Word: albanians
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June 23, 8:30 a.m., aboard a U.S. Air Force C-20 executive jet. Holbrooke flips through confidential State Department cables and contemplates the task ahead. He has been dispatched to persuade Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebels to stop shooting and start talking. As he prepares to face the Balkan furies again, Holbrooke sits quietly, looking anxious. "The goal is to prevent a war," he tells TIME, which was given exclusive access to the trip. "But it may be impossible...
...K.L.A., as well as the moderate ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, insist that outright independence is the only acceptable solution. Milosevic shows no willingness to countenance that and has stalled on negotiations in order to launch his crackdown. The West frets that escalation of the conflict could lead to a Balkan war wider and more destabilizing than Bosnia's, drawing in Albania, Macedonia and even Greece. Holbrooke's aim is to cajole everyone to the bargaining table...
...Milosevic ignores Holbrooke's warning, bombing won't bring an easy solution to the crisis. NATO is demanding that he withdraw his troops and negotiate to restore Kosovo's autonomy within the Yugoslavian federation. But even in the unlikely event that he complies, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority would keep on fighting for independence from Belgrade. So air strikes are simply a short-term strategy to stop the Serb campaign against civilians. "There's no hope of any progress unless Milosevic makes some concessions, and so far he has given away nothing at all," says Calabresi. "He is pushing...
...through brute force alone: After yesterday's NATO fly-by to encourage the Serb leader to end his aggression in Kosovo, Milosevic today emerged from a meeting with Boris Yeltsin talking compromise. Although he gave no specific response to NATO demands, he offered to hold peace talks with ethnic Albanian leaders from Kosovo. "Milosevic is an expert in exploiting disagreements within the Western camp and their general reluctance to intervene," says TIME reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. "He will back off, but only slightly -- enough to leave the international community wondering what to do next as the situation in Kosovo continues...
That galvanized ethnic Albanians. The Liberation Army built up a concentration of forces near the Albanian border, and with an escape route closer to hand, the guerrillas grew more brazen, attacking Serb police and military camps. Four rebels maintaining a checkpoint at the border village of Smonica two weeks ago were cocky with confidence they could take on the Serbs. "I hate them so much that if I fired my gun up in the air, the bullet would find its own way right between some Serb's eyes," said one of the guards, cradling his rifle. "Every day people come...