>Has anyone else been following this story? Why has nobody raised the >obvious question as to how this could be the first offer if the Serb >parliament made an almost identical offer (I think) on March 23? > >Bill Financial Times (London) April 23, 1999, Friday LONDON EDITION 4 West cautious on Milosevic Kosovo plan: Russian mediator says Serbs may be willing to accept UN presence President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia was reported last night to be ready to accept an international presence in Kosovo under United Nations auspices. This emerged after he had lengthy talks in Belgrade with Victor Chernomyrdin, former Russian premier. The two men agreed a proposal for an international presence including Russians, according to the Russian Itar-Tass news agency. The US and UK were initially cautious about the proposal, which comes on the eve of today's Nato summit in Washington, to be dominated by the Nato bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. An international force to protect returning ethnic Albanian refugees in Kosovo is one of Nato's conditions for stopping the raids. As allied leaders gathered, Britain emerged as Nato's most hawkish country on the issue of introducing ground troops into the military campaign against Yugoslavia, an option resisted by most other members. Tony Blair, the prime minister, in a speech in Chicago last night issued an impassioned statement of his determination that Nato action should continue until Kosovar Albanians are returned home. Asked for his reaction to the result of Russian mediation, US president Bill Clinton said: "If there is an offer for a genuine security force, that's the first time Mr Milosevic has done that, and that represents, I suppose, some step forward." He added: "But for the security force to work, it will have to have the confidence of the people who live there and will have to operate in a way that protects all the people there, including the Serb minority." Although Mr Clinton did not repeat the formulation, Nato governments were insisting up until yesterday that any protecting force must have Nato in command, though Nato is willing to accept Russian troops as part of such an arrangement. Neither is Nato averse to the UN playing a role. However, Nato governments have also been on the alert for what they would consider any ruse by the Yugoslav leader ahead of the three-day summit meeting in Washington. According to one report, Mr Milosevic's proposal was conditional on Nato stopping the bombing and withdrawing alliance troops from Yugoslavia's borders. A spokesman for Mr Blair said last night that Mr Milosevic's proposal would be studied in detail. "But this suggests Milosevic is cracking," the spokesman said. "It is a signal that Milosevic is getting the message that we are not going away and we are getting closer to him." Mr Blair said in Chicago: "We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand. We must not rest until it is reversed . . . If we let an evil dictator range unchallenged we will have to spill infinitely more blood and treasure to stop him later." In a sign of Britain's willingness to use ground troops, Mr Blair said: "Milosevic will have no veto on the entry of this international force." The prime minister - emerging as a pivotal figure in a manner reminiscent of Lady Thatcher's encouragement of President George Bush following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 - yesterday discussed the crisis by phone with Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president. In a clear attempt to steel members of the Nato alliance for a long military campaign - and a possible offensive by ground troops - Mr Blair said: "Success is the only exit strategy I am prepared to consider." © 1999, LEXIS®-NEXIS®, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
