HEY CALL THIS PEACE IN YUGOSLAVIA?

"Only a day after pledging to warehouse their weapons and end their fight," read an Associated Press dispatch from Yugoslavia this week, "a top Kosovo Liberation Army leader said Tuesday the rebels never agreed to give up their guns and still hope to form an army. There was also evidence the rebels -- or supporters -- were continuing to take revenge on Serb civilians. Serb houses burned in the ... city of Pec and a Serb power company worker was shot in the capital. ...

"The violence followed the first deaths in Kosovo's peace force. ... Two British soldiers were killed Monday. ... Two villagers helping the peacekeepers were also killed and a third was hurt."

News of this sort makes clear that any "peace" to be imposed on the war-torn Balkan peninsula will be an uneasy one at best. Those who warned that our KLA allies weren't that different than their foes -- the thuggish forces of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevek -- do indeed have a point.

Later in the same AP story was this: "Also in Pristina's bustling downtown, two men opened fire on a Serb civilian Tuesday, wounding him in the chest. ... The gunmen walked calmly away after the shooting."

It appears it was ever thus in the centuries-old, kill-or-be-killed world of Balkan revenge matches and blood feuds. It will take sustained statesmanship of a high order to make any sense out of this mess. It appears the peacekeeper forces are settling in for a long occupation. The United States deployed the troops, flew nearly all the missions and bore these costs of battle. Now it is Europe's turn. The sooner most of our American troops are replaced by a multination European peacekeeping force, the better.