FOCUS: - Milosevic Is Destroying Kosova Piecemeal, 'Western Policy Working'
The West should know the Serb dictator does not have to take 'more aggressive action' to actually turn Kosova into a wasteland

PRISHTINA, Sept 14 (KIC) - "More aggressive action by the Serbs would trigger" the use of force in Kosova, Mr. Keneth Bacon, the spokesman of the Department of Defense said during a briefing in Washington on 10 September, after having reiterated the now familiar - the use of force to end the fighting has not 'been ruled out'.
"We are dealing with a problem where people are being displaced from their homes [in Kosova], and their houses are sometimes being destroyed", Mr. Bacon told reporters in Washington.
Senior U.S. officials who have toured Kosova in the past couple of weeks - including Julia Taft, John Shatuck and Bob Dole - have said they were appalled by the scale of destruction in Kosova and the atrocities being committed here. They did not speak of homes being 'sometimes destroyed', nor did they resort to the kind of language intent on playing down the scale of destruction caused by Serb military and the sense of urgency of the situation.
Asked by reporters to be specific about what would trigger a NATO use of force in Kosova, Bacon said, "Well, certainly more aggressive action by the Serbs would trigger it. If we reach a conclusion that the Serbs are not at all serious about a diplomatic settlement, that could trigger it...This is going to be a NATO issue. It's NATO that has come up with the military options, and NATO will have to make a decision about what triggers the use of force."
The problem is Milosevic, the man who masterminded the wars of attrition in Bosnia and Croatia, is now destroying Kosova piecemeal while the West, NATO and U.S, are hibernating.
More than 1,200 Kosovar Albanians have been killed this year, more than 40,000 houses destroyed, more than 400,000 people turned to refugees. Half of Kosova has been affected directly by the Serb military and paramilitary offensive in the past seven months.
Yet, the West sees some success in this. It is basking in self- adulation. The Kosova crisis has been contained and Western policy is working, a Western diplomatic observer in Kosova said on Sunday, Reuter news agency reported.
"The goal has been to erect a fire-break around Kosovo, to prevent the conflict here from destabilising (neighboring) Albania and Macedonia and igniting a wider war", said the diplomatic observer on condition of anonymity.
"Measured against that standard, the policy is working. One could object that it is a cold and calculating policy dressed up in rhetorical concern for human rights and vague threats against Belgrade to make it more palatable."
"But at the end of the day, we have managed to avoid air strikes and any deployment of troops. The dollar cost of our effort can be measured in tens of millions, not in billions as happened in Bosnia. And there is no great public outcry.", Reuters quoted the Western diplomatic observer as saying.
What the unnamed observer and indeed the Kosova diplomatic observer mission as a whole - which was born out of a meeting of Russian and Serb leaders in mid-June in Moscow - may perhaps pride themselves on is the fact that their official information despatched to and processed by their capitals has been fashioned to convey the idea of the 'not-so-much destruction' in Kosova.
The cost of billions of dollars in damages caused by the Serb armor to Kosovar towns and villages is not part of this cold, reasoned, and cynical calculation. Nor is there any 'great public outcry' over the reality that half of Kosova has been turned into a wasteland.
There have been quarters which have cried foul over the Western policies, though.
Senator Bob Dole said Sunday, 6 September, in Prishtina: "American and European leaders have pledged not to allow the crimes against humanity which we witnessed in Bosnia to occur in Kosovo. But, from what I have seen this weekend, such crimes are already happening."
EU Commissioner Emma Bonino warned the ELDR (European Liberal and Reform Group) at its strategy conference in Venice last week that the 15 member states should not agree to the Yugoslav leader's plan to run food centers for Kosovar refugees. "That is like asking Dracula to run a blood bank. There must never be a European flag over such a concentration camp", she said referring to a Serb regime plan to open 11 centers where Kosova Albanian refugees would be supplied with food and building material. (Senior U.S. officials initially said they would support such a plan, to only retract it after criticism by the New York Times.)
Mrs Bonino, who visited Kosova recently, and was the keynote speaker in the Liberal's debate on EU foreign policy, said: "We are witnessing the kind of ethnic subjugation and violation of human rights which the founding fathers of the European Union wanted to eradicate from the continent when the process of European integration began. Milosevic is the only European leader with any clear project in mind for Kosova - like it or not. He simply terrorizes the Kosovars when he feels it appropriate".
Now that the West has spared billions of dollars at the expense of hundreds of killed, thousands of wounded, billions of dollars worth of Kosovar housing units destroyed by Milosevic, an interim settlement for Kosova has been floated as the success-to-be.
The irony is this success-to-be is being claimed by three parties. Milosevic himself, the EU (Brussels), and Ambassador Hill (USA) want each to be credited for this. The Serb propaganda said the 'FRY' and Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) leader has come up with the idea; there has been a lot of talk of the U.S. (Mr. Hill) having secured a way out by having made the parties (Milosevic and Rugova) agree to the plan; and, last but not least, Belgian Foreign Minister Dereycke said last week in Prishtina that what Ambassador Hill had put forth was something the European Union had come up with a long time ago.
Belgrade, Washington and Brussels have something to pride themselves on, to emulate one another on. As Reuters correspondent duly noted, survival, not independence, will become the all- consuming struggle for many Kosovar Albanians through the coming winter.
It is only Prishtina, the capital of the 2-million nation of Kosova, that has nothing to pride itself on. Half of Kosova destroyed, almost a quarter of the population turned into refugees, etc. etc...