A Worrisome Kosovo Mystery

For most of the past month Balkan watchers have gazed at the sight of refugees leaving Kosovo and been haunted by a terrible question: What happened to Kosovo's best and brightest, the doctors, diplomats and intellectuals who made up the province's leadership and who have been noticeably missing among the refugees? For example, Veton Surroi, the gruff and charismatic Kosovar delegate to the peace talks in Rambouillet, France, courageously returned to Kosovo days before the bombing began but has since disappeared.

Last week, in a hurried phone conversation with Lirak, a K.L.A. officer in Kosovo, TIME learned that some of those missing leaders are encamped inside Kosovo with a group of what he said is a quarter of a million refugees. Lirak said at least three provisional-government ministers are hiding at the guerrilla enclave of Llap, guarded by 4,000 K.L.A. soldiers. The soldiers are eager to fight back, he said, but face Serbian soldiers with a powerful defense: other refugees.

Among those trapped with Lirak is Hydajet Hyseni, the Kosovar "minister of justice." "We cannot leave," Hyseni explained by phone. "We cannot form a government in exile even if we wanted to. So we are trying to organize the operation from within." A few key officials who escaped in the first days of the war have been shuttling around Europe, raising money and working to keep NATO's interests aligned with their own. Some prominent Kosovar leaders, such as K.L.A. chief Hashim Thaci, are in and out of Kosovo. Others, however, are missing. Polyglot publisher Surroi, with friends both inside and outside Kosovo, is particularly conspicuous by his absence. His fate, like that of other key players in Kosovo, remains a mystery.