Germany Offers European Leaders Peace Proposal

WASHINGTON —  Searching for a solution to what has become the most extensive European conflict since World War II, European leaders were offered two proposals Wednesday aimed at restoring peace to Yugoslavia, but the sudden diplomatic flurry produced little visible progress.

Germany presented the European Parliament with a six-point plan that would engage Russia and the United Nations, both of which have been sidelined so far in efforts to resolve the Kosovo crisis. Leaders of the 15-member European Union separately considered a peace bid by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

But the latest proposals offered no clear or easy escape route for Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic as the punishing NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia’s military and security forces and installations entered a fourth week.

Milosevic, meanwhile, accused NATO bombers of striking two refugee convoys in Kosovo, leaving appalling scenes of carnage. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization confirmed that it hit military vehicles on one of the roads. It was still investigating and could not confirm Yugoslav claims that scores of ethnic Albanians had been killed.

Overall, foul weather again restricted most NATO airstrikes. Of five bomber groups sent over Yugoslavia, two turned back and two others only partly completed their missions. The targets included two bridges, military command sites, communications facilities and fuel dumps.

Chancellor’s Plan Elicits Private Dismay

Privately, NATO officials in Brussels reacted with dismay to Germany’s peace plan. Publicly, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the German bid was an “informal discussion paper” and not an “official position” of NATO.

The Clinton administration also stopped far short of embracing the German initiative, which was unveiled by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said the German offer was “very constructive,” but he dismissed its call for a 24-hour bombing halt if Milosevic agrees to its terms. State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said the proposal was consistent with NATO’s objectives but should be seen as “a beginning of a discussion” of how best to implement a postwar peace.

National Security Council spokesman David C. Leavy called the German plan “an important bridging component for the U.N., Russia and others to rally around.” But he warned that NATO still will require Milosevic to stop the gunpoint expulsion of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo--a southern province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic--withdraw his troops from the separatist region and accept an international postwar peacekeeping force.

The European Union leaders who met with Annan in Brussels offered verbal support for his peace bid, which he first made last week and which includes interim administration of a postwar Kosovo by the EU. Annan said the formula will now be put in the form of a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Some European countries, especially France and Germany, have grown keen on getting the diplomatic track functioning again, and the refugee crisis in the Balkans and Russia’s increasing anger at the West over its conduct in Yugoslavia, a longtime Russian ally, are reasons often cited for seeking a quick end to the crisis.

“Let me say that obviously we are living in a very dangerous situation, and there are indications that events might escalate, and I think we need to intensify the search for a political solution,” Annan said before heading back to New York.

Asked if it wasn’t risky for the West European bloc, which often has difficulty reaching common positions on foreign affairs, to interpose itself between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in administering Kosovo, Schroeder said, “Talking about dangers or risks, I’d say the biggest danger is the current situation: people being deported and chased out of Kosovo.”

Milosevic made no formal reply to either proposal. But the Serbian strongman telegraphed his unrelenting defiance when he told visiting Belarus President Alexander G. Lukashenko that Yugoslavia would be willing to accept only “civilian monitors” of a peace accord, not the armed peacekeepers that NATO insists are necessary to protect ethnic Albanians from Serbian gunmen.

In other developments:

* At The Hague, U.N. prosecutors at the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia formally charged a notorious Serbian paramilitary leader, Zeljko Raznjatovic, who is known as Arkan, with crimes against humanity. Arkan was accused of leading a massacre of 250 people who were taken from a hospital and killed on a nearby farm in the Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991. More recently, Arkan reportedly has taken part in the “ethnic cleansing” of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

* NATO said it cannot easily drop food or other relief supplies to civilians who are trapped inside Kosovo because low-flying cargo planes would be easy targets for Serbian gunners. NATO estimates that about 260,000 ethnic Albanians and others who have fled their homes since the war began are surviving in Kosovo’s hills and forests.

* Pentagon officials said the first of 24 Apache attack helicopters, the army’s most advanced gunships, left Germany and should arrive in Albania by Friday. Two support ships, carrying heavy cranes and other equipment for the Apaches, left from Virginia for the Adriatic Sea and will arrive in two to three weeks.

* The Pentagon also announced that the first of 82 U.S. warplanes being added to Operation Allied Force were set to leave U.S. bases. The first 24 F-16 fighters will leave today from South Carolina, followed by four A-10 “Warthogs” and numerous EA-6B electronics-jamming aircraft.

* Thousands of Kosovo Albanians crossed into Macedonia as refugees fled the city of Urosevac, according to Paula Ghedini, a spokeswoman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Serbian forces appear to be systematically emptying Urosevac, just as they did Pristina, the provincial capital, about 10 days ago, Ghedini said.

* Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin named former Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin to be his special envoy responsible for negotiating a settlement in the Balkans.

* Yugoslav troops fired mortars across the Albanian border into mostly deserted mountain hamlets, a day after several dozen Yugoslav soldiers fought with border police and briefly seized a nearby Albanian village. The cross-border skirmish Tuesday was the first known incursion by Yugoslav ground troops.

U.S. and NATO commanders continued to give upbeat assessments of the damage that the intensifying air war is inflicting on Yugoslav military and security forces. Several Washington analysts disputed those reports, however, arguing that airstrikes on airports, bridges, oil refineries and the like have done little to stop a Serbian terror campaign against civilians.

Air-raid sirens wailed and sonic booms echoed midmorning in downtown Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia and Serbia, as NATO warplanes buzzed but apparently did not bomb the city. Daytime alerts also sounded in the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica, and Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city. Montenegro is the smaller of the two Yugoslav republics.

Milosevic has used state-run media to rally public support by showing endless Serbian TV footage of the devastation caused by the NATO attacks while denying charges that his followers have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes at gunpoint.

Milosevic also falsely boasted in an interview Wednesday with Russia’s leading military newspaper that his troops had shot down 36 NATO warplanes and more than 100 cruise missiles. NATO says only one aircraft, a U.S. Air Force F-117 “Nighthawk” radar-resistant Stealth fighter, has been downed so far. The pilot was later rescued.

A Second Chance for Milosevic

In its details, the German proposal put forward Wednesday differs little from the peace plan negotiated last month in Rambouillet, France. Milosevic’s outright rejection of the Rambouillet plan led to the start of the NATO air war on March 24. The new plan appeared aimed at offering Milosevic a face-saving second chance to reconsider terms he already has denounced.

Most important, the proposal asks for U.N. “authorization” for a NATO-led peace-enforcement mission in Kosovo once Yugoslav troops and Serbian paramilitary forces have withdrawn. Milosevic has said he will never allow NATO forces to set foot in Kosovo. But Milosevic, who controls all Yugoslav media, could cast the peacekeepers as a U.N. mission if he wanted a way out of the clash.

The German plan, which was drafted by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and presented by Schroeder in his capacity as head of the European Union, also seeks to draw Russia back into the now-frozen Balkan peace process.

Moscow did not support the Rambouillet peace terms because the enforcement troops would be under NATO command and probably dominated by U.S. forces. The Western alliance has refused to be directed by a U.N. command, but Schroeder appeared to be suggesting a compromise that would provide a U.N. mandate rather than actual U.N. control of the proposed peacekeeping force.

Drogin reported from Washington and Williams from Berlin. Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Tyler Marshall, Norman Kempster, James Gerstenzang and Melissa Healy in Washington; Joel Havemann and John-Thor Dahlburg in Brussels; and Maura Reynolds in Moscow.

Many charities are accepting contributions to help refugees from Kosovo. The list may be found at http://ukobiw.net/kosovoaid.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

War Wrap-Up

A roundup of events as NATO airstrikes continue in Yugoslavia:

* Kosovo: NATO and Yugoslavia accused each other of killing refugees.

* Berlin: Germany unveiled proposal to restore peace in besieged Yugoslavia.

* London: Britain says indicted war criminals are aiding Milosevic forces.

* Brussels: Members worried civilian deaths undermine NATO authority.

Kosovars in 1991: 2 million

Fled or expelled: 530,000

Flight Forecast

Cloudy today and Friday over Belgrade, showers Saturday.