[Influential man calls for a new Berlin conference . . .]
Paris, Thursday, April 1, 1999
The Solution:A Pan-European Peace Conference for the Balkans
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By William G. Hyland The Washington Post
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WASHINGTON - The president has put America in a virtually impossible
position. It cannot escalate without grave risks.
If the president and NATO truly want to halt ethnic cleansing, the
alliance will have to put in a large ground force, or at least mount a
credible threat to do so. A conventional ground war in the mountains
of Albania and Kosovo will quickly degenerate into a quagmire.
On the other hand, the United States and NATO cannot retreat without
humiliation that could have dangerous consequences not only in the
Balkans but in Europe and even in Asia.
The only real alternative is to revive international diplomacy.
The Clinton administration's so-called peace plan is dead. It would be
insanity to turn Kosovo back over to lethal Serbian rule, no matter
what the degree of ''autonomy.'' It is also implausible to introduce a
NATO peacekeeping contingent on Serbia's borders after bombing that
country.
The way out is for Washington to recognize that the problem is
preeminently a political one; military pressure will help but cannot
be the solution. Second should be the recognition that the crisis is
no longer a Balkan affair but a pan-European problem that cannot be
solved by NATO alone.
Yugoslavia has become the sick man of Europe. It cannot be put back
together; but the European powers could reconstitute a security system
that might satisfy contending nationalist forces. President Bill
Clinton should take a page from history and do what European leaders
did in the last century: convene a European summit conference, as the
Great Powers did in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin.
Then as now, the purpose would be to redraw the map of the Balkans and
avoid an all-out war. Not just the United States but all of Europe,
including Russia and Ukraine, should devise a peace plan for the
Balkans.
Kosovo is the most urgent issue and obviously will have to be a
central element. There is no geographical or historical reason to
treat Kosovo as sacrosanct; it will have to be partitioned. One part,
probably the largest, should become independent. But for some defined
period it should not be permitted to join Albania.
The other part of Kosovo, along the Serbian border, should remain
under Yugoslav sovereignty, but as a demilitarized security zone. The
capital, Pristina, might become a free city under UN auspices for,
say, a few years. Some military forces would have to be inserted into
independent Kosovo to man the partition line, to protect the Serbian
minorities that still will reside there and to guard sacred Serbian
historical sites.
Guarantees would have to be negotiated to protect all parties,
especially Macedonia and Montenegro. All the Balkan countries would
have to join that guarantee, in particular the Greeks, Turks and
Bulgars.
Montenegro ought to be given a chance to decide its own future,
perhaps by plebiscite. Its independence would mark the final reduction
of Yugoslavia to Serbia. And this brings up the question of the Serbs
in Bosnia.
The Dayton agreement is not working politically. As compensation for
giving up most of Kosovo, Serbia should be permitted to co-opt the
so-called Republika Srpska in a loose confederation, as provided for
in the Dayton principles. Similarly, the Croatian parts of Bosnia
ought to have a chance to rejoin Croatia if that is the will of the
population. This, too, is a principle of Dayton.
All of Europe, including Russia, would have to guarantee any
settlement. The guarantees should be a deterrence against other ethnic
minorities starting a guerrilla war, for example, in Romania or
Hungary.
Sanctions would have to be lifted. Probably an area-wide amnesty for
war crimes would have to be declared, unpalatable as that might be.
Major economic assistance should be offered. U.S. forces could be
withdrawn from the area by a date certain and replaced, but not by UN
forces. The peacekeepers should be drawn from all European countries,
serving under a political command subordinate to a council of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Obviously, such a conference should be preceded by a cease-fire,
including a bombing pause. But that is a dangerous move; a bombing
pause ought to be part of the bargaining, not its starting point.
In 1878, the powers imposed a solution on the so-called Eastern
question. Some of it was negotiated in secret, which would not be a
bad precedent for this crisis, rather than reviving the sterile
spotlight diplomacy of Rambouillet.
The Congress of Berlin's solution was by no means perfect, but it
avoided the threat of major war and provided for several decades of
peace.
The writer, a former editor of Foreign Affairs who served in the Nixon
and Ford administrations, contributed this comment to The Washington
Post.
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