United States Foreign Relations Yugoslavia

Like hundreds of thousands of his fellow Kosovo Albanians, Bashkim Millaku was forced at gunpoint to leave his home and his country by Serbian troops last week. On his way, the 36-year-old father of two was caught in a roundup of 400 men, held prisoner for three days and two nights, tormented mentally and physically, robbed and denied food and water. He was used as a human shield. By the time Millaku reached Albania on Saturday night, he was in shock.

In an incident that U.S. diplomats described as "outrageous," an American envoy in the rump Yugoslavia was summarily arrested and held incommunicado for 15 hours by military police. The diplomat was detained Thursday by plainclothes officers along with a former chief of staff of the Yugoslav army, Momcilo Perisic, according to Paul Denig, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade. Perisic is now a deputy prime minister of Serbia.

In a significant escalation of tensions between the two Balkan neighbors, Albania on Tuesday charged that Yugoslav troops had violated its territory, shelling and burning homes in a remote border village before withdrawing. Yugoslav officials denied the report, but international peace monitors in the border area said Yugoslav troops had entered the village of Kamenica and set part of it on fire before withdrawing after 1 1/2 hours.

Yugoslavia recalled its ambassador to the U.S., Milan Protic, on Thursday because he publicly criticized his bosses in Belgrade. Protic, appointed earlier this year, "can no longer perform the important diplomatic duty after his recent statements and interviews," Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said. The recall is effective immediately.

When they boarded the Fati Tours bus from Slovenia to Kosovo last July, Baljaj Naim, Zogaj Enver and Hrecaj Haljit were much like the 51 other ethnic Albanian passengers. Like the others, the three men were contract workers going home--their pockets full of hard-earned construction wages--to wives, children and parents they hadn't seen for months.

More than 500 exhausted, emaciated Kosovo men of fighting age staggered across the border into Albania on Sunday, telling harrowing tales of being beaten, starved and forced to fight one another like gladiators before their Serbian captors.

Something strange is going on in this Kosovo Albanian village in what was once a hard-line guerrilla stronghold, where NATO accuses Serbs of committing genocide. An estimated 15,000 displaced ethnic Albanians live in and around Svetlje, in northern Kosovo, and hundreds of young men are everywhere, strolling along the dirt roads or lying on the grass on a spring day.

Yugoslav air force fighter planes bombed Slovenia's main airports and border crossings Friday, killing soldiers and civilians before the Belgrade government claimed it had pounded the rebellious republic into submission and would hold its fire. A European Community delegation announced early today in Zagreb that Slovenia and a second breakaway republic, Croatia, had agreed to temporarily suspend their independence declarations. There was no official confirmation from either republic.

With air raid sirens wailing on a day of intense NATO bombing, the Rev. Jesse Jackson embraced three U.S. prisoners of war in a Serbian military judge's chambers Friday evening and led a prayer for their freedom. "Help is on the way and hope is in the air, and soon--very soon--you will know peace and family," the civil rights leader said in a huddle with the servicemen in the first video of the trio aired since their capture a month ago.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III admitted Friday that he was unable to dissuade Yugoslavia's independence-minded republics from breaking up the 73-year-old federation. "What I heard here today has not allayed my concerns, nor will it allay the concerns of others" in the U.S. Administration and the international community, Baker said after spending almost 10 hours in meetings with federal officials and the presidents of all six constituent republics.

For the United States, the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic marks a major victory in a saga that has involved massive amounts of American leadership, diplomacy and bombs--all of which Washington never wanted to expend. But in the end, for all the contentious debate over U.S. intervention in the Balkans, bringing the former Yugoslav dictator to justice was one thing that both the Clinton and Bush administrations agreed on.

Balkan issues dominated the State Department's agenda Friday, with visits by Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic and Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians. Rugova said he and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell have an "understanding in general" that independence for Kosovo should be supported. But a State Department official said the independence issue never came up during Powell's meeting with Rugova.

President Clinton, responding to positive developments in Yugoslavia, notified congressional leaders Friday that he was lifting trade and financial sanctions against the Balkan nation. The easing of sanctions does not apply to former President Slobodan Milosevic, his family, his cronies or indicted war crimes suspects. All told, 81 people will remain under sanctions restrictions.

U.S. envoys held talks with Yugoslav officials Monday and said they were confident that peace can be restored to a part of Serbia neighboring Kosovo where ethnic Albanian guerrillas are fighting Serbian authorities. William Montgomery, the American ambassador to Yugoslavia, and U.S. Balkans envoy James Pardew held talks with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic in the southern town of Bujanovac, near the boundary with Kosovo.

The postwar wall of distrust between Yugoslavia and the United States crumbled a bit more Monday as Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica shook hands and spoke briefly here with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. The surprise meeting was the highest-level contact between the two governments in the nearly 18 months since the U.S. led a 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia to end a vicious civil war in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Calling it a "debt we owe to an entire generation," Yugoslavia's new democratic government resumed diplomatic relations Friday with the United States, Germany, France and Britain--its foes during last year's conflict in Kosovo. President Clinton marked the event with a promise of about $45 million in emergency food aid to help the Yugoslav people through the winter.

NATO-led peacekeeping troops sought to maintain order in Kosovo on Friday as ethnic Albanian refugees poured back into the province at an unprecedented pace and a wave of violence left 14 dead in this capital. U.S. Marines stationed in southeastern Kosovo, meanwhile, came under attack Friday for a second time this week and returned fire. The Marines were manning an outpost in the town of Gnjilane, about 20 miles southeast of here, according to the U.S.

Spread out by a gurgling river, surrounded by mountains and green fields, the village of Belanica is described by those who dwelt there as a place where orchards flourished, the earth was rich, and time passed unhurried among neighbors who had known each other all their lives. It existed that way for centuries. And then, in a day, it was gone.

For Bill Clinton and his weary advisors, it's a sobering thought: The president's foreign policy legacy may well be determined more by how he handles multiple crises during his last three months in office than by anything he's accomplished over the previous seven years.

U.S. envoy James C. O'Brien on Saturday called for Yugoslavia's new government to quickly release ethnic Albanian political prisoners held in Serbian jails and for the people of Kosovo to tolerate the return of former Serbian residents. "Serbs who want to return home should now have the chance," O'Brien, envoy to the Balkans, said at a news conference here.