PRISTINA, Serbia -- War is a dirty thing -- that is something I knew before today. I have seen the faces of refugees in all the previous wars in the former Yugoslavia.

I was aboard one of the last flights out of Croatia before the war fully exploded there in 1991. I found myself at the end of the line to board the plane: Several men were pushing to scramble aboard, oblivious to three women with small children who were being pushed farther from the stairs.This time, sitting in my office and waiting for the NATO strikes on nearby Serbian positions, war does not look any better. But at least this time, I know it will be shorter, because for the first time, the war machine of the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, will be confronted by a vastly more powerful one -- one that may even destroy it, never to rise again.

I also know that this may change the behavior of the Balkan people toward war. The inhabitants of southeastern Europe will have to face the fact that NATO has created a security umbrella over them and that the warfare of the past years -- indeed, of the past centuries throughout Europe -- will not be allowed to continue.

The peace agreement that I and the other Kosovar representatives signed last week will give Kosovo a three-year period of self-rule guaranteed by NATO, with the possibility that the people of Kosovo will then decide their future status. Still, what has worried me is that these kinds of political arrangements require war, both as the igniting and driving forces and as the action that seals them.

For the past decade, it has been clear that Kosovo needed to be free from Milosevic's grip: 2 million Kosovars suffered from his rule in every aspect of our lives, from basic security to education. With the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Kosovar political activists tried to build on the philosophy of nonviolence, leading peaceful demonstrations.

Only when the first guns were heard from the Kosovar side did the leaders of the West's democracies react. This raised images of Bosnia in their minds, as did the renewed scenes of women and children fleeing on tractors. Thus a second lesson: A problem is a problem only if it has been preceded by a similar one.

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Unlike in Bosnia, the line of confrontation now is drawn in the air: The Serbian forces I can see outside my office can be defeated by NATO planes. Yet when I step outside, I too, may be a target, as will my compatriots here who do not have arms. We have been warned that the Serbian forces that have been attacking Kosovar villages for the last year will hunt down Kosovar leaders and professionals amid the confusion of war.

I chose to return from France last week to be here at this moment rather than remain abroad. When I signed the peace agreement, I also accepted that there would be consequences for the people of Kosovo, that if the Serbian side did not agree to the pact, it would have to be imposed by force -- even at risk to the civilian population.

We have held up our end of the agreement, and now NATO must honor its obligation. And it is only right for me to be here, to accept responsibility and to try to explain why the costs must be borne.

Veton Surroi, publisher of the newspaper Koha Ditore, was a member of the Kosovar delegation at the peace conference in Rambouille, France.

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