Kosovo Spring
ICG Kosovo, March 24, 1998
(Part 1 of 2)
Introduction
Kosovo Situation
a. Historical Background
i. Importance Of Kosovo For Serbs
ii. Importance Of Kosovo For Kosovars
b. Sociological Background
i. Albanians In The Region
ii. Language And Religion
iii. Demographics
iv. Diaspora
c. The Human Rights Situation
d. Evolution Of The Status Of Kosovo
i. From Autonomy To Repression 1974 - 1989
ii. Adherence To Non-Violence 1989-1997
iii. Kosovo's Status, Differing Views
e. Parallel Institutions
i. Government And Political Life
ii. Democratic League Of Kosovo
iii. Parliamentary Party Of Kosovo
iv. Other Parties
v. 22 March 1998 Elections
f. Education
i. History Of The Conflict
ii. The Parallel Education System
iii. Education Agreement
iv. Students
g. Health Care
h. Economy
i. Media
i. Print Media
ii. Electronic Media
iii. Internet
j. Kosovo Liberation Army, UCK
PART TWO YOU CAN READ UNDER back153.htm
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
Introduction
Since 28 February when Serbian special police
launched a brutal offensive against
alleged ethnic Albanian (Kosovar) separatists
in Kosovo, events in that ethnically-divided
province of rump Yugoslavia have featured prominently
on the front pages of newspapers
and in television and radio news broadcasts throughout
the world. The powder keg, whose
explosion has so often been predicted during
the past decade, appears finally to be
igniting. As the consequences of ethnic violence
in Kosovo threaten to spill beyond the
borders of rump Yugoslavia and endanger the stability
of the entire region, the
international community no longer accepts Serbian
claims that what takes place there is
purely an internal matter. International diplomacy
has therefore swung into action to head
off an impending tragedy which is already being
called a "second Bosnia".
The clamp-down was ostensibly in response
to the killings of several Serb policemen and
concentrated on the Drenica region, the triangle
formed by the municipalities of Srbica
(Skenderaj), Klina (Kline) and Glogovac (Gllogovc)
in the centre of Kosovo. Since the
emergence of an armed Kosovar resistance movement
last year, that region in particular
had experienced a rising tide of violence and
increasingly appeared beyond the control of
the Serbian authorities. If the clamp-down was
supposed to stamp out Kosovar opposition
to Belgrade rule, it is already clear that it
has failed. Instead of destroying a separatist
movement, it has boosted Kosovar determination
to win independence and created 80
martyrs for the cause. Kosovar protesters now
demonstrate their opposition to Serbian
rule on a daily basis in Pristina, Kosovo's capital,
as well as the province's other major
cities, in the hope that the international community
will deliver them from oppression.
The upsurge of violence has generated an
unparalleled level of interest in Kosovo in the
international media, offering Kosovars a golden
opportunity to put their point of view
across. Having endured apartheid-style rule in
virtual silence for most of the past decade,
they have seized the opportuity with relish.
Cameramen are now treated on a daily basis to
colourful public demonstrations, like women's
marches, the waving of blank sheets of
paper, and the carrying of English-language banners.
The Croatian and Bosnian wars
have taught all ethnic groups of the former Yugoslavia
the importance of good press, and
Kosovars are becoming aware that images of Serbian
police brutality across the world
promote their cause better than any amount of
lobbying.
Media-driven diplomacy and simplistic, instantaneous
analysis of a crisis which has been
simmering for the past decade and bode ill for
prospects of a lasting and peaceful solution.
If a settlement is to be found which preserves
stability in the region and also reconciles the
legitimate interests of both Serb and Kosovar
communities, it requires a depth of
understanding of the conflict which clearly does
not exist at present. Hence this in-depth
analysis of the conflict, which ICG hopes will
serve as a timely tool to policy-makers.
The report examines the evolution of relations
between Serbs and Kosovars in Kosovo,
the importance of the region to both communities
and their competing claims. Since 1989
when Serbia forcibly stripped Kosovo of autonomy,
a parallel Kosovar society has
emerged within the province which exists almost
completely outside the Serbian state. The
report assesses the significance and sustainability
of the parallel institutions, in particular
the education and health care systems. It also
critically analyses Kosovar politics and the
policies of the undisputed Kosovar leader Ibrahim
Rugova who charted the non-violent
course which, until very recently, all Kosovars
obediently followed. If Kosovar elections do
go ahead as scheduled on 22 March, Rugova will
surely be re-elected president, since he
is the only candidate standing. Special sections
are devoted to the economy, media and
the Kosovo Liberation Army, UCK.
The report considers Kosovo in its regional
context, in relations to Serbia, Yugoslavia,
Albania and the entire Balkan region. It examines
initial diplomatic attempts to head off
further fighting and find a solution. And it
analyses the relative merits of the various
solutions -- ranging from maintaining the status
quo to full independence -- which are
currently on offer. In a final section ICG presents
a series of recommendations which, if
taken up by policy-makers, could contribute to
an eventual settlement in Kosovo.
Appendices at the end include a chronology and
a who's who of Kosovo political life.
Kosovo Situation
Historical Background [1]
Like the city of Jerusalem for the Jews,
Muslims and Christians of the Middle East, the
province of Kosovo is over-burdened with emotional,
historical, and religious significance
for the two communities who live there: Serbs
and ethnic Albanians, otherwise known as
Kosovars. [2]
The trade routes from Yugoslavia to Macedonia,
Albania and Greece go through Kosovo,
and the province has important coal and copper
mines, though most are barely
operational.
Importance of Kosovo for Serbs
According to Serb mythology, Kosovo is the
cradle of their nation, the site of the Serbian
Orthodox Patriarchate, founded in 1346. The most
important church for the Serbian
Orthodox faith is at Pec (Peje). When meeting
with an ICG board member, visiting Pristina,
Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren, the head
of the Serbian Orthodox Church in
Kosovo, said: "These areas of the Orthodox Byzantine
Empire became a part of the
Serbian state during the reign of Stefan Nemanja
in 1189 and his son Stefan I, crowned in
1214."
Many foreigners have been influenced in
their views on Kosovo by Rebecca West's 1940
classic Black Lamb and Gray Falcon in which Kosovo
features under the chapter heading
"Old Serbia". Today, the region continues to
go by several different names. Kosovars use
the word "Kosova" translated into English as
Kosova (favored by supporters of the
independent Republic) or Kosovo; whereas Serbs
use "Kosovo", or, preferably "Kosmet",
short for "Kosovo and Metohija" -- a Balkan equivalent
of "Judea and Samaria", commonly
referred to as the "Israeli occupied territories".
A key milestone in early modern Serb history
also took place in Kosovo. The Turks
defeated the Christian armies of the Balkans
at the battle of Kosovo Polje (The Blackbirds'
Field) on 28 June 1389, destroying the medieval
Serbian Empire and ushering in 500
years of Ottoman rule. Serbs solemnly commemorate
this defeat. Every year, ceremonies
are held in Kosovo Polje (a suburb of Pristina)
at the memorial, which bears the inscription:
"Whoever is a Serb and of Serb origin and does
not come to fight in Kosovo, may he not
have any descendants, neither male nor female."
Serbs rose up against Ottoman rule in
Kosovo in 1688 following Habsburg victories elsewhere
in the Balkans. The revolt was
crushed and then savagely put down in 1690, forcing
large numbers to flee reprisals.
Following the Serb exodus, Albanians moved from
mountainous areas into the province's
plain to fill the void.
Kosovo also has more recent significance
to Serb nationalists. It was precisely at the
Kosovo Polje monument that Slobodan Milosevic,
then president of Serbia's League of
Communists, addressed Kosovo Serbs in April 1987
saying: "You shouldn't abandon your
land just because it's difficult to live, because
you are pressured by injustice and
degradation," and promising: "No one should dare
to beat you..." [3] The speech sent
shock waves throughout the former Yugoslavia
and catapulted Milosevic to the head of
the Serb nationalist movement.
In spite of Milosevic's words, Serbs have
continued to leave Kosovo. Their numbers have
dwindled from 209,000 in 1981 to roughly 180,000
in 1997. Today, three distinct groups of
Serbs live in Kosovo: the indigenous population
(i.e. Serbs for whom Kosovo is their
home); Serbs on tours of duty (such as soldiers
and police sent from other parts of
Yugoslavia with their families); and refugees,
displaced Serbs from Croatia and (to a lesser
extent) Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia). That
said, most refugees are very reluctant to
settle in Kosovo.
Importance of Kosovo for Kosovars
Kosovars too have strong emotional and historical
ties to Kosovo. As descendants of the
ancient Illyrians, they claim to be the Balkan's
oldest people and Kosovo's original
inhabitants. Moreover, the modern Albanian national
movement was formed not in
Albania, but in Kosovo with the establishment
of the League of Prizren in 1878. Under
Italian occupation during the Second World War
and together with Albania, part of
Macedonia and part of Montenegro, Kosovo formed
part of a Greater Albania. After the
Second World War, Kosovo was returned to Tito's
Yugoslavia and given the status of
autonomous region within Serbia and upgraded
to that of autonomous province in 1968.
The main reason why Kosovars care about
Kosovo is simply because they live there.
Indeed, roughly 90 percent of the province's
total 2,150,000 inhabitants declare
themselves to be ethnic Albanians. [4] Serbs
from Kosovo maintain that less than 90
percent of Kosovo inhabitants are ethnic Albanians
because many Turks, Roma and
others may have described themselves as Albanians
in hopes of advancing their social
status. The dispute over the actual composition
of the Kosovo population cannot be
resolved at present. The last available census
figures for Kosovo's ethnic Albanians are
from 1981, since Kosovars boycotted the 1991
census. [5 ]
Sociological Background
Albanians in the Region
Not unlike the Kurds, the Albanians are
an ethnic group divided by borders among
several states (although unlike the Kurds they
do have a state of their own). As former
Albanian president Sali Berisha put it: "We are
seven million people separated into five
states." [6] This separation is a powerful engine
for the drive towards unification. In times
of tension, such as in February and March 1998,
Albanians from all states close ranks and
forget any difference that they may have. As
the numbers of Albanians is politically-
charged, the figures are, of course, disputed.
Most observers would probably agree that
the total number is slightly less than six million,
divided as follows: [7]
3,080,000 in Albania
proper 1,800,000 in Kosovo (Serbia) 443,000 in Macedonia
100,000 in Italy
50,000 in Greece (plus 300,000 Albanian migrant workers) 80,000
in Serbia outside
Kosovo (mainly in the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and
Medvedja). 37,000
in Montenegro (municipalities of Plav, Ulcinj, Rozaje)
Language and Religion
Religious differences between the predominantly
Orthodox Christian Serbs and the
predominantly Muslim Kosovars have inspired many
comparisons between Bosnia and
Kosovo. However, Bosnia's ethnic communities
speak the same language and have a
history of cooperation. In a way, the split in
Kosovo is more similar to that of distant
Kashmir where two communities are divided by
ethnicity, religion, language and even
alphabet. A comparison cold also be made to the
differences between Arabs and Jews in
Israel.
The Serbs of Kosovo speak Serb and primarily
use the Cyrillic alphabet (the Latin
alphabet was formerly used, but has been almost
totally dropped since the disintegration
of Yugoslavia). The Kosovars speak an Albanian
close to the one spoken in the north of
Albania. Until the beginning of the 1990s, Kosovars
in the towns also spoke Serb, though
it was rare to meet a Serb who could speak Albanian.
Now, due to the total separation of
the two educational systems during the past seven
years, a generation of Kosovars has
gone through school without coming into contact
with the Serb language.
Beginning in 1991, Kosovars faced massive
linguistic discrimination. Here is how Kosovar
journalist Behlull Beqaj describes this process:
"The law on the
official use of the language and names (27 July 1991) practically
cancels the use
of language, although the Albanians in Kosovo account for 90
percent of the
population. Resolutions concerning names of streets, boulevards,
schools and other
social and cultural institutions have the same intent. Based upon
these resolutions,
the former names were changed and the new names from the
history, culture
and mythology of the Serbs were introduced. All the names of the
streets, boulevards,
cultural institutions, health institutions, schools and other
institutions are
officially written in the Serb language and the Cyrillic alphabet." [8]
Demographics
According to statistics relied on by the
UNICEF office in Pristina, around 45 percent of
Kosovars are under the age of 18, and 70 percent
under the age of 30. Kosovo has the
highest birth rate in Europe (23.1 per 1000 in
1989), and also the highest infant mortality
rate (27.8 per 1000 live births). The number
of children per family largely depends on the
mother's social position -- from an average of
2.74 children for a woman living and working
in the city, to an average of 6.74 for a housewife
living in the countryside. If the birth-rate
continues at its current level and Kosovo remains
part of Serbia, Serbs could form a
minority of the population in Serbia by 2020.
UNICEF estimates that Kosovar families have
on average 6.52 members. Meanwhile,
according to data from the Serbian Statistical
Office for 1996, the percentage of Serbs in
Serbia has fallen to 62 percent; less than 50
percent of live births are children of Serb
nationality; and Serb couples have on average
0.9 children. In 1996, 38,805 Albanians
were born in the province and 5,482 died, compared
with 4,127 Serb births and 2,008
deaths. In other words, while the current population
ratio of Albanians to Serbs in Kosovo
is roughly 9 to 1, the growth rate is 16 to 1.
Both Serb and Kosovar communities are eager
to convince outsiders that the other is
determined to get rid of them and dominate the
region. In order to demonstrate that Serbs
always had colonisation plans (not unlike the
ethnic cleansing wielded against Bosniacs in
Bosnia), the Kosovars hand foreign visitors a
reproduction of a 1937 book called The
Expulsion of the Albanians by Dr. Vaso Cubrilovic,
a Serb nationalist ideologue. The
following are typical extracts:
"If we do not settle
accounts with them [the Kosovars] at the proper time, within
20-30 years we
shall have to cope with a terrible irredentism. ... "The law must be
enforced to the
letter so as to make staying intolerable for the Albanians."
"At the time when
Germany can expel tens of thousands of Jews and Russia can shift
millions of people
from one part of the continent to another, the shifting of a few
hundred thousand
Albanians will not lead to the outbreak of a world war."
"The problem of
the establishment of colonies in the depopulated areas is not less
important than
the removal of the Albanians. The first question emerges. Who should
be settled there?
The most natural thing is to populate them with elements from our
passive regions,
in the first place Montenegrins." [9]
More recently, Serb attempts to alter Kosovo's
demographics have consisted of the
"Decree for Colonisation of Kosovo by the Government
of the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia" of 11 January 1995, and laws that
curtail the sale or rental by Serbs of their
property to Albanians. The former promises that:
"Those who wish to be settled in Kosovo
will be granted four-year loans to erect houses
or buy apartments, while plots of land will
be free of charge." As for the latter, the Serbian
Law on Special Conditions for Real
Property Transactions of 1989 makes it a crime
for Serbs to sell or lease real property to
Kosovars. [10] The Committee for Human Rights
in Serbia has criticised the law as "highly
discriminatory"[11]. Indeed, the Humanitarian
Law Centre called for it to be rescinded after
at least 60 persons in Kosovo were sentenced
to 60 days in prison within a period of a little
over two months between 15 April and 25 June
1997. All but one of the convicted were
Kosovars who bought apartments from Serbs in
Kosovo.
On the other side of the ethnic divide in
Kosovo, Serbs united around the Serb
Resistance Movement (Srpski pokret otpora, or
SPO) accuse the Belgrade government of
not doing enough to stop the exodus of Serbs
from Kosovo (such as those Serbs who
circumvent the law restricting sale of property
by applying "Gift Contracts" or "Contracts on
Property Utilisation") or to halt the return
of ethnic Albanians who have refugee or
temporary refugee status abroad.
For Kosovo Serbs, the May 1996 agreement
between Yugoslavia and Germany on the
return of Kosovar refugees was a betrayal by
Belgrade. It provided for the return of many
Kosovars to Kosovo, threatening to tilt the ethnic
balance even further in their favour, as
well as introduce Kosovars into Serb neighbourhoods.
Diaspora
Migration of Kosovars, as well as Serbs,
from Kosovo is large-scale. Between 1990 and
1995 an estimated 350,000 Kosovars moved out
of the province (for fear of persecution,
or for economic reasons). These departures have
most recently been through Italy and
Albania and the preferred destinations are Germany,
Switzerland and Scandinavia.
In October 1996, Germany agreed with Yugoslavia
on the repatriation of up to 130,000 of
a total 230,000 Kosovars living there. Some 3,000
had returned to the FRY by the end of
1997, of whom 70 percent re-applied for asylum.
At the same time, there were 6,000 new
applications. As of January 1998 there were 140,000
Kosovar asylum-seekers in
Germany and an additional 500 to 2,000 arriving
in the country each month to seek
asylum. Since Germany accepted 345,000 refugees
from Bosnia, of whom some 300,000
remain, and because it has given shelter to more
refugees from the former Yugoslavia
than the rest of the European Union put together,
the impatience of the German
authorities is understandable. About 6,000 Kosovars
have already been sent home, and a
few days after repressive actions by Serbian
forces in Drenica, Germany insisted that
freezing deportations of Kosovars to Serbia would
send a "devastating signal" that could
provoke a flood of further refugees. [12 ]
Switzerland has some 32,000 Kosovar immigrants
and Sweden 30,000. Switzerland
signed an agreement with Yugoslavia on the repatriation
of 12,000 Kosovars in July 1997
and Sweden signed a similar agreement on the
repatriation of 1,500 Kosovars who had
not yet received a permanent residence permit.
[13] There is also a sizeable Kosovar
_migr_ community in the US, including 20,000
ethnic Albanians living in the Bronx, NY,
which perhaps explains the unusually active role
of New York Democratic Congressman
Eliot L. Engel on behalf of Kosovo. In October
1997 Serbia refused to take back 2,000
Kosovar asylum-seekers, most of whom are now
in Denmark where they may be granted
permanent asylum.
The subject of forced repatriations of Kosovars
has provoked much criticism, and in
January 1996, the Council of Europe asked the
governments of its member states "to
renounce their intention to forcibly return rejected
Albanian asylum-seekers from Kosovo,
and to grant them temporary protection until
such time as the human rights situation in
Kosovo allows them to return in safety and dignity."
[14]
The Human Rights Situation
Human rights violations in Kosovo by the
Serbian security forces are widespread.
Testifying before the US Congress in November
1997, Fred Abrahams, Kosovo
researcher at the Human Rights Watch/Helsinki
said:
Since the revocation
of Kosovo's autonomy, the human rights abuses against ethnic
Albanians by the
Serbian and Yugoslav governments has been constant. The names
of the victims
change, but the frequency and manner of the beatings, harassment and
political trials
remain the same. It is a status-quo of repression. ... The brutality of
the
police continues
against the population. Random harassment and beatings is a daily
reality for ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo, especially those in the villages and smaller
towns. No policemen
are ever held accountable for their actions, even when their
brutality results
in the death of an innocent person.
The US State Department's Country Report
on Human Rights Practices for 1997 for
Serbia-Montenegro says, inter alia:
"The Government's
human rights record continued to be poor... Police repression
continued to be
directed against ethnic minorities, and police committed the most
widespread and
worst abuses against Kosovo's 90-percent ethnic Albanian
population._ Political
violence, including killings by police resulted mostly from
efforts by Serbian
authorities to suppress and intimidate ethnic minority groups._
Torture and other
cruel forms of punishment, which are prohibited by law, continue
to be a problem,
particularly in Kosovo directed against ethnic Albanians._ Ethnic
Albanians continue
to suffer at the hands of security forces conducting searches for
weapons and explosives.
The police, without following proper legal procedures,
frequently extract
'confessions' during interrogations that routinely include the beating
of suspects' feet,
hands, genital areas, and sometimes heads._ Police use of
arbitrary arrest
and detention was concentrated primarily in Kosovo."
Two local Kosovar organisations monitor
the human rights situation in Kosovo: The
Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms
(Këshilli për Mbrojtjen e të
Drejtave dhe te Lirive të Njeriut në
Prishtinë, known locally as Këshilli) and The Kosova
Helsinki Committee.
Këshilli was headed for many years
by Adem Demaci. Pajazit Nushi is now its president.
The Kosova Helsinki Committee, headed by Gazmend
Pula, (who was one of the founders
of Këshilli) was admitted in 1993 to the
International Helsinki Federation. A third human
rights protection organisation, The Centre for
the Protection of Women and Children, is
headed by Vjosa Dobruna.
Since human rights violations are the one
subject on which the international community is
unanimous and vocal, human rights monitoring
is given extremely high priority and
attention in Kosovo. Publications on the subject
are fairly sophisticated. Këshilli publishes
quarterly reports in Albanian and English, photo
albums with texts in four languages
(Albanian, English, French and German - though
not Serbian) and collections of coloured
photos of injuries. It has also set up a rather
impressive web site
(http://www.Albanian.com/kmdlnj). Both Këshilli
and the Helsinki Committee provide
statistical data on "total" human rights violations,
but their accounting system is misleading.
For instance, of the 2,263 overall cases of "human
rights violations" in the period from July
to September 1997, they cite three murders, three
"discriminations based on language..."
and 149 "routine checkings". By collating minor
and major offences under the same
heading, the statistics fail to give a fair representation
of the situation.
Kosovars further lose credibility by exaggerating
repression when speaking to foreign
visitors. A student leader spoke of "torture"
during an October 1997 student
demonstration, but when asked for a concrete
description she recounted a light beating.
Likewise, when a Këshilli representative
was addressed by a policeman with the words:
"We will show you how to defend human rights!"
and "Why don't you go to Albania where
you belong?", this insult, called "on a national
and family basis" was given a special entry
in a bulletin that also listed details of twelve
murders.
Despite their sometimes questionable documentation,
the pattern of human rights
violations in Kosovo is undeniable and has provoked
international condemnation. The UN
General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning
all violations of human rights in
Kosovo on 12 December 1996 and demanded that
the authorities of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro):
a. Stop [human rights violations];
b. Release all political prisoners
and cease the persecution of political leaders and
members
of local human rights organisations;
c. Allow the establishment
of genuine democratic institutions in Kosovo, including the
parliament
and the judiciary, and respect the will of its inhabitants as the best
means
of
preventing the escalation of the conflict there;
d. Allow the reopening of
educational, cultural and scientific institutions of the ethnic
Albanians;
e. Pursue constructive dialogue
with the representatives of ethnic Albanians of
Kosovo.
[15]
Elisabeth Rehn, then UN Special Rapporteur
on Human Rights in the former Yugoslavia,
went to Pristina on 23 October 1997. She met
with leading politicians and said she was
very concerned about the latest development in
Kosovo. At a press conference in Geneva
she denounced "police brutality, with frequent
use of torture," which she said was
especially true towards Albanians in the Kosovo
region.
In her report submitted on 31 October 1997,
Rehn wrote of Kosovo: "The Special
Rapporteur has continued to receive reports of
serious ill-treatment and torture committed
in Kosovo against persons in police custody.
This violence has been mainly, though not
exclusively, reported in connection with police
raids and arrests undertaken as a response
to violent attacks against the Serbian police
and private individuals over the last year." [16]
Specifically on the impunity of the police
Rehn wrote: "Prosecutions against police for
such practices [as ill-treatment and torture]
are extremely rare. In Kosovo, where torture
allegations are most numerous, only two policemen
were sentenced to imprisonment for
such practices between 1993 and late 1996."
In an open letter to Bronislaw Geremek,
Chairman-in-Office of the OSCE, the International
Helsinki Federation for Human Rights wrote: "The
situation seems to be sliding out of
control and heading towards large scale violence
between Albanians and Serb police
units. Every day, there are reports of more violent
assaults and increased repression over
Albanians in the form of Serbian reprisal expatriations."
The International Helsinki
Federation said it believed the policy of passive
resistance will come to an end "if Serbian
repression and reprisal campaigns do not stop
and if the fundamental rights and dignity of
the Albanians in Kosovo are not restored." [17
]
Improvement by the government in Belgrade
of its human rights record in Kosovo is one
of the conditions that the US government put
on lifting the "outer wall of sanctions." (See
below, Kosovo and the US) and on recognising
Serbia-Montenegro as the successor state
of the former Yugoslavia. Consequently, there
is no US Ambassador in Belgrade and the
US continues to block Yugoslavia's entry into
international organisations. For domestic
purposes, Kosovar politicians often misrepresent
the US government's strong stance on
human rights as support for Kosovo's independence.
At the end of 1997, Kosovar students organised
three peaceful demonstrations. During
two of them (1 October and 30 December), Serbian
police attacked unarmed civilians
(both participants in the demonstrations and
incidental witnesses) with truncheons and
(1 October) also with water canons. The leaders
of the 1 October demonstration were
detained for several hours. (See below, Students)
Political trials are carried out with little
respect for the rule of law. In three group trials,
Kosovars were accused of belonging to the Kosovo
Liberation Army, known by its initials
in Albanian as UCK, (see below, Kosovo Liberation
Army) and of committing attacks on
the facilities of the Serbian Interior Ministry
and Serbian refugee centres. Following these
trials, a total of 52 Kosovars were sentenced
to an average of ten years in prison.
Commenting on the last trial in 1997, the
Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre
(together with the Helsinki Committee for Human
Rights in Serbia, the Belgrade Circle and
a few smaller Serbian organisations that have
an interest and an understanding of the
Kosovo problem) declared:
The District Court
sentenced 17 defendants charged with acts of terrorism and
association for
the purpose of hostile activity to long terms in prison without securing
the presentation
of relevant evidence and basing its ruling on the confessions
extracted from
the accused by torture during the investigation.... The defence counsel
was not allowed
to be present during all the investigative proceedings... nor was it
allowed... free
contact with its clients after the indictment was brought._ None of
the witnesses
at the trial identified the defendants as the persons who carried out the
attacks in which
the accused allegedly took part._ [Two men] who were charged
with the same
offences, died in investigative custody [18] ....
In mid-March, after the crackdown by the
Serbian police on the Kosovars in the Drenica
region, Mary Robinson, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights wrote to
Milosevic asking him to let a UN investigator
(Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial,
summary or arbitrary executions) visit Kosovo
in time to report to the UN Commission on
Human Rights which opened an annual six-week
session in Geneva on 16 March 1998.
She also repeated her request to open an office
in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo province.
[19]
In the wake of the repression wielded by
the Serbian police in Kosovo, London-based
Amnesty International called on Yugoslavia to
open access to Kosovo. It said: "The denial
of access and other threats to journalists, independent
human rights monitors and
humanitarian agencies means unrestrained police
actions involving human rights
violations which may include arbitrary killings,
torture and arbitrary detention." [20]
The New York-based Human Rights Watch sent
on 7 March 1998 an open letter to Judge
Louise Arbour, Chief Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (Tribunal), which included the following:
Evidence strongly
suggests that war crimes are being committed, including arbitrary
and indiscriminate
attacks against civilians and the summary execution of detainees.
We call on you
to launch an immediate investigation of these apparent atrocities and
to announce your
office's intention to prosecute those responsible before the
International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Prompt action by your
office can help
deter further atrocities and save lives....
Human Rights Watch
recognises that the authorities may have to use force when
confronted with
an armed attack, but attacks against civilians and the summary
execution of anyone
in detention is a war crime, a severe violation of international
humanitarian law.
Given the level of armed conflict that has now broken out in
Kosovo, common
Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which governs internal
armed conflicts,
clearly applies. It requires that civilians and other protected persons
be treated humanely,
with specific prohibitions of murder, torture, and cruel,
humiliating or
degrading treatment. [21]
A few days later the Paris-based International
Federation of Human Rights Leagues
(FIDH) [22] called on the Tribunal to investigate
the Serbia crackdown on the Drenica
region in Kosovo. The report published by FIDH,
titled Kosovo under Milosevic's Terror
and based on reporting from observers who have
recently spent time in Kosovo, says that
human rights violations there have been widespread
for years. In a statement FIDH said:
"The acts committed by Serbian special forces
indisputably come under the jurisdiction of
the International Criminal Tribunal." Moreover,
the US announced a $US 1 million
contribution to the Tribunal to investigate the
recent violence. [23]
Physicians for Human Rights, a Boston-based
group with wide experience in investigating
reports of torture, disappearances, extra-judicial
executions, and violations of medical
neutrality, prepared a team of forensic experts
to investigate the deaths of the Kosovars in
the Serbian police crackdown in Drenica in February/March.
It is not clear whether they will
be granted the necessary visas and permission
to carry out their work.
Evolution of the Status of Kosovo
From Autonomy to Repression 1974 - 1989
The 1974 Yugoslav Constitution gave Kosovo
the status of an autonomous province of
the Serbian Republic within Yugoslavia (Socijalisticka
Autonomska Pokrajina Kosovo).
Kosovars had their own Assembly, banking system,
police, courts and educational
system. They also had their own seat in the Federal
Parliament, the Constitutional Court
and the Presidency. This was less than the Kosovars
wanted, being the third largest
national group in Yugoslavia after the Serbs
and the Croats, but the next higher status,
that of "republic" would have included the right
to secede, and this -- anathema to Serbs --
was obviously out of the question. In 1981, Kosovar
protests (for better living conditions,
democratic reforms and "republican" status for
Kosovo) brought mass arrests, long prison
sentences and a purge of the local Communist
leadership.
Milosevic's notorious 1987 speech in Kosovo
Polje (see above) came in response to a
petition signed by more than 60,000 Kosovo Serbs.
The petition warned that the Kosovo
Serbs could no longer endure the "genocide" being
inflicted on their community by
Albanian irredentists and demanded the purge
of Kosovo's Albanian leadership. [24] In
November 1988, Azem Vllasi and Kaqusha Jashari,
two of Kosovo's top Albanian leaders
were dismissed and replaced with Milosevic's
appointees. The dismissals provoked
widespread demonstrations among Kosovars, which
turned into a general strike by
February 1989.
Journalist Behlull Beqaj describes the events of that period:
All the achievements
of the communist period began to crumble as a house of cards,
especially on
27 February 1989 when the SFRJ Presidency confirmed that the
situation in Kosovo
had deteriorated and became a threat to the constitution, integrity
and sovereignty
of the country. Because of that, it made the decision to proclaim a
state of emergency
in Kosovo and thus opened the door of Serbia to cancel
autonomy of Kosovo.
[25]
On 28 February 1989, the Milosevic appointees
in the Kosovo leadership resigned.
Milosevic organised fresh rallies in Belgrade,
attended by close to one million people, at
which he promised that the organisers of Kosovo's
general strike would be punished.
The resignations were withdrawn; Vllasi
was arrested on charges of "counter-revolution";
a partial state of emergency was imposed; and
the military moved in. On 23 March 1989,
Kosovo's beleaguered Assembly, ringed by tanks
and with MIGs flying low overhead, was
coerced into accepting a new constitution returning
authority to Serbia. Five days later,
amid great rejoicing, Serbia's Parliament formally
approved the constitutional changes
(which shifted control over the security forces
and judiciary from the autonomous
provinces to the central government). Albanians
took to the streets to defend the old
constitution and demonstrators clashed with armed
police throughout the province.
According to official figures, 24 people were
killed.
In May 1990, in protest over Serbia's interference,
all Kosovars resigned from the Kosovo
government. On 2 July 1990, having been prevented
from meeting in the Kosovo
Assembly building, the Kosovar delegates gathered
outside it to proclaim their Declaration
of Independence. Two months later (on 7 September)
in Kacanik they proclaimed the
Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo. One year
later between 26 and 30 September
1991 a semi-underground referendum was held.
Of 1,051,357 eligible voters, 87 percent
participated and 99.87 percent of them opted
for an independent Republic of Kosovo. The
Republic of Kosovo was recognised only by Albania
(1991). [26] Albania made it clear that
it was prepared to reverse this decision. [27]
No other state has openly supported
Kosovo's independence.
After declaring an independent Republic
of Kosovo, Kosovars decided to organise parallel
elections for parliament and president. They
were held on 24 May 1992. For the
parliament (where 14 of 130 seats were left vacant
for Serb deputies to be elected by the
Kosovo Serbs - who of course boycotted the elections)
the winner was the Democratic
League of Kosovo (Lidhjes Demokratike të
Kosovës, LDK) with 76.4 percent, and that
party's leader Ibrahim Rugova was elected President.
The parliament tried to convene
(once) on 24 June 1992, but was prevented by
Serbian police and later considered it too
dangerous to meet. Several times petitions were
made for the parliament to constitute
itself; in 1997, 64 of the parliamentarians gave
their signatures, but 66 were needed for the
petition to be binding. Elections have been postponed
several times: three times for the
parliament (which has a four-year term) and twice
for the president whose term is five
years. As of the time of writing, they are planned
for 22 March 1998.
Adherence to Non-violence 1989-1997
In order to understand the Kosovars' faith
in the effectiveness of non-violent methods,
optimism about the prospect of independence and
belief in the imminent and widespread
support they will reeive from the international
community, one has to remember the
international political climate in which these
attitudes were born. In 1989 radical political
change through non-violent means seemed eminently
possible: the Berlin Wall fell; in
Poland, the strictly non-violent movement around
the trade union Solidarity enjoyed
worldwide support and brought down the totalitarian
Communist rule; a dissident writer,
Vaclav Havel, became president of Czechoslovakia;
previously dependent territories such
as the Baltic states were recovering independence
and even imposing their own language
on their former master. At that time, the idea
that Kosovo, led by an intellectual who
advocated non-violence, would become an independent
republic, did not sound so
outlandish.
Another reason for the strict adherence
to non-violence were the orders passed down
through the clan structure which dominates Albanian
society. If leaders of extended
Kosovar families decided that the best policy
was non-violence, their wish was strictly
observed. One may add - after the February/March
1998 events in the Drenica region -
that if the clan leaders decided to support a
guerrilla units or a liberation army movement,
this wish would also be strictly observed. Although,
as some Kosovars point out, the initial
reaction to their revoked autonomy was to reach
for their guns, clan leadership ensured
that the politicians' call for non-violent methods
would be obeyed. Blood feuds, which had
hitherto characterised Kosovar society, were
reportedly halted by the Institute of
Albanology, though in a 4 March 1998 statement,
the UCK swore revenge against Serbs:
"We will wreak multiple vengeance for innocent
deaths in the region of Drenica. We swear
on their blood." [28]
Kosovo's Status, Differing Views
The actual status of Kosovo is viewed very
differently by the two sides. The Serb view is
that Kosovo is part of Serbia; that Kosovo has
no right to self-determination or secession;
that any extended self-rule by Kosovars would
lead to secession and union with Albania;
and that, consequently, the Kosovars must renounce
secession in advance of any political
agreement. [29] Serb politicians generally feel
obliged to take the strongest possible
stances towards Kosovo and often appear to be
competing to come up with the most anti-
Kosovar vitriol. [30] Predictably, this only
exacerbates the existing ethnic mistrust,
xenophobia and contempt.
The Kosovar view is clear. Kosovo has declared
itself independent, and it is only a
question of getting the international community
to transform this dream into reality.
Kosovars say that a "Kosovo Republic" within
Serbia or Yugoslavia is not a just solution.
Speaking after the Serbian police crackdown on
the Drenica region in February/March
1998, Rugova said: "Former Yugoslavia has ceased
to exist. Kosovo has its own borders
and we have not asked for a change of borders.
Perhaps Serbia does not think that way
but an independent Kosovo is a good thing for
Serbia." [31]
The idea of restoring the autonomy Kosovo
enjoyed between 1974 and 1989 is no longer
acceptable to Kosovars. While autonomy offered
a satisfactory settlement in a Yugoslavia
of six republics, such an arrangement is no longer
appropriate, Kosovars argue, in the
rump state that continues to bear the name Yugoslavia,
but which has not been properly
redefined (the non-recognition of FRY by the
United States is used to support this
argument). Furthermore, with "autonomy," Kosovo
runs the risk of having it stripped at
Serbia's whim, as in March 1989. Kosovars also
feel offended when they are treated as a
minority because, in Kosovo, they form the majority.
In their contacts with Serbia (a foreign
country in their view), Kosovars say they want
international mediation because such
mediation bestows a character of "international"
negotiations on such talks, and also
because Serbia cannot be trusted. Kosovars rightly
fear that without international
mediation they would be in a very weak position.
Until recently, virtually all Kosovars backed
the LDK and its vision that non-violence and
lobbying could persuade the international community
to support Kosovo's independence.
In the past year, however, as the LDK failed
to deliver, there has been growing support for
civil disobedience (such as that practised during
students' demonstrations) and even for
more radical, violent actions (such as those
claimed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, UCK).
While demonstrations and terrorism may never
become the option of choice, they may
force the LDK to stop promising the impossible
and begin seeking realistic solutions.
Officially, Kosovo remains an integral part
of the Republic of Serbia; one of the two
constituent republics which make up the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). Kosovo
and Metohija is defined in the current Serbian
Constitution as an autonomous province
together with Vojvodina. [32] In April 1996,
EU member states recognised the FRY and
restored diplomatic relations. However, the US
refuses to follow suit and US diplomats
officially call the country "Serbia-Montenegro".
In many spheres of life, including politics,
education and health-care, the boycott by
Kosovars of the Yugoslav state is almost total.
Other elements are more or less grudgingly
accepted. Although Kosovars refuse to recognise
that their land is part of Serbia or
Yugoslavia, they carry Yugoslav passports. (For
some of them - especially active
politicians - the Belgrade regime holds up issuance
or renewal of passports for unusually
long periods of time.) For instance, student
leader Driton Lajci told a Belgrade daily
recently: "I use a Yugoslav passport. I am not
a citizen of Serbia. We are at the start of
creating our state, so we must use certain interim
means. The beginning is always
difficult." [33]
Kosovars use and pay for utilities from
the FRY and pay taxes to it (on top of parallel
taxes paid to the self-styled "Republic of Kosovo").
The Yugoslav post-office and
telephone company operates in Kosovo, and Yugoslav
dinars are the currency. Yugoslav
courts and police function (13,000 strong), and
the Yugoslav National Army (VJ) has 6,500
troops stationed there. [34] In addition, Kosovars
increasingly turn to Serbian health
facilities when their parallel system cannot
provide adequate care (See below Health
Care).
The Yugoslav flag is displayed on Yugoslav
state holidays. Kosovars can only fly the
Albanian flag (which they consider their own),
at weddings, so they make the most of
these occasions. The borders of Kosovo are Yugoslav
borders, and in November 1997
the borders with Albania were re-opened (after
being closed because of unrest in Albania)
via a Federal decision from Belgrade although
it concerned only the Kosovo-Albania
border. The Montenegro-Albania border remains
closed. While the entire FRY has been hit
by the economic sanctions (first total, now partial),
Kosovo is at the very end of any waiting
list for repairs, improvements and investments.
As a result, the gap in the standard of
living between the province and the rest of Serbia
is increasing.
Kosovars refuse to participate in Serbian
or Yugoslav political life. The leading Yugoslav
political parties all have offices in Kosovo
and claim some Kosovar members, but
essentially they are "Serb-only" institutions.
In 1997 several Kosovars accused of
collaborating with the enemy were attacked, including
Chamijl Gasi, head of the Socialist
Party of Serbia in Glogovac, and a deputy in
the Yugoslav Assembly's House of Citizens
who was shot and wounded in November. [35] The
lack of interest of Serb political parties
in wooing Kosovars is understandable. Kosovars
have systematically boycotted the
Yugoslav and Serbian elections since 1981, considering
them events in a foreign country.
In addition to the obvious consequences
of their political stance, the Kosovar boycott
contributes to the radicalisation of Serbian
and Yugoslav politics. For example, a notorious
war criminal such as Zeljko Raznjatovic "Arkan"
stood for parliament in Kosovo because
no Kosovars were going to oppose him at the polls,
and, in August 1996 he publicly
paraded into two towns in Kosovo at the head
of his paramilitary force, "The Tigers". To be
elected to the Serbian Parliament from Kosovo,
only 5000 votes are needed, as opposed
to 15,000 in other parts of Serbia. [36] Predictably,
in the fourth and final round of Serbia's
presidential elections, Vojislav Seselj of the
Serbian Radical Party claimed that it was
precisely in Kosovo, (where there was little
supervision and many unclaimed ballots) that
votes were stuffed in favour of his opponent.
Kosovars have not served in the army since
1989. On this issue there seems to be a tacit
agreement between the two sides. The Yugoslav
authorities have obviously no interest in
giving weapons to a very hostile youth that feels
persecuted and subjected to apartheid-
like rules, and Kosovars have no wish to serve
in what they view as an army of
occupation. While draft papers are issued, draft
dodgers are not punished. Indeed, they
are almost encouraged to emigrate to avoid serving.
Parallel Institutions
Government and Political Life
Although the Republic of Kosovo's parliament
has never met, its thirteen commissions are
working, especially the education, finance and
health commissions. A "temporary" coalition
shadow government was formed on 19 October 1991,
comprised of six ministries. All but
one of the ministers live abroad. Prime Minister
and at the same time Foreign Minister is
Bujar Bukoshi (a physician, urology specialist
and former LDK secretary); the Information
Minister is Xhafer Shatri; the Education Minister
is Ljubljana-based Muhamed Bicaj; the
Finance Minister is Isa Mustafa; and the Justice
Minister is Halid Muharremi. The Health
Minister, Adim Limani, is the only minister who
lives and works in Kosovo.
The shadow government plays an important
role by collecting "taxes" abroad -- all
Kosovars in the Diaspora are supposed to contribute
3 percent of their income to the
Republic of Kosovo. This helps finance political
activity, the education system and health
care. However, in 1995, sharp political divisions
appeared between Prime Minister Bukoshi
and President Rugova. As a result, in mid-1997,
foreign remittances were cut, with only
the education and health contributions maintained
at previous levels. In August 1997, the
Pristina Albanian-language weekly, Zeri, wrote
that Rugova was planning to replace Prime
Minister Bukoshi and listed three possible replacements.
In an interview with the Split-based Croat
weekly Feral Tribune, Bukoshi did not spare
critical words about Rugova. He said: "President
Rugova creates the policy, and the
government implements it and as such encounters
concrete and tangible problems. This
is where there is a conflict between us. He is
so reserved, withdrawn, slow; he is always
waiting for something to happen. We all waited
for too long, but with good intentions and
naive hopes." [37]
Kosovor authorities have generally had problems
raising money in the past five years.
Since the Drenica violence at the beginning of
1998, however, the inflow has exceeded all
expectations. A large financial mobilisation
is now under way, particularly in Aachen,
Germany. Many Kosovars are choosing to contribute
to the fund of the Kosovo Republic
rather than to the fund of the largest Kosovar
political party, the LDK, as a result of the rift
between the government-in-exile and President
Rugova, the LDK leader. [38]
Kosovars in the Diaspora tend to be more
radical in politics and more realistic in the way
they see their homeland's prospects than their
counterparts in Kosovo, as is often the
case with _migr_ communities that have a wider
perspective. Here, for instance, is an
excerpt from an Albanian language newspaper published
in Zurich.
The people [in
Kosovo] should not be lured with statements that have controversial
content, such
as: "This week Kosova was at the centre of international attention," or
"I returned from
the United States, where we found complete understanding," and so
on and so forth,
followed by other statements that this "good understanding" is in fact
in opposition
with our goals and with the "hopes" that we have so far cherished about
the assistance
rendered by the international factor. [39]
In February 1998, the Kosovo Information
Centre, which is a de facto organ of the
Kosovo shadow leadership issued a statement on
the legitimacy of government
institutions in Kosovo. It is worth quoting as
an illustration of the Kosovar point of view:
The mainstream
democratic institutions in Kosova have been built upon a legal and
constitutional
basis that Kosova enjoyed as one of the eight equitable federal units of
the now defunct
Yugoslavia._ Kosova had its own Parliament, Government and
Presidency, all
of them on a par rather than subordinate to Serbian counterpart
institutions.
All these institutions have operated in specific circumstances after the
1990 Serbian aggression._
The citizens of Kosova have resisted Serbian
occupation, and
rejected collaboration or subjugation, by building up and maintaining
an infrastructure
of democratic institutions. This infrastructure, which has served the
citizens of Kosova
and made their survival possible on an institutional basis, cannot
be called illegal
or parallel. It is Serbian-installed institutions in Kosova that can be
duly and meaningfully,
though mitigatedly, dubbed parallel institutions. They are
nothing less than
occupation authorities, as a matter of fact, whose only goal has
been to make the
life of the majority Albanian population impossible and forcing
them flee their
own country.... The coming parliamentary and presidential elections,
scheduled for
22 March 1998, will be a new step to reconfirm this bid ["aspirations
to live a dignified
life in their own free and democratic, independent country"]. The
Kosova Albanians
can represent themselves; they need not be represented [by the
Albanian government
which prompted these remarks with its offer to mediate talks].
President Ibrahim
Rugova and his government are the legal representatives of this
nation. The world
has duly acknowledged this, as Dr Rugova's high-level meetings
with heads of
states, prime ministers, foreign ministers, have manifested. [40]
Democratic League of Kosovo
The most popular Kosovar political party,
Democratic League of Kosovo (Lidhjes
Demokratike të Kosovës LDK), was founded
in December 1989. It claims 600,000
members and sympathisers. In the May 1992 parallel
elections, it won 76.44 percent of the
vote, and 96 of a total of 130 seats. Ibrahim
Rugova, a professor of Albanian literature with
a doctorate from the Sorbonne who was born in
1944, was elected head of the LDK in
1989 with 95 percent of the vote. Rugova, whose
trademark is a scarf around his neck, is
a former member of the League of Communists of
Yugoslavia who was expelled after
signing a petition against an amendment to Serbia's
constitution. In the 1992 elections,
Rugova received the mandate of leader of the
Kosovars (while the Kosovars consider him
their "elected president", the Serbs acknowledge
only that he is "a representative"). At the
beginning of the Kosovo independence movement,
Rugova was extremely popular as a
cultured European intellectual. He has maintained
this image by acting like a head of state
and cultivating contacts at the highest level,
which are often presented as major diplomatic
breakthroughs in LDK-controlled publications.
[41]
A week after the major crackdown by Serbian
police on Kosovars in Drenica, Rugova
spoke with an American journalist about the moral
dilemmas he faced, having refused to
talk to Serbs dispatched by Milosevic. His response
is indicative both of his personality and
vision:
An Albanian who
reads Hamlet understands his philosophical and moral dilemma,
Hamlet's commitment
to justice, and his understanding of its tragic dimensions,
speaks to Albanians
here, especially young Albanians. Shakespeare could almost be
a domestic writer.
The Serbian regime would like to see all Albanians leave Kosovo.
The fact that
we have our own government, our own system, that we are still here as
a nation struggling
for our freedom, can be considered a significant achievement. [42]
Since Rugova is a writer, it is fitting
that the LDK office be the headquarters of the Kosovo
Union of Writers. It is a small wooden house
consisting of just one big conference room
with one big table. On one side sit officials
of the LDK, and on the other, their guests --
foreign diplomats, local and foreign journalists,
representatives of NGOs. If Rugova is
inside, a black Audi limousine is parked outside.
Sometime in 1997, the LDK acquired a
second office in a centrally-located apartment
block.
The Kosovo PEN Club43 headquarters serves
as the LDK's Information Office. Every
foreign guest is acknowledged in a communiqué
with a very distinctive style. The following
is a sample press release, in the English version
provided by the Kosovo Information
Centre:
President Rugova
expressed gratitude to a number of diplomatic crews and
organisations
who visited Kosova over the past week, including heads and officials
of embassies of
Germany, Austria, Belgium, as well as representatives of the US
organisation World
Vision International, who promised assistance to Kosova. The
Kosova leader
praised the US President Bill Clinton for his "efforts to secure
democracy in different
countries of the world, as a part of American political
philosophy si>
Transfer interrupted!
ed that in this
respect President Clinton will help Kosova too. Dr Rugova also
expressed his
acknowledgement to Mr Alois Mock, and Austrian Parliament
Speaker Hans Fischer
for their engagement for a just settlement of Kosova, as well
the State Secretary
in the British Foreign Office who called for an early establishment
of an EU office
in Kosova. [44]
Rugova holds weekly press conferences at
the LDK headquarters every Friday which are
as uneventful as press conferences come. For
those who cannot attend them they are
reported on a useful website: http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/kosova.
Well-dressed bodyguards surround Rugova,
and he is always with assistants who
obviously fear him. Even the highest ranking
LDK officials are nervous when Rugova is
about to walk from the little room to the big
room in the office. He projects an image of a
powerful statesman and contradicts the image
presented in his rhetoric: that of an
oppressed victim. Moreover, individual members
who may differ in opinion from Rugova
say so only after being assured that their names
will not be used. Tim Judah, a British
journalist and historian of Yugoslavia, considers
the LDK to be a curious mirror-image of
Milosevic's SPS party. He says: "The LDK brooks
little dissent and those that challenge it
are howled down in LDK publications and can even
be ostracised in the tight-knit Albanian
community." [45]
There is more rhetoric about Kosovo than
real interest and commitment. Ultimately, this
hurts the case of Kosovo by creating false expectations
among Kosovars. Rugova always
travels in style, and high ranking officials
in the LDK say that they are conscious that this
may be criticised by the pauperised population
of Kosovo. On the other hand, they say
"Kosovars need their president to be presidential."
Over a year ago, there seemed to be a strong
faith in Rugova among ordinary Kosovars.
According to an opinion poll carried out in October
1996 among 728 Kosovars by the
Belgrade-based wire agency BETA, 85.2 percent
of those surveyed considered Rugova to
be the true champion of Kosovar interests. This
seems to be near blind obedience, if one
is to judge by the following combination of data
obtained in the same poll: the boycott of
federal and local elections (in the autumn of
1996) was supported by 80 percent of those
surveyed, yet almost 90 percent said they would
vote if Rugova and the LDK told them to
do so. A similar poll conducted today would probably
give much less support to Rugova,
as the voices of dissent are getting louder.
In 1997, factions within the LDK were clearly
visible: they were the result of growing
dissatisfaction with the passivity of the non-violent
policy advocated by Rugova. According
to local observers in Pristina, the leader of
the radical faction was Hydajet Hyseni (born in
1955), who was sentenced to 15 years in prison
for his participation in the 1981
demonstrations [46] and served 10 of them. He
is known as the "Che Guevara" of
Kosovo.
The moderate faction was led by another
prominent LDK leader, the much older Fehmi
Agani, a sociology professor. Both men were deputies
of Rugova until February 1998, and
both believed that the LDK must become more active,
lest other options appeal to
Kosovars. Rugova's fiercest critics include Luljeta
Pula-Beqiri, who leads a faction of the
Social Democratic Party of Kosovo, PPK president
Adem Demaci, vice president Kosumi,
Hydajet Hyseni, until recently LDK vice-president
and head of a radical wing of the party,
and a separate group of former political prisoners.
[47]
Until now the LDK's programme has consisted
of maintaining some parallel state
structures (i.e., education and health systems)
and continuing the pressure on the
international community to get involved in solving
the Kosovo question. For the local
audience, the LDK offers the "propaganda of success":
everyone supports us,
international involvement is imminent. But critics
say this is an "administration of cultural
autonomy".
Finally, the long overdue internal party
elections were held in December 1997 and the
Executive Committee of the LDK, which had gone
a year and a half without meeting, held
an assembly meeting on 25 February 1998. [48]
It was held in the Pristina downtown
restaurant "Dora" and attended by 242 delegates.
Rugova proposed amendments to the
LDK statute which would give him more say in
the choice of the senior officials in the party.
As a result, he proposed 55 candidates for the
55-strong General Council and the 242
delegates proposed 20 other candidates. Hydajet
Hyseni and others opposed this
amendment and withdrew their own candidacies.
Other outgoing presidency members
followed suit, and after a long debate, the whole
outgoing presidency decided not to be
candidates to the new LDK general council.
In short, this reshuffle means that Rugova
has strengthened his own position by dropping
all of his closest allies, since neither Hyseni
nor Agani, nor any other previously senior LDK
official (save Rugova himself) is in any ranking
position in the LDK. Speaking with a
reporter from the VIP news service, Hyseni said:
"The manipulation of the Convention, the
imposition of a new executive committee, the
ouster of people who had helped the LDK
survive and who had contributed to the unity
of the party, and the introduction of people
who have destroyed the good image of the party
and were involved in various scandals in
Kosovo - all this has prevented me and many others
from being among the LDK's
leaders." [49] Meanwhile, the Kosova Information
Centre, which is Rugova's mouthpiece,
carried his comments on the split: "The Convention
proved that the LDK is not only a party
of its functionaries and of separate streams,
but rather a party of broad membership...
Members of the outgoing [LDK] Presidency will
continue to be my associates, and any of
them who wishes can join in our common activity."
[50]
Parliamentary Party of Kosovo
The Parliamentary Party of Kosovo (Partia
Parlamentare e Kosovës or PPK) is the
second largest party in Kosovo (4.86 percent
of votes in the 1992 elections, one seat in
the Parliament). It was founded by Veton Surroi
(today the editor-in-chief of the daily
newspaper Koha Ditore) from the so-called Youth
Parliament. In 1993, Bajram Kosumi
(born in 1960) became the chairman of the PPK.
In March 1981, he took part in student
demonstrations at the University as a student
of literature and was sentenced to 15 years
imprisonment and was released after serving nine
years and eight months as a result of a
1990 amnesty.
Another Kosovar leader, Adem Demaci was
released from prison as a result the 1990
amnesty after 28 years of incarceration between
1958 and 1990. In 1991, Demaci, who
was born in 1936 and is often called "the Mandela
of Kosovo", was awarded the Sakharov
Prize for Peace. That year he also became the
president of the Human Rights Council as
well as editor-in-chief of the weekly Zeri, where
he remained until 1993. In December
1996, Demaci embarked on a political career.
He joined the PPK and a month later was
elected its chairman, with Bajram Kosumi becoming
Deputy Chairman.
Demaci's arrival in politics generated hope
and expectation among ordinary Kosovars.
Demaci was a man with, what is known in all totalitarian
states as, an "impeccable prison
record". The many years he spent in prison protected
him against possible accusations of
being soft. He called for open protests against
the Serbian regime saying that non-
violence does not necessarily mean passivity.
At the end of January 1998, perhaps
spurred into action by student protests and by
the increased military operations of UCK,
the PPK began a visible, yet non-violent protest
campaign against Serbian rule. This
consisted of calling on Kosovars to turn off
their lights for five minutes and to stand still in
the street for one minute at precisely the same
time.
Nevertheless, a year after assuming the
leadership of the PPK, Demaci has failed to
follow his pro-active rhetoric with sufficiently
pro-active actions. The reason he gives for the
PPK not calling for more substantial demonstrations
is that the "LDK would block them."
The most original of Adem Demaci's projects is
"Balkania", a vague idea of "a
confederation or an association of sovereign
states consisting of Kosova, Montenegro and
Serbia." The document, distributed by the PPK
in English, does not explain how Kosovo
would turn from an underdog and a victim of a
police state into a "sovereign state".
Instead, it discusses other issues. Among them
that each state of "Balkania" would "keep
its seat in international organisations" such
as the UN (how Kosovo might get this seat in
the first place, given that neither Serbia nor
Yugoslavia currently has one, is not
explained). Even the actual design of the flag
is provided: "the flag of Balkania is
composed of silk of bluish colour, with dimensions
one with one. In the centre of the
square there is a white bicephalous eagle, while
in the lower part of the flag, in an arch
form, there are three yellow stars."
When the government changed in neighbouring
Albania, Demaci declared, with little
political wit, that he could not work with Fatos
Nano, the (formerly Communist) new prime
minister of Albania. Furthermore, in August 1997,
four senior party officials were fired from
the PPK after they traveled as a delegation to
Tirana following the victory of the Socialists
and Fatos Nano in the elections there. At the
time Demaci said: "As long as I am here,
there will be discipline and order and we will
not allow people to behave just how they
please."
More recently, Demaci's moves have been
increasingly bizarre. In late February 1998, the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia denied Max van
der Stoel, the OSCE's high commissioner
for minorities, a one-year visa for a fact-finding
mission. He, nevertheless, made it to
Pristina on a private visit only to find that
Demaci refused to meet with him. The reason --
according to Demaci -- was that van der Stoel
is in charge of minorities and that Albanians
are a nation and not a minority in Kosovo. The
other reason -- even more convoluted --
was conveyed to journalists by the PPK Deputy
Chairman Bajram Kosumi who said: "Mr
van der Stoel has not been granted a visa for
an official visit to Kosovo and was therefore
on a visit as a private citizen." Strange sentiments
from a man who rejects Belgrade's
authority over Kosovo. While Adem Demaci has
committed several tactical errors, his
position is not easy. On the Yugoslav level,
he effectively finds himself dissenting from a
dissident (i.e. Rugova) and in opposition to
the opposition (i.e. LDK).
Other Parties
Though officially illegal, there are some
twenty non-Serb political parties in Kosovo, (see
Appendix, "Who is Who") the most important of
which are grouped in a Co-ordination
Committee. Created after the 1992 elections,
the Committee has mostly been dormant. It,
nevertheless, contains the Democratic League
of Kosovo, (LDK), the Parliamentary Party
of Kosovo, (PPK), the Peasants' Party of Kosovo,
the Albanian Party of National
Unification (UNIKOMB), the Christian Democratic
Party and two wings of the Social
Democratic Party. The Party of Democratic Action,
(SDA), an off-shoot of the Sarajevo-
based SDA, is also active in Kosovo. Its members
are mostly Muslim Slavs who constitute
about 2.5 percent of the Kosovo population.
In November 1997, Demaci revived the idea
of a common Kosovar front by creating a so-
called Democratic Forum. By the end of the year,
the Forum consisted of four political
parties and seven non-governmental organisations.
Demaci declared that Kosovars must
"present themselves within a new form of political
activity as an unavoidable force whose
will must be respected" and added that he was
against "the monopoly and unlimited power
of the LDK". [51] On 27 January, in perhaps its
first major public action, the Democratic
Forum wrote to the Contact Group, the Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in
Europe, UN General Assembly and European Parliament
warning those institutions of "the
possibility of a wider escalation of the conflict
in Kosovo." It turned out to be a very
prophetic warning.
Dissidents within the LDK (on condition
of anonymity) and political opponents (especially
from the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo) have
tired of the failure of the LDK to deliver its
promises. Here is what Demaci said in August
1997 upon Rugova's return from the United
States:
Mr Rugova started
this tune of [incessant repetition of the option of independence] a
long time ago.
He has been inactive. He has failed to place daily life in Kosova on an
institutional
footing. He has failed to unite the Albanians and bring them closer
together. He has
failed to convene the parliament of Kosova. He has burdened the
Albanian people
with payments for their own teachers, which means that they
support two states
[52]
and then
Rugova continues
to say that the United States supports us and will support us even
more. The United
States is saying, clearly and decisively, that 'you can only find a
solution with
autonomy within the framework of Serbia and Yugoslavia. So where is
the support? In
remaining a colony of Serbia? [53]
In mid-February 1998, a rather unusual meeting
took place between representatives of
the LDK and PPK (although the two godfathers
- Rugova and Demaci - were not present).
After the meeting, Bajram Kosumi of the PPK said
that there should be many more such
meetings in the future, whereas Fehmi Agani of
the LDK announced that there should be
meetings with other parties too.
The Forum of Albanian Intellectuals of Kosovo,
headed by writer Rexjep Qosja, criticised
Rugova for what it called wrong policies "which
have given no results in the past seven
years." The statement made reference to Greater
Albania and said that: "The Forum
cannot tolerate behaviour and political activities
which make the role of Albania as a state
fade and the weaker position of the ethnic Albanians
as a nation," and urged a dialogue.
[54]
22 March 1998 Elections
On 24 December 1997, when the mandate of
the shadow parliament and shadow
president were to expire once again, Rugova announced
new elections for 22 March
1998. Whether or not they will take place is
still not clear. The Serbian police clampdown in
Drenica, which began on 27 February, is another
legitimate reason to reconsider the
voting. Another point to bear in mind is that
the Belgrade authorities were pre-occupied
with the wars in Croatia and Bosnia at the time
of the last Kosovar election in May 1992.
This is no longer the case.
The ambassadors to Belgrade of the Troika
of countries heading the OSCE (currently
Poland, Denmark and Norway) visited Pristina
on 2 and 3 February 1998. In his report,
Ambassador Dabrowa of Poland wrote: "[The LDK
leader] Rugova indicated his wish that
the OSCE arrange a presence of its electoral
observers in Kosovo on 22 March to confirm
the democratic character of the elections. We
explained why this was not possible." [55]
Rugova called on Serbs from Kosovo to vote
in the parallel elections and said that they
would enable Belgrade and Kosovars to establish
a dialogue. Rugova is the presidential
candidate for the LDK. Luljeta Pula-Beqir was
nominated by the Social Democratic Party.
She said at the time that if elected she will
call for the urgent constitution of a Kosovo
parliament and government. [56] On 21 January,
Belgrade press reported that the PPK
was proposing Demaci as its presidential candidate.
However, a day later, Demaci
declined the candidacy: "I will not agree to
be a player in the shameful game which Ibrahim
Rugova and his people are staging. I don't want
to participate in the poisoning of our
people through political deception." [57]
After the events in Drenica, the opposition
to holding the elections on 22 March was
almost unanimous. Adem Demaci demanded that Rugova
postpone the elections until
"better times." The Forum of Albanian Intellectuals
asked for the same thing and said that
the announcement of elections was "an absurd,
morally base and politically harmful
decision" because "contesting the parliamentary
and presidential elections while we have
casualties in the country is tantamount to an
insult to these victims, their families, and the
entire people of Drenica and Kosovo."
The independent daily Koha Ditore editorialised
that holding the elections would be
detrimental to the Kosovo Albanian political
forces' international reputation, and would
upset the Albanian forces' internal relations.
Bujku, a de facto organ of LDK, featured
LDK's call on Albanians to turn out at the elections
as the leading news. [58] Also one of
the former vice-presidents of LDK, Hydajet Hyseni
is reportedly opposed to holding the
elections as is the Kosova Liberation Army, UCK
and the Kosovar Students' Union UPS.
In a statement published in Koha Ditore UCK said
that elections had to be put off
"because of the state of emergency in Kosovo
and state of war in Drenica." UCK also
announced that it will not recognise elections
"until the country is liberated" and it accused
Rugoova of "causing discord among Kosovo Albanians.
[59] "The only other candidate
Luljeta Pula-Beqiri withdrew her candidacy saying
"there is a martial law in Kosovo." [60]
Education
History of the Conflict [61]
According to the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution,
as an autonomous province Kosovo had full
decision making authority over all levels of
education -- primary, secondary and higher
education. Classes in the province's primary
schools were held in Albanian, Serb and
Turkish, with parents choosing the language of
instruction in the first grade. The teachers
were different for each language profile, but
pupils mixed in the playground and in extra-
curricular activities such as sports. In 1988,
non-native language classes were introduced
as compulsory starting in the first grade. While
less than ideal, the system worked.
The problems in the field of education started
in August 1990, when the Serbian
parliament repealed the entire body of education
legislation passed by the Kosovo
parliament and adopted uniform curricula for
primary and secondary education throughout
Serbia, dropping the special Kosovar curriculum.
The differences were in the teaching of
history, the Albanian language, geography, art
and music. The uniform music curriculum,
for example, contained only two songs in the
Albanian language. While sufficient for
children in Belgrade, this was unacceptable in
Pristina or Pec.
Kosovar teachers refused to adopt the new
curriculum. In response, the Serbian
authorities cut off funding for Albanian-language
schools; first secondary, then primary. In
the summer of 1991, the Serbian authorities restricted
Albanian-language enrollment in
secondary schools. Only 10,000 seats awaited
35,000 Kosovar primary-school graduates.
By comparison, Serb-language secondary schools
in Kosovo provided 5,535 slots, slightly
more places than primary-school graduates.
At the beginning of the 1991/92 school year,
Serbian police prevented Kosovar teachers
and students from entering their school buildings.
In early January, the majority of
Albanian-language secondary schools classes started
the second term in private homes.
Some students tried to enter the schools again
at the beginning of the next school year but
were again prevented by the Serbian police.
Pristina University soon followed. Administrative
measures (i.e. Serb control) were
introduced first at the medical school and the
university library, then at all other
departments, and, shortly afterwards, at the
Kosovo Textbook Publishing Company. On 1
October 1991, at the beginning of the new academic
year, police blocked the entrances to
all university departments preventing students
from entering. University classes resumed
in private homes.
By the end of 1991, 863 teachers and administrative
staff had been dismissed from
Pristina University. The official reasons given
were: opposition to the administrative
measures; arriving late for work; and leaving
work without permission from the dean
(based on the Law on Labour Relations in Exceptional
Conditions). In all, more than
18,000 teaching and non-teaching staff of Albanian-language
schools and university
departments were dismissed.
The Parallel Education System
The parallel Albanian-language education
system in Kosovo currently serves a total of
266,413 primary schools pupils, 58,700 secondary
schools students, and 16,000
university students, an undertaking on a scale
that has no parallel .
Since primary education is compulsory in
Yugoslavia, the Serbian authorities interfered
much less in primary schools than in secondary
schools and at the university level.
However, 34 Albanian-language primary schools
are still unable to hold classes in regular
school buildings. When they do share the building
with Serb children (835 schools),
Kosovar children are relegated to afternoon and
evening shifts. Premises are strictly
divided, often with separate entrances for Serb
and Kosovar children. In some schools, a
wall, built along the middle of the entrance
hall, separates the two communities completely.
Typically, teaching aids are concentrated in
a few classrooms on the Serb side of the
school.
The primary schools curriculum in the parallel
system is largely as it was before 1990, only
now textbooks for Albanian-language education
are printed in an undisclosed location for
fear of being closed down. The major difference
is in funding. The Serbian state partly
finances schooling by paying the salaries of
the non-teaching staff whose work benefits all
ethnic groups sharing the premises. However,
most expenses, and teachers' salaries, are
covered by the 3 percent contribution that all
adult Kosovars (both in Kosovo and in the
Diaspora) make to maintain the parallel state's
institutions. Local observers estimate that
between 1992 and 1996/97, the parallel system
spent almost 90 million German marks on
salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff and
for other material needs such as the
painting, cleaning and reconstruction of schools.
About one-third of this sum came from
the Diaspora.
It is interesting to note that children
of the 20,000-strong Turkish minority learn according
to the old curriculum which has been updated
and translated into Turkish. The language,
history and culture parts of the curriculum have
been adapted for the Turkish students.
There are about 2,000 Turkish children in primary
and 400 in secondary schools.
At the end of 1992, then Yugoslav Prime
Minister, Milan Panic, offered to allow Kosovar
children to learn according to a curriculum worked
out by Kosovar teachers in 1990.
However, the parallel state's authorities thought
that such a deal would compromise the
independence of their school system from that
of Serbia's. Also, at the time, the Kosovars
hoped to internationalise their plight for independence,
while Panic wanted to keep the
issue out of the international spotlight. The
talks broke down without result. [62]
Education Agreement
In 1996 the Italian Catholic group Communita
di Sant'Egidio (which has previously
mediated many other political and ethnic conflicts
and which is partly funded by the US
government through the US Institute of Peace)
offered to mediate the education dispute in
Kosovo. The negotiations were kept secret, carried
out in Rome with the involvement of
the Yugoslav ambassador who is an active member
of JUL, the political party headed by
Milosevic's wife, Mira Markovic. Eventually,
on 1 September 1996, Rugova and Milosevic,
then President of Serbia, signed an agreement
on the normalisation of education in
Kosovo, the so-called Rome Agreement.
The Agreement consists of exactly nine sentences
of which the key one reads:
"Therefore, the agreement foresees the return
of Albanian students and teachers to the
school buildings." [63] Another states: "Owing
to its social and humanitarian importance,
the Agreement is above any political debate,"
and envisages the forming of a mixed group
(known as "3+3" because of the number of negotiators
on each side) to oversee
implementation.
Thirteen paragraphs containing "First Measures
of Normalisation of the Education System
in Kosovo" follow. They indicate which buildings
will be accessible to Kosovar pupils and
students. Contrary to what Kosovar student delegates
claimed when they staged their
protests in October 1997, the document also mentions
the university as follows:
...it was negotiated
and decided what follows: I. That normal academic activity of
school and of
university will recommence... II. That all school and university premises
and other connected
spaces will be used again like they were used before the
interruption of
the common utilisation without any conditions. Those will have to be
made available
in proportion with the number of pupils and students. This means that
will be made available...
the premises of the seven post-secondary schools and of the
13 faculties,
hereafter enumerated, with the annex spaces: the university and public
library, the institutes,
the dormitories, the canteens and the gyms. [64]
An annex contains a list of 24 primary schools,
66 secondary schools, seven post-
secondary schools and 13 faculties of Pristina
University, to which ethnic Albanian
students are to be given access. The Agreement
does not deal with the curriculum,
recognition of diplomas, division of school space
for classrooms or instruction in different
languages, and only temporarily resolves financial
regulation.
The members of the Serbian delegation were
Dobroslav Bjeletic, director of the Serbian
Textbook Publishers; Goran Percevic, a high official
of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS);
and Ratomir Vico, Minister without Portfolio
in the Serbian Government. On the Albanian
negotiating team were Fehmi Agani, then vice-president
of the LDK; Abdyl Ramaj,
secretary of the LDK Education Commission; and
Rexjep Osmani, president of the
Albanian Teachers' Association. The Italian mediation
team consisted of Monsignor
Vicenzo Paglia of Sant'Egidio, Roberto Morozzo,
who is a professor of Balkan religions
and Paulo Rago, an Albanian-speaking Italian
involved in humanitarian aid programmes.
Shortly after the Rome Agreement was signed,
Milosevic used it to show the US
administration (and especially President Clinton's
special envoy to the Balkans, Richard
Holbrooke) that he was open and willing to negotiate
with Kosovars. Rugova used the
Agreement to point out that he was being officially
recognised because Milosevic dealt with
him. But the document (signed separately in Pristina
and in Belgrade) carries for Milosevic
his title (president of Serbia) and for Rugova
only his name.
The 3+3 Implementation Commission met several
times, but failed to register any
progress. This was mostly because the Serb side
interpreted the Agreement as meaning
that Kosovar students would be reintegrated into
the Serbian education system, whereas
the Kosovo side understood it as allowing Kosovar
students to come back to all school
premises without conditions. The anti-government
street protests which erupted in
Belgrade in November 1996 contributed to disrupting
the eventual implementation of the
Agreement.
There is no doubt that Sant'Egidio had the
best of intentions when undertaking the
mediation. Neither is there doubt that after
having dealt with Mozambique, Burundi,
Guatemala and Algeria, Sant'Egidio has extensive
experience in conflict negotiation.
Moreover, several local and foreign observers
maintain that dealing one by one with
individual aspects of the Kosovo problem is the
best approach. However, the document
Milosevic and Rugova signed can hardly be called
an Agreement. It is effectively a non-
binding letter of intent, drawn up without deadlines,
any specified means of operation, or
mechanism for Sant'Egidio to implement what had
been agreed.
It can even be argued that the Rome Agreement
has helped to discredit the idea of
negotiating. Each side blames the other for its
failure, and the hawks on both sides use it
as an argument against further talks. According
to a Pristina joke, "3+3=0". Furthermore,
in October 1997, the students' union and the
professors of the parallel university decided
to withdraw support from the Kosovar delegates
in the 3+3 talks.
As of 1997/98, not one of the 13 Albanian-language
university faculties or post-secondary
schools in Kosovo had use of its building. Classes
are organised in over 250 facilities:
private homes, doctor's offices, studios, mosques.
Enrollment has dropped from 19,620 in
the 1991/92 academic year to 13,805 in 1996/97.
In Belgrade on February 27 1998 Monseigneur
Vincenzo Paglia discussed with Milosevic
the possibility of having Serb and Kosovar pupils
attend classes in the same buildings,
albeit in different shifts. Almost at the same
time, Fehmi Agani, the head of the Kosovar
delegation to the 3+3 talks said that Kosovars
now want concrete deadlines for the
implementation of the Rome Agreement. He also
suggested in an interview with the
Belgrade daily Blic that Serbia was avoiding
paying 18,000 teachers and saving a total of
over 10 million German marks at the Albanians'
expense. [65]
Students
The Students' Independent Union (Unioni
të Pavarur të Studentëve, UPS), has frequently
threatened to take back the university buildings
since the Rome Agreement. As of early
1998, however, it had taken few actions of any
importance. Albin Kurti, one of the student
leaders, told the Belgrade weekly Vreme in September
1997: "There have been no
demonstrations since 1992. Nothing has been going
on. The Albanians were powerless
and they feared the police. As a result, all
political parties have lost credibility. People
believed that we wanted to solve the Kosovo problem.
Their expectations merely reflect
the passivity of politicians." [66]
A year after the Rome Agreement was signed,
students staged protests with the sole aim
of regaining access to university buildings.
At the end of August 1997, students began
protest walks along the Corso, the main street
in Pristina, which, like in many other towns
of the region, turns pedestrian in the evening.
A month later, in an effort to stop these
protest walks, the Serbian authorities opened
the street to traffic. At the time, Rugova
anticipated the opening of an EU bureau in Pristina
and a German-US initiative to resolve
Kosovo. He did not want anybody to rock the boat
and therefore attempted to persuade
the students to back down. However, Rugova's
pleas were ignored and the students
organised fresh protests, causing 13 Belgrade-based
Western diplomats to rush to
Pristina.
On 1 October 1997 in Pristina, some 20,000
students gathered in the suburb of Velanija,
site of the parallel Albanian university chancellor's
office. They all wore white shirts and
special badges with the name of their faculty.
Students and police faced each other for an
hour, then - according to foreign eyewitnesses
- police attacked the students, beating them
with truncheons, injuring many, and detaining
the leaders for several hours.
According to student representatives, about
a dozen students sustained light injuries after
falling off an earthen platform in an attempt
to flee the police. The Keshilli Human Rights
Council reported that 500 people were beaten.
Demonstrations were also organised in
Pec, Prizren and Kosovska Mitrovica. The police
also intervened in Pec. More
demonstrations, scheduled for 17 October 1997,
were postponed in anticipation of a
possible breakthrough in the implementation of
the education agreement. Rugova asked
the students to halt their protests because of
potentially dire consequences. The PPK, by
contrast, stated: "Student protests showed that
Rugova's defensive philosophy of waiting
is wrong." [67]
Another round of demonstrations was staged
in Velanija on 29 October 1997. This time
the students had the support of the LDK. On this
occasion, there was no violence. Police
ringed the protesters, and only after the students
started to disperse, told them to stop the
rally because they did not have official permission.
As part of the protest, the students
performed a pantomime on a make-shift stage symbolising
the Kosovar students' struggle
for education. One student leader, Bujar Dugolli,
gave a speech, and a message was read
in English, French, Italian and German, but not
in Serb. Student delegates explained:
"Why should we read it in Serb? Let the Serbs
learn Albanian."
Robert Gelbard, US special envoy for the
Balkans, was scheduled to visit Pristina the day
of the 29 October protest, but failed to turn
up. To compensate the students, he invited two
of their leaders, Albin Kurti and Bujar Dugolli,
to visit the US. During their stay in the US,
the students were received at the State Department
and visited several university
campuses, including Columbia, Harvard and Georgetown.
The Pristina daily, Koha Ditore,
reported that Gelbard's message to the students
was that: "You have to continue what you
have started." [68]
The students' stature was greatly boosted
by this trip, though they also seemed to come
away with the impression that Kosovo was high
on the US agenda. After a pause of
almost two months, they called further demonstrations
for Christmas Eve, a rather naive
date given that they hoped to attract international
media interest. After more weeks of
deliberation, and denying ever having set the
24 December date, the students staged
another demonstration on 30 December 1997. This
was not much better from the public
relations point of view.
The students' decision angered the LDK.
In its bulletin , the party's information office
printed the students' call for marches but derided
their organisation for cancelling the
protests that were supposed to have taken place
by the end of November. The LDK
bulletin added: "In a sort of self-adulation,
UPS leaders have now and then quoted Robert
Gelbard ... as crediting the student movement
for having done for Kosovo what the
Kosovar political parties have not been able
to do in the past several years." [69]
Later, in mid-February 1998, the Pristina-based
daily Bujku ran a news item sourced to
the LDK information office about dissent in the
ranks of the UPS and a petition to protest
"politically coloured" statements made by its
leaders. "How can the UPS leaders be
allowed publicly to ignore President Rugova of
Kosova, and do this on behalf and in the
name of some 20,000 students," the petition asked.
[70]
On 24 December 1997, the UPS called on students
and professors to hold peaceful
demonstrations in several cities in Kosovo. The
march in Pristina attracted 15,000 people.
Several thousand also marched in Prizren, Pec,
Urosevac, Djakovica, Gnjilane and
Kosovska Mitrovica. On 30 December, demonstrators
in Pristina and six other towns in
Kosovo were confronted by the police. According
to a Reuters correspondent who was
present: "The students in the capital, Pristina,
gathered in smaller groups after being
dispersed and waved leaflets, listing their demands,
at police. Some groups were beaten
in sporadic police attacks, but others were unmolested.
The security forces also deployed
water cannons in reserve after warning the students
that their demonstration would not be
allowed." [71] According to the UPS, 82 students
were lightly injured.
A few days after the 30 December demonstrations,
the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox
Church, Pavle, wrote to the Kosovar students.
In his letter, he supported their demand for
the return of the university buildings; expressed
understanding for their peaceful
demonstrations; and condemned the use of force
by Serbian police. He also added that
their request was "somewhat strange" because
the Albanian students did not recognise
the state to which the university belonged. Reacting
to Patriarch Pavle's views, Kosovar
politicians said the letter came too late, while
Serbian politicians focused on the part of the
letter which concerned rejection of Serbian rule
over Kosovo.
In a more recent appeal in early 1998, Pristina
students stated that their protests were
aimed "against violence and war and for peace"
-- a wider aim than simply the return of
university buildings. They also called upon "all
those who are willing to show their solidarity
with the students and observe the principles
and rules of the earlier protests" to join them.
Since the Drenica crackdown, the UPS has
become bolder and more political. Students
flocked to the 9 March demonstration, which was
organised by the Co-ordinating
Committee of the Albanian Political Parties and,
according to Agence France Presse,
attended by 50,000. And on 13 March, together
with the Kosovar political parties, the trade
unions and the Keshili Human Rights Council,
the students staged a protest rally in
Dragodan near Pristina's American Centre. The
theme was no longer linked to education -
- "For peace, against violence, war and Serbian
terror" -- and a minute's silence was
observed in memory of those killed in Drenica.
The students addressed the crowd in
Albanian and English and held up Albanian, US,
EU and German flags, as well as
placards in both Albanian and English reading
"Stop the violence in Kosova", "Drenica,
Drenica", "Drenica - we stand by you", "Stop
Serbian terror in Kosova", "USA, USA."
Serbian police watched but did not intervene.
Health Care
In 1989, Kosovo had 57 hospitals and clinics
and employed 8,547 health-care workers,
including 1,897 physicians, 414 dentists, and
112 pharmacists. In July and August 1990,
health care in Kosovo came under Serbian "emergency
management" [72] which rapidly
led to large-scale sackings. In total, 1,855
Kosovar medical workers were dismissed, of
whom 403 were physicians.
The boycott of the Serbian health care system
is almost as comprehensive as that of the
educational system. It started with a bizarre
and unexplained poisoning scare which
occurred in March 1990 during a vaccination programme
carried out by Serb medical
teams. According to a Kosovar publication in
English: "The Serbian regime poisoned over
7,000 Albanian children, thus violating all wartime
and peace international conventions...
High quantities of neurotic gas Sarin and Taban,
thrown by Serbs, were found in the
bodies of Albanian children in Kosova." [73]
Between 1990 and 1993, Kosovars went to
great lengths not to visit Serb doctors, and
Kosovar doctors by and large refused to work
within the Serbian system which required
them to write prescriptions in Cyrillic. During
this period, children failed to receive adequate
medical care, and vaccination programmes came
to an end. As a result, the incidence of
preventable diseases soared. Between 1992 and
1996, there were 5,105 cases of
measles, 14 cases of tetanus, 46 cases of polio,
1,257 cases of whooping cough and
5,366 cases of tuberculosis. [74] To head off
epidemics, the World Health Organisation,
UNICEF, and the Kosovar humanitarian organisation,
Mother Theresa, launched a polio
immunisation programme in September 1996 which
reached some 300,000 children.
Today, it is no longer unusual for Kosovars
to seek specialised health consultation within
the Serbian system. Indeed, Kosovars will even
travel as far as Belgrade to meet
specialists, though they usually return to the
parallel Kosovar system for free medication,
since the cost of medication tends to exceed
their means. Without official employment,
Kosovars do not generally have "health cards,"
documents that give them the right to free
medical care in state institutions.
The main institution in the parallel health
system is the humanitarian organisation Mother
Theresa (SHBH Nena Tereze) [75]. It comprises
239 general practitioners, 140 specialists
and 423 nurses working voluntarily in clinics
set up in 86 private houses throughout
Kosovo, supplying food, medicine, and hygienic
materials to some 350,000 people. A total
of 1,020,333 admissions recorded in 1996 alone.
The Serbian state's public health system
has 31 primary health care centres, four medical
centres and five general hospitals. Hospital
beds to population ratio is one to 385 in
Kosovo, as compared with one to 187 in Serbia
as a whole. The system employs 8,012
health workers of whom 1,804 are physicians,
334 dentists, 44 pharmacists and 5,830
medical technicians and nurses (one physician
per 1,108 inhabitants as compared to one
per 403 in Serbia). Half of the medical workers
are ethnic Albanians.
Kosovars are proud of their parallel health
care system and, given the adverse condition,
they have managed to set up an impressive operation.
However, facilities remain
inadequate for systematic check-ups and medical
counseling. Moreover, after seven years
of parallel teaching, the first medical students
trained entirely in the parallel system are
now graduating. While fortunate students sometimes
go to practice in Turkey or Albania,
most must make do with surrogate methods and,
without access to proper laboratories,
will probably have failed to acquire necessary
expertise.
Economy
Kosovar unemployment is estimated at 70
percent and has risen by 130,000 since 1990.
Most jobs are in the service sector, commerce,
with international organisations or involve
black-market sales of cigarettes and alcohol.
There is also suspicion that Kosovo serves
as a transit point for drug and weapons trafficking,
and even for money laundering. That
said, neither Serb nor Kosovar sources on this
subject are credible.
According to the Kosovar Pristina Economic
Institute, earnings from regular employment
accounted for 10 percent of total Kosovar income
in 1996, compared with 49 percent in
1988. Emigration is generally viewed as the only
way to make a decent living. It is
estimated that, between 1990 and 1995, some 350,000
Kosovars left the province. As a
result, remittances from Kosovars abroad is critical
to the local economy. However, this
income is difficult to calculate. Some is donated
direct to the Kosovar authorities, but much
is sent privately.
Figures published by the EU in 1996 show
that almost 85 percent of Kosovars who live in
these countries are unemployed or under the care
of various European humanitarian
organisations. Some European countries have signed
accords with Yugoslavia regarding
the return of Kosovar migrants, a move that is
decried both by the Kosovars abroad, who
consider themselves political refugees, and by
local Serbs who fear that returning
Kosovars will simply increase the demographic
pressure on their own community. (See
above section II B(3) Demographics)
Kosovo has some 18,000 registered small
firms employing approximately 20,000, earning
on average 100 German marks per month, and some
40,000 crafts shops. Though
contacts between Serbs and Kosovars are generally
minimal, business does break down
some barriers and there are cases of companies
which are officially owned by Serbs, but
run by Kosovars.
Media
Officially there is no censorship in Kosovo
(or for that matter in the FRY). However, this
does not mean that the province is a haven of
media freedom. In practice, the Serbian
authorities use permits and broadcasting licenses
as the weapon of choice against media
which they object to.
Print Media
In June 1993, the Serbian state took over
the publisher Rilindja (Renaissance) which
housed all the Albanian-language press. Adem
Demaci, then editor-in-chief of the weekly
Zeri went on a hunger strike for 11 days, but
to no avail. Rilindja was rapidly transformed
into a Serb publisher, Panorama, and the Albanian-language
paper Rilindja ceased
publication in Kosovo. A paper with the same
title is now published in Switzerland, with the
same content as the daily Bujku (see below).
The daily Bujku (Farmer), was formerly a
magazine for peasants. Bujku's editor is Avni
Spahiu. It has a print run of 8,000 and a strong,
pro-LDK orientation. Bujku likes to write
that independence is imminent and to present
Pristina as the centre of world media
attention -- a distortion of reality that raises
false expectations among Kosovars. Bujku
journalists are subject to frequent harassment
by Serbian police. According to the annual
reports of Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters
Sans Frontieres, three Bujku
journalists were interrogated and detained in
1996, and two more in 1997. Rrahim Sadiku,
a local correspondent of Bujku in Ferizaj was
interrogated in January 1997and ended up in
a hospital with a broken rib. He was interrogated
again on September 14, 15, and 16, each
time spending a few hours at the police station.
The daily Koha Ditore (Daily Times), which
is edited by Veton Surroi, was founded in April
1997 by the team of the weekly Koha. The paper's
print run has grown from 7,000 to
27,000 in less than a year. Koha Ditore is ironically
a thorn in the side of both the Serbian
authorities and the LDK leadership since it presents
a Kosovar point of view without simply
regurgitating the LDK's propaganda. Koha Ditore
is the one medium which seems to apply
no self-censorship. Unlike other Albanian-language
publications, it does not insist on a
common Kosovar position vis-a-vis Belgrade as
the starting point on every issue.
In September and October 1997, Koha Ditore's
editorial offices were visited several times
by Serbian police (uniformed and plainclothes).
On these occasions, they asked such
things as the office phone number and checked
the identification papers of the editors and
even the two US diplomats who happened to be
visiting the premises. On 12 September,
Baton Haxhiu, one of the deputy editors, was
taken to the police station in Pristina and
held for two hours. He was interrogated about
his meetings with foreign diplomats,
politicians and students. According to Koha Ditore
staff, the police also wanted to learn
how the paper planned to cover the student demonstrations.
Serbian police again entered Koha Ditore's
offices after the first large-scale
demonstrations on 2 March. According to Reuters:
"At least 10 police charged into the
offices of the local newspaper Koha Ditore in
pursuit of protesters and one of its journalists
[photographer Fatos Berisha] broke his leg when
he leapt from a window to escape them.
Veton Surroi, the paper's chief editor and a
leading Kosovar political activist was beaten at
a separate incident near Pristina's city radio
station as were representatives of Western
news organisations [Voice of America's Ibrahim
Osmani]." [76] Bujku's editor Avni Spahiu
was also beaten.
The weekly Koha (Times) ceased publication
in July 1997 because the editors could not
cope with increased workload required to publish
both a daily and a weekly. Originally
launched in September 1990, Koha came out regularly
until June 1991, and then again
between 1994 and 1997. An issue of Koha dated
April 1996 enraged the Serbian
authorities. It carried two photo montages -
one featuring Milosevic surrounded by Nazi
officers and another under the headline "Anschluss
'89", a reference to the withdrawal of
Kosovo's autonomy in 1989. Serbian police went
to Koha printer and detained the owner
for several hours. A few days later, a complaint
was lodged with the prosecutor's office in
Pristina for offending the Serbian president.
The weekly Zeri (Voice) started in 1945
as an organ of the Socialist Youth, much like the
more celebrated Mladina in Slovenia. Its current
editorial staff, editor Blerim Shala, and
policy go back to 1993. Since the demise of Koha,
Zeri is the only Albanian-language
political weekly in Kosovo. Moreover, local observers
generally view it as independent.
Both Koha Ditore and Zeri receive some financial
support from the Open Society Fund
(Soros Foundation).
A new bi-weekly, Gazette Shiptare, started
in March 1997 edited by Hacif Mulliqi. The
main two political parties also have their own
publications in both Albanian and English.
The LDK's news bulletin devotes most space to
publicizing meetings that President
Rugova has had with foreign dignitaries. And
the PPK's news bulletin devotes most space
to promoting meetings that Adem Demaci has had
with foreign dignitaries. In Pristina, it is
also possible to buy Belgrade newspapers and
Jedinstvo, Kosovo's Serb daily, though not
at the same kiosks as the Albanian-language press.
Electronic Media
Radio and Television Pristina (RTVP) was
taken over by the Serbian authorities and 194
people were fired on 5 July 1990. The dismissals
ocurred three days after the declaration
of the Republic of Kosovo, a news event which
the station covered in a sympathetic
manner. RTVP still has some Albanian-language
programming, but it is only a translation
of what the Serb desk produces and therefore
Albanians generally choose not to watch it.
Every evening, most Kosovars with access
to television tune in to a two-hour satellite
broadcast from TV Tirana at 6:30 pm. The programme
has a small segment of news from
Pristina, but no direct feed. It is paid for
in equal parts by TV Tirana and Kosovo's shadow
government and offers information, debates, round
tables, talk shows, children's
programmes and music. While Kosovars generally
enjoy the broadcast, it, nevertheless,
reflects the view of the Tirana government and
the LDK. In March 1997, the Kosovar
minister of information in exile fired the Pristina
broadcasting staff of TV Tirana. Officially,
this was a cost-cutting measure. However, local
observers interpreted it as a shift away
from the LDK and towards the PPK by the government-in-exile.
Pristina and other towns in Kosovo are literally
saturated with satellite dishes and
Kosovars like to watch Euro News as well as a
wide range of German programming.
Sarajevo-based Bosnian television is also popular,
especially among older people who
understand the language well and enjoy the Bosniac
(i.e. Balkan yet not Serbo-centric)
point of view.
Kosovars also listen to Albanian-language
radio programmes on the BBC, Deutsche
Welle and Voice of America (VOA). The BBC is
the most respected with two staff
journalists working in Kosovo. In addition to
radio, VOA offers a basic television service in
both Serb and Bosniac consisting of Washington-based
news-reading accompanied by
images which do not always correspond to the
commentary. VOA is considered a strong
LDK-supporter by local viewers (which could be
the result of successful LDK lobbying in
Washington). Foreign radio programmes are 30-minute
broadcasts presented three times
a day combining information, interviews and political
debate. But they do not include any
discussion as to how independence can be achieved
or why Kosovars should not count
on the international community to solve their
problems.
Kosovar reaction to the way they are being
portrayed in international media can be
perplexing. The following comment from the LDK's
Information Centre on foreign television
coverage of the 1 October 1997 student demonstrations
is typical: [77]
Commendable coverage
was offered Tuesday by the BBC World news programmes,
which covered
the Kosova events throughout the day from Pristina, and the CNN
Insight, on Tuesday,
was devoted to the Kosova events. The notable exception was
the EuroNews rolling
news programmes. The views expressed in the news featuring
Kosova Tuesday
were outrageously substandard and biased. The over 90 percent
Albanian population
of Kosova were, for EuroNews, the "majority Muslims"
undermining the
existence of the minority "orthodox" [Serb] community. This is not the
first time EuroNews
has failed in journalistic standards and annoyed the Kosovar
Albanian public
with its ready-made images of "bad Muslim guys" vis-a-vis the good
guys - the threatened
Christians in Europe. It is Serbian military and police occupation
of the nation
of Kosova (Albanians of Muslim, Catholic and other faiths, as well as
other people of
different ethnicities) that has been threatening the Balkans, and not the
other way round.
Internet
At the beginning of 1998, Koha Ditore entered
into a joint project with two independent
Belgrade media, radio B-92 and the Beta news
agency. During the Drenica crackdown in
February/March, the wire service ARTA provided
extensive coverage including
photographs and maps. Koha Ditore has its own
site but currently it posts only in Albanian.
Useful Internet links are:
Kosova Daily Report
http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/kosova
Koha Ditore
http://www.koha.net
Pristina University
http://www.uni-pr.edu
Kosova Crisis Centre News
http://www.alb-net.com/html/kcc.html
Country Profile
http://www.albanian.com/main/countries/kosova/
Bertelsmann Stiftung
http://www.stiftung.bertelsmann.de/english/index.htm
OSCE Mission in Kosovo http://www.osceprag.cz/inst/secret/missions/kosovo
Albanians in Kosovo
http://www.unhcr.ch/unhcr/refworld/country/writenet/wriyug.htm
Kosovo after the Dayton
http://www.igc.apc.org/pbi/bpt96-06.html
Media in Kosovo
http://www.dds.nl/~pressnow/media/kosovo/kosovo.htm
Kosovo Liberation Army, UCK
The Kosovars often refer to UCK [Ushtrisë
të Çlirimtare të Kosovës] as their equivalent of
the Basques' ETA, Northern Ireland's IRA and
Corsica's Liberation Front. If these three
organisations do serve as role-models for UCK,
and Kosovars respond to UCK appeals
for mobilisation, then prospects for a peaceful
solution in Kosovo may be bleak.
UCK is believed to have been founded in
1993 though some date its formation to 1991.
The first reference to it in international media
came only in May 1997 in an interview
published by The New York Times out of Geneva.
[78] The author, Chris Hedges, was
informed that he was meeting with a high-ranking
official from the Kosovo Diaspora
community. Since no names were used and the pseudonym
was unknown at the time, it is
difficult to assess the importance of the person
interviewed. Similar uncertainty surrounds
any assessment of UCK. Nevertheless, Kosovar
observers calculate that since 1996 the
organisation has claimed responsibility for killing
twenty-one citizens in the province,
including five policemen, five Serb civilians
and eleven Kosovars accused of collaborating
with the Serbian regime. [79]
After more than a million guns disappeared
from Albania during spring 1997, the
availability and affordability of weapons throughout
the region jumped. Anyone in Kosovo
wishing to mount armed operations could easily
purchase weapons smuggled across the
province's porous borders. On 15 October 1997
Adrian Krasniqi, a student whom the
Serbian authorities accused of being an UCK member,
was discovered dead with a hand-
grenade made in China allegedly found on him.
If true, this would be a clear sign that
weapons had indeed entered the province from
Albania, since much of that country's
arsenal was of Chinese origin. Krasniqi's funeral
was attended by 13.000 people who,
according to witnesses, considered him to have
died a hero's death. [80]
For many years UCK was almost mythical.
Its name was only used at the trials of
Kosovars. Since evidence in these trials was
often dubious, so were the references to
UCK. Three UCK members appeared in public for
the first time on 28 November 1997 at
the funeral of Halit Gecaj, a Kosovar killed
in the crossfire of an UCK attack on Serbian
police. The funeral took place in the village
of Laus (Llaushe) near Srbica (Skenderaj) and
was attended by some 20,000 Kosovars. Two of
the men took off their masks, one
addressed the crowd saying: "UCK is the only
force which is fighting for the liberation and
national unity of Kosovo." The crowd cheered
and chanted "UCK! UCK!". The three men,
who, judging by their accents, were all local,
came in a car and left undisturbed. [81]
At the beginning of December 1997 UCK claimed
responsibility for several recent terrorist
attacks, made general warnings and set out strategic
goals. It warned the "occupiers"
(Serbian authorities) that they would face increasingly
strong reactions if they continued to
use force. UCK also publicly called on Bujar
Bukoshi, Kosovo's shadow prime minister, to
hand over to it the money contributed by Kosovars
living abroad. Finally, in a statement
signed by "UCK General Headquarters", the organisation
said it would accept no
agreement on Kosovo's status unless its representatives
attended the talks. [82]
In early December 1997, UCK claimed responsibility
for shooting down a Cessna 310
aircraft near Pristina. Local observers dispute
the claim and attribute the crash -- in which
five people died -- to bad weather. A month later,
in a press release to the Pristina media,
UCK claimed responsibility for the bombing of
the court building in Gostivar and two police
stations in Kumanovo (both in Macedonia) on 16
December 1997, and a terrorist action in
downtown Prilep on 4 January, 1998. However,
Macedonian state TV denied that UCK
was responsible for terrorist acts in that country.
[83]
According to Ljubiska Cvetic, spokesman
for the MUP, Serbian Interior Ministry, UCK had
increased the number of its operations from 31
in 1996 to 55 in 1997 and 66 in the first two
months of 1998. In the process, it had killed
10 Serbian policemen and 24 civilians. [84]
On 22 April 1996, four near simultaneous operations
were launched in different parts of
Kosovo by gunmen, now believed to have been members
of UCK, in which two Serbian
police were killed and three wounded. And on
10 September 1997 UCK launched 10
simultaneous attacks throughout Kosovo to demonstrate
the extent of their reach. [85]
According to the Belgrade weekly Nedeljni Telegraf,
UCK has between 1,000 and 2,000
soldiers. Meanwhile, some 13,000 armed Serbian
police are stationed in Kosovo and the
police could bring another 25,000 men into the
province in 72 hours. In addition, some
6,500 soldiers and officers of the Yugoslav Army
(VJ) are stationed in Kosovo, with
another 10,000 soldiers on stand-by. [86]
In January 1998 the Sarajevo weekly Slobodna
Bosna carried an interview with a man
who identified himself as "Skender", supposedly
one of UCK's commanders. He said that
UCK's goal is to unite all Albanian territories
with Albania and that they were ready to use
force to achieve that goal. He explained that
UCK was formed back in 1991 in Kosovo, not
abroad, and that officers of the former Yugoslav
People's Army (JNA), took part in its
creation. He did not explain how UCK recruits
its members, but said that no political party
was behind the organisation. [87]
In early February 1998, three members of
UCK who appeared at a meeting in Brooklyn of
the New York Albanian-American community vowed
to fight the Serbian regime until the
"total liberation of Kosova". The New York-based
Albanian language paper Illyria
described the UCK presence as follows:
A banner in big
red letters on a white background hung over a mirrored wall reading
Long Live UCK
-- Honor to the Martyrs as young men spoke at a microphone
where a picture
of an armed UCK member killed in an attack in Kosova last year
hung in front
of some 150 sympathisers. Speakers, some of whom read poems
commemorating
those who have been killed in confrontations with Serbian police,
often drew energetic
applause from the audience.. [88]
Some US$16,000 of donations was raised for
UCK that evening. Illyria reported that,
although they introduced themselves when they
spoke, the speakers asked members of
the media neither to publicise their real names
nor to take pictures
Before the March clashes LDK leader Rugova
refused to acknowledge UCK's existence.
This was probably out of concern that a confirmed
presence of armed resistance in
Kosovo would cost the region international sympathy.
Indeed, as late as the end of
January 1998 Rugova said that there were indications
that UCK was an organisation run
by the Serbian secret service, and suggested
that the service might be preparing wide
operations likely to cause "unprecedented bloodshed
in Kosovo". [89} At the February
meeting in Brooklyn, UCK members answered this
criticism saying: "Some pseudo-
intellectuals and self-proclaimed leaders who
are nothing more than sell-outs and anti-
national are denying our existence ... but we
tell them." One speaker warned: "The
judgement day for national traitors is nearing."
[90] PPK chairman Adem Demaci stole the
show from Rugova by acknowledging UCK's existence
well in advance of the recent
violence. In December 1997 he said: "There is
no doubt that the UCK exists. UCK's
emergence proves that the people are prepared
to pay the highest price for their
freedom." [91] A week after the three masked
men appeared in Laus (Llaushe), Demaci
published an open letter to UCK in which he appealed
for a three-month moratorium on
violence. Such a moratorium, he wrote, would
give the Serbian regime another chance to
reconsider its attitude towards Kosovo and "stop
its terror, while the moratorium would
serve influential international factors, especially
the United States, for opening a dialogue
between Pristina and Belgrade". In February,
Demaci said that in the interest of peace and
the cessation of bloodshed he was ready to meet
with representatives of UCK. And in an
obvious allusion to Rugova, he said that those
who doubt the existence of the UCK are
"either stupid or pretending to be naive", adding
that Albanian politicians from Kosovo
cannot blame "a people or individual acting in
self-defence". [92]
In December 1997 the Belgrade daily Danas
reported that UCK had published
advertisements in the Norwegian and Swedish press
seeking financial donations and
urging young Kosovars abroad to volunteer. [93]
An UCK activist said on Norwegian radio
that the UCK headquarters is in Switzerland.
Meanwhile, 15 election offices were closed in
the Drenica region of Kosovo for the third round
of voting for the president of Serbia in
December 1997 because of insufficient security
for election officers. And at the beginning
of the year mail deliveries to the region were
halted. [94]
Predictably, Serbian political parties have
branded UCK as terrorists. The spokesman of
JUL, the party headed by Milosevic's wife, Mira
Markovic, said that UCK "was no liberation
party, but a terrorist organisation." [95] Radmilo
Bogdanovic, a leading member of the
Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and former Serbian
Interior Minister, denied UCK's
existence saying:
"It's just individuals attaching too much importance
to themselves, and the police tolerates
that." He also said that "peace can easily be
established in Kosovo" and that "anyone
threatening peace must be arrested immediately."
[96] SPS chairman Vojislav Zivkovic
said on 17 February that the so-called UCK is
made up of about 100 terrorists who will
soon be arrested. He explained: "They operate
in the Drenica area, and, according to our
sources, it seems that some kind of internal
conflict is taking place among them, showing
that things are getting too hot for them and
that these are their last attempts." [97]
In the first press conference held by the
Yugoslav Army (VJ) since its creation in 1992,
Colonel Milivoje Novkovic, head of its Information
Service, said that the VJ would not
tolerate attacks on its members and facilities
in Kosovo or threats to the territorial integrity
of the country. He said that UCK was a "group
of self-organised terrorists and persons with
suspicious pasts, blinded by separatism and nationalism...
[It] is acting in the relatively
limited area of Drenica. Through the dynamics
and character of its terrorist acts it is trying
to give the impression that it has many members
and that it is well organised because it
wants to internationalise its own existence and
the problem of Kosovo." According to
Novkovic, the VJ continues to carry out its regular
activities in Kosovo and a decision to
involve the VJ in operations against UCK could
only by made by the Supreme Defense
Council. For now, therefore, the Serbian Interior
Ministry (MUP) was in charge. [98]
After the crackdown by the Serbian police
in Drenica in February/March 1998, by which
Serbia probably hoped to nip the UCK in the bud,
the group seemed to be growing even
more bold. In a statement published in Bujku,
it said that it would continue its armed
struggle against Serbian security forces and
it called on "international centres to recognise
the state of Kosovo." On several occasions it
declared itself the only legitimate
representative of Kosovars and accused the Kosovar
political leaders of conducting a
"fatal policy of demobilisation". [99]
continue...
PART TWO YOU CAN READ UNDER back153.htm
########################################################
Centre for Peace and Security Studies
Free University Brussels
Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels (Belgium)
Tel.: +32.2.6292228 Fax: +32.2.6292278
email: wdehaar@vub.ac.be
URL: http://www.vub.ac.be/POLE
senden