Anti-Serb Militancy on the Rise in Kosovo
Yugoslavia: Ethnic Albanians chafe under minority
rule in region.
By TRACY WILKINSON, Times Staff Writer
AUSA, Yugoslavia -- Hazy light streams through
a window, slicing cigarette smoke that fills
the room where 19 ragged men sit cross-legged
on the floor. With bitter coffee and Muslim
prayers, they solemnly pay homage to their martyr,
a teacher killed in escalating violence
between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian
authorities in this desolate region known
as Kosovo.
The sons, brothers
and distant cousins of the dead man, Haljit Geci, tell of the abuse
they say Albanians suffer at the hands of the
ruling Serbs, and how it is driving the young
men of their villages to take up weapons.
"Obviously, repression
has reached the heights of being unbearable and no longer
tolerable," says one of the clan's leaders, an
elderly man wearing a wool beret who has
risen to speak on behalf of his fellow mourners.
"Faced with a wall and no way out, we will
fight with every means available."
Armed guerrillas
grouped in something called the Kosova Liberation Army are rumored
to have been operating in the barren hills around
here for more than a year. But apart from
faxes sent to journalists and a few sporadic
terrorist attacks, there was little proof that the
group really existed.
Until now.
A few weeks ago,
three men in camouflage uniforms and masks burst in on Geci's
funeral. They declared themselves members of
the Kosova Liberation Army and vowed to
fight Serbian authorities to the death.
The more than 10,000
mourners said to be in attendance erupted into applause and
cheers.
Kosovo, a region
of Serbia where a huge ethnic Albanian majority is governed by a tiny,
dwindling Serbian minority, is frequently singled
out as the likely focus of the next Balkan
war, should it occur. Such a conflict would engulf
the region because of the presence of
ethnic Albanians in other countries, such as
Macedonia.
Kosovo's Albanians,
who make up about 90% of the region's 2 million people, are
chafing under rule from Belgrade, which is the
capital of both Serbia and Yugoslavia.
Once an autonomous
province, Kosovo was stripped of its special status in 1989 by
Slobodan Milosevic, then Serbia's warmongering
president.
Albanian teachers,
doctors and professionals were fired or walked off their jobs.
Eventually, the Albanians created a parallel
-- if substandard -- educational, health and
social system that ignores Serbian authority.
Kosovo has been
kept largely under control by pacifist Albanian leaders. But their
authority appears to be eroding quickly.
Tension and frustration
have run deep for a long time, and now, with the emergence of
the Kosova Liberation Army, the option of armed
struggle has become a realistic one.
* * *
Geci, the teacher,
was killed Nov. 26 in the largest skirmish yet between police and
guerrillas. Police trying to collect taxes were
ambushed just southwest of Lausa, at an
isolated spot where the road bends and then dips
between gentle hills covered with thick
bushes that keep their leaves year-round.
Fierce fighting
raged for four hours until, villagers say, the police withdrew, firing
pell-
mell as they fled. One of the bullets hit Geci,
whose level of involvement in the separatist
cause is unclear.
The stark countryside
of this region has long been known for a tradition of resistance
and rebellion. Albanian villagers fought off
the Ottoman Turks in the last century and
revolted against World War II's Communist partisans.
Geci's father was
killed by partisans -- tortured and executed, the family says, during
the rebellion.
The men who gathered
at Geci's home recently were participating in a traditional
mourning ritual. From dawn to dusk and for weeks
after Geci's death, the male relatives
come to the communal room typical of every Albanian
home and sit on hand-woven rugs,
smoking constantly while receiving visitors who
arrive to pay their respects.
Some Albanians,
dressed in the traditional plis, a kind of woolen skullcap, arrive from
as far away as Macedonia. Each visitor is given
two cigarettes, tiny cups of coffee and a
sweet drink. A shrine with a large red Albanian
flag and a dated photograph of Geci is
erected outside. No women are visible.
Up the road from
Geci's house, on the southwestern edge of Lausa, lives Sokol Zabeli,
a 37-year-old father of five. His bright green
tractor and white plaster house are dotted with
bullet holes from the day of the gun battle,
when six of his cows were shot dead and he
took shelter with his children in the cellar.
That day was the
last straw, Zabeli said.
"I will never again
allow myself to be in that position, cowering in the basement with my
children," the unemployed factory worker said.
"The fear is vanished."
Zabeli's home was
searched six times last year by Serbian police, who said they were
looking for weapons.
He was taken in
for questioning seven times in one month last summer. His brother
has been jailed on weapons charges, and his uncle
fled the country to escape the same
fate.
International human
rights organizations say arbitrary arrests and unprovoked and
violent searches of Albanians' homes are the
most common forms of harassment used by
police.
Albanians have
generally followed their politicians' lead and toed the line of
nonviolence. But such patience is ending, and
the heavy-handed crackdown by police is
only fueling the anger.
Many say they are
now ready to take up a gun.
"My 66-year-old
father left me the same set of problems, the same repression, that I am
leaving to my children," Zabeli said. "It is
becoming a tradition. Nothing changes."
* * *
Just how extensive
-- and how well organized -- the Kosova Liberation Army is remains
a question.
Serbian officials
suggest that the guerrillas are receiving training in countries like Iran
but offer no proof of such claims. Several people
familiar with the movement said the
armed guerrillas probably do not number more
than a few hundred.
The guerrillas
appear to be an extension of armed militants who have operated in the
region for decades as self-defense committees
formed to patrol their villages.
This loose network
is believed to have gotten its impetus from diaspora money and
from weapons, most of which probably filtered
in from neighboring Albania after political
turmoil there last spring poured guns, rocket
launchers and ammunition into the black
market.
Serbian police
have not ventured into some of the more remote villages, where the
armed groups are reportedly the strongest, since
1991.
During Serbian
presidential elections in December, the authorities could not open
polling stations in much of the region.
Police beatings
and torture have undoubtedly helped swell the guerrilla ranks.
The guerrilla violence,
in turn, has drawn an even more systematically brutal response
from the police.
By Serbian count,
dozens of terrorist acts have been recorded in the past year,
including armed attacks on police stations.
About 40 people
have been killed, including 12 police officers and 16 Albanians
suspected of being informers or collaborators
with the Serbian regime. Six Albanians have
died while in Serbian police custody, and more
than 50 have been put on trial--most from
the region around Lausa.
In one trial that
ended in mid-December, 17 men were convicted of being members of
the Kosova Liberation Army and sentenced to a
total of 186 years in prison for various
terrorist acts.
Among the men was
Nait Hasani, a reputed ringleader. Most of the men testified that
they were tortured in jail so they would confess.
All said they were innocent. Most stated at
the start of the trial that they were residents
of an independent "Republic of Kosova."
Serbian authorities
dismiss the extensive accounts of mistreatment that Albanian
human rights organizations have collected, including
volumes of gruesome photographs
that the Albanians say document torture.
"Our police are
not so naive as to leave traces that can then be photographed," said
Bosko Drobnjak, spokesman for the Serbian government
in Kosovo's capital, Pristina.
"There are a lot of methods that don't leave
marks behind. Speaking hypothetically, of
course."
* * *
The potential for
widening violence and instability is made all the greater by the
continued inability of Milosevic -- now the Yugoslav
president -- and the Albanian
leadership to negotiate a political solution.
Milosevic refuses
to negotiate in good faith, diplomats say. His representatives stormed
out of an international peacekeeping meeting
in Bonn last month when the issue of human
rights violations in Kosovo was raised.
At the same time,
the ethnic Albanian leadership, while insisting on peaceful resistance,
refuses to compromise.
Under the monarchical
rule of Ibrahim Rugova, the principal Albanian political group
has insisted on nothing short of independence.
And that is precisely the one thing the
Serbs, who consider the Kosovo region the cradle
of their civilization, will not grant.
The West has always
looked to Rugova to keep the peace, showering upon him
unquestioning support. But with no progress to
show his people for their sacrifice in the
past eight years, Rugova is increasingly isolated
from his followers.
Governments that
support Rugova -- chief among them the United States -- are
beginning to realize how counterproductive his
role is.
"Rugova has been
a useful instrument for keeping Kosovo on the back burner," said a
Western diplomat familiar with the region. "But
his presence has been very bad for the
development of intelligent dialogue among Albanians.
He creates a fantasy world, and
anyone who talks about reasonable solutions involving
compromise is cut down."
Rugova, who until
last year controlled all of the Albanian-language press in Kosovo,
routinely told his people that the West supported
Kosovo's drive for independence. In fact,
Washington and European capitals support a special
status for Kosovo, but within
Yugoslavia.
When that was reported
in Kosovo for the first time last year, in a new, independent
newspaper, many Albanians were stunned. The news
injected a dose of reality into the
minds of many.
Separately, students
from the Kosovo Albanians' ad hoc university, which holds
classes in bare rooms and basements, held street
demonstrations to protest Serbian rule.
Significantly, they defied Rugova, who forbade
the protests.
The dilemma for
Western governments, however, is that no other leaders have
emerged. And now they view with alarm the rise
of an armed movement.