home with a U.S.-Chinese diplomatic standoff.

The U.S. intervention was striking--and unexpected--in light of President Bush’s campaign emphasis on withdrawing American peacekeepers from the Balkans. Instead, Powell’s decision to make his second foreign trip as secretary of State a visit to Europe’s most troubled corner reflects a deeper U.S. engagement.

“It was important for me to go to the region to show that the Bush administration was interested in the region and committed to the region’s development,” Powell told reporters after visiting Bosnia-Herzegovina, his last stop on the tour. It was the first time that Powell, formerly both national security advisor and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had visited the area.

Powell used blunt language and wielded U.S. clout to urge accommodation among rival ethnic groups and to nudge troubled local peace efforts back on track in the three volatile areas of the former Yugoslav federation.

In Bosnia, Powell on Friday warned Croat extremists against a return to “the law of the jungle” in the multiethnic state. After talks with several parties, he pledged that the United States will “work with our international partners to counter the forces of conflict, separation and hatred.”

The Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ, is threatening to unravel a delicate U.S.-brokered accord that in 1995 ended a 3 1/2-year civil war. That accord created the Muslim-Croat Federation, which rules 51% of Bosnia, and the Republika Srpska, in which Serbs control the remaining 49%.

The HDZ, Bosnia’s largest Croat party, announced last month that it was ending its alliance with Muslims and declaring self-rule among all Croats. During the past few weeks, party loyalists have engaged in a series of assaults that included taking U.N. peacekeepers hostage.

The HDZ had written Powell an open letter appealing for his intervention with the international community, U.S. officials said. The party is not included in the Muslim-Croat Federation’s coalition government formed early this year.

Instead, Powell endorsed the government and forced the focus back on the next steps toward stabilizing the country. He also urged government leaders to “make more progress to become a member of Europe,” calling for the state to enact legal reforms, introduce a new election law and create a unified military instead of the existing ethnic-based forces.

“The only way forward here is the rule of law,” Powell said.

In Macedonia, site of the Balkans’ latest separatist violence as minority ethnic Albanians launched attacks in February against the predominantly Slavic government, Powell undermined the rebels’ demand for greater autonomy and instead called for political reform as a way to defuse the volatile climate.

The U.S. this year is providing more than $50 million, including $5.5 million pledged since the Bush administration took office, to help stabilize the government and address minority issues.

Powell encouraged the Macedonian government to transfer power from the central level to local municipalities to help create a sense of autonomy among ethnic communities. Until now, less than 1% of government spending has gone to local mayors.

Bush’s foreign policy team has taken the lead early in Macedonia--in stark contrast to the previous two administrations, which intervened in crises sparked by the demise of the Yugoslav federation only after prolonged bloodshed and Europe’s hesitancy to respond.

At the end of his trip, Powell said he had decided to give higher priority to the Balkans because of a personal relationship developed over the past three weeks with Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski during telephone conversations.

“He’s a Methodist minister and suddenly he’s president of the country,” Powell said. “He’s faced with conflict. He’s going to have to order troops into battle. It’s a difficult time for him.

“We had some moving conversations,” he added. “When it looked like Macedonia would fall apart because of that fragility, it seemed I needed to move it higher on my priority list.”

On Kosovo, Powell pushed all sides Friday to quickly move on an “interim framework,” in effect a local constitution. Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic, has been under United Nations administration since 1999, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization drove out Yugoslav forces.

Powell arrived at the talks with an agreement he won in Paris on Wednesday from the six-nation Contact Group that supervises Balkan peace efforts--Russia, France, Italy, Germany, Britain and the U.S.--to hold elections in the province this year. Bringing along Russia, an important ally of Yugoslavia’s Serbian majority, was significant, U.S. officials said.

The election, scheduled for October, will be critical in providing democratically elected officials to negotiate Kosovo’s long-term fate with the government in Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital.

Powell also told the province’s ethnic Albanian leaders that they have to do more to prevent violence in neighboring Macedonia if they are to retain international backing.

“We call on Kosovars to join us in denouncing and isolating extremists whose actions are eroding international support for Kosovo and sympathy for its people,” he told a news conference in Skopje, the Macedonian capital.

Although the Balkans have a long history of ethnic rivalries, U.S. officials were encouraged after Powell’s visit.

“He came at a moment when it was necessary to do it in a big way,” said a senior State Department official traveling with Powell. “And he did it in a big way.”