PART ONE YOU CAN READ UNDER back154.htm
Kosovo Spring
ICG Kosovo, March 24, 1998
(Part 2 of 2)
Kosovo In Context
a. Kosovo And Kosovo Serbs
b. Kosovo And Belgrade Serbs
c. Kosovo And Yugoslavia
d. Kosovo And Albania
e. Kosovo And The Balkans
f. Kosovo And Europe
i. European Union
ii. Council Of Europe
iii. Individual European Initiatives
g. Kosovo And The US
h. Kosovo And International Organisations
i. OSCE
ii. Contact Group
iii. United Nations
iv. NATO
v. Non-Governmental Organisations
Proposed Solutions
a. Status Quo
b. Independence
c. International Protectorate
d. Administrative Reforms And Possible Partition Of Kosovo
e. Autonomy
f. "Third Republic"
g. Conclusion
ICG Recommendations
a. Short Term Measures
i. Military Strategy
ii. Sanctions And Other Punitive Measures
iii. Mediation Of Immediate Issues
iv. International Presence
b.Accompanying Measures
i. Negotiations
ii. Increased Contacts
iii. Support For Education And Health Service
iv. Civil Society
v. Media
vi. Students
Appendices
a. Chronology Of Events In Kosovo 1946-1992
b. Who Is Who
Kosovo in Context
Kosovo and Kosovo Serbs
As Kosovo's demographics (See section II
B(4)) shift more in favour of its Albanian
community, the province's Serbs feel increasingly
isolated. The euphoria, which just over a
decade ago accompanied Milosevic's rise to power
in Serbia and his apparent
commitment to their cause, has disappeared. Today
most Kosovo Serbs are disillusioned,
bitter and fearful lest they share a similar
fate to other erstwhile Milosevic allies, in
particular their ethnic kin in Croatia and Bosnia.
The province's most prominent Serb politician
is Momcilo Trajkovic, leader of the Serb
Resistance Movement (Srpski pokret otpora or
SPO). Trajkovic's position is categorical:
"The question of Kosmet [Kosovo and Metohija]
is an internal problem of Serbia, not of
Yugoslavia." [100] That said, he and another
Serb leader, Raska-Prizren Bishop Artemije,
have become increasingly vocal critics of Milosevic's
Kosovo policy in recent months. In
January, they wrote to him warning: "We are convinced
that a solution cannot be found by
taking Serbs out into the streets and by manipulating
their misfortune. Such an
irresponsible approach is leading us all directly
to a national catastrophe." [101] Moreover,
after the Drenica clamp-down, Trajkovic stated:
"Serbia should have initiated an open
dialogue earlier, without waiting for pressures
and threat of sanctions." [102] Already at the
end of December last year Kosovo Serb leaders
urged the Serbian parliament to hold a
special session to focus on Serb-Kosovar relations.
They formed a delegation to lobby on
their behalf, which, in addition to Trajkovic,
and Artemije, includes Dusan Ristic of the Serb
Renewal Movement (SPO). And they accepted The
Proposal for a Democratic Solution of
the Kosovo-Metohija Question , (see section IV
D below) which essentially entails a the
division of Kosovo into two regions, Kosovo and
Metohija, as a basis for future
negotiations with Kosovars.
In February Trajkovic and Bishop Artemije
visited both France and the US to discuss
options in Kosovo. At home they have also organised
a series of meetings called "the
Serb-Serb dialogue on Kosovo" in an attempt to
build a common Serb position towards
the province. The fourth meeting took place at
the Belgrade Writers' Association behind
closed doors and was only attended by opposition
parties. Representatives of Milosevic's
Socialist Party of Serbia and his wife's Yugoslav
Left did not show up. Nevertheless, the
meeting concluded that the way forward was to
begin a dialogue with the Kosovars. [103]
Starting such a dialogue is difficult since
contact between Serbs and Kosovars is minimal.
Indeed, when in 1995 the LDK organised a street
clean-up with the participation of people
from both ethnic groups, the event was so exceptional
that it featured in a report of the
Humanitarian Law Centre. Most Serbs do not speak
Albanian and live in fear of their
Kosovar neighbours. Moreover, Kosovar militants
have begun to target Serb refugee
centres, police stations, military barracks and
cafes. [104]
As Trajkovic and mainstream Kosovo Serb
politicians have fallen out with Milosevic,
another group of Kosovo Serbs became active again.
The Bozur Association of Serbs and
Montenegrins, originally founded as part of the
so-called third Serb uprising in the mid-
1980s, has come back to life after more than
half a decade in hibernation. Bozur president
Bogdan Kecman is a former high-ranking Communist
and Milosevic loyalist who led the
populist Serb movement in Kosovo in the second
half of the 1980s. In gratitude Milosevic
secured Kecman's appointment as Kosovo director
of Jugopetrol, the state energy
company. [105]
In mid-January 1998, somewhere between 154
and 600 (estimates vary) Bozur activists
rallied in Kosovo Polje to protest the rise in
Kosovar terrorism. Speakers refused to
criticise the Serbian or Yugoslav authorities,
but urged Serbs to go to Srbica, the central
village in the Drenica region. A Bozur delegation
then went to Belgrade to inform Milosevic
of the "real situation" in Kosovo and -- according
to a Bozur member -- Milosevic assured
the delegation that state bodies would do everything
to provide energetic protection from
terrorism for the Serbs in Kosovo. In retrospect,
it seems that the Bozur reactivation was
meant to prepare Serb opinion for the Drenica
clamp-down. In response to the series of
Albanian protest rallies, Pristina's Serbs too
started daily demonstrations on 18 March
1998.
Kosovo and Belgrade Serbs
Ever since Milosevic swept to power in Belgrade
on the back of the alleged
plight of Kosovo Serbs in 1987, Serbian politics
has been hostage to the Kosovo question.
Politicians feel obliged to take hard-line stances
and shun compromise, irrespective of the
damage this does to relations with Kosovars and
the consequences for those Serbs who
actually live in the province. Nevertheless,
in a recent opinion poll, 49.2 percent of Serbs
said that they would not be prepared to fight,
if it came to war in Kosovo, compared with
28.6 percent who said that they would. A further
22.2 percent said that they were unsure.
Some 77.3 percent said they would not want close
relatives to have to fight in Kosovo, and
only 17.1 percent said that they would. [106]
The gulf between Kosovar and Serb society
is huge. Even when, in late 1996 and early
1997, thousands of Serbs demonstrated for three
months against Milosevic's rule in the
streets of Belgrade, Kosovars remained silent.
Only Adem Demaci, who having spent 28
years in a Serbian prison cannot be accused of
collaboration, broke ranks to send a letter
of support to the demonstrators. The Serbian
opposition has been equally silent in
response to police brutality against Kosovars
during the Drenica clamp-down.
Most Serbs know very little about Kosovar
society. However, a rather exhaustive book
was published two years ago in Serb which serves
as a sort of primer on Kosovo. It is a
collection of ten portrait-interviews with the
most important Kosovar personalities. The title
of the book is rather telling: "I Asked the Albanians
What They Want and They Said a
Republic... If Possible." [107]
Since Kosovars boycott Serbian elections,
the indifference of Serbian opposition parties to
their plight should not be a surprise. A poll
of Kosovar opinion carried out in October 1996
found that:
Only 2.5 percent
view the Serbian opposition parties as possible coalition partners.
A vast majority
of the surveyed (91.9 percent) does not believe that any Serbian
opposition party
would work together with the Albanian representatives on the
resolution of
the problem of the status of Kosovo. [108]
The same poll showed that the prospect of
recognition of the republic of Kosovo within the
FRY would tempt 6.3 percent of people to cast
their ballots in federal and local elections.
The same percentage said they would vote if the
Kosovo problem was to become fully
internationalised.
A handful of moderate Serbs and Albanians
do, nevertheless, attempt to work together,
often at great personal risk. On the Serb side,
this includes the Humanitarian Law Centre,
the Forum for Ethnic Relations, the Belgrade
Circle, Helsinki Committee, Soros
Foundation and a group of young people who call
themselves "post-pessimists". Among
the political parties, only Vesna Pesic's Civic
Alliance is sympathetic. On the Kosovar side,
this includes the likes of Veton Surroi, editor
of Koha Ditore, Shkelzen Maliqi, the current
director of the Open Society Institute's Pristina
Office and Gazmend Pula, the head of the
Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Kosovo.
These mavericks are usually only able to
meet up at internationally-organised conferences.
In the course of 1997 three took place,
in New York (7-9 April), Vienna (18-20 April)
and Ulcin, Montenegro (23-25 June).
At the end of January 1998, Belgrade's "Appeal
of the Fifty Association", a right-wing
intellectual group, appealed to all Kosovar intellectuals
to work together to come to a
settlement in Kosovo outside regime and party
channels. While the appeal has no political
weight, it is an encouraging indication that
some in Serbia may be looking for alternative
ways of resolving the conflict. [109]
The Drenica clamp-down was the work of Ministry
of Interior (MUP) forces and of the
feared SAJ - Serbia's Anti-terrorist Units. The
army is not known to have taken part.
Indeed, the commander of the Pristina Corps,
Major-General Nebojsa Pavkovic, said on
27 February that the Army of Yugoslavia (VJ)
is not threatening anyone in Kosovo-
Metohija and that it wants to turn the region
into "an oasis of peace rather than clashes".
[110] However, the Albanian-language daily Koha
Ditore reported at the end of January
that two notorious Serbian paramilitary leaders,
Zeljko Raznjatovic "Arkan" and Dragan
Vasiljevic "Kapetan Dragan", both active at the
beginning of the Croatian war in 1991, had
taken up residence a hotel in Kosovska Mitrovica.
There was no independent confirmation
of these reports, but the rumours have caused
great concern among Kosovars.
Following the Drenica clamp-down, Belgrade's
state-owned media rallied around
Milosevic and behind the police operation in
predictable fashion. The main television news
broadcasts have been filled with messages of
unconditional support. Interestingly,
independent media, including the newspapers Nasa
Borba, Danas, Dnevni telegraf, Blic
and Demokratija, reported events in an very different
manner, causing the Belgrade
District Attorney to move against the editors.
However, with state-owned television by far
the most influential medium and no mention or
pictures of Kosovar victims, Serb society is
again, as earlier in Croatia and Bosnia, homogenising
around an uncompromising
position. The only political party to take a
conciliatory line was he Serbian Civil Alliance
(GSS) which demanded that "The Serbian government
urgently inform the public of all the
circumstances of the tragic conflicts in the
Drenica area of Kosovo" and "start resolving
the Kosovo problem through all political means".
[111]
Kosovo And Yugoslavia
Yugoslav sensitivity about Kosovo was on
display at the most recent meeting of the
Bosnian Peace Implementation Council in Bonn
in December 1997. German foreign
minister Klaus Kinkel demanded that Belgrade
urgently initiate a dialogue with Kosovars
and guarantee human and minority rights. Though
Kosovo was only mentioned briefly in
the final document, [112] the Yugoslav delegation
walked out of the conference and
refused to endorse its conclusions in protest.
The head of the Yugoslav delegation,
Dragomir Vucicevic, said: "We warned them that
raising the so-called question of Kosovo
and Metohija during the conference was regarded
as interference in an internal question of
Serbia and the FRY." [113]
Despite the uncompromising Serbian position,
attitudes elsewhere in the FRY -- in
Montenegro in particular, but also in Vojvodina
and the Sandzak -- are rather different and
more accommodating towards Kosovars. Moreover,
constitutional reform or any other
changes in Kosovo will surely have an impact
elsewhere in the rump federation.
Though sanctions are being considered against
the whole of the FRY, Montenegro is as
hostile to the strong-arm tactics which Serbian
has adopted in Kosovo as the international
community. New president, Milo Djukanovic, whose
election Milosevic attempted to block,
was in large part voted into office on the strength
of non-Serb votes in last year's election
and is keenly aware of this constituency. Indeed,
if given the opportunity, Djukanovic may
be able to play a key mediation role between
the rival communities in Kosovo because of
the esteem in which he is held by both Muslim
Slavs and Albanians.
Clearly, a major concern for Djukanovic
is Montenegro's status as an international pariah,
if it remains shackled to Serbia. Already on
24 February 1998, before the recent upsurge
in violence, he told Montenegrin state television
that Kosovo had to be solved "by giving
[the province] a certain degree of autonomy."
And he warned that "without opening
dialogue in Kosovo, Yugoslavia cannot return
to the international community." In mid-
March Djukanovic again criticised Milosevic for
allowing Kosovo problem to fester. [114]
Meanwhile, he allowed Montenegrin Albanians to
demonstrate in solidarity with the
Kosovars with, according to Albanian sources,
close to 10,000 protesters marching in the
towns of Ulcinj, Rozaje and Plav. [115] And the
Montenegrin state-owned media have
attempted to cover the Kosovo violence so objectively
that the Belgrade daily Politika
attacked them for reporting "tendentiously and
giving too much space to statements by
Kosovar leaders." [116]
Politicians in Vojvodina, both Serb and
non-Serb, are also watching events in Kosovo
closely. For before Milosevic's so-called yoghurt
revolution117 in 1988, Vojvodina too had
the status of an autonomous province. Moreover,
it too contains a large non-Serb
population. Indeed, according to the 1981 census,
only 56.6 percent of its 1.15 million
inhabitants were Serbs or Montenegrins, and the
remaining 43.4 percent were a mixture of
people, including Hungarians (19 percent), Croats
(5.4 percent), Slovaks and Romanians.
If Kosovo's status is changed, Vojvodina may
seek a similar degree of autonomy. Indeed,
at the end of February, Mihalj Secej, deputy
president of the Alliance of Vojvodina
Hungarians (SVM), said that his party would not
join the new republican government, but
would support any programme to "give more powers
to self-government authorities who
should bear greater responsibility for all affairs
including the position of national minorities."
[118] And if Vojvodina and Kosovo win enhanced
autonomy, the 250,000 Muslim Slavs
who form more than 80 percent of the Sandzak's
population will no doubt also seek to
improve their position.
Another factor in Yugoslav politics is the
150,000 Croatian Serbs who have taken refuge
in the FRY since being expelled from their homes
in 1995. Of these, according to UNHCR
figures, some 20,000 were dispatched as settlers
to Kosovo. The Croatian Serbs are
reluctant settlers and a group of them recently
organised a petition refusing to go to
Kosovo so that the province would be "turned
into a bastion of Serbdom or subject of
political deals".
Kosovo and Albania
Relations between Kosovars and their ethnic
kin across the border in
Albania are complex. Despite obvious cultural
and linguistic ties, the political division of the
past half century and Albania's isolation have
caused the two communities to evolve in a
very different fashion. Ironically, until recently,
Kosovars were not only wealthier but also
experienced greater political freedom. The upsurge
in violence has, nevertheless,
reminded Albanians of the links between the communities
and, in response, Albania
placed its army on alert on the Yugoslav border.
However, despite the obvious appeal of
an independent Albanian state to all ethnic Albanians,
Kosovars are acutely aware that
they cannot expect much in the way of support
from their impoverished neighbours.
On 3 November 1997, Albania's president,
Rexhep Mejdani, said in Geneva that the
international community should react to head
off clashes in Kosovo. Moreover, he urged
the international community to force Yugoslavia
immediately to implement the Rome
Agreement on education in Kosovo because "stalemating
the situation leaves room for
increased tensions". [119] Then at the end of
February, Mejdani asked Kofi Annan to
establish a permanent UN presence in Kosovo as
a preventive measure.
After the upsurge in violence in Kosovo,
Albania's defense minister Perikli Teta said that
his country feared the influx of up to 200,000
Kosovar refugees as a result of the crisis.
[120] And he proposed that NATO deploy a peacekeeping
force to help patrol the
Albanian border with Kosovo. Instead, however,
NATO decided to help Albania, which
already belongs to Partnership for Peace, control
arms smuggling along the border with
money and technical aid, and promised emergency
assistance in the event of a refugee
influx. A NATO official speaking to a Reuters
correspondent in Brussels said: "We expect
Albania to exercise restrain... to make certain
that their territory is not used for any
activities to support the Kosovo Liberation Army."
[121]
Former Albanian president Sali Berisha had
a sober view of the prospects for international
involvement in solving the Kosovo question. In
December 1997 he declared that
Kosovars' "freedoms and rights will not come
as a gift from anyone, and their problems will
not be solved in Tirana [or] Belgrade, or in
Washington, London and Paris... They are
solved and will be solved in Pristina and the
towns and villages of Kosovo." [122]
Albanian prime minister Fatos Nano has been
more accommodating to the Serbian
position. In November last year he met up with
Yugoslav president Milosevic on Crete in
Greece, much to the chagrin of the Kosovars.
LDK leader Ibrahim Rugova responded by
saying that Albania can cooperate with all countries
in the region, but "decisions on
Kosovo can be made by the legitimate leadership
of Kosovo only" [123] PPK leader Adem
Demaci described the talks held there as "a serious
political mistake", and Luljeta Pula-
Beqiri of the Social-Democratic Party said that
"the talks were premature." [124]
In mid-February 1998 Nano went further and
openly criticised the "establishment of
parallel institutions by Kosovo Albanians" according
to the Tirana daily Koha Jone. [125]
He also said that: "The Albanians in and outside
Albania should understand that parallel
institutions are no solution; on the contrary,
they only radicalise the societies that have
created them" because "these tendencies stir
radical actions, and as we are witnessing,
even terrorist ones, actions which the Albanian
government does not support, irrespective
of whether Albanians or Serbs are behind them."
He therefore proposed that Kosovars
"give up the policy of boycott, as a policy which
has not yielded them any result so far
[and] incorporate in the political life of the
country they live in."
Kosovo and the Balkans
Bulgarian foreign minister Nadezhda Mikhailova
expressed the fears of many of the
region's leaders when, at a 10 March 1998 meeting
with her Greek, Turkish, Romanian
and Macedonian counterparts, she said: "History
has taught us that there are no internal
problems in the Balkans." [126] In the event
of ethnic fighting in Kosovo, the conflict will be
more difficult to isolate than in Bosnia. Albania
may yet decide that it has no option but to
intervene, and the ethnic Albanians in Macedonia
may seize the opportunity to assert their
own independence. If Macedonia appears on the
verge of disintegration, both Bulgaria
and Greece may pursue their own territorial claims
against Skopje. The permutations are
endless and potentially very destabilising. Hence
the declaration coming out of that
meeting of foreign ministers called for full
respect of the human rights and fundamental
freedoms of the ethnic Albanian population in
Kosovo and underlined that the solution to
the Kosovo problem should be sought in full respect
to the existing borders. [127]
The United Nations Preventive Deployment
(UNPREDEP), whose mission has been to
patrol the Macedonian border, was supposed to
come to an end in August 1998 when the
peace-keepers (300 US and 400 Scandinavians)
were scheduled to withdraw. During his
visit to NATO headquarters in February, Macedonian
prime minister Branko Crvenkovski
asked the alliance to take over from the UN.
In mid-March, the US State Department
suggested that UNPREDEP might be enlarged, [128]
while Macedonian president
Gligorov called for US troops to replace the
UN detachment. [129]
A month before the Drenica clamp-down on
Kosovars, Gligorov announced that his
country was preparing to secure a corridor for
refugees from Kosovo in the case of serious
conflicts in Serbia's southern province. This
statement annoyed both Kosovars and
Macedonia's own Albanian community. In response,
Arben Xhaferi, president of the
Albanian Party of Democratic Prosperity, addressed
tens of thousands of fellow Albanians
in Skopje and Tetovo, many of whom chanted "UCK"
and "We will give our lives but we
will not give up Kosovo." And the secretary general
of the Democratic Party of Albanians,
said: "If there is trouble, Albanians in Kosovo,
Macedonia, Montenegro and of course
Albania will stand as oneà we hope the
US and Europe will open a dialogue, but if they
don't we must look after ourselves" [130]
The fall-out from ethnic conflict in Kosovo
may also be damaging to the peace process in
Bosnia. While fighting is extremely unlikely
to break out again in the presence of 35,000
NATO troops, another ostensibly Orthodox-Muslim
struggle in the region will inevitably
have consequences and may hold back the reconstruction
process. Even Republika
Srpska's new moderate prime minister Milorad
Dodik has backed the Serbian clamp-
down, sending a telegram of support to Serbian
Prime Minster Mirko Marjanovic on 3
March 1998. [131] Serb member of Bosnia's Presidency,
Momcilo Krajisnik, told the
Bosnian Serb news agency Srna that: "The question
of Kosovo is an internal Serbian
matter, but not only a Serbian problem, because
it is a symbol for the whole Serb people."
[132] And deputies in Republika Srpska's National
Assembly proposed a resolution
demanding that Republika Srpska secede from Bosnia
and join Yugoslavia in the event of
independence for Kosovo [133]. Meanwhile, Bosniac
media and politicians have indicated
sympathy for the Kosovar position.
Turkey has strong historical links with
Kosovars and has forged close military ties with
Albania since the end of the Cold War. Following
the Drenica clamp-down, Turkish
president Suleyman Demirel wrote to his Yugoslav
counterpart Slobodan Milosevic saying:
"Leaders are persons who are invited by their
people to come forward with remarkable
courage and wise initiatives in the hard days
of history." In an apparent allusion to the 13-
years old conflict between the Turkish government
and the Kurdish rebels in which 27,000
have died, he added "Turkey has a definite attitude
on the subject of terrorism." [134]
In mid-January 1998 Greece proposed organising
a meeting between FRY president
Milosevic, the Kosovar leader Rugova and Albanian
prime minister Nano. Such a meeting,
said the Greek minister for European affairs,
Iorgos Papandreu, should focus on the
problem of Kosovo. He added that Greece, like
the rest of the EU does not favour
independence for Kosovo. The Albanian prime minister's
advisor described the Greek
proposal as interesting and said that Albania
believes that the will of the Kosovars and
their leaders should be respected in seeking
a solution to this problem.
Kosovar political leaders shrugged. An LDK
vice-president announced that the Greek
initiative has no great chance of success at
a moment when the US and EU are vying to
mediate in Kosovo. And a PPK deputy leader said
that the great powers have influence
and can secure the implementation of agreements
in resolving the Kosovo issue. In other
words: no thanks, we have better protectors.
Kosovo and Europe
European Union
Even before the recent upsurge in violence,
the EU withdrew trade preferences from
Yugoslavia for 1998 because the country had failed
to meet minimum human rights criteria
and live up to other conditions set out in a
report on disputed local polls in Serbia issued
late in 1996 by Gonzalez. [135]
In response to the Serbian crackdown in
Drenica, EU foreign ministers met on 13 March
1998 in Edinburgh to agree the following measures:
Renewal of the EU's demand to open an office
in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo province;
Expansion of the EU monitoring mission
in Albania to observe the border with Kosovo;
Continuing the pressure on the Belgrade
government to open dialogue with the Kosovar
leadership;
Sending a message to the region stressing
EU support for autonomy, but not
independence in Kosovo;
Appointing former Spanish prime minister
Felipe Gonzalez as EU mediator for
negotiations between Kosovo and the Yugoslav
government (Mr Gonzalez has already
been designated OSCE representative in
the region);
Convening a Kosovo conference in Paris
with the participation of the countries of the
troubled region, as well as the US and
Russia;
Implementing sanctions against Milosevic's
government agreed to by the Contact
Group; [136]
Earlier on 3 March 1998 the EU's Political
Committee had concluded that, while the EU
did not wish to internationalise Kosovo, but
the question had been internationalised as a
result of the violence and potential refugee
exodus and was therefore no longer simply an
internal matter for the FRY or Serbia. [137]
And on 12 March 1998 the European
Parliament [138] adopted a resolution calling
on the UN, EU, OSCE, NATO and the
Western European Union (WEU) to prepare the dispatch
of a "preventive deployment
force" for the region. [139]
The resolution is a typical case of good
intentions and even frank outrage that the main
actors of the international community express
to each other in different fora. Since it is
addressed to everybody and nobody in particualr
it is unlikely to spur any organization into
action. The only recipient that could in the
real world dispatch a "preventive deploymet
force" is of course NATO, but NATO has refused
to do anything of the sort. On 18 March
1998, US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott
said "We are going to work with NATO
and make sure that all instruments available
to us to shore up the region of this conflict are
used. But the issue of further deployment of
NATO forces has not arisen." [140]
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe discussed Kosovo on
27 January 1998, on the eve of the violence
and called for Kosovar political leaders to condemn
every manifestation of violence and
terrorism and for Yugoslav authorities to initiate
Serb-Albanian dialogue. The Council of
Europe also stressed that it would neither support
Kosovo's secession and the violation of
the territorial integrity of the FRY, nor would
it endorse Serbia's view that human rights in
Kosovo were an exclusively internal matter. [141]
The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly
adopted a resolution on the FRY
making clear to the Yugoslav authorities that
the EU would only help reintegrate the
country into European affairs, if it fulfilled
key conditions, and in particular improved its
human and minority rights record. The resolution
also asked the Belgrade authorities to
allow a "permanent presence of the international
community in the region". [142]
Following the events of late Febraury and
early March 1998, the president of the Council
of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, Leni Fischer,
travelled to Belgrade. There he said
that the reinstatement of the autonomy Kosovo
had enjoyed before 1989 was no longer
an option, since that status had only been viable
within the framework of a Yugoslavia of
six republics and two autonomous provinces. Instead,
the Council of Europe proposed that
the authorities [in Belgrade] should determine
a certain degree of autonomy for Kosovo,
and that Kosovars should be represented in administrative
bodies, the police, and the
health care and educational systems, in proportion
to their overall numbers in the
population. [143]
Individual European Initiatives
France and Germany are the European countries
which have been most active
diplomatically on Kosovo. In December 1997 the
countries' respective foreign ministers
Klaus Kinkel and Hubert Vedrine wrote to both
Milosevic and Rugova indicating that the
solution is "neither independence nor keeping
the status quo but asking special status for
Kosovo". They wished to follow up this initiative
with a visit to Kosovo, but that was blocked
by Milosevic so they cancelled their scheduled
trip to Belgrade. While both countries are
important trading partners for Yugoslavia, the
initiative was not appreciated. Indeed, after
Kinkel announced that the international community
would increase pressure on Belgrade
as a result of human rights abuses in Kosovo,
Yugoslavia's state-owned news agency
Tanjug commented that this was "scandalous, false
peace-making and planning another
wave of instability". [144]
In an interview with the German daily General
Anzeiger dated 17 March 1998, Kinkel also
had harsh words for the Kosovars: "It is most
important to start a dialogue, even if not all
demands of the Kosovo Albanians will be fulfilled....
They should not stage any militant
actions, nor should they make demands for independence.
There is no support for this in
the international community," he said. [145]
The two foreign ministers eventually visited
Belgrade on 19 March 1998. They are
believed to have offered Milosevic a package
of inducements, such as readmission into
the OSCE, in return for allowing the EU to open
an office in Pristina, and the OSCE's
observation mission to return to Kosovo (see
section III, H(1) below). Kinkel also asked for
the dialogue on Kosovo to be held on the Federal
and not Serbian level. As during the
Bosnian war, Russia has adopted a obdurate, pro-Serbian
position. In response to
Western hopes that Russia might mediate, the
foreign ministry's spokesman Gennady
Tarasov stated that Russia considered Kosovo
to be an internal Serbian matter and that
therefore: "Russia is not taking on the role
of intermediary in the settlement of Yugoslavia's
internal conflict in Kosovo province." [146]
After Serbian president Milan Milutinovic said
that Serbia was ready to discuss "self-rule"
for Kosovars, the Russian foreign ministry
announced: "We welcome the measures suggested
in the declaration directed at the
quickest resolution of the situation in Kosovo
and consider them an important step in the
spirit of the Contact Group's recommendations."
[147]
Kosovo and the US
Both Serbs and Kosovars watch and analyse
every US diplomatic move in the Balkans,
often reading far more into actions than was
ever intended by the individuals concerned.
Having already invested a huge amount of money
and energy in building peace in Bosnia,
the US is determined to maintain regional stability
both to give the Dayton process a
chance of success and to obviate the need for
another costly reconstruction programme
elsewhere in the Balkans. Hence the speed and
resolve with which the US has responded
to the upsurge in violence in Kosovo, events
which this country is uniquely well qualified to
interpret, since it alone already has a diplomatic
presence, albeit very small, in the
province, in the capital Pristina.
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright
and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott
have, in particular, been outspoken in their
criticism of Serbia, and especially Milosevic,
since the upsurge of violence. This is probably
in large part a reaction to the timerity which
characterised the international communty's response
to the outbreak of fighting in Croatia
in 1991 and in Bosnia in 1992. Mme Albright has
warned Milosevic that he will pay a high
price, saying: "We are not going to stand by
and watch the Serbian authorities do in
Kosovo what they can no longer get away with
doing in Bosnia." [148] She believes that
"the one thing [Milosevic] truly understands
is decisive and firm action on the part of the
international community." [149] that "the time
to stop the killings is now, before it spreads."
[150] Talbott has gone even further, ordering
Serbia to "cease its brutal repressive
campaign which involves ethnic cleansing, summary
executions and mass expulsions",
and warning that "Belgrade will bear full responsibility
for bringing the viability of their own
state into jeopardy." [151]
This uncompromising US approach is not a
new departure. Five years ago in Christmas
1992 at the height of the Bosnian war, then president
George Bush warned Milosevic in a
cable that in the event of conflict in Kosovo,
the US would be prepared to employ military
force against the Serbs. The cable was reported
at the time by The New York Times and
confirmed privately by US officials. Moreover,
when asked if Bush's so-called "Christmas
Warning" was still in effect, special US envoy
to the Balkans Robert Gelbard said: "US
policy has not changed... We have warned Milosevic
appropriately." [152]
The US also insists on maintaining an "outer
wall of sanctions" against rump Yugoslavia,
because it considers the country to be a threat
to its national interests. [153] It therefore
prevents Yugoslavia from joining the International
Monetary Fund, World Bank, UN and
other international organizations and institutions.
These sanctions against Yugoslavia will
be kept in place until Congress has received a
written explanation from the president stating
that significant progress has been achieved
in resolving the situation in Kosovo. "Significant
progress" in Kosovo would include, as
specified by this article, the right to self-rule
for the people in Kosovo; the establishment of
international protectorate in Kosovo; an improvement
in the state of human rights; allowing
the return of international observers in charge
with monitoring human rights in Kosovo;
and allowing Kosovo's elected government to carry
out its mandate as a legitimate
representative of the people in Kosovo." [154]
Other conditions which rump Yugoslavia has
to meet before the sanctions will be fully
lifted are the following:
cooperation with
the Hague war crimes tribunal and the fulfillment of the other articles
of the Dayton
Peace Agreement;
completion of
the division of assets among the heir states of the former Yugoslavia;
democratization
in Serbia based on OSCE recommendations; and
official recognition
of the presidential elections in Montenegro.
This latter item was added in the December
1997 renewal of the "outer wall". By
extending the list, however, it softens the edge
of this sanction as a weapon used on
behalf of Kosovo.
Ironically, many Kosovo observers accuse
the US of giving Milosevic the "green light" to
launch the Drenica clamp-down. On 23 February
1998 the US offered Belgrade minor
cosmetic concessions which did not, however,
affect the "outer wall" of sanctions as a
reward to Milosevic for supporting Milorad Dodik,
the new, moderate Serb prime minister in
Republika Srpska. On the same day, Gelbard visited
Pristina and said that the Kosovo
Liberation Army UCK "is without any questions
a terrorist group" and that the US
"condemns very strongly terrorist activities
in Kosovo." On 12 March, when questioned by
lawmakers, over whether he still considered the
group a terrorist organization, Gelbard
said that while it has "committed terrorist acts"
it has "not been classified legally by the US
government as a terrorist organization." [155]
Gelbard has, nevertheless, continued to
make it clear to Kosovars that the US wants their
leadership to condemn terrorism and
does not support the concept of an independent
Kosovo, seeking instead a settlement
which leaves today's international borders intact.
A diplomatic source told Reuters:
"Rugova should know by now that independence
is not an option and that continued
violence will lessen Western support." [156]
Though the US does not have an embassy in
Belgrade, since it has not yet officially
recognised the FRY, the US Information Service
has a small office in Pristina. Opened in
July 1996 in an Albanian neighborhood (to Serb
annoyance), USIS is based in a two-
storey building, filled with an impressive collection
of CD-ROMS, reference materials and a
library of classic books, and staffed by one
US diplomat.
LDK leader Ibrahim Rugova described USIS
as "a direct link with the US" and its opening
as "a historic day for Kosovo". However, after
a few months of euphoria -- during which
time the information centre was treated as a
fully-fledged embassy and the solitary
diplomat as an ambassador -- Kosovars turned
against USIS. This was because, on a visit
to Kosovo in spring 1997, the then US special
envoy to the Balkans John Kornblum bluntly
told Kosovars that the US did not consider independence
to be a solution. As a result,
USIS began to be known merely as a "little library"
and its then director was attacked in the
Albanian-language press on personal grounds.
Though only of minor significance, the affair
is indicative of the faith Kosovars have in the
US, their desperate hope that the US will provide
their salvation and their bitter
disappointment when the US makes it clear that
it will not. But the US still is the one and
perhaps only reference for Kosovars. Starting
with the 7 March 1998 demonstration of
Kosovar doctors and nurses, many public protests
were staged in the narrow steep streets
around the USIS building, both as a sign of trust
in the American willingness and
possibilities and a protection against Serbian
police which is less likely to attack Kosovars
in full view of an American diplomat.
Kosovo and International Organisations
OSCE
Between September 1992 and July 1993 the
OSCE, then called CSCE, had a team of
observers in Kosovo, with offices in Pristina,
Pec and Prizren, monitoring the human rights
situation. The Kosovo team was part of the "Mission
of Long Duration in Kosovo, Sandzak
and Vojvodina" which was prematurely curtailed
when the Yugoslav government refused
to extend its presence.
The Mission's tasks were as follows:
promote dialogue
between authorities and representatives of the populations and
communities in
the three regions [Kosovo, Sandzak and Vojvodina];
collect information
on all aspects relevant to violations of human rights and
fundamental freedoms
and promote solutions to such problems;
establish contact
points for solving problems that might be identified;
assist in providing
information on relevant legislation on human rights, protection of
minorities, free
media and democratic elections. [157]
Max Van der Stoel, the OSCE's high commissioner
for minorities, traveled on 19 February
1998 to Pristina where he met with LDK leader,
Ibrahim Rugova. Because Van der Stoel
was refused an official visa by the Belgrade
authorities, he visited Kosovo in a private
capacity. Ironically, PPK chairman Adem Demaci
refused to see Van der Stoel, on the
grounds that Kosovars are not a "minority" in
Kosovo but a nation. (see section II, E(3)
Parliamentary Party of Kosovo)
At the beginning of February, a delegation
of the OSCE's "Troika" Heads of Missions in
Belgrade, led by Poland's Ambassador to Belgrade
Slawomir Dabrowa, went to Kosovo on
a fact-finding visit (2-3 February). Serbian
officials in Kosovo refused the talk with the
OSCE delegation, but the Troika did manage to
hold talks in Belgrade with the Chairman
of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Serbian
Parliament, and in Pristina with
Rugova, PPK representatives, members of the "3+3"
Commission on Education, one
human rights activist, one journalist, two formerly
prominent politicians and Momcilo
Trajkovic, the chairman of the Serb Resistance
Movement.
The Troika concluded that the role of the
OSCE and its position on Kosovo has been
perceived in a different way by the two sides.
The Serbian authorities could see no role for
the OSCE until the FRY was readmitted into the
organisation and repeated that Kosovo
was purely an internal matter. By contrast, Kosovar
leaders viewed the prospects of OSCE
involvement positively, saying that Van der Stoel
would be welcomed in Pristina as the
OSCE Chairman-in-Office's Personal Representative,
but not at all as the OSCE High
Commissioner on National Minorities.
After the upsurge in violence, the OSCE
condemned "the excessive and indiscriminate
use of force" but also stressed "the unacceptability
of any terrorist action." It also decided
that the two existing OSCE missions, in Tirana
and in Skopje, should monitor the border
with Kosovo in view of the potential for the
spill over of the conflict and the possible flow of
refugees. And it called on Serbia "to halt excessive
use of force in Kosovo, to vigorously
investigate and accept international investigation
of reported summary executions and to
bring to justice those found responsible." [158]
Contact Group
On the eve of the Drenica clamp-down at
the end of February 1998, the "Contact Group"
countries -- US, Russia, France, Britain, Germany
and Italy -- issued a joint statement on
Kosovo. It said that the Contact Group "supports
an enhanced status for Kosovo within
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and recognises
that this must include meaningful self-
administration." It also stressed that: "The
Contact Group supports neither independence
nor the maintenance of the status quo." [159]
After the upsurge in violence, the Contact
Group met on 9 March 1998 and agreed (1) to
support a UN Security Council resolution to impose
a comprehensive arms embargo
against Yugoslavia; (2) to deny visas to senior
Yugoslav and Serbian officials responsible
for the repression; and (3) to impose a moratorium
on credit for government-financed
exports. The same five countries also set Milosevic
a deadline of 19 March 1998 to
achieve the following:
withdraw the special
police units and call off action by the security forces against the
civilian population;
allow access to
Kosovo for the International Committee of the Red Cross and other
humanitarian organisations
as well as representatives of the Contact Group and other
embassies;
commit himself
publicly to begin a process of dialogue with the Kosovar leadership.
[160 ]
A follow up Contact Group meeting to assess
Milosevic's response is scheduled to take
place in Bonn on 25 March 1998. The main measure
to be discussed is the freezing of
funds held abroad by the FRY.
The sanctions foreseen by the Contact Group
raise two issues. The first is implicit US
recognition of the FRY, since officially the
US uses the term Serbia-Montenegro. The
second, and more substantial, issue is that sanctions
against the FRY will also affect
Montenegro even though that republic played no
part in the Kosovo clamp-down and its
president Milo Djukanovic is one of Milosevic's
most vociferous opponents. There may be
no way to fine tune the sanctions, but Montenegro
must be treated in a different manner to
Serbia, even though Milosevic is officially president
of the whole of the FRY. Punishing
Montenegro at this stage may mean a loss of a
potential ally.
United Nations
The US and other Contact Group countries
pushed for a Security Council resolution to
impose sanctions on Yugoslavia unless Serbian
special police left Kosovo within 10 days
i.e. by 19 March 1998. China, however, has stymied
tough action since it deems the
Kosovo crisis an "internal affair". And on 19
March 1998 Russia too backed away from
support for an arms embargo, even though it had
earlier appeared to agree on that
measure with other Contact Group countries. [161]
The US and various human rights non-governmental
organisations have also urged the
UN Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague
to investigate the recent violence [see
section II C, Human Rights Situation) Since the
Tribunal's statute empowers it to
prosecute persons responsible for serious violations
of international humanitarian law
committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia
since 1991, the Tribunal answered that:
"the prosecutor is currently gathering information
and evidence in relation to the Kosovo
incidents and will continue to monitor any subsequent
developments." [162]
NATO
Given Milosevic's track record in Croatia
and Bosnia and the pivotal role which NATO has
played in ending the Bosnian war and since reconstructing
the war-ravaged country,
Balkan observers are watching the Alliance's
actions closely. Already at the end of
January, anonymous NATO sources told the Reuters
news agency [163] that the Allies
are increasingly concerned at the deterioration
of the situation in Kosovo, worried about
the increasing cycle of violence. Nevertheless,
secretary-general Javier Solana has ruled
out preventive deployment of peace-keepers in
Albania -- requested by the Albanians
themselves -- promising only financial and technical
help for border patrols, and further
assistance in the event of a refugee influx.
[164]
In the aftermath of the Serbian police's
clamp-down, the North Atlantic Council issued a
statement calling on all sides to reduce tension;
suggesting that the implementation of the
education agreement would be an important step
forward; and calling "on the authorities in
Belgrade and leaders of the Kosovar Albanian
community to enter without preconditions
into a serious dialogue in order to develop a
mutually-acceptable political solution for
Kosovo within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
The statement ended with: "NATO and
the international community have a legitimate
interest in developments in Kosovo, inter
alia because of their impact on the stability
of the whole region which is of concern to the
Alliance." [165]
Non-Governmental Organisations
Only a handful of international non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) work in Kosovo,
mostly dealing with health, nutrition, education
and construction. They are: Catholic Relief
Service, Children Aid, Doctors of the World,
Handicap International, International Rescue
Committee, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Mercy Corps
International, Oxfam, Pharmaciens
Sans Frontieres, and Save the Children. There
are also a few international UN-affiliated
organisations: International Committee of the
Red Cross, UNHCR, UNICEF and WHO.
World Vision is planning to open a mission in
Pristina in the spring of 1998.
The following extract from an internal report
of an international organisation working in
Kosovo is typical: "Kosovo is a very sensitive
issue that generates strong feelings of
nationalism in the parties involved, i.e. the
Serbs and the Albanians. In an environment like
the Balkans, where 240,000 have been killed over
the past four years due to this
particularly unhealthy nationalism, it is understood
that any involvement in the Kosovo
issue would not be welcomed. This is equally
so for any public reporting by international
bodies or organisations. Thus, [our] monitoring
function in Kosovo has remained a low-
profile exercise. While considering [our] need
for diplomacy in implementing [our]
mandate, our possible involvement in Kosovo...
would most efficiently be carried out if it
were to draw attention to issues directly linked
to [our] mandate (as a result or a
consequence of the political and human rights
situation)."
Since the NGOs can only operate with Belgrade's
blessing and expatriates -- of whom
there are fewer than two dozen permanently resident
-- require visas, these groups tread
warily. After the Drenica clamp-down, the director
of one internationally-known aid agency
complained to a Reuters reporter that he had
been denied access to the area of fighting.
However, he declined to identify himself or the
organisation for fear of repercussions. [166]
Nevertheless, NGOs have succeeded in reducing
repression, especially in Pristina where
they all headquartered, simply by their presence.
In the aftermath of the Drenica clamp-down,
the ICRC pulled its international staff out of
the province following a series of death threats.
The unspecified threats came after ICRC
was allowed by Serbia's authorities to assist
victims of the violence. On 9 March 1998,
however, the Serbian government called on ICRC
to appoint an ad hoc team of neutral
experts to go to Kosovo. [167]
Proposed Solutions
A lasting solution in Kosovo will have to
attempt to take into account and, if possible,
match the often conflicting views and sentiments
of Serbs and Kosovars. According to a
recent opinion poll [168] in Serbia and Montenegro,
42 percent of Serbs wished to abolish
all autonomy for Kosovo; 40.7 percent were prepared
to grant Albanians limited, cultural
autonomy; and 8.3 percent were prepared to grant
them political autonomy. Only 2.2
percent believed the Albanians had the right
to a republic, 1.2 percent were prepared to
accept Kosovo's secession, and 5.9 percent advocated
the division of the province
between Serbs and Albanians. [169] A survey of
Kosovar opinion generated very different
results. [170] With interviewees able to choose
more than one option, 88.9 percent said
that they desired independence, 26.9 percent
wanted territorial division and population
"exchanges", more than 50 percent were ready
to accept autonomy as enjoyed before
1990 and more than a third said that they would
accept wide economic, cultural and
administrative autonomy.
International envoys aiming to help facilitate
a sustainable and peaceful solution face a
dilemma. If the international community recognises
that Kosovo is part of Serbia, then the
issue is an internal Yugoslav affair and any
"help" must be approved by Belgrade. Any
other approach would be interpreted as recognising
Kosovo's independence, with
potentially deadly consequences. Whereas the
Kosovar leadership regularly appeals for
international mediation, Belgrade typically resents
what it deems international meddling. In
response to a Franco-German initiative calling
for a special status for Kosovo late last
year, for example, Milan Milutinovic, then foreign
minister and now Serbian president, said:
"Foreign mediators are an interference in the
internal affairs of our country and are out of
question. We do not write letters to them [the
French] about, say, Corsica, where there are
problems with national minorities and separatist
movements too." [171]
At the end of last year, however, blanket
Serbian opposition to foreign involvement
appeared to crack. Milorad Vucelic, vice-president
of Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia
(SPS) was reported saying: "The SPS is ready
to open a dialogue on all issues with the
political representatives of Kosovo Albanians.
We are willing to discuss everything except
the secession of Kosovo and the violation of
territorial integrity of Serbia. We can speak
with the citizens of Serbia of Albanian nationality
without international mediation, which
does not mean that outside initiatives that help
the dialogue are unacceptable." [172] It
was the first time a member of the ruling party
had proposed talks with the parallel
Kosovar authorities which had hitherto not been
recognised by Serbia.
Otherwise, international initiatives to
help facilitate a peaceful settlement have generally
been limited to conferences (see section , III,
B above Kosovo and Belgrade Serbs)
bringing together moderates on either side of
the ethnic divide. The Bertelsmann
Foundation, a German think-tank published in
1997 a document called How to Settle the
Kosovo Conflict proposing a series of confidence-building
measures aimed at restoring
trust between Serbs and Albanians, including
the creation of an international
ombudsperson. The paper also examined possible
ideas for a final settlement. And a
Swedish-based conflict resolution group, the
Transnational Foundation for Peace and
Future Research proposed United Nations administration.
Theoretically, the options for the status
of Kosovo range from the province gaining total
independence to maintenance of the status quo.
Status Quo
Predictably, both Milosevic's ruling SPS
and his wife Mira Markovic's
Yugoslav United Left (YUL) advocate maintenance
of the status quo. This is also the
prevailing view presented in Pristina's official
Serb-language daily Jedinstvo, which rather
aptly means unity. [173] The less-than-persuasive
argument put forward to justify the
status quo is that human rights are already guaranteed
to the "highest international
standards" in the existing Serbian Constitution.
Unsurprisingly, Kosovars reject the current
position, even as a starting point for dialogue.
Moreover, with Serbs comprising less than
10 per cent of the total population, Serbs and
Albanians inhabiting parallel societies and
the level of inter-communal violence escalating,
the status quo appears increasingly
untenable. While increased repression and additional
police operations may be able to
keep a lid on unrest in the short term, the likelihood
is that the Albanian population will only
become more alienated, radicalised and prone
to seeking a military solution.
Independence
The Kosovars' preferred settlement is without
doubt independence from Yugoslavia which
they justify by the right of every people to
self-determination. [174] In the end of February
1998, as violence erupted across the province,
Dr. Rugova stated clearly that this was his
goal and that nothing short of independence was
now acceptable. Nevertheless, in the
absence of a full-scale war, large casualties
and a Serb defeat, independence remains a
highly unrealistic aspiration. Recognition of
an independent Kosovo requires a redrawing
of international borders which the Contact Group
is not, at this stage, prepared to consider.
Indeed, even countries, like Germany, which broke
ranks to recognise Slovene and
Croatian independence in 1991 are reluctant to
do the same in the case of Kosovo, if for
no other reason, as a result of on-going international
criticism of the earlier decision.
Independence for Kosovo would also turn
the current relationship between Serbs and
Albanians on its head. Instead of Albanians forming
a minority in Yugoslavia, Serbs would
form a minority in an independent Kosovo, that
is if any Serbs chose to remain in an
independent Kosovo at all. Given current strained
relations between the communities and
Albanian treatment at Serb hands during the past
decade, the chances are that virtually no
Serbs would in fact stay on in an independent
Kosovo and that those who did would face a
very similar oppression to that currently experienced
by the Albanian community.
Moreover, another Serb exodus, this time from
Kosovo, would place yet more pressure on
Yugoslavia's already massively over-burdened
social infrastructure.
An independent Kosovo also opens up the
Albanian question elsewhere in the Balkans,
with ramifications both for Albania and Macedonia.
Rexep Qosja, a militant member of the
Kosovo Academy of Arts and Science who has long
advocated "intifada"-like protests
against Serbian rule, argues for union with Albania
and the creation of a single state
comprising all Albanians in the Balkans. [175]
While the appeal of such a union has
probably diminished since the collapse of Albania's
many pyramid-saving schemes in
1997, the prospects of Macedonia's Albanians
deciding to secede and join their ethnic kin
in an independent Kosovo remain real. In such
an event, the territorial integrity and,
indeed, the very survival of Macedonia as an
independent state will be in jeopardy.
International Protectorate
Dr Rugova frequently calls for an international
protectorate for Kosovo to head off
potential bloodshed as an interim measure. The
idea has also been floated by the
Swedish-based Transnational Foundation for Peace
and Future Research. [176] Under
the TFF proposal, the United Nations would take
over Kosovo's administration for three
years, the province would be demilitarised and
a "Professional Negotiation Facility" set up.
The appeal of such an arrangement to Kosovars,
who expect it to lead to self-
determination, is obvious. At this stage, however,
it has no appeal to Serbs who
understandably view it as but a step to independence.
It is highly unlikely that the Belgrade
authorities would accept any such foreign intervention
in what they consider their internal
affairs. It is also unlikely that the international
community would be willing to take on, at the
same time, another operation similar to that
in Bosnia.
Administrative Reforms and Possible Partition of Kosovo
An ad hoc expert group consisting of Serb
intellectuals proposed in December 1997 the
administrative reconfiguration of Serbia into
10 regions. Under the proposal, two of these
regions, would be carved out of today's Kosovo
-- one called Kosovo and the other
Metohija -- in place of the 29 municipalities
the province is currently divided into. [177] The
proposed regions would not have elements of statehood,
but they would be represented in
the republic's Chamber of Regions, one of the
chambers of the Parliament of Serbia. The
army, passport and currency would remain common,
but other elements could be open to
discussion. The ad hoc group also proposed a
new census in Kosovo to determine the
province's ethnic composition and measures to
end the assimilation of non-Albanian
Muslims. The proposal was sent to all Serbia's
main political parties and the ad hoc group
said it was eager to hear what Kosovars thought
about this idea.
An earlier proposal from Aleksandar Despic,
head of the Serbian Academy of Arts and
Sciences, in June 1996, went further. He suggested
the partition of Kosovo between
Serbs and Albanians. [178] And Dobrica Cosic,
the writer and former President of
Yugoslavia, is associated with another proposed
ethnic division envisaging the formation
of two entities, based on the Bosnian model,
each able to form special relations with their
"mother states". The obvious problem which arises
is how to draw up boundaries between
Serb and Albanian territory. Ironically, Kosovars
have generally been more receptive to
these proposals than Serbs, considering them
a step towards secession. [179]
Autonomy
A return to a similar level of autonomy
to that enjoyed before 1989 is often proposed by
outside observers as a potential solution. One
of the more innovative proposals in this
direction, based on the autonomy statute of the
predominantly German Trentino-South
Tyrol region of Germany, was put forward by the
Bertelsmann Foundation and the Centre
for Applied Policy Research at Munich University.
[180] The Foundation considered this
model appropriate because "it was established
after both sides committed violent acts and
in the course of the post-World War II democratisation
of Italy". The model requires reform
of the existing Serbian constitution to transfer
legislative powers to the province in areas,
including tourism, agriculture, mining, town-planning
and urban development, social
security, toponyms, local customs and cultural
institutions, nursery schooling, and
vocational training.
One problem with this approach is the very
term "autonomy" which has a negative
connotation among the Kosovar leadership and
is rejected. According to LDK vice-
president Fehmi Agani: "The offer of autonomy
is no offer at all. It has been outdated for a
long time, and, moreover, it would not guarantee
the respect of Kosovo Albanians' civic
and national rights." [181] The concepts "autonomy"
and "national minority", which were
both used in the Socialist Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia and which were supposed to
provide basic rights to Albanians, are in large
part blamed for Kosovo's current status and
the on-going oppression. Autonomy has, Kosovars
believe, already been tried and was
found wanting because it is insufficient to ensure
Albanian rights and runs the risk of
unilateral and illegal revocation by Belgrade
as in 1989. Serbs too feel that autonomy was
tried and found wanting but for very different
reasons -- the autonomy granted to Kosovo
between 1974 and 1989, they feel, led not to
stability but inexorably towards secession.
Kosovars appear more receptive to a similar
concept under a different name. Using terms
such as "special status", "special entity", "federal
entity", "federal unit, "transient
protectorate", interim constitutional and/or
political status", rather than autonomy is
generally more productive, even though it effectively
means something very similar.
Further, Kosovars find such a status, however
it is formally called, more palatable, when
considered in a Yugoslav, as opposed to a Serbian
framework. The term Serbia is
overwhelmingly linked to the Serb nation, while
Yugoslavia, though negative and difficult to
deal with, is still vaguely supranational and
bearable. [182]
"Third Republic"
Granting Kosovo the status of a "third republic"
within Yugoslavia (alongside Serbia and
Montenegro) is another potential solution, one
with the advantage of not changing the
external borders of the country. This solution
may also, in time, prove to be the most
acceptable middle ground, although it requires
all sides to back down from their current
positions and will necessitate the creation of
a very different kind of Yugoslav state,
committed to civil society and democratic principles.
Republican status was the aim of
Kosovar demonstrators in 1981. The option again
became the subject of heated debate in
August last year after Gazmend Pula of the Kosovo
Helsinki Committee, managed to
present it briefly to Richard Holbrooke at a
reception in the US mission in Belgrade. [183]
As a third Yugoslav republic, Kosovo would
have its own constitution, independent
powers to legislate, its own administrative and
judicial institutions and the right of veto over
key issues decided at the national level. The
Yugoslav state would be responsible for
defence and security, foreign and monetary policy.
Kosovo's borders would be
guaranteed, Albanians become a constituent nation
of Yugoslavia, and Albanian an official
language. Meanwhile, Kosovo's Serbs would remain
a constituent nation and enjoy
positive discrimination. [184] Despite such guarantees,
however, both Belgrade and local
Serbs reject the approach. According to Momcilo
Trajkovic, leader of the local Serbs: "We
do not want to accept such compromise because
this means that ultimately Kosovo would
be lost [for Serbs]." [185] A variation of the
"Third Republic" concept is Adem Demaci's
project of Balkan Confederation, popularly called
Balkania. This envisages the alliance of
three free, secular and sovereign states, Kosovo,
Serbia and Montenegro, each with the
right to secede. And it is this prospect of secession
which makes the "Third Republic"
unpalatable to Serbs.
Conclusion
In 1992 Warren Zimmerman, then US Ambassador
in Belgrade, warned of Kosovo that:
"You cannot have a combination of colonial authoritarianism
and communism in the
middle of Europe." Yet more than half a decade
later, the province's status and
administration remains unchanged. The long-feared
and often-predicted war has not
erupted. The powder keg has yet to explode. However,
as the spiral of violence of the past
two years and the bloodletting indicate, the
powder is very dry and sparks may ignite it at
any time.
Kosovars have tired of the passivity and
non-violence preached by Dr Rugova and the
LDK. They are also disappointed with and feel
let down by the international community and
in particular the US and will no longer necessarily
listen to outside calls for restraint. The
pent-up frustration of close to a decade of waiting
without any hint of light at the end of the
tunnel, and the precedents for achieving political
goals by military means set by Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia and Republika Srpska, play into
the hands of hotheads who are prepared
to fight for an independent Kosovo. Acts of terrorism
by groups such as UCK will surely
increase as Kosovars see the publicity benefits
of more aggressive tactics. Moreover, the
cause has acquired more than 50 martyrs just
in the past month.
Clearly there is no magic solution. However,
in the current circumstances the conflict will
not simply disappear or work itself out of its
own accord. Further, because of the likelihood
that ethnic fighting could not be contained within
Kosovo, the conflict has an international
dimension and should not therefore be treated
merely as an internal Yugoslav matter.
Kosovo has to be treated as an international
priority and Yugoslavia has to accept that the
threat to regional stability and the potential
for another exodus of refugees from its territory
give the international community the right both
to become involved and to mediate in this
most delicate affair. A patient, determined and
consistent approach to Kosovo now can
help avert yet another humanitarian catastrophe
in the former Yugoslavia which is in the
interests of Serbs, Albanians, the wider region
and the international community.
ICG Recommendations
Major pressure will have to be applied to
Serbia if Belgrade is to act to end human rights
violations in Kosovo and accept international
involvement in solving the Kosovo problem.
The possibilities of exercising such pressure
through international bodies-be they political
(such as OSCE, High Commissioner for Minorities,
UN Sub-Commission on Human
Rights) or financial (such as the World Bank
or IMF)-is limited because the "outer wall of
sanctions" excludes FRY from all these organisations.
The status of FRY at the UN is a
so-called "empty seat solution" even though UN
humanitarian agencies (UNHCR,
UNICEF) are operating in FRY. As of this writing
the Contact Group is the main forum
where the Kosovo problem is being dealt with,
while NATO is refusing to take the lead.
ICG proposes the following recommendations:
Short Term Measures
Military strategy
NATO's involvement in helping to contain
and, ultimately, defuse the crisis in Kosovo is
essential. The current situation poses a serious
threat to peace in South Eastern Europe
and the NATO Alliance is the only institution
capable of heading off such a threat.
Therefore, ICG calls for an urgent meeting of
the NATO Ministers of Defence and Foreign
Affairs to agree on a strategy concerning Kosovo,
thereby sending a clear signal to
President Milosevic that NATO is willing and
ready to intervene should he continue using
violence in Kosovo. Following this meeting, a
senior NATO representative should visit
Belgrade to convey to President Milosevic NATO's
position. Furthermore, the mission of
the UN Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP)
in Macedonia should be extended
and the number of troops increased and strengthened
with NATO forces. Consideration
should also be given to deployment of an international
force in Albania close to the borders
with Kosovo. These last two steps would help
prevent the conflict in Kosovo from
spreading and would facilitate rapid and effective
action should an intervention become
necessary. The possibility of holding military
exercises in Macedonia or in Albania - which
is a "Partnership for Peace" member -- should
also be considered. To make matters
perfectly clear to the Belgrade regime the "Christmas
Warning" (in December 1992 then
president George Bush warned Milosevic in a cable
that in the event of conflict in Kosovo,
the US would be prepared to employ military force
against the Serbs) should be restated
multilateraly through NATO if possible, unlaterally
by the Clinton administation if necessary.
Sanctions and other punitive measures
Only the credible threat and, if necessary,
the imposition of effective sanctions or other
measures will persuade both parties to engage
in meaningful and unconditional
negotiations on the future status of Kosovo.
If such an approach is to be effective,
however, the international community must agree
on a common policy concerning which
sanctions are appropriate and under what conditions
they will be enforced. The initial
emphasis should be on forcing the Belgrade leadership
to agree to genuine negotiations
without pre-conditions. Among the measures that
should be considered are the freezing of
all overseas assets of the government of the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and its
individual leaders; visa restrictions to prevent
the FRY leadership from travelling beyond
Yugoslavia; tougher trade sanctions; and the
suspension of air links into and out of
Belgrade. Given the more conciliatory approach
adopted by the Montenegrin government,
thought should be given to ways to soften the
effects of such measures on Montenegro
and its leadership. Steps may also need to be
taken to exert pressure on the Kosovo
Albanian leadership if it continues to rule out
a compromise solution and refuse to enter
into negotiations.
Mediation of immediate issues
Given the diametrically opposed political
objectives of the parties, the intervention of a
neutral, high-level envoy is essential to initiate
a genuine process of dialogue and
negotiations. The appointment of former Prime
Minister Felipe Gonzalez as the Personal
Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office
and the European Union Representative
in the mediation effort is a welcome development,
pending his acceptance as mediator by
the two sides. To coordinate the political efforts
of the international community, Mr
Gonzalez should also work in close cooperation
with the US government and, if appointed,
a US special envoy.
International Presence
The presence of international personnel
on the ground-including diplomats, journalists,
and human rights monitors-can play an important
role in deterring acts of violence.
Governments, the United Nations, the European
Commission, other international
organisations, and international NGOs should
increase as far as possible the number of
international observers based in Kosovo. NATO
observer force should be introduced
throughout Kosovo, initially comprised of Belgrade-based
NATO member embassy
attaches and diplomats. They would not only send
a clear signal and help deter acts of
violence, they could also assess the compliance-level
by Belgrade and Pristina of any
conditions or moratoriums.
Accompanying Measures
Negotiations
The collapse of the Rome agreement on education
had a profoundly negative effect on
the prospects for a solution in Kosovo. It undermined
confidence in the very idea of
negotiation, with both sides accusing each other
of not being a worthy partner. There are
now efforts to revive the Rome agreement and
the prospects of its implementation may be
better because of the effect of the wave of protests
and the world's attention being
concentrated on Kosovo. If the education agreement
remains unimplemented, it will be
difficult to rebuild trust in the negotiating
process but it can be done.
Once the immediate mediation aimed at stopping
the violence is successfully completed,
secret negotiations about the status of Kosovo
should be encouraged, with no media
attention, no intermediaries that would like
to use the event for their own promotion. This
would have to be something along the lines of
the Oslo Peace Process. For the
participants such a modus operandi would reduce
the risk of being blamed in the event
that the negotiations fail, and make it easier
to present and sell concessions as part of a
broader package. A non-governmental organisation
or a very neutral government should
prepare the logistics and some minimal procedural
matters.
Increased Contacts
All kinds of contacts between the two ethnic
communities should be encouraged.
Diplomats should practice parallel diplomacy
by inviting Albanians and Serbs together to
events, and strengthen their Kosovo desks by
bringing in people with the knowledge of
Albanian. (The USIS office in Pristina and the
political desk of the British Embassy are
seen by the Kosovars as the best informed diplomatic
missions). Non-government
organisations and UN agencies should continue
to explore every avenue that can bring
people of the two communities together.
Support for Education and Health Service
The parallel systems of education and health
service set up by Kosovo Albanians are
clearly not satisfactory. The Kosovars are making
the best out of adverse circumstances
and their effort is admirable. All of the dozen
non-governmental organisations operating
from Pristina and dealing with health, nutrition,
education and construction direct their
efforts and funds to supporting services that
benefit mainly the Kosovo Albanians. Given
the demographics and the discrimination practised
by the Serbian regime, this is the right
policy and should be continued.
Direct financial assistance to the parallel
Kosovo education and health systems would,
however, contribute to further isolating the
two communities and would reinforce the
Kosovars belief that their parallel system is
sustainable, which it is not. Instead, the
international community should use the instrument
of aid conditionality-the attachment of
tough conditions to the granting of financial
assistance-to create links between the two
systems and benefit both. For example, funding
could be used to renovate schools and
health institutions on the condition that they
are used by both communities.
Civil society
A Kosovar journalist likes to say that Kosovo
is a non-governmental organisation itself,
but it remains in great need to build its NGOs
and its own civil society. The women's
groups are strong, but other types of NGOs need
strengthening. The international
community should increase its support for projects
in education, public health, community
building, independent media, culture, and civil
society building. This would have a positive
impact on the quality of life of both the Albanian
and Serbian populations of Kosovo. The
projects themselves could have an important confidence-building
effect. Such assistance
would also be a decisive gesture of support for
the non-violent path by demonstrating that
social progress and opportunity can result from
civil, rather than military, effort.
Media
The group of journalists around the independent
Pristina daily Koha Ditore offers the most
balanced source of information for the Albanian-speaking
population of Kosovo. They
should be supported in their efforts to obtain
a licence and create their own television
and/or radio station. It is necessary to have
the most influential media in the most
professional hands. Koha Ditore recently started
a joint project with the independent
Belgrade radio B92 and with the independent wire
service Beta, also from Belgrade. This
is an example of a possible collaboration between
media from Belgrade and from Pristina.
More such projects should be encouraged through
media-oriented NGOs.
There is a surprisingly high number of satellite
dishes in Kosovo, so the audience for any
satellite broadcast would be significant. To
offer Kosovars world news broadcast in their
language may bring them a reality check and help
them realise that they need to take their
fate into their own hands and come up with more
realistic demands and expectations. A
major international news provider, such as for
CNN, could be asked to donate the right to
rebroadcast news programmes on the satellite
link used by Tirana TV. (Some East
European countries have a CNN-translated news
service and it is always a popular
broadcast).
Students
Positioned between two more extreme political
alternatives (the passivity of the LDK or
the violence of the UCK), the Kosovar students'
movement may provide the best basis on
which to build an effective, moderate opposition
capable of putting forward a credible and
peaceful plan of action.
Kosovar students should be encouraged to
increase their contacts and take advice from
students in Eastern Europe more than in the West.
The modus operandi, the concrete
actions undertaken by young people under totalitarian
regimes are more likely to provide
useful examples for the Kosovars than the more
distant experiences of students in
Western societies. They should also be encouraged
to get in touch and collaborate with
students from Belgrade. The Union of Students
desperately needs help with public
relations; even as the wave of protests swept
through Kosovo, they failed to take the lead
the way their peers did in 1968 in Paris.
Appendices
Chronology of Events in Kosovo 1946-1992 (courtesy Human Rights Watch)
1946: First post-war Yugoslav Constitution
was adopted in which Yugoslavia was defined
as a federal state of six sovereign republics.
Within Serbia, the territories of Vojvodina and
Kosovo were granted a degree of autonomy. Both
provinces were allowed to send
representatives to a chamber of the federal legislature
but their internal affairs (e.g.,
system of education, the specific rights and
degree of autonomy) were to be defined by
the Republic of Serbia, not the federal government.
1946-1963: During Tito's clash with Stalin,
Albania supported the USSR and border
clashes between Yugoslav and Albanian border
guards ensued along the Kosovo-Albania
border. The Yugoslav secret police heightened
persecution of the Albanian population in
Kosovo, especially in the 1950s. Serbs began
to migrate from Kosovo for economic
reasons and because of alleged Albanian persecution
and harassment.
1963: New Yugoslav and Serbian constitutions
were adopted. Both documents increased
Serbia's control over the provinces by conditioning
the provinces' autonomy on the will of
the Serbian government. The provinces' representatives
to the federal parliament were to
sit as part of the Serbian delegation, not as
separate provincial delegations.
1968: Demonstrations in which Albanians
demanded that Kosovo be recognised as a
separate republic took place. The Serbian authorities
made several concessions, including
the establishment of an Albanian-language university.
1968-1974: Amendments to the federal Yugoslav
and Serbian constitutions further
augmented the independent authority of Kosovo
and Vojvodina. The provinces were
allowed to promulgate their own laws, provided
such laws conformed to the federal and
Serbian constitutions. Kosovo and Vojvodina again
were allowed to participate in the
federal government as separate delegations representing
their respective provinces.
1974: Yugoslavia's third constitution was
adopted. The new constitution formally defined
the autonomous provinces as constituent members
of the federation. De facto, Kosovo
and Vojvodina were granted the status of sovereign
republics in almost all respects; their
status differed from the other six Yugoslav republics
only insofar as they were not granted
the right to secede from the federation. Both
Vojvodina and Kosovo were given seats in
the federal parliament and the federal constitutional
court.
It should be noted that the 1974 constitution
regulated Kosovo's and Vojvodina's
constitutional status in federal affairs; it
did not explicate the authority Kosovo and
Vojvodina would have within Serbia -- that was
left to the Serbian government. In 1974,
the new Serbian constitution incorporated the
principles set forth in the amendments to the
1963 constitution, thus granting both Kosovo
and Vojvodina a large degree of autonomy.
(De jure, Serbia had the right to regulate the
political status of the provinces within its
territory, thus providing the legal justification
for the revocation of the provinces' autonomy
in 1990.)
March 1981: Student demonstrations calling
for better living conditions and financial aid
were forcibly dispersed by the local police in
Kosovo.
Early- and mid-1980s: A series of demonstrations
took place in Kosovo in which the
participants demanded higher wages, greater freedom
of expression, the release of
political prisoners and republican status for
Kosovo. The Serbian authorities forcibly
dispersed many of these demonstrations and federal
police and Yugoslav army (JNA)
forces were sent to Kosovo. Several people were
killed and many were arrested and
sentenced to prison terms ranging in duration
from several months to 15 years for so-
called "verbal crimes," (e.g., mentioning the
words "Kosovo Republic" or making the "V"
sign.) The press, schools and local government
bodies were purged and a new
communist party (formally called the League of
Communists of Yugoslavia - LCY)
leadership was installed. (Azem Vlassi was named
as the new LCY chief for Kosovo.)
Albanians protested the measures and resorted
to sabotage, bomb explosions and
destruction of Serbian property. According to
Serbian sources, approximately 30,000
Serbs left Kosovo in the early 1980s.
1986: Serbs lodged complaints in the federal
Assembly against what they viewed as
Albanian "genocide" against Serbs in Kosovo.
1987: Milosevic ousted his mentor and then-leader
of the Serbian League of Communists,
Ivan Stambolic, and assumed power in Serbia.
Late 1988: Milosevic proposed several measures
and constitutional amendments that
would effectively revoke the autonomous status
of Vojovodina and Kosovo. In response,
Albanian calls for secession from Serbia increased.
Peaceful demonstrations took place
but Serbian authorities responded by banning
all public meetings in Kosovo. Strikes
spread throughout the province.
Early 1989: Albanian miners in Kosovo went
on strike to protest the proposed
constitutional amendments. In March, Kosovo's
communist party chief, Azem Vlassi, was
arrested for having met with the striking miners.
Vlassi was considered to have been
insufficiently loyal to the Milosevic regime
and was charged and tried for "counter-
revolutionary acts, destruction of brotherhood
and unity, and destroying the economic
base of the country." (In May 1990, charges against
Vlassi were dropped as a result of
international pressure against what was widely
viewed as a "show trial.")
February 1989: Yugoslavia's collective presidency
imposed "special measures" in Kosovo
and assigned responsibility for public security
in the province to the federal government.
The federal militia was sent to Kosovo. Arrests
and trials of approximately 50 political and
business leaders and about 1,000 striking workers
took place. Most were sentenced to 60
days of imprisonment.
March 1989: A meeting of Kosovo's Assembly
took place to discuss the proposed
amendments to the Serbian constitution. One hundred
fifty of the 184 delegates were
present. Because the LCY had announced that it
would consider a vote against the
amendments to be a "counter-revolutionary act,"
almost all of the Albanian delegates
abstained from voting. Sixty delegates voted
in favour of the amendments while 10 voted
against. Despite the fact that the required two-third
majority of the full Assembly was not
met, the Serbian president of the Assembly declared
that the amendments had passed.
Six days of demonstrations and riots ensued.
Estimate of the number of persons killed in
the riots range from 26 to 100. Hundreds were
injured and about 900 demonstrators were
imprisoned for up to 60 days. Intellectuals who
signed petitions opposing the amendments
also were arrested and detained without charge.
Autumn 1989: Extraordinary elections were
held in Kosovo and new delegates to the
Kosovo Assembly were elected.
January-February 1990: Renewed violence
and demonstrations took place throughout
Kosovo.
April 1990: The federal Yugoslav authorities
lifted the special measures in Kosovo and
removed most of the federal police, leaving matters
to the Serbian government and its
republican security forces.
June 1990: The Serbian legislature passed
a law which effectively extended the
emergency period and mandated Belgrade's direct
control over the administration of
special measures in Kosovo.
2 July 1990: The Kosovo Assembly responded
to Serbia's June law by issuing a
proclamation which declared Kosovo an independent
republic within the Yugoslav
federation.
5 July 1990: The Serbian Assembly suspended
the Kosovo Assembly and other organs
of the provincial government. The Serbian authorities
also took control of approximately 60
enterprises, including hospitals and energy plants.
Repressive measures were taken
against Albanian-language media that reported
the recently dissolved Kosovo Assembly's
declaration of republican status for Kosovo.
Summer 1990: Demonstrations against Serbian
policy took place but were forcibly
dispersed. (One such demonstration took place
in August, during a visit by a delegation of
the U.S. Congress, which was headed by Senator
Robert Dole. The delegation witnessed
the beating of peaceful demonstrators by police
in front of the Hotel Grand in Pristina.)
Serbian police searched entire Albanian villages
for weapons; most house searches were
arbitrary and were conducted without warrants.
The police frequently beat and detained
the inhabitants of the searched home.
3 September 1990: Albanians participated
in a 24-hour general strike. The Serbian
authorities responded by dismissing thousands
of participants from their jobs and by fining
shopkeepers who honored the strike.
7 September 1990: Delegates to the recently
dissolved Kosovo Assembly met secretly in
the town of Kacanik and adopted a new constitution
for Kosovo, stressing its status as a
sovereign republic within Yugoslavia. A clandestine
government and legislature were
elected. Many Albanians continue to abide by
the decisions off this underground
government rather than Belgrade's rule.
17 September 1990: One hundred eleven delegates
of the underground Kosovo
Assembly and six members of the Kosovo government
were charged with "counter-
revolutionary activity" for having approved the
2 July proclamation of republican status for
Kosovo and the 7 September constitution. The
charges were subsequently changed to
'endangering the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia."
Serbian courts stripped the Assembly's
delegates of their legislative immunity. Most
of the delegates fled Serbia but some were
arrested. Journalists who reported the 2 July
proclamation or the 7 September constitution
also were arrested. Most were detained for 30
to 60 days.
28 September 1990: The Serbian Assembly
adopted a new constitution for all of Serbia,
including Kosovo and Vojvodina. The autonomous
status of both provinces was effectively
revoked. The constitution vested all effective
control of Kosovo's political, economic,
judicial and security institutions in the hands
of the Belgrade government. Only cultural and
educational institutions are left in control
of local Serbian authorities.
Also, by placing Vojvodina and Kosovo directly
under Belgrade's control, Serbia gained
two seats in the collective Yugos!av presidency,
thus granting it three voices in federal
affairs, while the remaining republics retained
only one vote in the presidency. This action
increased Serbia's relative power in the Yugoslav
federation.
29 November 1990: Tile Yugoslav Presidency
granted individual pardons to 124
prisoners, all of whom were released. A further
69 prisoners had their prison sentences
reduced. Some of those who benefited from the
pardon included ethnic Albanians who
had been imprisoned for the peaceful expression
of their political views.
26-30 September 1991: Kosovo Albanians held
an unofficial referendum on Kosovo's
independence. Although voting was open in most
rural areas, voting in the cities was
conducted in private homes to avoid police repression.
Nevertheless, numerous seizures
of voting materials and arrests by the Serbian
police occurred. 27 April 1992: Following the
secession of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina, the republics of
Montenegro and Serbia (including the provinces
of Kosovo and Vojvodina) declared the
formation of a new Yugoslavia. A new constitution
was adopted but the status of Vojvodina
and Kosovo remains unchanged in the current Yugoslav
state.
24 May 1992: Albanians held elections for
new members to their clandestine government.
Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the Democratic
League of Kosovo -- the strongest political
party representing Albanians in Kosovo -- was
elected president of an independent
Kosovo. Delegates to the 130-member legislature
also were elected.
Who is Who
Politicians
LDK (Lidhjes Demokratike të Kosovës) - Democratic League of Kosovo
Ibrahim Rugova (president of LDK)
Fehmi Agani (former vice president LDK,
until 26 February 1998)
Hydajet Hyseni (former vice president LDK,
until 26 February 1998)
PPK (Partia Parlamentare e Kosovës) - Parliamentary Party of Kosovo
Adem Demaci (chairman of PPK)
Bajram Kosumi (vice chairman PPK)
Other parties
Hivzi Islami (chairman Peasants' Party of
Kosovo)
Mark Krasniqi (chairman Christian Democratic
Party of Kosovo)
Luljeta Pula-Beqiri (chairman Social Democratic
Party - wing I)
Kaqusha Jashari (chairman Social Democratic
Party - wing II)
Ukshin Hotti - currently in jail (chairman
Albanian Party of National Unification - UNIKOMB)
Student Activists Bujar Dugolli (chairman
Students' Independent Union - Unioni Pavarur i
Studentëve)
Driton Lajci (vice chairman Students' Independent
Union)
Albin Kurti (international officer Students'
Independent Union)
Human Rights Activists
Gazmend Pula (chairman Helsinki Committee
for Human Rights)
Pajazit Nushi (chairman Council for the
Defence of Human Rights and Freedom - Këshilli)
Shaban Shala (vice-chairman Këshilli)
Binak Ulaj (vice-chairman Këshilli)
Nora Ahmetaj (Humanitarian Law Centre,
Pristina office)
Vjosa Dobruna (Centre for Protection of
Women and Children)
Journalists and Political Columnists
Veton Surroi (editor, Koha Ditore)
Dukagjin Gorani (deputy editor, Koha Ditore)
Baton Haxhiu (deputy editor, Koha Ditore)
Gjeraquina Tuhina (journalist, Koha Ditore)
Arber Vllahiu (journalist, Koha Ditore)
Blerim Shala (editor, Zeri)
Auni Spahiu (editor, Bujku)
Shkelzen Maliqi (director, Open Society
Institute, Pristina)
Rexjep Qosja (writer)
Former Yugoslav Officials from Kosovo
Mahmut Bakalli
Azem Vlasi
Remzi Koljgeci
Kaqusha Jashari
Gani Jashari
Serbs
Ljubinko Cvetic (spokesman, Serbian Interior
Ministry - MUP)
Veljko Odalovic (deputy head of Kosovo
district)
Bosko Drobnjak (Kosovo information secretary)
Momcilo Trajkovic (president, Serb Resistance
Movement - Srpski pokret otpora - SPO)
Aca Rakocevic (vice-president, Serb Resistance
Movement)
Artemije Radosavljevic (bishop of Raska
and Prizren, head of the Serbian Orthodox
Church in Kosovo)
NGOs present in Kosovo (all based in Pristina)
Children Aid
Catholic Relief Service
HANDICAP
International Committee of Red Cross
International Federation of Red Cross
International Rescue Committee
Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World)
Mercy Corps International
Medecins sans Frontieres
Mother Teresa Society (SHBH Nena Tereze)
OXFAM
Pharmaciens sans Frontiers
Save the Children
UNHCR
UNICEF WHO (World Health Organisation)
(World Vision was planning to open a mission
in the spring of 1998)
Most commonly used acronyms:
LDK : Lidhjes Demokratike të Kosovës
- Democratic League of Kosovo
PPK : Partia Parlamentare e Kosovës
- Parliamentary Party of Kosovo
QIK : Qendra për Informim e Kosovës
- Kosovo Information Centre or KIC
MUP : Ministarstvo Unutrasnjih Poslova
- Ministry of Interior Affairs of Serbia
UCK : Ushtrisë Clirimtare të
Kosovës - Kosovo Liberation Army whose acronym is KLA,
KAL or also LAK) and in Serbian Oslobodilacka vojska Kosova (OVK) also
KOA (Kosovska oslobodilacka armija) - UCK is pronounced "oo-che-kah"
SAJ : Specialne Antiteroristicke Jedinice
- Special Anti-terrorist Units of Serbia's MUP
UPS : Unioni Pavarur i Studentëve
- Students' Independent Union
Footnotes
ICG Kosovo Spring Report, March 24, 1998
1. See
Appendix 1 for a chronology of major events
2. Serbs
living in Kosovo are also sometimes called Kosovars. In this report, however,
"Kosovar" always means ethnic Albanian from Kosovo. Serbs use for ethnic
Albanians,
either "Albanci" or the derogatory term "Siptar" which has recently been
used by Serbian
State television where almost every word "Albanci" is replaced with "siptarske
teroristicke
bande" (Siptar terrorist gangs), see Vreme, "Kako Srbi i Albanci vide jedni
druge i sebe" by
Milos Vasic, 14 March 1998.
3. Laura
Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia, London, Penguin Books,
1995, p 37
4. Provincial
Institute of Statistics estimate used by UNICEF.
5. According
to the 1981 census, Serbs comprised 13.2 percent of the population (209,498)
and
Kosovars 77.4 percent (1,226,735).
6. Owen
Bennett Jones, The Albanians in Kosovo: Prospect for the Future, UNHCR
Refugee
Survey Quarterly, vo13. No. 4, Winter 1994.
7. Transition,
Vol. 3, No. 4, 7 March 1997.
8. Behlull
Beqaj, Ethnicity in Post-Communism: The Albanians in the Post-Communist
transformation of Yugoslavia, Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, 1996,
p. 227.
9. Serbian
Colonisation and Ethnic Cleansing, Kosovo Information Centre Publication,
Pristina,
1993, p. 14-42.
10. Decrees' copies
were shown to ICG in Pristina by the Human Rights Council, Keshilli.
11. Sonja Biserko,
The Kosovo Stand-off, Ulcinj, 23-25 June 1997.
12. Reuters, 11 March
1998.
13. On 9 March 1998,
the United Nations agency for refugees, UNHCR, asked countries of
Western Europe to withhold deportations. Kosovo Albanians where asylum
applications have
been rejected should not be sent back until the situation in the province
stabilises,
Reuters, 9 March 1998.
14. Council of Europe
Resolution 1077.
15. UN Doc. A/RES/51/111
of 5 March 1997.
16. Commission on
Human Rights, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1998/15.
17. International
Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Open Letter, 12 February 1998.
18. Humanitarian Law
Center, 17 December 1997.
19. Reuters, 12 March
1998.
20. http://www.amnesty.org
21. http://www.hrw.org
22. http://www.fidh.imaginet.fr/uindex.htm
23. AP, 12 March 1998.
24. Christopher Bennett,
Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse, Hurst & Company, London, 1995, p.92.
25. Ethnicity in Post-communism,
The Albanians in the Post-communist Transformation of
Yugoslavia, Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, 1996, p. 226.
26. Confirmed in March
1998 to ICG by the Protocol Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in Tirana.
27. VIP, 24 November
1997 (VIP is a subscription-based wire service in Belgrade which started
in 1994. Its editor-in-chief is Bratislav Grubancic. Over the two years
that ICG has been a
subscriber, the service has proved to be extremely timely, accurate and
objective. For this
reason ICG has relied on VIP's information, which on the subject of the
Kosovo conflict is
equally professional).
28. Reuters, 4 March
1998.
29. The call by the
Serbian authorities for the Kosovars to renounce secession was used by
Belgrade as the main obstacle to negotiate with Pristina.
30. Vojislav Seselj,
leader of the Serb Radical Party, and a narrow runner-up in Serbia's
Presidential Election, has called for the forcible expulsion of Kosovars.
31. Reuters, 12 March
1998.
32. Constitution of
Republic of Serbia (Ustav Republike Srbije) art 6. says "Autonomous
provinces of Vojevodina and autonomous province of Kosovo and Metohija
exist in Republic
of Serbia as forms of territorial autonomy." In chapter 6, art. 108-112
this territorial autonomy
is further defined. Also worth mentioning is that ethnic Albanians, or
indeed any other ethnic
and/or national group is not mentioned in the Constitution which states
(art. 1) "Republic of
Serbia is a democratic country of all citizens who live in it. However
the highest legal act of
the autonomous province is the statute not the Constitution (statut, not
ustav) which has to be
approved by the People's Assembly of Republic of Serbia. An autonomous
province doesn't
have a government but an Executive Council; it also has an Assembly.
33. 24 Casa, quoted
by VIP, 17 February 1998.
34. Associated Press,
4 March 1998.
35. Tanjug , 19 November
1997.
36. Nasa Borba, 8
December 1997
37. Feral Tribune,
9 March 1998.
38. VIP, 9 March 1998.
39. Bota Sot [The
World Today], 20 August 1997.
40. Kosova Daily Report
#1342, 10 February 1998.
41. The Belgrade opposition
daily Nasa Borba recently ran a portrait of Rugova under the telling
title, "The man with a European scarf".
42. The New York Times,
13 March 1998.
43. The Kosovo Pen
Club is a member if the International PEN (Poets, Essayists and Novelists),
a world-wide network of writers.
44. Kosova Daily Report
# 1345, 13 February 1998.
45. Tim Judah, The
Serbs, Yale University Press, 1997, p. 305.
46. He is on a famous
photograph of the 1981 demonstrations, addressing the crowd through a
bullhorn
47. VIP, 9 March 1998.
48. Koha Ditore dated
26 February 1998 ("Democratic League of Kosovo becomes Democratic
League of Rugova") quoted one member of the presidency "Rugova is a personification
of the
independence of the Republic of Kosova, and there is no reason why the
LDK should not
also be called the Democratic League of Rugova." A dispute followed ended
by Rugova
"Look folks, this is no good; are we getting on with the job or not; I'm
president and who do
you think you are; hang on, this is what I say; OK, OK, cool it."
49. VIP, 2 March 1998.
50. Kosova Daily Report
# 1356, 27 February 1998.
51. VIP, 26 November
1997.
52. Interview Koha
Ditore, 18 August 1997.
53. Koha Ditore, 20
August 1997.
54. VIP, 28 January
1998.
55. "Report of Ambassador
Slawomir Dabrowa à", CIO.FR/1/98, 11 February 1998.
56. VIP, 12 February
1998.
57. VIP, 21 January
1998.
58. VIP, 17 March
1998.
59. Koha Ditore, quoted
by VIP, 19 March 1998.
60. VIP, 18 March
1998.
61. For an excellent
report on education in Kosovo see Humanitarian Law Center paper dated
December 1997.
62. Transition, Vol.3,
No.4, 7 March 1997.
63. I questa linea,
l'accordo raggiunto prevede il ritorno degli studenti e degli insegnanti
negli
edifici scolastici.
64. The original,
Italian version says: "E stato negozziato e deciso quanto segue: I. che
riprenda
la normale attivita scolastica delle scuole e dell'universita... II. che
ritornino a essere usati
tutti i locali scolastici, universitari e ambienti circostanti, come lo
erano sino all'interruzione
dell'utilizzo comune, senza alcuna condizione. Essi dovranno essere meddi
a disposizione
inproporzione al numero degli alumni e studenti. Questo significa che stano
resi disponibili :..
le costruzione delle 7 scuole parauniversitarie e delle 13 facolta, di
seguito elencate, con
ambiento annessi:la biblioteca universitaria e popolare, gli istituti,
i convitti, le mense, le
palestre, ecc."
65. Blic, 27 February
1998.
66. November 1996,
interview by ICG.
67. VIP, 3 October
1997.
68. Koha Ditore, 2
November 1997.
69. Kosova Daily Report,
23 December 1997.
70. Kosova Daily Report
#1345, 13 February 1998.
71. Reuters, 30 December
1997.
72. See International
Helsinki Federation, The Health Care Situation in Kosovo, October 1991.
73. Ilaz Bylykbashi,
"555 Kronike (1981-1995)," Rilindija, Pristina, 1996, p.71.
74. Unpublished document.
75. The institution
is named after the recently-deceased Catholic nun who, before her death,
was
the most famous ethnic Albanian in the world. Mother Theresa was born in
Skopje.
76. Reuters, 2 March
1998.
77. Kosova Daily Report
#1244, 2 October 1997.
78. Albanians in Serbia
Fight for Their Independence, New York Times, 5 May 1997.
79. VIP, 21 January
1998.
80. VIP, 17 and 20
October 1997.
81. Interview by ICG
with persons who attended the funeral.
82. VIP, 9 December
1997.
83. VIP, 8 January
1998.
84. VIP, 9 March 1998.
85. The KLA: force
that frightens the Serbs, The Daily Telegraph, 9 March 1998.
86. VIP, 4 March 1998.
87. Slobodna Bosna,
15 January 1998.
88. Illyria, Albanian
Language Newspaper, 11 January 1998.
89. VIP, 29 January
1998.
90. Illyria, Albanian
Language Newspaper, 11 January 1998.
91. VIP, 9 December
1997.
92. VIP, 6 February
1998.
93. Danas, 10 December
1997.
94. VIP, 11 February
1998.
95. Interview by Ivan
Markovic, spokesman of the Yugoslav Left with Radio Jugoslavija in VIP,
29 January 1998.
96. VIP, 8 January
1998
97. VIP, 17 February
1998.
98. VIP, 30 January
1998.
99. Bujku, 11 March
1998 and VIP, 12 March 1998.
100. Gradanin, 13 August
1997.
101. VIP, 13 January 1998.
102. Nasa Borba, 12 March
1998.
103. VIP, 19 January 1998.
104. AP, 14 March 1998.
105. VIP, 14 January 1998
106. Nedeljni telegraf, quoted
by VIP 11 March 1998
107. Momcilo Petrovic, Pitao
sam Albance sta zele, a oni su rekli: Republiku... ako moze, B92,
Belgrade, 1996.
108. Beta News Agency, Belgrade,
19 November 1996.
109. VIP, 28 January 1998
110. BETA News agency, Belgrade,
27 February 1998.
111. VIP, 3 March 1998.
112. Conclusions to the Bonn
Conference, 11 December 1997, p 27.
113. Nasa Borba, 11 December
1997.
114. AP, 11 March 1998.
115. VIP, 10 March 1998.
116. Politika, 10 March 1998.
117. Since the demonstrators
threw yoghurt which was left over from their free meals at the
parliament buildings, the over throw of Vojvodina and Montenegro's governments
became
known outside Serbia as the "yoghurt revolutions." Christopher Bennett,
Yugoslavia's Bloody
Collapse, Hurst & Company, London, 1995, p. 99.
118. VIP, 27 February 1998.
119. VIP, 3 November 1997.
120. Reuters, 11 March 1998.
121. Ibid.
122. Transition, Vol. 3,
No. 4, 7 March 1997
123. VIP, 3 November 1997.
124. VIP, 7 November 1997.
125. Kosova Daily Report
#1342, 10 February 1998.
126. Reuters, 10 March 1998.
127. Ibid.
128. The New York Times,
13 March 1998.
129. Reuters, 14 March 1998.
130. Reuters, 12 and 13 March
1998
131. VIP, 5 March 1998.
132. Srna quoted in ONASA,
4 March 1998.
133. VIP, 16 March 1998.
134. Reuters, 9 March 1998.
135. Reuters, 30 December
1997.
136. AP, 14 March 1998.
137. Nasa Borba, 5 March
1998.
138. http://www.europarl.eu.int/index/en/default.htm
139. Reuters, 12 March 1998.
140. Reuters, 18 March 1998
141. Nasa Borba, 28 January
1998.
142. VIP, 29 January 1998.
143. VIP, 17 March 1998.
144. VIP, 9 February 1998.
145. Reuters, 16 March 1998.
146. Reuters, 12 March 1998.
147. Reuters, 19 March 1998.
148. Reuters, 7 March 1998.
149. The New York Times,
8 March 1998.
150. Reuters, 8 March 1998.
151. Reuters, 18 March 1998.
152. Reuters 4 March 1998.
153. Article 533, passed
22 October 1996 by the US Congress.
154. VIP, 23 October 1996.
155. The New York Times,
13 March 1998.
156. Reuters, 11 March 1998.
157. http://www.osceprag.cz/inst/secret/missions/kosovo.htm
158. Reuters, 11 March 1998.
159. Reuters, 25 February
1998
160. Reuters, 9 March 1998.
161. Reuters, 19 March 1998
162. http://www.un.org/icty/
163. Reuters, 23 January
1998.
164. Reuters, 1 March 1998.
165. M2 Communication from
NATO, 5 March 1998.
166. Reuters, 16 March 1998.
167. ibid.
168. The research was carried
out by the Belgrade pollster Argument for the BETA news agency,
the Belgrade daily Nasa Borba and the Pristina daily Koha Ditore and involved
interviews
with 1,007 people living in 28 municipalities in Serbia and Montenegro
between 13 July and
4 August 1997.
169. BETA, 21 August 1997.
170. October 1996, carried
out for the BETA news agency and including interviews with 728
Kosovars.
171. VIP, 1 December 1997.
172. Nasa Borba, December
1997.
173. Jedinstvo's reporting
and subject matter are generally predictable and uninspiring. Kosovo i
Metohija ce uvek biti Srbija (Kosovo and Metohija will always be Serbia)
is a rather typical
front-page headline, though on 15 August 1997 it simply marked the visit
of Serbian Prime
Minister Mirko Marjanovic to the province.
174. For a concise review
of the legal argument which Kosovars make for independence, see Esat
Stavileci's Posesivna velokodrzavnost.
175. Zoran Lutovac, The Status
of Kosovo in the Light of Geopolitical Changes in the Balkans.
176. Jan Oberg, Kosovo on
the Agenda, War Report, May 1996.
177. Demokratija, 10 December
1997.
178. Nasa Borba, 10 June
1996.
179. Zoran Lutovac, The Status
of Kosovo in the Light of Geopolitical Changes in the Balkans
180. How to Settle The Kosovo
Conflict, Policy recommendations by the Bertelsmann Foundation
and the Center for Applied Policy Research, 1997.
181. December 1997.
182. Gazmend Pula, Kosova
-- Republic in a New (Con)Federation Via Refederalization of
Yugoslavia: General Considerations, Preconditions, Process and Relevant
Features.
183. Pula has also published
an article explaining the concept as he understands it called Kosova
-- Republic in a New (Con)Federation Via Refederalization of Yugoslavia.
184. Berlelsmann Foundation,
How to Settle the Kosovo Conflict.
185. Gradjanin, 22 August
1997.
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