West's `softly softly' policy may serve only to stoke Balkan unrest

The confirmation that 600 Kosovans were rounded up and taken away this week by Yugoslav forces should send a shudder of recognition down the spines of Europeans who watched the Bosnian war and its massacres from the sidelines for 3 1/2 years.

The mass arrests were confirmed by the Yugoslav government to the pro-government newspaper, Politika, on Tuesday. The men were suspected terrorists, the authorities said. The International Committee of the Red Cross had not yet been given access to the detainees but has been assured by President Milosevic that it will be.

President Milosevic is a great man for giving assurances - he told an EU delegation last June that his forces' "security crackdown" in Kosovo was over. Since then dozens more villages have been destroyed. On the eve of a tough Kosovan winter up to 300,000 ethnic Albanians have become refugees, with around 50,000 living in the open.

If success is narrowly defined, Mr Milosevic's crackdown has enjoyed some in the past two months. The independence-seeking Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has been driven from the towns, villages and regions it controlled. Several months ago it looked as if the KLA could give the Serbians a run for their money. At the moment, the KLA appears to be on the run.

But the price has been a much radicalised ethnic Albanian population. Ninety per cent of Kosovo's population is Albanian. Until the beginning of the security crackdown early this year there was considerable support for the moderate Albanian leader, Mr Ibrahim Rugova, with whom Belgrade might have been able to negotiate greater autonomy for Kosovo within Yugoslavia short of independence. But now almost everyone in Kosovo will say they support the KLA, which seeks only full independence.

The Yugoslav confirmation of the mass detentions this week came only after reports began to emerge from other sources that Yugoslav forces were separating males and females in villages and taking away the men and boys to secret locations. This is what happened in Srebrenica in 1996 before an estimated 8,000 Muslims were massacred.

We know what happens in these situations. We have seen the forces supported by President Milosevic in action before. We know that when members of an ethnic minority living in a state controlled by President Milosevic say they live in fear, they are to be believed.

Reports of dreadful atrocities are emerging sporadically, but the authorities have been very successful in sealing off the areas of Kosovo where the security forces have been most active. There are reports of summary executions, of children killed in front of their parents, of forced rapes of mothers by sons, of dozens of Albanian men being rounded up and taken away by Serbian forces. Kosovans in Ireland, afraid to be identified lest it prejudice their appeals against the Government's refusal of asylum, say they have personally witnessed some of these atrocities.

These reports are difficult to confirm independently. But for the Serbians, who have prevented reporters going to see for themselves, they are equally difficult to refute.

The KLA has also been accused of wrongdoing. Ethnic Serbs have been leaving their homes in Kosovo, leading to claims that the KLA, too, is engaged in attempted ethnic cleansing, albeit on a smaller scale.

In the face of such alarming portents over many months, the EU has failed to come up with a credible policy. It has determined that independence for Kosovo would be a disaster for the region and would spark off a series of other conflicts and wholesale redrawing of borders.

In particular, it says that an independent Kosovo would destabilise neighbouring Macedonia, encouraging its own ethnic Albanian population to seek separation from Macedonia. In the doomsday scenario, Bulgaria's historic claims on parts of Macedonia could also be revived while Mr Milosevic might then see himself as a protector of Macedonia's Slavs.

Because it wishes to avoid this, the EU has chosen to do little. However, having put itself in opposition to the aims of the KLA and the majority of Kosovo's people, it is difficult for the West not to find itself on the side of Mr Milosevic, his special forces and the repression of the population.

Because as a result of the West's stance, President Milosevic knows it will not carry out any threat of force. If the West is totally opposed to secession, it will do nothing to defeat those repressing the secessionists.

According to Mr Noel Malcolm, historian, Balkan expert and author of the definitive work, Kosovo: A Short History: "He knows western threats are meaningless. NATO going to war in Kosovo would make no sense if the aim is to keep Kosovo in Yugoslavia. It would be absurd."

President Milosevic thus reckons the West will do nothing and he can do as he likes. And so far he is right. Last Sunday, EU foreign ministers met in Salzburg to consider the crisis. They discussed it entirely as if it were a humanitarian catastrophe rather than a political and military question. In another echo of Bosnia, they agreed to support the establishment of safe areas - this time to be called "assisted points" - controlled by President Milosevic's forces, where refugees would receive food, shelter and medical assistance.

In other words, the civilians who fled in fear from President Milosevic's forces, which razed their villages, will be concentrated in camps guarded by those same forces. Rather than seek means of allowing them return home safely, the EU will co-operate and provide humanitarian assistance.

The EU has called for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Belgrade's "special security forces" - notorious gangs associated with the worst atrocities in Bosnia - and the deployment of international monitors. But it has announced or threatened no action to back up these demands.

But the result of this gentle EU policy may be to bring about the regional instability it fears anyway. With nobody asserting the right to return home, the Kosovan refugees face the option of being "assisted" by Mr Milosevic's forces. The herding of ethnic Albanians into Milosevic-run concentration-style camps on the eve of a miserably, cold Kosovan winter will further radicalise the Albanians of the region. Many of these refugees may choose instead to cross into Macedonia itself, threatening to destabilise the country.

"The West's policy guarantees long-term instability," says Mr Malcolm. "The KLA will keep on fighting and day by day this will radicalise the Albanians in Macedonia. The only way to save Macedonia is through a speedy solution of the Kosovo crisis."

Speedy resolution of the Kosovo crisis involves persuading President Milosevic to change course. But no international strategy to get President Milosevic to do this is credible without a real threat of force.

According to Mr Malcolm, this can be achieved by ending the Western phobia about Kosovan independence. "They should be telling Milosevic that if he is going to have negotiations with the Albanian political leadership these negotiations must include the option of independence. Once you say you are serious about independence, then you can make military threats that can be believed."

Independence does not have to be granted now, he says. A cooling off period of five to seven years could be agreed, after which Kosovo could decide its future. In the intervening years, peace and stability could bring about an atmosphere that would create a long-term resolution.

Nor does he accept the other Western excuse for doing nothing - that military intervention is impossible without a UN Security Council resolution. In Iraq, Britain and the US imposed a no-fly zone years ago and are still patrolling it without a UN mandate. In that case, they say there is a custom in international law allowing intervention to deal with humanitarian crises. "When they want to do these things, they do them," he says.