Making A Deal: Why Milosevic Blinked

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The West can claim no victory worth the name until the Kosovars go home. In Bosnia, despite four years of NATO policing, the vast majority of Muslim refugees have not returned. If even a portion of exiled Kosovars, some scattered from New Jersey to Australia, refuse to go back, Milosevic again gets away with the evil practice of ethnic cleansing. The fighting may stop, but that is insufficient to make ethnic Albanians feel secure as long as he reigns in Belgrade. Kosovo is a wasteland where many who return will find nothing but dead relatives, mass graves, destroyed homes, slaughtered livestock, poisoned wells and a hard life. The West has promised billions to reconstruct the province, most of it put up by Europe. "The costs will be staggering," says a senior Washington official. "Whatever estimate there is now, triple that." But before the exiles can even think of leaving their camps, the alliance needs to build shelters for millions and prepare to feed the population for at least a year.

The West cannot ignore the fact that ordinary Serbs are collateral victims too. NATO estimates its bombs killed 5,000 and wounded an additional 10,000. Serbia lies in rubble, about 500,000 have lost their jobs, and wages have been officially reduced to 1,000 dinars ($60) a month. There are no sources of revenue to pay out pensions or army salaries. To repair shattered rail lines, bombed-out roads and sunken bridges alone will cost about $1 billion. The country's four largest industrial sites are totally destroyed; nine more are severely damaged. Two oil refineries went up in black acrid smoke, along with most of the fuel-storage facilities, leaving Serbia having to import high-priced refined fuel. Without foreign cash, says Belgrade economist Mladjan Dinkic, a return to pre-Milosevic prosperity would take 41 years.

While an indicted war criminal presides in Belgrade, Serbs can expect no money from international investment or mini-Marshall plans. "There is no question of dealing with Milosevic," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "There is no place for Serbia in the true family of nations while he remains in office."

As the generals buckled down to finetune the peace plan, the world kept its fingers crossed that the bombs would soon stop falling. But in the capitals of the NATO alliance, two words haunt political leaders: Saddam Hussein. Just like the war in the Persian Gulf, this one has come to a halt but not a conclusion. As long as Slobodan Milosevic hangs on to power, there will be no permanent peace for the Balkans.

--Reported by Jay Branegan, Mark Thompson and Douglas Waller/Washington, Dejan Anastasijevic/Vienna, James L. Graff/ Cologne, Paul Quinn-Judge/Moscow and Gillian Sandford/Belgrade