Observer (London) - May 9, 1999
Leader: Take a step back in the Balkans
The bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade on Friday night with four deaths and many more injured is not just 'a regrettable accident' as Nato said yesterday. It is a diplomatic calamity which exposes the increasingly insecure political direction of Nato's strategy and the divisions between the alliance's members.
Embassies are sovereign territory. Nato has killed innocent Chinese nationals on their own diplomatic soil. It is a dangerous provocation to a non-combatant state - made all the worse as the unintended target was the embassy of Nato's strongest and most powerful critic. The peace moves engineered by Russian and German diplomacy which were leading to a UN Resolution hung on China not using its Security Council veto. Now she will surely insist on a much higher price for compliance: the diminution of Nato's presence in any UN force deployed in Kosovo after the war and, perhaps, even a Nato ceasefire before agreement is reached. The result of Nato intensifying the bombing of Belgrade has been the subversion of diplomacy.
It is now time for some hard, clear thinking about Kosovo. The Observer has supported the bombing, notwithstanding the self-evident weaknesses of the strategy, because we believed it would lead directly or indirectly to a successful ground campaign. Intervention was justified by the incontrovertible evidence of mass murder and ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars. But the chances are now vanishingly small of Nato launching any ground offensive in time for the refugees to be returned to their homes before a Balkan winter makes a campaign impossible and their camps death traps. The United States equivocates; France is sceptical; the German government knows its coalition would fall apart if troops went in.
Nato weakness and a European humanitarian disaster are political realities. But so, too, are the more than 5,000 sorties that have made Milosevic and the Russians contemplate a peace that is close to Nato's terms. A UN Resolution could be passed requiring an immediate end to Serbian violence in Kosovo and withdrawal of its forces, the establishment of a de facto UN security force and the self-government of Kosovo. This prize that cannot be allowed to be endangered by trigger-happy generals and bellicose politicians. For it is that fatal combination that directly lead to Friday night's disaster.
Instead of stepping up the bombing against targets close to civilians and diplomats, Nato should have scaled back its attacks. The British Government should stop pressing for more martial antics, read the runes and argue for reduced, intelligent bombing. We and the rest of Nato must accept that there will be a higher price to pay for Chinese consent to a UN settlement. If there was a realistic possibility of a ground offensive, then continued heavy bombing might be legitimate. Without it, compromise may allow us to achieve most of what we want.