Though the conflict in Kosovo only recently came into the national spotlight, some Harvard professors have been studying the situation for a long time.

Most agree with U.S. policy makers that whatever happens, it is important to keep Kosovo a part of Yugoslavia.

The recent conflict began last March when President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic deployed Serbian troops to crush ethnic Albanian rebels fighting for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Fighting continued through the spring and summer, with little action from the international community until this fall, when observers began to clamor for NATO air strikes to counter reports of Serbian atrocities.

But airstrikes were averted when U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke reached a temporary solution last week by brokering a peace deal that calls for the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops, the deployment of an unarmed NATO security force to monitor the peace and possible limited autonomy for Kosovo to be negotiated.

If the Albanian rebels-who constitute almost 90 percent of Kosovo-are allowed to secede, it would set a dangerous double standard, said Maria N. Todorova, a visiting professor of history from the University of Florida who will teach History 1519: "The Modern Balkans" this spring.

In the Bosnian conflict, the U.S. stood staunchly by the principle of "geographical integrity," even though ethnic Serbs wanted to break away, Todorova said. To violate this principle, and to allow the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to form their own nation, would go against the 1995 Dayton Accord, Todorova noted.

"It would be really a double standard if, on the one hand, the Kosovo Albanians would be supported in seceding whereas, on the other hand, the same right is denied to the Serbs in Bosnia," Todorova said. "Promoting [an] independent Kosovo would effectively kill the Dayton agreement in which the United States has a great stake."

Other surrounding countries might be affected if Kosovo achieved independence, according to Preceptor in Slavic Languages and Literatures Ellen Elias-Bursac, who is teaching Slavic Ea: "Beginning Croatian and Serbian I," this semester.

An independent Kosovo could spread conflict and threaten the stability of surrounding areas such as Greece, Albania, Macedonia or Turkey, Elias-Bursac said.

"Only after exhaustive international negotiations will it be possible to have a clearer sense of the long-term responses of the major powers in the area," she said.

Feldberg Professor of Government and Russian Studies Timothy J. Colton, who teaches Government 1213: "Russian Politics in Transition," also said the precedent of supporting ethnic rebels could have far-reaching effects beyond the borders of Kosovo-from the Kurds in Turkey to the Chechnyans in Russia.

"The breaking up of multinational states is not something that we should be actively pursuing," said Colton, who noted that there are some 3,000 ethnic groups across the world that could potentially form their own countries.

Hrushevs'Kyi Professor of Ukrainian History Roman Szporluk, who teaches History 1515: "States and Nations: 1905-1991," agrees that ethnic groups should generally not be allowed to secede from a nation, but adds there are some instances in which a break-up is better.

"There may be cases when the regime in those states in which those 'fragments' live is so savage, indeed genocidal, that a breakaway from such a state may be the only means for the group's survival," Szporluk said.