Can this week's Rome meeting prevent a new conflict in the Balkans?

By CHRISTOPHER OGDEN

on't underestimate the stakes or the list of attendees. The fact that international bureaucrats, not presidents or foreign ministers, will be around the conference table discussing Kosovo at this week's meeting in Rome of the Yugoslavia Contact Group is deceptive. Despite the relative anonymity of the officials, Wednesday's meeting signifies a real moment of truth if a major Balkan war is to be averted.

Recent auguries have been dismal. The Contact Group, which monitors Yugoslavia and the four republics which seceded, held meetings in March in London and Bonn to consider further sanctions on President Slobodan Milosevic for his savage crackdown on the ethnic Albanian majority in Serbia's Kosovo province. The London meeting produced modest sanctions, but the Bonn session a fortnight later went badly. Russia, France and Germany all refused to take tougher steps, such as freezing Yugoslavia's overseas assets if Milosevic did not start negotiations to restore to Kosovo the political autonomy he had seized in 1989. The U.S. goal for Rome is to regain the lost momentum and get a dialogue started between Belgrade and the Kosovars, possibly with the help of a facilitator who would drag both sides to the table. Felipe Gonzalez, the former Spanish Prime Minister, is a potential nominee, though Milosevic cannot stand him because he views Gonzalez as anti-Serb. They have clashed before, over Serbian election fraud. If that's a sticking point, said one European ambassador, "We can find another Gonzalez."

It may be harder to find the appropriate balance to defuse the Kosovo crisis. The U.S. is juggling four ingredients: carrots, sticks, political persuasion and military security. The idea is to reward Milosevic for good behavior, such as withdrawing Serbian police units, and punish him for his current deplorable actions. Europe does not always agree, but the U.S. does recognize that all stick and no carrot won't work. Politically, Washington hopes to persuade Belgrade to restore a high degree of autonomy for Kosovo while telling Kosovars that the international community will not support their demands for independence. Here, it's called a bi-directional tough love message.

Militarily, to prevent the spread of the conflict the Contract Group must address the issue of the Macedonian and Albanian borders. There is already an international presence in Macedonia, which must remain after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of August. Albania is a harder case, but the group will have to provide something there akin to the Macedonian operation to limit the impact of refugee spillover from Kosovo. The Clinton administration is willing to participate. There is no evidence yet of "peacekeeper fatigue," either psychological or political, but the question of how to structure an Albanian force remains. Should it be under the aegis of the U.N., of NATO or some combination of the two?

Those were Washington's main considerations in preparing for Rome. Detailed options were still under review as the administration hurried to coordinate and refine positions and tactics with information gathered last week by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott on a visit to all the European parties and the two "front-line" states, Serbia and Albania. Little attention was paid, either in Washington or Europe, to Milosevic's referendum last Thursday rejecting foreign mediation in Kosovo. Members of the Contact Group dismissed the vote as a bargaining chip of little value.

The best option for stability, according to such experts as former U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann, would be to make Kosovo a republic within Yugoslavia along with Serbia and Montenegro, not independent, but running its own affairs. The Serbs don't want to give Kosovo that much autonomy, and Kosovars are reluctant to accept it: they fear that as long as Serbia runs Yugoslavia, Belgrade will keep meddling. Only a great deal of arm-twisting--especially by the U.S., the only nation the ethnic Albanian majority trusts--could produce a positive outcome. But it is unclear whether the risk-averse Clinton administration would chance such a leading role.

The alternatives, though, are worse. Using force to roll back Serbia is a non-starter because Kosovo is effectively controlled by Serbia, which was not the case in Bosnia. As the historic homeland of the Serbs, comparable to Israel's links to Jerusalem, Kosovo has an almost mystical significance for Serbia that Bosnia never had. NATO air strikes to push back Serbians are out of the question in Kosovo: not only would that incite pan-Balkan nationalism, but strikes would almost certainly rally support for Milosevic. Doing nothing is equally unacceptable because Kosovo could well explode into a major war. "The likelihood," says Zimmermann, "is that it will." That terrifying prospect ought to persuade the Rome negotiators to stop the bickering and start coordinating.