Worse yet to come? Kosovo & Macedonia.

What happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina must never be allowed to happen again. It would be catastrophic if something similar were to spread to the province of Kosovo and to adjacent Macedonia. All that Bosnia represented - a vibrant, contented, mutually tolerant multicultural and religious society - has been swept away in a cataclysm of carnage, ethnic cleansing, and mass rape. Europe's leaders are at long last getting the message that what Bosnia suffered was not war, but cold and calculated invasion, a message they should have gotten from the example of the bloodbath Serbia created previously in Croatia. Instead, they allowed Serbia to rip Bosnia apart.

Now these leaders have precious little leverage over Kosovo, since for Serbia, Kosovo is a purely internal affair, irrespective of the fact that it is 92 percent ethnic Albanian. Serbia regards any intervention from outside forces as an act of war. Kosovo is their most treasured possession, spoken of in biblical terms as their Jerusalem, the cradle of their nation.

Only the Kosovan Albanian leaders' almost saintly forbearance, tolerance, and willingness to seek dialogue, and the general awareness that the fate of a rebellious Kosovo would be even worse than Bosnia's, have prevented an uprising so far. Most observers do not expect Kosovans to remain quiescent much longer.

Former Serb Prime Minister Milan Panic's visit to Kosovo last October, the first ever attempt at dialogue from the Serb government, could have provided a breakthrough had he and his initiative not been repudiated and denounced by the ruling Socialist party and its powerful ally, the nationalist Serbian Radical party. Panic was ousted in late December. He had offered Ibrahim Rugova, head of the Kosovan Albanian Democratic Alliance (DSK), three seats in the federal cabinet. Both had agreed that Albanian elementary schools, closed for a year as the result of an Albanian boycott against the suppression of the Albanian language as a medium of instruction, be reopened. But even Panic, though willing to discuss the restoration of Kosovan autonomy (revoked unilaterally by Serbia in 1989), had drawn the line at independence.

Rugova maintains that only the presence of UN observers can avert violence. He favors a neutral, independent, democratic, demilitarized republic with guaranteed rights to protect Serbs and their monastic shrines. (Some of these, have, ironically, been guarded for centuries by Albanian Muslims.) To most Serbs, surrender of Kosovo would be craven betrayal, though the Orthodox Christian Vuk Draskovic of the Serb Renewal party, in a surprise volte face, suggested partition, leaving Serbia with the north where most of the monasteries are located.

Serb extremists, exploiting Kosovo as a major issue in December's national election, had a clear run there because a million Kosovan Albanian voters boycotted the elections. The Albanians, with their self-proclaimed "Kacanicka Constitution" (see "The Next Explosion," Commonweal, July 17, 1992) have demonstrated since 1990 their ability to create an alternative civil society, and can see no possible future for themselves within a paranoically nationalist Serbia. The Serbian elections confirmed the supremacy of the extreme nationalists. The Serbian Radical party, whose leader Vojislav Seselj is accused of war crimes by the United States, won a quarter of the seats. Zeljko Raznatovic, alias Arkan, another of those accused of atrocities, utilized Kosovo as a launching pad for his political career with the rallying cry, "Drive Albanians back to their homeland, Albania! Serb mothers, bear more children!" Already, Serb refugee families are being resettled in Kosovo. The foundations of a Serbian Orthodox cathedral have been laid on the campus of Pristina University, originally founded for Albanians but now an almost entirely Serbian institution, prompting the DSK to protest strongly that the church is placing itself at the service of Serb policy.

Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo is not a new policy. Serbia experimented with it back in 1912. Then, in 1937, an ambitious scheme drawn up by Serb-dominated Yugoslavia collapsed only because of World War II, when Kosovo and Albania were briefly united under Italian rule.

With regard to Macedonia, on the other hand, the European Community (EC) could have exerted leverage. As far as the Serbs are concerned, Macedonia is dispensable, though according to Seselj, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's alter ego, Serbia favors carving it up with Greece and Albania.

The EC's prime concern should have been to stabilize Macedonia's new, impoverished, fragile democracy. But whereas Serbia, or at least Panic, recognized Macedonia in October, the EC consigned it to a kind of limbo, allowing itself to be dictated to by Greece, the most blatant defaulter over the trade embargo imposed on Serbia, and the EC has continued to withhold proper recognition. Greece, whose fixation with its past compares with Serbia's, claims proprietary rights to the name Macedonia on (dubious) historical grounds. But the Macedonians too identify themselves with a name which distinguishes them against past encroachments from Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians. While Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov staked his government's positions on an unpopular compromise, "Macedonia-Skopje," Greece, with the aid of frenzied demonstrations in Athens, convinced the Edinburgh EC Conference last December that concessions on its side could topple Greece's government, and even threatened to cease applying any sanctions against Serbia.

The EC ignored Gligorov's warning that nonrecognition, blockades, and lack of help from abroad all increase ethnic and social tensions. Slav Macedonians and the Albanian minority, a third of the population, have become increasingly polarized. It is now far more difficult to work out a satisfactory modus vivendi for the ethnic Albanians, who suffered considerable disadvantages under communism, especially in education. Their community is split between accepting the cabinet representation and boycotting participation in politics. Rational dialogue is giving way to heated accusations. In November four people died in riots in Skopje. The Islamic community council severed relations with the Macedonian Orthodox church following the erection of crosses in mainly Muslim towns. While the new Macedonian constitution recognizes as citizens only people who have lived in the republic for fifteen years, thousands more refugees are now arriving in Macedonia: Albanians fleeing grinding poverty in adjacent Albania or oppression in Kosovo, and Slav Muslims fleeing Bosnia. Christians in Prilep threatened a blockade to prevent Bosnian Muslims from settling locally.

Extremist, potentially violent Albanian irridentism is spreading, demanding the unification of all Balkan Albanians - whether from Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, the Serbian Sandjack region, or Albania - into,one state. In Albania itself the militantly anti-Communist Balli Kombetar, crushed during World War II by Enver Hoxha, has come to life again. The organization is demanding the return of Kosovo and jeopardizing the Albanian government's attempts to prevent a clash with Serbia, being only too aware of its own military weakness.

The Macedonian government feels itself the victim of forces beyond its control. Its greatest fear is war in Kosovo. Should this happen, 2 million Albanians could spill over into Macedonia and Albania and bring the total of unwanted European refugees to nearly 5 million. Greece's NATO troops, at the ready along its mountainous northern border to repel a fictive Macedonian invasion, will keep refugees out and might slice off Epirus, southern Albania.

Other powers should not stand idly by. Turkey, the most stabilizing power in the Balkans, is ready to intervene militarily to protect its Muslims. That could bring it into a collision course with Serbia, fellow NATO power Greece, and even, if Yeltsin fell, Russia. Bulgaria, Macedonia's other neighbor, would probably try to avoid involvement. The United States now looks likely to intervene. If there is a major Balkan war, the EC must bear much of the blame.

Janice Broun, formerly Eastern European correspondent for News Network International, writes, frequently on the Balkans for Commonweal.