The West sits by as Serbia continues its brutal counterattack on Kosovo's insurgents

By MASSIMO CALABRESI

ix weeks ago, a taxi driver from Anchorage, Alaska, saw it coming. The Kosovar emigre had traveled to northern Albania to join rebels fighting across the border in Serbia. But at a secret training camp of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Ilir (he refused to give his last name) came face to face with the reality of the rebellion. Contrary to rumors of a sophisticated operation run by foreign Islamic extremists, the camp was the epitome of disarray. Hundreds of disheveled recruits dressed in surplus fatigues and soiled civvies milled around an abandoned army barracks. Men and boys bedded down on the hard barracks floor or on the grass outside. There were plenty of weapons, with minivans and jeeps delivering arms and ammunition around the clock, but training involved little more than getting a gun and an arm patch. Ilir decided to return to Alaska and raise money for the cause rather than sign on for the fight. Said he: "These guys are committing suicide."

In the past two weeks, that assessment has proved true as Serb forces routed rebel strongholds throughout Kosovo. Caught in the onslaught, some 80,000 ethnic Albanians have fled villages targeted by the Serbs. Many are living outdoors without adequate food or medical supplies. "It reminds me of Rwanda and Ethiopia," says Mons Nyberg of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

It's not supposed to be happening. In June, after Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's troops sent 13,000 Kosovars fleeing across the border to Albania, NATO began drawing up plans for intervention and launched air maneuvers along Kosovo's borders. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook announced sternly, "This is his last warning." The U.S. issued new warnings last week, but military intervention remains unlikely. The U.S. and Europe want to keep Kosovo in Yugoslavia; they fear rebel territorial ambitions as much as they do Milosevic. So long as the Serb forces do not drive refugees into other countries and there is no evidence of widespread civilian slaughter, the West seems willing to stand by as Milosevic deals with the rebels, lodging occasional verbal protests and urging the insurgents to accept republic status within Yugoslavia rather than seek full independence.

The Serb attack in June was the dramatic turning point for the rebels, who in just six months had grown from a ragtag hit-and-run operation into an effective if diffuse guerrilla organization. The Serb forces cut a buffer zone along the Albanian border, and while they failed to seal it completely, the rebels knew the noose was tightening around them. "We used to move across the border in groups of more than 100," said Gani (his nom de guerre), 28, the camp commander in northern Albania.

The rebels received a temporary boost when Milosevic reined in his troops in response to NATO threats. That emboldened the rebels, who erected more roadblocks and claimed control of 50% of Kosovo. At the same time some rebel factions heightened their rhetoric, announcing their intention to unify ethnic Albanian lands in several different countries in the region, including their unstable neighbor, Macedonia. Those ambitions, as well as the unwillingness to negotiate peace, increased the Western perception of the Kosovo Liberation Army as a threat to regional stability.

The cocky rebels, who had previously focused their activity on rural villages in central Kosovo, decided to take the fight to the city. Their first target was the town of Orahovac, the large population center closest to their stronghold of Malisevo. After days of fighting, Serb reinforcements turned the battle against the rebels, who, along with most of the city's 20,000 inhabitants, fled north to Malisevo. Swollen with refugees in desperate need of food and places to sleep, Malisevo became an easy target for the Serbs. When they launched their attack on July 28, their rivals pulled back quickly without putting up much resistance. "We had to make a tactical withdrawal in order to save the civilians," said a rebel commander, Shaban Shala, in an interview with the Austrian Press Agency. "If we had tried to defend Malisevo, Serbian artillery would have pummeled it to dust." Even after the takeover of Malisevo, the West's protests seemed tepid in comparison with the June threats of military intervention.

The Serb forces expanded their inexorable offensive in late July, attacking rebel strongholds in central Kosovo and along the border with Albania. In a matter of days, Serb artillery razed targets in the villages of Lausa and Vojnik. Near the border, the Serbs captured the important rebel outpost of Smonica and surrounded the village of Junik. "There will be no compromise. We are determined to fight the terrorists until we eliminate them completely," said the Serbian Premier, Mirko Marjanovic.

As the extent of the destruction emerged, Western outrage percolated again. In particular, the U.S. and Europe decried the number of refugees and the burning of houses. "It's obvious that the police are setting houses on fire," says Nyberg of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "It's a way of intimidating [ethnic Albanians] to stay away." Christopher Hill, U.S. ambassador to Macedonia and Washington's chief negotiator in Kosovo, toured the region Tuesday and then held six hours of talks with Milosevic on Wednesday. "I gave him a very tough message that these attacks on civilians simply have to stop," Hill said. Asked what leverage the West was applying to make the attacks stop, Hill declined to give specifics.

For the U.S. and Europe, the primary issue remains regional stability. They fear that the rebels' rapid expansion and territorial ambitions could carry the fighting to Macedonia, where a restive 25% Albanian minority is calling for increased autonomy. A wider war could draw NATO allies Greece and Turkey into the conflict on opposite sides. That fear leaves the U.S. and Europe in an uncomfortable symbiosis with Milosevic: they all want to see the uprising fail.

But Milosevic's penchant for brutality seems irrepressible. The Serb attack in June raised the specter of ethnic cleansing, which could destabilize neighboring countries as much as expansionist rebel aims, and so raised the possibility of NATO intervention. The recent assaults, however, do not seem to be an attempt to clear Kosovo of its ethnic Albanians. As long as that is the case, and as long as the human toll does not become too horrific, the West is likely to register only "strong protests" against Milosevic's brutality.

Yet Milosevic's crackdown does carry a steep price for Western policy in the region. The more vicious the Serbs are, the less chance any peace talks will begin. Says Ambassador Hill: "The violence has really set back the negotiations." And there is one more thing Milosevic's crackdown will certainly achieve. That is an increase in the number of young men willing to join the rebels--which means a continuation of the cycle of violence.

--Reported by Dejan Anastasijevic /Malisevo and Stacy Sullivan /Northern Albania