The exiled crown prince of Yugoslavia holds the West responsible for allowing the brutal reign of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to continue.

Prince Alexander, whose father was the last king of Yugoslavia, said, "Milosevic has been given a lease on life again and again."

The NATO bombing has only allowed him to deepen his bloody rule over Yugoslavia, he told Embassy Row Thursday.

"I'm very much opposed to the bombing," Prince Alexander said. "It has created many new problems."
He said the authoritarian Yugoslav president was losing popularity before the bombing started. Now, Mr. Milosevic has squelched the democratic opposition and silenced "what was left of an independent press," Prince Alexander said.

Mr. Milosevic "seized this opportunity to do his terrorist work," he added.
The U.S.-brokered Dayton accords, which ended the war in Bosnia in 1995, gave Mr. Milosevic a legitimacy as an international leader, he said.

"The U.S. and its allies are responsible for supporting him," he said. "The West has a lot to answer for."
Prince Alexander criticized the personal diplomacy of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose mission to Yugoslavia won the release of three American soldiers. Mr. Jackson clasped hands and prayed with Mr. Milosevic in a photo op that was broadcast around the world. "Can you imagine holding hands with Milosevic? I wouldn't want to hold his hand," he said.

He found irony in the West's efforts to resettle hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians driven out of Kosovo after the bombing began.

"What is the West doing? It is distributing refugees around the world, doing Milosevic's work for him," he said.
Prince Alexander fears that the Clinton administration might lose its resolve to win the war in Kosovo and seek a negotiated peace that could leave Mr. Milosevic even stronger.

"My concern is the administration will look for an easy way out," he said.

Prince Alexander believes the people of Yugoslavia's two provinces, Serbia and Montenegro, would support a constitutional monarchy. He fondly remembers his visit to Serbia in 1991 when 250,000 greeted him in demonstrations of support.

"There is a great feeling for a constitutional monarchy," he said. "This is a reality."