Human rights bodies in the US expressed concern yesterday that the visit to Yugoslavia by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, would be seen as a propaganda coup for President Milosevic.
They warned that to meet him would "damage" her reputation. In a joint letter to Mrs Robinson, Human Rights Watch and the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights said it would be a "grave mistake" for her to meet President Milosevic.
"Meeting with Milosevic at this stage - as his campaign of slaughter and forced displacement is raging in Kosovo - risks legitimising a man who stands for the antithesis for the values you have pledged to uphold," the letter said.
"It will reward Milosevic with a propaganda coup, enhance his stature and embolden him, at a time when the international community should be working to de-legitimise and arrest him."
The human rights bodies say: "We appreciate that you may hope through your visit to seek to prevail upon Milosevic to stop his crimes in Kosovo or to convince him to begin co-operating with the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia).
"These possibilities are remote, however, and are vastly outweighed by the likelihood that he will use your visit as a publicity coup to strengthen his hand."
Mrs Robinson's visit to Belgrade, as part of a tour of the refugee camps in the region, has the backing of the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan. His spokesman, Mr Fred Eckard, said that Mr Annan "expected Mrs Robinson to deliver a firm message in Belgrade concerning abuses of human rights in the region".
One Western diplomat is reported as saying: "Asking President Milosevic to help correct the human rights abuses taking place in this country is like asking Dr Kevorkian [the US euthanasia doctor] to supervise a geriatric clinic."
Amnesty International, a major human rights body, has refused to take an official stand on the Robinson visit to Belgrade.
But Mr Ian Levine, the Amnesty representative at the UN, noted that Mrs Robinson had visited China and Tibet recently, where human rights violations have been widely reported.
About 2,500 ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo agreed yesterday to be moved from an unsafe border area in northern Albania, aid workers said.
The UNHCR said it managed to persuade the group, staying in one of six tented camps in Kukes district, within shelling distance of Serb artillery, to be relocated to camps in southern Albania.