THE LEGACY OF VIOLENCE IN KOSOVA.Since the end of the Kosova war almost two years ago, many observers have been asking whether it will ever be possible to eliminate violence from public life in the province. It has, in fact, become clear that small armed groups of ethnic Albanians remain active and have even helped export the conflict into neighboring southern Serbia and Macedonia.
The continuing violence indicates not only that the access to arms and the readiness of nationalists to use them are still very much a factor. The violence also shows that Kosova's social structure has significantly changed since the early 1990s.
Kosova has traditionally been a conservative and rural society. Senior political leaders in the early 1990s were able to pursue a non-violent policy by maintaining strong social control through the village structures. This non- violence won them much sympathy in the West (see "RFE/RL Balkan Report," 23 February 2001). Ibrahim Rugova's Democratic League of Kosova (LDK) and its officials managed to keep the Kosovars united behind their strategy until early 1996, when the Kosova Liberation Army (UCK) emerged.
The new group seized the political initiative from the older generation of politicians, who in the eyes of many young UCK fighters had failed to offer them a serious perspective for the future. Indeed, in 1996 LDK officials still denied the existence of the UCK and blamed its attacks on Serbian agents-provocateurs.
Only in 1998, with increased Serbian military operations in Kosova, did the UCK gain mass recognition in the broader public as a protector of villages and towns. The development of the political party system since the war shows that a rift runs through society, between the older generation shaped by the tradition of non-violence, and the younger generation, which has grown up with the experience of the failure of non-violence and was socialized in war.
Inside Rugova's shadow-state, democratic discourse among the Albanian political parties never had a real chance to develop. In many ways, the shadow-state was a product of the political experience of socialist Yugoslavia. Shadow-state media reported about political events in much the same dry and boring way that socialist- era publications did. Politicians and journalists avoided pursuing real discourse or openly discussing their differences, saying instead that all Kosovars are united in their aim of independence through non-violence.
After the end of the Kosova war, that picture changed with the emergence of more competitive independent media. But at the same time, a democratic political culture is only just starting to develop.
The October 2000 local elections -- in which the moderate LDK won most mayoralties in smaller communities and larger city councils -- clearly showed that most Kosovars have little sympathy for the questionable commitment to democratic principles and transparency on the part of the parties that emerged from the UCK.
But others, who grew up politically through the structures of the UCK, obviously find it difficult to re- integrate into a peacetime society. Many of them are now struggling to get food on the table in an impoverished region with a sky-high unemployment rate.
Members of that generation lost their chance to get a proper education unless they emigrated. At best, they received basic schooling in the shadow-state's underground school system. Their employment opportunities are now minimal, and for many it is more lucrative to get involved in criminal activities than to seek regular work.
In addition, the psychological legacy of the recent conflict, mixed with a desire for revenge and uncertainty about their future, makes it difficult for some people to overcome their wartime traumas. Even though most UCK fighters have given up their weapons and many have found a new lease on life within the newly-developed civil service, re-integrating those who have learned nothing but fighting and resistance will remain a difficult task.
(Fabian Schmidt)
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