Rescuing Kosovo

NATO must exercise caution in intervention

The words of one ethnic Albanian refugee to the Associated Press indicate the magnitude of the atrocities committed in Kosovo: "Dante's allegory of hell is nothing compared to this." Americans have witnessed three weeks of NATO bombings, three weeks of diplomatic stalemates and three weeks of a defiant Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. It is quickly becoming evident that NATO leaders face tough choices in the future. But as an alliance of some of the most powerful and advanced countries in the world, NATO must continue to act upon its moral imperative to force a swift resolution to the tragedy in Kosovo.

The daily reports of atrocities committed by the Serbs ought to make the case for intervention self-evident. British sources say 100,000 young and middle-aged men are conspicuously absent from the stream of refugees fleeing Kosovo, and unconfirmed reports of looting and systematic, brutal rapes and killings committed at the hands of Serbian soldiers are flowing out of the region. Aerial photographs of what look to be mass graves give credence to the charges of ethnic purging. One such report charged the Yugoslavian army with raping young ethnic Albanian women at a training camp in the southwesterly corner of the region and murdering 20 of them.

The effectiveness of the current airstrikes is debatable; NATO strategists must be able to evaluate their tactics and amend them to bring the situation to the quickest end. In any military operation some civilian casualties are unavoidable, but it is imperative that those planning missions and defining objectives take every possible precaution to alleviate the deaths of innocents. The primary objective in the campaign must be to prevent loss of human life and cannot become muddled by unrelated factors. NATO must remain resolute but flexible in diplomatic efforts to hammer out a solution to the crisis.

NATO's polices must account for the international repercussions of carrying out its mission. Primarily, decision-makers cannot afford to downplay the role of Russia in the conflict. With a sagging economy and a churning political climate, with growing fascist and nationalist movements, Russia is a wild card that has to be regarded with sensitivity. Ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky told Russia's representative body, the Duma, "The Third World War started on March 24," the date of the first NATO airstrikes.

The tumultuous history of the Balkans, whose conflicts tend to expand far beyond the region itself- as happened after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 - is impossible to ignore. NATO commanders cannot only consider strategic and military factors, but need to be keenly aware of the attitudes of other nations in the region.

The dire situation in Kosovo demands a firm international response. When an aggressive, implacable government perpetuates a humanitarian disaster of this scale, and diplomacy is exhausted, military action is the only solution to ending such human rights abuses.

04-15-99