Word: serb
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BELGRADE: It's not exactly an exchange of ambassadors, but it's a start -- Kosovo's ethnic Albanian rebels were jubilant Thursday over a prisoner exchange with the Serb authorities. The reason? "By agreeing to exchange prisoners with the rebel KLA, the Serbs are effectively recognizing them as a legitimate warring faction," says TIME Yugoslavia reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. "Until now the Serbs had dismissed the KLA as terrorists and treated KLA prisoners as criminals...
...deal painstakingly negotiated by European monitors, the KLA released eight captive Serb soldiers after the Serbs agreed to hand over nine KLA prisoners. The deal surprised many observers, who expected the Serbs to maintain a hard line. "This is a major step forward for the KLA and may signal further diplomatic progress in the region," says Anastasijevic. But with the KLA committed to fight for full independence and the Serbs dead set against letting them go, even today's breakthrough won't stop further violence...
Kosovo?s warriors may not wait out the winter. The capture of eight Serb soldiers by ethnic Albanian fighters is threatening to end the cease-fire that stopped U.S. air strikes against the Serbs last year: Even as Serb forces gathered for an attack and Western observers scrambled to mediate Monday, guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) said they would release the soldiers only as part of a prisoner exchange. ?An exchange would legitimize the KLA as a political fighting force,? says TIME Central Europe reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. ?For the same reason, the Serbs can?t make a deal...
Slobodan Milosevic has good reason to be paranoid. NATO on Wednesday swooped down on the Bosnian countryside to arrest General Radislav Krstic, the commander of the Bosnian Serb unit that massacred 8,000 Muslim men in the U.N. "safe haven" of Srebrenica in 1995. "Even though he was on leave in Serbia at the time, Krstic would have had to authorize the killings," says TIME correspondent Edward Barnes. "He'll also be able to answer questions over Milosevic's involvement in the most important massacre...
...Serb president has in recent weeks engaged in a frenzy of purges of his ruling circle, fearing that his army may turn against him. Although Milosevic hasn't yet been indicted as a war criminal, that prospect was raised earlier this year as a means of pressuring the Serb president to withdraw from Kosovo. "Krstic's arrest certainly turns up the heat on Milosevic," says Barnes. "The West can see how shaky Milosevic is, and Krstic's arrest will further destabilize him." Its pace may be glacial, but justice has not forsaken the Balkans...