My plan to save Kosovo now

THE RENEWED bloodletting in Kosovo, and the West's lack of coherent or effective reaction to it, are both depressingly predictable.

More than four months have passed since our early warnings, and still the international community agonises, the crisis deepens and the cost of a solution escalates. Since April the Foreign Office has been considering the options, as I am repeatedly told at Prime Minister's Questions. This government, unlike previous governments, has been energetic in trying to stiffen the resolve of our European partners and of the US, but to little avail - perhaps we would see more progress if the White House were not paralysed with a domestic row. Meanwhile, the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosovic, has continued with his game of "international grandmother's footsteps", edging Kosovo nearer to all-out war and humanitarian catastrophe every time the West's back is turned.

The options do not take four months to consider, if only because they are so narrow. This is not Bosnia, and it is as important to be aware of the differences as it is to spot the similarities. In Bosnia the West was able to put in ground forces to control the conflict, then to step back and provide the forum of the Dayton peace talks to help the participants come to a settlement. In Kosovo we have neither of these options. There is no realistic expectation that ground forces can be deployed, other than to police an agreed settlement, and no time to wait for a Dayton- style accord to emerge from the warring parties.

We have been reacting to each fresh piece of news on an ad hoc basis, in a policy vacuum. Instead we should be, and should have been, pursuing clear and focused diplomatic actions, backed by the ultimate sanction of air power, if necessary, to persuade both sides - the Serbs and the guerrilla KLA - that we will not allow this dispute to be settled by a military victory.

There can only be a political solution to what is essentially a long- standing political problem: the ethnic-Albanian majority within the province of Kosovo sees rule from Serbian Belgrade as illegitimate. As time trickles by, planning to achieve a political solution becomes more difficult and the outcomes carry more risks. But we must still try.

There are two ways to detonate a wider Balkan crisis out of Kosovo. First, if we fail to stop a Milosevic victory fuelling the fires of pan- Serb nationalism; second, if we act in such a way as to allow the KLA to inflame and unleash pan-Albanian nationalism within the neighbouring states of Albania and Macedonia.

These dangers become more pressing all the time. Paradoxically, the military successes of the Serb army against the KLA in recent days seem to have led not only to a renewal of Serb human rights violations and triumphalist acts of aggression towards the civilian population. They have also led to greater ethnic-Albanian insurgences in Macedonia, with intensely worrying reports of bombs and civil disturbance in the Albanian- dominated towns of the north. There are elements within the political elites of Albania and Macedonia who are willing to actively exploit this trend - to the immense distress of the two governments. And the Albanian mafia, who have almost total control of the "badlands" that I visited in June, which border Kosovo, are clearly implicated in arming and supporting the KLA.

The optimism of a few weeks ago, when the moderate Kosovan politician Ibrahim Rugova appeared to have brought the KLA into a broad-based negotiating team for the peace talks, appears to be vanishing in the rubble of the new Serb offensives. Each new tale of Serbian army atrocities radicalises the ethnic Albanians even further.

So what should the West, and in particular Britain, be doing?

First, this is a problem that affects the entire Balkan region and requires regional solutions, so Greece and Turkey must be prepared to act as a guarantors of any long-term settlement.

Secondly, we should act quickly to stabilise and strengthen the two neighbouring states of Macedonia and Albania. At times of fluidity and crisis, it is important to reinforce the fixed points. We should make it clear that we will not tolerate any threats to the integrity of the Macedonian border or state, and that the international community will take some responsibility for any Kosovar Albanian refugees who may flood across that border.

We should support the Albanian government in its attempts to re-establish control of the lawless northern border "badlands". By giving better support to the Albanian government, possibly through decent police equipment and help for their security forces, we may encourage the KLA to accept its influence. If the threat of Nato aircraft are our means to control Milosevic, then the control of northern Albania (and the arms that flow through it) performs the same function in controlling the KLA.

Thirdly, we should decide on a clear public aim: to bring both sides to a peaceful agreement on the basis of a "blueprint". This should initially involve Kosovan autonomy within the former Yugoslavia, with guaranteed rights for the ethnic-Serb minority. Milosovic, who originally opposed this, is likely now to be more accommodating, and the Kosovar nationalists whom I met during my visit in June were open to persuasion on less than full independence - provided that the terms and context for autonomy, with parallel status to Montenegro, would be guaranteed and policed by the international community.

Independence may turn out to be the only viable long-term solution. But independence in the short term would immediately destabilise Macedonia and the delicate balance of states and semi-states that still make up the post-Dayton Bosnia.

Every week that passes redoubles the danger of a full-blown regional crisis. This will be triggered either by a further ethnic Albanian uprising within Macedonia, or by another flood of refugees into Albania. The international community appears to be, quite cynically, standing back and allowing Milosevic's tanks to achieve one of our policy aims, namely the humbling of the KLA and their pan-Albanian ambitions. Instead we should be taking advantage of the momentary military stalemate to issue an ultimatum to Milosevic, and making the final push for peace.

It may be that we cannot achieve UN security council unanimity, but we should act fast to curb Milosevic nonetheless. With a clear plan such as that I have outlined, the international community is better able to judge how force may have to be used. The legal niceties of intervention are a matter for consideration, but it is arguable that the UN Charter, under articles 1 and 52, provides the basis for action to preserve regional peace even without a security council resolution. And time is not on our side.

In the short term we may have to provide some show of force, probably through air strikes, to demonstrate our resolve. Milosevic is perpetrating abuses against his own civilian population which, according to the rhetoric of our own and other Western governments, should have resulted in Nato intervention already. And yet we neither do or say anything further, and the human costs are rising.

Reports are emerging of refugees holed up in the forests above the Albanian border, unable to go back to their wrecked villages and too scared to come down into Albania. During my visit in June, I was told about these thousands of displaced villagers, and heard the worries of human rights observers about their safety. It was a humanitarian catastrophe waiting to happen, but the warnings fell on deaf ears. Winter is only a few months away, and the aid agencies are trying to avert disaster while being granted only "on and off" access by Milosevic.

It has become a lugubrious tradition for foreign policy crises to surface during the parliamentary recess. But time is running out for Kosovo, and we cannot allow the conflict to fester over the summer until it erupts as an even more dangerous regional upheaval.