WASHINGTON – Russia and the United States eased one of the tensest periods since the Cold War yesterday, finally agreeing on a plan to end the war in Yugoslavia.
The plan is a little weaker than previous NATO demands, but it increases the chances of a deal to end the six-week war.
The plan doesn’t call for a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo – something on which the United States had always insisted.
Instead, it calls for “effective international civil and security presences” in Kosovo, and doesn’t mention NATO’s role at all.
President Clinton called the plan a “significant step forward … increasing the likelihood that there will ultimately be a resolution of this that will actually work.”
Clinton made the remarks in Germany, where he met with Kosovar refugees and the three GIs who were freed Sunday by Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
The Pentagon yesterday revealed details of an Army report on the capture and imprisonment of the men.
It says they were beaten with rifle butts, kicked and punched by the men who captured them near the Yugoslav-Macedonia border.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the GIs were clearly on the Macedonia side, not the Yugoslavia side, as the Serbs claimed, when they were caught.
The men who beat them wore Yugoslav army uniforms, he said.
“They were taken by a substantially larger force,” Bacon said. “I don’t know how much larger, but they felt that they didn’t have any alternative but to stop.”
“And, in fact, as they tried to get out, they ran into an obstacle, which I believe was a ditch, which also made it difficult for them to get away.’
Staff Sgt. Andrew Ramirez, 24, of Los Angeles, was discovered to have a stitched-up wound on the top of his head, two fractured ribs and a swollen right leg when he was seen by a doctor last weekend.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Stone, 25, of Smiths Creek, Mich., had a broken nose and bruises and abrasions on his face.
Spc. Steven Gonzalez, 21, of Huntsville, Texas, was OK.
Bacon said the GIs were driving a Humvee armed with a .50-caliber machine gun, but that the gun wasn’t ready to fire because the vehicle was moving.
The three were supposed to link up with other members of their platoon but had gone off alone to train, he said.
“They were actually training to avoid the type of situation in which they were caught,” Bacon said.