In a place of extremes, West seeks middle ground too late

During the British miners' strike of 1984-85 a joke emerged to emphasise the irrelevance of those seeking a middle ground. The Labour Party, it was said, was collecting money for striking miners. The Conservatives were supporting strike-breaking miners. The Liberal Democrats, however, were collecting for pit ponies.

And so it is that the West pins its hopes on the moderate Kosovo Albanian political leader, Mr Ibrahim Rugova. As the Belgrade authorities insist he is an apologist for terrorism, and the Albanians of Kosovo who make up 90 per cent of the province's population desert him to support the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army, he seems about as relevant as pit ponies were to the miners' strike.

It is not that he and moderate Albanians did not see the crisis coming. A delegation of ethnic Albanians arrived at the Dayton air base in Ohio in autumn 1995 as the deal to end the Bosnian war was being hammered out. The Albanians wanted some agreement on the Kosovo question stitched into the accord. They were politely shown the door. There was no violence in Kosovo at the time, and so Kosovo seemed to present no problem.

It has been clear for the last 10 years that the West does not care what happens inside Kosovo, so long as it remains inside Serbia's borders. It cares now because the movement towards Kosovan independence is strong, encouraged by Belgrade's recent military crackdown. Should Kosovo win independence, the Albanians in neighbouring Macedonia, who comprise 25 per cent of that state's population - including half the population of the capital Skopje - are expected to demand the right to join the new greater Albania.

These Macedonian Albanians are generally clustered on the border. Looking at the map, unification makes sense. Almost half of Albanians live outside Albania in Kosovo and Macedonia, with smaller numbers in Greece and Montenegro.

Serbians who want to retain control over Kosovo rely on the West's horror at the prospect of dealing with a major redrawing of Balkan borders. "Let's give Kosovo away, give them independence tomorrow," an experienced Serbian journalist said this week. "Let the West deal with a greater Albania. But if they don't want to, then let them listen to us for a change."

The nightmare scenario involves Kosovan independence, followed by a groundswell among Macedonia's Albanians leading to their secession to join the new entity. Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia would then make their claims on what was left of Macedonia. This in turn would awaken the Macedonians of Greece, the Bulgarians of Turkey and before long you have a mess of competing and unresolved nationalisms clamouring for justice on their terms.

But the behaviour of President Milosevic has made a redrawing of the borders seem possible. For some 10 years in power he has shown no respect for ethnic minorities, particularly the Kosovo Albanians.

"With Milosevic in power, Serbia is the ultimate bad guy," says Mr Dejan Anastasijevic, perhaps the leading Serbian journalistic authority on Kosovo, who has consistently and objectively covered the crisis for the Belgrade magazine Vreme.

"If you are an ethnic minority and you say you don't want to be an ethnic minority in a country ruled by Slobodan Milosevic, then nobody will think you are being unreasonable," he says.

The West is determined to keep the lid on this situation, however, and says it is prepared to use force to do so. Russia, Serbia's traditional ally, opposes force. Two Russian deputy foreign ministers are in the region this week for talks, but nobody knows to what purpose except to stall the possibility of Western military intervention.

Even without Russian opposition, there is no agreement on how to use military force. There is no such thing as a neutral military intervention. Imposing a no-fly zone in Kosovo, for example, would weaken the Serbs' ability to move about the mountainous region. Sealing the border between Kosovo and Albania would cut off the KLA's supply route for arms.

The West's stated policy is to encourage an accord between Mr Milosevic and an Albanian political leadership involving the granting of autonomy to Kosovo but keeping it as a province of Serbia.

Those who believe in an accord between the Milosevic regime and the Albanian secessionists must explain two things:

How a credible deal can be done with Mr Milosevic with his unparalleled record of deal-breaking and lying.

How they can even begin to talk to the KLA, which has no political representatives and seems not to have even developed a central ruling group.

From the KLA's viewpoint talking involves compromise, and why do that when you are winning? Late last year and early this year it became clear the KLA was a small but growing village-based force, with a supply route of weapons from Albania proper. The Serbian crackdown, employing all the subtlety associated with Mr Milosevic's forces, involved the razing of Kosovo Albanian villages along the border.

This allowed them to cut off some KLA supply routes from Albania but also displaced some 50,000 civilians. Since the Serbian offensives began in February some 300 people, most of them ethnic Albanians, have been killed.

The Serbian authorities justify the violence by saying they had to disrupt the KLA's supply routes. But they had limited success, and paid a heavy price, bringing two major benefits to the KLA. First, their action brought the West into the picture, as the US and the EU began expressing concern about Serbian atrocities and warning the Serbians against further action.

Second, it further radicalised the Kosovan Albanian population, turning more people towards the KLA and away from the moderates led by Mr Rugova with which the West still wants to do business.

Is there a narrow middle ground? The West's policy of seeking a deal between a man who cannot be trusted (Milosevic) and a man with little support (Rugova) appears doomed. In the short term therefore the policy must be merely one of containment. If Mr Milosevic can be persuaded to avoid further atrocities and the KLA can be persuaded to develop a coherent political voice, this will represent an achievement.

The former may be possible through a carrot-and-stick approach, the latter appears more difficult. Some Albanian political leaders have offered to represent the KLA politically. Its spokesman has responded with the one-liner: "The KLA is the only military and political force in Kosovo."

Mr Anastasijevic of Vreme believes this is bravado. It is brought on, he says, by the ease of fighting a guerrilla war from familiar mountains in the fine summer months.

"The winters in Kosovo are harsh. They will spend [them] dealing with refugees, power cuts and food shortages. They will have time for meetings and internal discussions. In spring they may have a leadership, a central committee and some people to do some serious talking."

The KLA hopes that if Milosevic cracks down hard on it, the West will ride in with more sanctions or military action that will benefit the KLA. If it was told it must respect the Helsinki Convention (no forcible alteration of international borders) or else the West walks away and leaves it to Mr Milosevic, then its attitude might well change.

In the meantime, the West's policy of seeking a deal involving Kosovan autonomy under Mr Rugova's leadership within Serbia's borders seems redundant. Journalists in Kosovo familiar with Northern Ireland agree that each day Mr Rugova more and more resembles Mr Gerry Fitt: a decent man marginalised by a growing belief that concessions will only be made to those using weapons.