RIGHTS-YUGOSLAVIA: Slim Chances for a Multiethnic Kosovo

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric-Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Sep 1 1999 (IPS) - )Almost three months after ethnic Albanians refugees and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began returning to the southern Serbian province of Kosovo, the prospects of a democratic multiethnic society look dark.

The massive exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo was quickly replaced by that of Serbs, in front of the eyes of United Nations and NATO- led military forces (KFOR).

Harassment, expulsions, looting and the killing of Serbs by armed gangs have been widely documented. Less publicised, however, is the quick change in the province’s economic fabric, with land, media, enterprises and small businesses taken over by organised groups.

” The NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) military intervention against Serbia started under the pretext of preventing a humanitarian catastrophe and ethnic cleansing (of Kosovo Albanians)” says Konstantin Obradovic, a Belgrade expert in international law.

“Now we have the reversed ethnic cleansing – of Serbs – and the responsibility now lies with the states that sent their forces to Kosovo and the commanders in the field” he adds.

According to statistics from the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) office in Belgrade and the Serbian Orthodox Church, about 200,000 Serbs have left the province since the end of the NATO air attacks on 12 June.

There are not more than 30.000 Serbs in Kosovo now, both organisations say. The Church also released a list with 257 names of Serbs killed in the province in June 2-August 20 period and a list of names of 275 abducted. Most of them are feared dead.

“Serbs in Kosovo have been pushed into reservations, like Indians in north America” Vladan Batic, coordinator of the opposition Alliance for Change said. The remaining Serbs mostly live in the northern part of Kosovo, in small enclaves bordering Serbia proper.

A recent proposal of Serb leaders Momcilo Trajkovic and Kosovo bishop Artemije on the division of Kosovo along ethnic cantons was rejected by the UN Administration (UNMIK) head Bernard Kouchner, who said that ‘cantonisation’ was “not a good word…it reminds us of a lot of bad things”.

Instead, he suggested “regrouping” of Serbs under international protection. He did not elaborate on the difference between ‘cantonisation’ and ‘regrouping.’

“The very concept of multiethnic Kosovo has been defeated,” the leader of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo told IPS.

“Despite all the engagement of KFOR or UNMIK, one can say that the concept of multiethnic Kosovo has been defeated, as well as that of Serbs in Kosovo and the concept of democracy,” Trajkovic said.

Human rights activists and international law experts in Belgrade have criticised the inability, unwillingness or inefficiency of international officials in Kosovo to impose order and avoid conflict, saying that chances of reestablishing the multiethnic society are now slim.

“Nobody (from the international community) is really willing to say how to reestablish a multiethnic society in Kosovo” says Zoran Lutovac of the Belgrade-based Institute of Social Sciences.

“The internationally-sponsored solutions in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina show that there are two ways: wither Serbs were expelled or two entities were created” he adds bitterly.

Some 200,000 Serbs were ejected from Krajina in 1995, after the Croatian army took control of the rebellious region. Only a small number of Serbs live in Croatia now.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, under the 1996 Dayton (US) accords, was divided into two ethnic entities – a Croat-Muslim Federation and a Serb Republic.

Regardless of what the international officials see as the multiethnic society in Kosovo, many observers point out that there will be only one, final solution for Serbs in Kosovo and “it rests in the hands of KLA and its military chief Agim Ceku”, says Belgrade analyst Radosa Milutinovic.

Ceku – addressed as “general” by NATO and the UN – is the mastermind and architect of the 1995 Croatian army ethnic cleansing in Krajina, code-named Operation Storm.

“He will be hoping for similar successes in Kosovo”, says Drago Hedl, an analyst from Rijeka, Croatia.

Ceku (39) received nine medals from Croatian president Franjo Tudjman for his role in the Krajina operation, launched in the wake of NATO raids against Bosnian Serbs forces, which changed the course of the war.

During Operation Storm, the Croatian Army (HV) has been accused of systematic human rights abuses and war crimes, currently under the investigation by the International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague.

Ceku left the Croatian army in February 1999 to join the KLA with the rank of lieutenant-general. His military qualifications were acquired at the Belgrade Military Academy and performed as an officer with the then Yugoslav People’s Army.

In 1991, when war in Croatia broke, he joined the forces that later grew into that country’s army. According to some unconfirmed reports, at least 16 ethnic Albanian officers, veterans of war against Serbs in Croatia, quit the HV and joined the KLA earlier this year.

So far, promises of a democratic multi-ethnic society were also made by the self-proclaimed prime minister of Kosovo and KLA political leader Hasim Thaci, but the persecution of Serbs and Gypsies did not slow down.

Several sources have warned on Thaci’s past and that of his backers. They say the Thaci family is closely linked to the KLA’s main financier, the obscure Swiss-based Xhavit Haliti. They also warn on links between the KLA and the Albanian mafia, engaged in drug and weapons trafficking as well as prostitution.

The only clear word of criticism for the ethnic Albanian behaviour against Serbs came from Veton Surroi, one of the founders of the province’s Parliamentary party and publisher of ‘Koha Ditore’, an independent daily.

In a recent editorial, Surroi compared the situation of ethnic Albanians during the 11 weeks of NATO air raids – in which they were subject of widespread abuses by Serbian paramilitary forces – with the situation of Kosovo Serbs now.

“I know the obvious excuse that we have been through a barbaric war in which Serbs were responsible for the most heinous crimes and in which the intensity of violence has generated a desire for vengeance among many Albanians…” he wrote.

“Today’s violence is the organised and systematic intimidation of all Serbs simply because they are Serbs…” Surroi noted.

“The international community will probably not punish us for failing to defend multiethnicity in Kosovo. However, from having been victims of Europe’s worst end-of-century persecution, we are ourselves becoming persecutors and have allowed the spectre of fascism to reappear” Surroi stresses.

For him, like many others, the only solution of the problem is true democratisation, both in Serbia and Kosovo.