Spectator's Journal: To Die for Kosovo
Bandow, Doug
SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL by Doug Bandow To Die for Kosovo The Balkans have been an ethnic cauldron for centuries. Only heavy-handed rule — by the Ottoman Empire and Tito's Communist dictatorship in...
...Roughly nine of ten of these are ethnically Albanian, and I cannot find one who supports Serbian rule...
...If the police keep killing people and burning houses, it isn't helpful to anyone...
...One U.S...
...Not that the exact figures are that important, explains Minister Matic: "Albanians have rights much greater than the rights guaranteed by European human rights conventions...
...Pristina is calm...
...The government then fired thousands of ethnic Albanians—bankers, doctors, lawyers, teachers...
...is here to help the Albanians...
...Then "we will get a job...
...Opposition political figures and independent journalists in Belgrade believe that Western economic controls benefited the oppressive regime of Slobodan Milosevic...
...Maybe...
...N or is an independent Kosovo the only goal of many ethnic Albanians...
...The well-equipped JNA could roll through the KLA barricade that stops my taxi, manned as it is by a motley squad of guerrillas bearing World War I vintage Lee Enfields...
...But a long parade of body bags might change their attitude...
...Without a willingness for compromise, how much are the respective sides willing to pay...
...The parliament of Montenegro (along with Serbia, one of Yugoslavia's two remaining federal republics) has voted not to allow Montenegrin soldiers to serve in Kosovo...
...Yet nothing can justify the routine Serbian police brutality witnessed by U.S...
...Explains Gashi, "It depends on how we look on CNN...
...The only hope is NATO," says Dr...
...Belgrade has already lost the vital fight for the hearts and minds of Kosovars...
...On the other hand, if the West intervenes and sanctions independence, why not also do so in Chiapas in Mexico, the Basque region in Spain, Nagorno-Karabagh in Azerbaijan, the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka, or Kurdistan in Turkey...
...People need to see victims in their living rooms...
...Several university students in Pristina tell me they know people who have joined the guerrillas...
...official, "obviously plays into the perception that the U.S...
...Every single person wants to be independent of Serbia," says an American who lives in Pristina...
...The rise of the guerrillas has changed the attitudes of Albanian leaders...
...Of the ethnic Albanians, he argues: "If they made use of their right to have local government, they would have the government over the area...
...Rational Albanians might have accepted cultural autonomy a year ago," says one U.S...
...Even if the LDK, still Kosovo's leading political force, thought autonomy was a good compromise, it would have little room to maneuver...
...Even the main road north to Belgrade is safe only during the day...
...Gashi, a moderate advising a moderate, says emphatically: "Any transition plan that does not lead to independence is not a matter of discussion...
...NATO could obviously destroy Yugoslav military forces, but in doing so an alliance once dedicated to defense against the long-gone Soviet Union would be launching a war against a nation that in no way threatened any NATO member...
...They further complain that the Serbian population was artificially limited, and that of Albanians artificially inflated, by Yugoslavia's longtime ruler Marshal Tito, who hoped to use Kosovo to coax Communist Albania into an anti-Soviet Balkans coalition...
...We simply want what's been inside of our state for decades and centuries to remain in our state...
...I t is easy to sympathize with the Albanian Kosovars, who have suffered under particularly repressive rule since 1989, when Belgrade stripped Kosovo of its autonomy and substituted central administration backed by the paramilitary police...
...Such fighting could upend the weak Albanian government that took control after the collapse of Sali Berisha's regime last year...
...Here, too, ethnic conflict has deep roots, but the seeds of the current fighting were planted in 1989 when Slobodan Milosevic, who used Serbian nationalism to catapult himself into control ofthe Serbian Communist Party, stripped Kosovo of its regional autonomy from Belgrade...
...And Belgrade is unintentionally doing "all it can to build support for Kosovo independence," complains one American diplomat...
...These people feel it belongs to them...
...Explains Minister Vucic, "We are not asking for anything that isn't ours, like California...
...The KLA is way ahead of the Bosnians with arms, determination, and organization," says one U.S...
...After all, the West backs Belgrade's position that Kosovo should remain part of Yugoslavia...
...KLA activity increased, sparking police retaliation, which in turn helped KLA recruiting...
...Pavkovic points to constitutional limitations on the army's use for anything other than border defense...
...To back its demands, the West has tried economic sanctions — a freeze on Belgrade's assets abroad, a ban on new investment in Yugoslavia, and denial of landing rights for the national airline—in order to induce it to negotiate and limit military operations...
...Government representatives put the best face on the situation...
...Domestic politics is also a factor: "There is no chance that we are going to give up Kosovo, no matter what pressure is applied...
...is to make sure no American bodies end up in those bags...
...Bozidar Filic of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs...
...90 October 1998 • The American Spectator...
...The growing number of guerrillas overrunning the countryside certainly aren't interested in compromise...
...But that would require a willingness to compromise, which the West seems powerless to bring about...
...Now there is again "this feeling that he's defending Yugoslavia against outside pressure...
...friends drink in sidewalk cafes...
...Washington's partisan stance has, not surprisingly, encouraged ethnic Albanians to toughen their position...
...Another Kosovar tells me: "If NATO comes in quick, it will be solved...
...Just six miles west of the provincial capital of Pristina, Serbian government authority has vanished...
...The main thing for the U.S...
...though a Serb offensive has regained lost ground, Belgrade's writ runs only as far as the guns of its paramilitary police...
...He argues less about history (which "won't interest you") and instead points to "the international law principle that state borders are unchangeable and untouchable...
...Even ethnic Albanians concede that the KLA long targeted Serbian policemen and other government employees, including suspected Albanian "collaborators...
...KLA spokesman Jakup Krasniqi says his organization "is fighting for the liberation of all occupied Albanian territories," including Macedonia, whose population is one-forth Albanian, "and their unification with Albania...
...As such, it is a demand that Yugoslavia will not—indeed, cannot—accept voluntarily...
...First we will become independent," says one...
...The reason is the fear that like Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, Kosovars would use republic status to push for independence...
...in fact, Berisha has attempted to attach himself to the KLA insurgency in order to return to power in Tirana...
...Abdullah Zejnullahv, dean of civil engineering and architecture at an Albanian university in Pristina...
...If the Serbs actually agree to withdraw their forces and accept NATO "peacekeeping" intervention, and the West continues demanding mere autonomy for Kosovo, NATO forces might well find themselves fighting ethnic Albanian separatists as well as Albanian nationals hoping to absorb Kosovo into their country...
...Both sides want to dictate their position and call it negotiation...
...If it employs the JNA, Belgrade can make the price of independence quite high, a price the Kosovars are almost certainly willing to pay...
...Serbian officials say they're willing to discuss autonomy, "but not autonomy that is bigger than what is guaranteed by theconstitution," explains Vucic, meaning no status for Kosovo as a separate republic...
...When Gashi tells me that NATO ground forces should "stop the fighting so that negotiations can go on," he means negotiations over details, such as safeguards for Serbian cultural landmarks, not basic issues, such as independence...
...T he most reasonable solution to Kosovo is a negotiated settlement recognizing both Albanian aspirations for freedom and Serbian historic ties...
...Many in the West advocate military intervention...
...Minister Vucic claims this is an urban phenomenon—most of those who live outside of downtown Belgrade "would not give Kosovo up for any cost...
...At the same time, even strong Serbian critics of Milosevic want Kosovo to remain part of Yugoslavia...
...The administration's position, says one U.S...
...Albanian resentments smoldered in succeeding years, bursting into flames earlier this year in the wake ofa central government crackdown on an increasingly violent separatist movement...
...But there is no doubt which side most will choose...
...Former Belgrade mayor Zoran Djindjic says, "It is logical for people to believe that they have a right to Kosovo as their own territory...
...Some of the younger KLA members in Grabovac carry modern Kalashnikov assault rifles, and the KLA has begun to obtain anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons...
...Of one village virtually destroyed during a police assault, Pavkovic says: "We bear no responsibility for the things that happened there...
...Yet intervention, either by NATO or a U.S.-led international coalition, offers no solution...
...Students in Pristina voice frustration over the lack of employment, inflaming their desire for a political revolution...
...The KLA has also begun organizing in several larger cities...
...The possibility of a regional conflict over a greater Albania frightens Western officials far more than the possibility of Albanian or Serb deaths in Kosovo...
...Although ethnic Albanians responded by creating small businesses and a parallel system of governments, schools, and charities, the economic restrictions continue to fuel the military insurgency...
...The State Department has declared that Kosovars who desire independence are "deluding themselves...
...diplomat, "but we've moved beyond that now...
...Belgrade is also finding resistance at home: some 600 policemen have reportedly refused to accept duty in Kosovo...
...But speedy intervention requires good press...
...Ibrahim Rugova, head of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), has increasingly come under attack as a "defeatist...
...Equally serious is the possibility of war engulfing Macedonia, which has difficult relations with both Yugoslavia, from which Macedonia seceded, and Greece, which fears potential Macedonian claims to Greek territory...
...While Washington and other Western governments have mouthed platitudes about the desirability of KLA restraint, they have no desire to pressure the Kosovars, nor any means to do so...
...Doing so would eliminate Serbian authority overnight...
...Both sides now call for negotiation, but the parties take irreconcilable positions...
...However, last year's collapse of the Albanian government made a lot of cheap weapons available to discontented Kosovars...
...Alush Gashi, a Rugova adviser, even praises KLA guerrillas who are "willing to give their lives...
...This is the basis on which this government was formed...
...Children play in the street...
...This would mean attacking a sovereign state, inflicting civilian The American Spectator • October 1998 89 casualties on Albanians and Serbs alike, and getting involved in a burgeoning guerrilla war...
...Gen...
...Round two is now occurring in Kosovo, a province largely populated by ethnic Albanians...
...Most probably still prefer a peaceful solution, and many resent coercive KLA recruitment tactics...
...During the break-up of the old Yugoslavia, he says, "all the international law principles were violated" and his government won't let it happen again...
...Serbs respond that Albanians earlier abused their autonomy by discriminating against ethnic Serbs...
...Serbian complaints of past Albanian abuses are no doubt true to some degree—few peoples in the Balkans have entirely clean hands...
...Moderate Kosovars disclaim such ambitions, but they might not be able to prevent a much wider Balkan war...
...Rugova has to be for independence," a medical student tells me...
...There is no government to sanction, no trade to block, and no military to attack...
...Moreover, the military balance is shifting...
...Nbojsa Pavkovic, commander of the Kosovo garrison, points out that the fighting is occurring in "settlements of pure Albanian population...
...Even if the U.S...
...Goran Matic, the Yugoslav minister of information, tells me that "in the largest towns the situation is completely normal...
...The following is a report from a visit to the region this past summer: We sit nervously in our taxi at the side of the dirt road near the Kosovan village of Grabovac surrounded by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA...
...diplomat says: "The diaspora obviously wants one Albania...
...Belgrade's last resort is the Yugoslav National Army...
...Belgrade firmly rejects demands for independence of what it views as the Serbs' cultural birthplace, the home of important churches and monasteries and the site of a famous battle against the Ottoman Empire in 1389...
...Western criticism only leads Yugoslays to rally around their government...
...66 October 1998 • The American Spectator dence, and the LDK backs the establishment of village militias to fight the Serbian police...
...Belgrade journalist Bosko Savkovic told me "I don't need [Kosovo], it's just a bit of history...
...Similarly, Ivan Sedlak, the Serbian minister responsible for minority affairs, says that Serbia contains "twenty-six different national ethnic communities," twenty-five of which "are very satisfied44 'It depends on how we look on CNN...
...But the DOUG BANDOW is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute...
...The latter is already isolated diplomatically, and thus cares little for the good will of Washington and the Europeans...
...People need to see victims in their living rooms.' 1) with their rights...
...observer...
...The KLA quickly gained control of up to 40 percent of the countryside...
...pedestrians stroll by open shops...
...Indeed, it is hard to find an ethnic Albanian willing to contemplate less than independence...
...But soldiers are quick to distance themselves from police activities...
...In effect, the West has so far intervened exclusively on the side of the insurgents seeking independence...
...diplomats and foreign journalists...
...had an interest in maintaining a united Bosnia hated by all three resident ethnic groups—in contrast to encouraging partition to simply end the violence—Washington's intervention had a perverse impact...
...There is no pressure point of any kind, in contrast to those naturally part of the separatist Serb government in Bosnia...
...Only exhaustion, backed by threatened Western military intervention on behalf of the Muslims, led to the Dayton Accord...
...Pesic—called a figure of conscience by American diplomats — explains that her party "has always defended Yugoslavia's territorial borders," though it has also been concerned about treatment of minorities...
...According to one American diplomat, last fall "no one believed in the KLA much...
...It is a demand for preemptive surrender by Belgrade and de facto independence for Kosovo...
...Even liberal Serbs, including Vesna Pesic, president of the Serbian Civic Alliance, resent the fact that there is "pressure only on the Serb side...
...There may be a time when we shall go and fight," one says...
...But the West will not find it easy to enforce its will on Belgrade...
...Even the Clinton administration backed away from its earlier belligerence (Continued on page 89) The American Spectator • October 1998 67 (Continued from page 67) once it began to assess the likely consequences...
...It occasionally killed a Serbian cop, but did little more...
...That aim is shared by those funding the guerrillas...
...If he was for autonomy, the Albanian people would blow him away...
...Even with the use of massive military force Belgrade is unlikely to win the rapidly burgeoning conflict...
...Many Serbs don't believe Kosovo's rich cultural patrimony is worth the lives of their families and friends...
...Says one American diplomat stationed in Yugoslavia: "Something in the water makes all sides myopic...
...But Western nations isolated the Serbian-dominated state during the lengthy Bosnian civil war without effect...
...major roads to Pec in the west and Prizren in the southwest have been blocked by fighting ("temporarily jeopardized by terrorists," explains Col...
...To achieve independence, virtually all ethnic Albanians hope for NATO intervention...
...He recognizes that "unless we produce results, the democratic forces in Kosovo will lose support...
...Sanctions were not just ineffective...
...He now unequivocally supports indepenA NATO skeptic reports from the front lines...
...With no apparent room for compromise, a rising tide of bloodshed seems inevitable...
...Serbian mothers have begun protesting the deployment of their sons there...
...The first round of Yugoslav secession beginning in 1989 set Slovenes, Croats, and Muslims against Serbs and each other...
...Yet in the name of ending violence, the Clinton administration says that Belgrade "must immediately withdraw security units involved in civilian repression without linkage to" the end of KLA operations...
...Only heavy-handed rule — by the Ottoman Empire and Tito's Communist dictatorship in Yugoslavia, for instance—has managed to minimize, though never eliminate, ethnic violence...
...Throughout the Bosnian war "it seemed unpatriotic to attack Milosevic," explains one American diplomat in Belgrade...
...Ethnic Albanians who once served in the German, Swiss, and even Yugoslavian militaries, along with veterans of the Bosnian war, are joining the insurgents...
Vol. 31 • October 1998 • No. 10
