Veton Surroi

The American mediator Richard Holbrooke shouldn't have wasted all this energy - spending entire days without sleep during this whole week - if the result of his engagement were to be two concessions that aren't concessions. The deployment of 2000 OSCE "verifiers" to Kosova and allowing observing NATO flights, is in substance a concession Milosevic would have made even without enormous pressure from NATO.

What is addressed to as the "verification mission", is in fact the broadening of the present diplomatic observers' mission. Instead of a dozen observers, this mission now numbers 2,000. The increase is not in quality, but in quantity: the mandate of the "verifiers" is not to install peace, but to inform on the eventual breach of the # 1199 UN Resolution.

Following observation flights above Kosova is no different either: information on policemilitary movements was anyway taken from air, through satellite images. Now, with NATO air patrols, these informations will be furthermore reliable and accessible - and that's it.

If these two concessions are compared to the UN Resolution, it derives that Milosevic can dodge the Resolution itself as well as the concept of finding a political settlement for the Kosova issue.

"Verifiers" and air patrols do not create a safe surrounding for Albanian refugees either, nor for the potential ones: Kosova, through these two concessions, remains Serb regime's concentration camp observed by foreigners, from air and land.

All sorts of Serb-Albanian future negotiations are mentioned in press conferences; based on draft-documents charted to this day, and approved by the Contact Group. These draft-documents, published in our newspaper, leave Kosova under Serbian rule, with the level of self-governance beneath those it enjoyed up to 1989; and without the right to self-determination, in the aftermath of a three-year period.

If this is the third concession, then engaging mediation is needless. Keeping Kosova under Serbian rule is Milosevic's aim and he tried to do this with or without international verifiers; with or without air patrols. Did such an aim require Serb military arsenal, the strength of NATO power and international legitimization?

This is the direction things are going to. For, now we don't have to deal with few diplomats wasting their energy, but with the credibility of two notions representing global stability in the present day world: USA and NATO. If the greatest military force in the history of mankind was to be employed in order to, "squeeze" such concessions from Milosevic, then the message sent out to mini-dictators around the globe, is that you can get away with the crimes committed.

And the Serb leader is squeezing out, furthermore with the cooperation of the mediators: there is no approval from his side to cooperate with The Hague Tribunal, there is no approval from his side that security in Kosova should be installed by peace keeping forces and not his war-raging forces, there is no approval from his side that the basis for future negotiations should be those rights divested by Belgrade in 1989... All of these are lacking because Milosevic is today treated as a peace-building partner and not the one accountable for destruction. Furthermore, he is treated as a partner which, out if this crisis, comes out stronger: not only can he say that he has baffled NATO pressure, but has used the opportunity to purge freedom of speech in his country.

Why does this happen, ask foreign journalists in Kosova and out of it?

This is an old question, overasked in this decade throughout the devastating wars of the former Yugoslavia. But, it is older than this. It originates more than fifty years ago and it was addressed to Mr. Chamberlain, carrying a letter in his hand, upon his return from Munich, believing it said there shall be no war.