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Economic sanctions also undermined the ability of the

democratic opposition inside Serbia to organize and mount

political campaigns against Milosevic and his party.  With

the middle class and the private business sector eviscer-

ated by sanctions, charitable contributions to the opposi-

tion all but dried up.  Moreover, the international embar-

go on gasoline made it difficult for local opposition

leaders to travel around the country and mobilize support.

More significant, sanctions made it harder for the opposi-

tion to reach voters.  As Boran Karadzole, a former high-

ranking Yugoslav trade official, noted,

The years of isolation during the war brought

about a general drop in the level of political

enlightenment, and especially our awareness of

what's going on in the world. . . . It's made

people all the more susceptible to cliches.65

In the end, imposing new economic sanctions on Serbia

will again prove counterproductive, entrenching Milosevic,

further impoverishing Serbia's ordinary citizens, and

undermining the democratic opposition.  Ultimately, econom-

ic sanctions will encourage Serbia's young people to emi-

grate, thus further draining the small nation of those

most receptive to democratic change--its youth.66   As a

result, new sanctions will prove inimical to the develop-

ment of a democratic Yugoslavia and the emergence of a

peaceful resolution to the Kosovo crisis.

Washington's Policy Contradictions

Three months before Belgrade's initial crackdown in

Kosovo, France and Germany called on President Milosevic

to find a negotiated settlement to the Kosovo problem and

to grant the province special status.  In a letter to

Milosevic, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel urged negotiation

among Kosovo's Albanian community and federal and Serbian

representatives, with mediation by a third party acceptable

to all three sides.  "A lasting solution on the European

level must include special status for Kosovo," they

explained.67   In return, Vedrine and Kinkel offered to

reestablish normal diplomatic relations between the

European Union and Yugoslavia, support Yugoslavia's candi-

dacy for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in

Europe, renew favorable trade relations between the

European Union and Yugoslavia, and eventually integrate

Yugoslavia into the European Union.