A surprise attack by rebel K.L.A. forces stymies Western hopes for a peaceful solution in the Balkans' latest crisis

By MASSIMO CALABRESI

he village of Bela Crkva in southwestern Kosovo was utterly deserted last Tuesday except for troops of the Serbian Interior Ministry milling among the burned and bombed-out buildings. One policeman emerged from a deserted house wearing a tall, embroidered hat traditionally used by ethnic Albanians during their Muslim circumcision ceremony. His comrades laughed as he posed for them. Another group roasted a lamb on a spit to the sound of gunfire in the nearby town of Orahovac. The Serb commander, asked what had happened to the estimated 3,000 mostly Albanian inhabitants of the village, merely shrugged.

Four days earlier, Bela Crkva, Orahovac and the border region to the southwest had seen the onset of the most audacious action yet by the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, which is fighting for independence from what remains of Yugoslavia. The offensive had aimed at uniting two of their strongholds and "urbanizing" the largely rural conflict. The result was the loss of 90 dead and 20,000 driven from their homes in the rebels' biggest set-back so far in five months of fighting. But the K.L.A. action was not a total failure: it demonstrated their growing tactical skill and the futility of Western efforts so far to prevent Kosovo secession. "The international community has lost [the] initiative in the quest for a peaceful solution to the problem of Kosovo," said a statement by the assembly of the Western European Union on Thursday in the wake of a recent fact-finding mission to the region. "The situation is deteriorating so fast that the chances of a peaceful settlement have by now become minute."

Orahovac had been an ideal target for the K.L.A. Less than one-fifth Serb and largely undefended, the city if captured would expand a corridor from the K.L.A.-controlled region of Drenica in central Kosovo toward strongholds on the Albanian border, facilitating the flow of arms and other military supplies. "Some days before the attack, the K.L.A. warned the people of Orahovac ...to move the women and children out of town," said Musa Mulaj, who heads the local branch of the Albanian-run humanitarian organization, Emergencia. "The local Serbs were given an ultimatum to surrender their weapons or risk being treated as an enemy." Some did, but most chose to move to Velika Hoca, a predominantly Serb village nearby. On the eve of the attack, the K.L.A. quietly deployed in the suburbs and neighboring villages and established entrenched checkpoints, surrounding the town on three sides. At the same time, the Serbs sent strong police reinforcements to Velika Hoca and turned a hotel in downtown Orahovac into a base for special forces.

By Friday both sides were ready for the battle. Witnesses said that around 7:30 p.m., K.L.A. units blew up the power generator and moved into the downtown area where they took three strategic buildings: the school, the post office and the local health center. "They simply walked in and ordered the staff to get out," recounted one policeman, who refused to give his name. "Then they attacked the police station and the hotel. They kept us pinned down for more than two days--we were shot at from every house in town." The Serbs started pounding K.L.A. positions with artillery from Velika Hoca and the K.L.A. responded with light mortars and 107-mm recoilless guns. Most civilians fled to basements, where they remained for the next several days, often without food. "It seemed as if hell had broken loose," said 45-year-old Sali Hamza. "We just sat crouching in the basement, and the shooting went on and on for days. There was very little water and no food at all."

On Sunday, both sides declared victory but denied journalists access to the area. The Serbs brought police and military reinforcements from Prizren, 25 km south of Orahovac, but the convoy ran into trouble at Bela Crkva where the K.L.A. had dug in. "In only a day or two they had turned this place into a fortress," said the police commander in Bela Crkva two days later. "It took us hours to break through." The reinforcements finally made it to Orahovac early Monday, and their arrival turned the battle in the Serbs' favor. The fighting continued sporadically for another day as the K.L.A. withdrew toward Malisevo, and on Tuesday the Serb forces declared Orahovac "liberated." Journalists arriving the next day found the once-bustling town free--free, that is, of its estimated 20,000 original inhabitants and most of its movable goods. All the usual signs of the Balkan-style "liberation" were in evidence: heavily-armed police cruising otherwise empty streets; shops looted and demolished and about a dozen burned-out houses still smoldering in the downtown area.

Albanian sources asserted that as soon as they took the town, the police began harassing local civilians and carrying out executions. 35-year-old Hidajeta Ramaj, interviewed on Tuesday near Orahovac, said she saw her husband and six other men shot as she peered through a crack in the basement wall of her house. "We were all crammed in the basement when the police knocked on the door and called all men to come out," she recounted. "Fifteen men came out, their arms in the air, and the police immediately opened fire, killing seven. The remaining eight were led away."

"These are all lies and propaganda," said Captain Milan Sipka of the Serbian police, who led a convoy of journalists into Orahovac on Wednesday. "No civilians were targeted, only the terrorists." Sipka said that more than two hundred Albanians from Orahovac were detained by the police after the battle, but all but 26 were released after questioning. Serbian authorities said the K.L.A. had abducted 51 people, and on Wednesday the Red Cross reported that the rebels had released 35 Serbs to them. In the past three months, 142 Serbian civilians are reported to have been abducted by the K.L.A. "It will take a lot of time before we determine the truth about these allegations," says a Western observer based in the provincial capital of Pristina. "Both sides constantly accuse each other of atrocities and human rights violations, but are much less cooperative when it comes to providing evidence"

Trailing the main event of the fighting was the sad sideshow of international peace efforts. Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Christopher Hill, held separate talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and the pacifist ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova. "Progress would be too strong a word," said one Western diplomat familiar with the discussions. Although the long-term Western goal is a political settlement giving Kosovo broad autonomy but keeping it within Yugoslavia, the short-term goal is more modest--to get the ethnic Albanians to present a unified position. "It's a family feud," says another Western diplomat in the region describing the political scene in Pristina. Still, the first diplomat says the fractious Kosovar leadership may be waking to the problem represented by the growing power of the K.L.A. "They are starting to realize that if they don't get a handle on the K.L.A., the K.L.A. will get a handle on them," he says.

Controlling the rebels is no easy matter. An ill-fated meeting between Milosevic and Rugova arranged last May by U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke sent the once-powerful Rugova into a political tailspin. Now Rugova, still advocating a pacifist line, seems to have stopped his fall by convening two weeks ago the long-dormant underground parliament. But he is far from wielding the power needed to rein in the bellicose K.L.A. Western diplomats see only "some signs" that the K.L.A. may be willing to accept a political solution. They say Kosovar political leaders have met with the K.L.A. and that there are "indications" some rebel leaders are concerned about their own lack of control over the uprising.

They are not the only ones. In June, NATO threatened air strikes against Milosevic after a crackdown by the Serbs sent more than 10,000 refugees streaming across the border into Albania. The Serb counterattack at Orahovac last week is estimated to have set twice that many into motion, but there is only silence from nato. Suddenly, air strikes against Serb forces--who are the only barrier between the rebels and their longed-for independent Republic of Kosovo--no longer seem such a good idea. But the balance between Serb strength and the guerilla advantage of the rebels is a delicate one--with thousands of desperate refugees streaming into the unprepared rebel stronghold of Malisevo and a considerable loss of morale for the K.L.A., last week at least the balance was leaning to the Serb side.

--Reported by Dejan Anastasijevic /Orahovac