Peace at a Terrible Price

Wagers on Balkan peace are paid in blood. Negotiators in Macedonia were willing to risk an outbreak of ethnic savagery for the slight hope that compromise, and 3,500 NATO troops, could halt the five-month-old struggle between government forces and ethnic Albanian insurgents. But it was a sucker's bet. On Aug. 8, hours after the European Union's envoy, Franois Léotard, announced that the two sides had agreed to sign a peace deal, gunmen in the village of Rastani killed an 11-year-old Albanian boy. Guerrillas in Tetovo murdered a Macedonian...

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