On December 5 1992, the FAS Council instructed the staff to see what it could do with regard to the issue of war and peace in Yugoslavia. A month later, the FAS President, after a preliminary study of the issue, published an article, co-authored with William Colby (in The Washington Post and International Herald Tribune), calling for western intervention in lifting the siege of Sarajevo.

In March, FAS decided to see what could be done to prevent the war from moving south to Kosovo and to Macedonia-thus to get "ahead of the game." There were few experts indeed on these two parts of the former Yugoslavia. Trouble in these two areas risked regional war and, even, fundamental changes in relations between the U.S. and Russia.

This issue, accordingly, contains Jeremy J. Stone's trip report on his exploratory visit to Macedonia, Kosovo and Belgrade.

Kosovo is the superficially calm, but high-pressure, eye of the hurricane of ethnic violence that is ravaging the former Yugoslavia. It is the "Judea and Samaria" of Serbia-the very place where Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, in a famous speech, unleashed that Serbian nationalism whose cruel effect is the aggression in Bosnia and Croatia.

In this (formerly autonomous) province of Serbia, Kosovo's 200,000 Serbs are repressing 2,000,000 separatist ethnic Albanians in a determined effort to retain a region of historical significance to Serbs. The two populations no longer converse and the Albanians, purged from governmental positions, are waging a struggle of passive resistance to win a right of self-determination.

A peaceful solution to this problem, if it could be achieved, would be a valuable step toward regional peace-preempting an otherwise inevitable crisis in Kosovo. Because ethnic Albanians in Macedonia and Albania would come to the aid of their Kosovar brothers, this risks a Balkan war and the breakup of the new and fragile state of Macedonia.

There appear to be four options for a peaceful solution which should be explored separately or in some combination:

1). Partition: Various maps circulate from different sides with different percentages of land allotted to the two sides and with the battlefields and monasteries mostly assigned to the Serb side.

2). Rent-an FAS approach: If, in the aftermath of sanctions, and of the war in Bosnia, the political context in Belgrade changed, one can imagine extreme kinds of autonomy in Kosovo-in self-administration and self-organization-that might satisfy the Albanians while the Serbs might be satisfied by some kind of long-term lease with "rent" (In the ancient past, it was "tribute"). Such a technique could: confirm Serb land-ownership; pacify Serb psychological desires to prevail and dominate; offset Serb claims to have invested much in Kosovo; and provide monies for the relocation of Serbs wishing to leave-and all while pushing the ultimate problem off to a longer-term future.

3). U.N. Protectorate: On the grounds that Serbia could no longer responsibly rule Kosovo, or perhaps with its consent, the U.N. could establish a transitional protectorate designed to protect the minimal interests of both sides, including on the Serb side, the protection of Serbs and Serb monuments, pending a final determination of Kosovo's future. (Interestingly, an April report of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights details ways and means of putting Kosovo under the U.N. trusteeship system.)

4). Redrawing Yugoslavian Borders: Kosovo's borders might be resolved in the context of border changes in Bosnia and/or Croatia.

It would be wrong to permit real or effective changes in Bosnian sovereign borders by giving the right of self-determination to Bosnians, Serbs and/or Croats without permitting self-determination to the Kosovo Albanians at the same time.

Indeed, a Serbia extended into Bosnia is something which some Serbian nationalists might want even more than Kosovo and which, in a kind of political jujitsu, utilizing nationalism against itself, might be parlayed into a solution of the Kosovo crisis.

Such a possibility would pit the highly motivated Bosnian Serb leaders, who want to be formally joined with Serbia, against those weakly motivated Kosovar Serb leaders who live in disadvantaged Kosovo only in return for special privileges.

Some believe that the international community signaled Serbian President Milosevic that it would not "roll back" Serbia in the Kosovo area if Serbia would accept the formal independence of the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now perhaps is the time to send the reverse signal: that no changes in borders in Bosnia will be permitted unless, at the least, self-determination is given to the Albanians.

Put another way, the Serbs are committed to a double standard that the West should not accept. They want self-determination for Serbs outside their borders but not for peoples, like the Albanians, inside their borders. They ought not be permitted to have it both ways. Kosovo's rights to self-determination are enhanced by the fact that the state of Yugoslavia, to which it once belonged, no longer exists and the new unrecognized entity in which it finds itself, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia-composed of just two of Yugoslavia's six former Republics, Serbia and Montenegro-represses it.

Furthermore, at the London Conference on Yugoslavia, on August 26-27, 1992, the international community said that "Serbia and Montenegro face a clear choice" of sanctions or a number of conditions that included restoring "in full the civil and constitutional rights" of Kosovo under all relevant international treaties and agreements, such as the Helsinki Accord. In the face of the "irreconcilable differences" now evident in Kosovo, this will be impossible. Indeed independence for Kosovo could become the final condition for lifting economic sanctions on Serbia.

Some Proposals for Macedonia

In the meantime, to prevent instability in Macedonia, three efforts are required. Macedonia has to be recognized soon, with states moving beyond U.N. recognition (under a provisional name) to setting up embassies. The longer they wait, the weaker and more vulnerable Macedonia will become. In particular, the United States ought not capitulate to the Greek lobby by waiting until Greece recognizes Macedonia to do so itself.

Second, the U.N. "war spill-over" team of 700 UNPROFOR soldiers should be expanded to 5,000, partly to make a statement and partly to help monitor the borders. And, last, economic assistance has to be started from international lending agencies and governments. Stabilizing Macedonia is extremely important and, because its population and economy are small, this should be feasible without undue expense.

-Jeremy J. Stone

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