Waging diplomatic war

Having NATO as the "security presence" will enforce the resolution's demand that the Yugoslavs "put an immediate and verifiable end to violence and repression in Kosovo" and withdraw "all" their forces. Afterwards, some will be allowed back -- but certainly not for the role seemingly envisaged by the Serbian negotiators on the Macedonian border, who want to check the papers of the returning refugees.

Since Serbian forces made a point of confiscating the documents of the people they were expelling, this is a transparently unacceptable attempt to legitimize the results of the "ethnic cleansing." Indeed, it was anticipated by the U.N. agencies, which are already preparing I.D. cards for the refugees affected.

The Russian role in Kosovo remains unclear. By the time they have made up their mind about the lines of command and started trundling in, NATO will have filled the vacuum, preempting the inevitable coziness and collaboration between the Serbs and the Russians. Any last hopes Belgrade had of a de facto partition are textually cleansed from this resolution.

To avoid the Bosnia-style impasse between the peacekeepers and the United Nations, the U.N. special representative will only "coordinate closely with the international security presence." The implication is that there will be no U.N. veto on the trigger finger. Even so, it will be important to have a special representative who all sides feel they can trust.

An obvious choice would be Ahtisaari, the Finnish president who put the squeeze on Milosevic in Belgrade. Officially his term as president is not up until next year, but those who know him consider that his sights were always set on the international arena, for which the presidency was just a launch pad. Offered a prominent enough role, he could well resign his presidency early.

He is supported by Madeleine Albright, who persuaded him to take up the role of negotiator -- even though he had turned down a similar request from his former colleague Annan. The secretary of state, never especially enamored of the United Nations, was reputed to be unhappy with Annan's choice of Swedish conservative Carl Bildt as one of his representatives during the war. She thought that Bildt had been altogether too conciliatory to the Serbs during his time in Bosnia and turned to Ahtisaari to bypass him, and the United Nations as well.

However, some people with long memories at the United Nations wonder about Ahtisaari's suitability for the job. While his oversight of the end of the South African presence in Namibia is billed as a great success, it was a little less triumphant for several hundred Namibian members of SWAPO, who crossed the border from Angola to come to vote. The South Africans (Apartheid variety) panicked Ahtisaari into letting the murderous "koevoet" anti-guerrilla troops out of their barracks. They lived down to their reputation by taking very few prisoners and leaving a lot of corpses. The Kosovars should watch him carefully.

However, with all those caveats, looking at the strength of the resolution, and the determination of the NATO forces, it is a complete defeat for Milosevic. The Serbian population of Kosovo, like that of the Krajina, will probably, and wisely, take the road back to Serbia. And in five years, there will be an independent Kosova.

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